Author Topic: HTL Arcadia [RELEASED]  (Read 47617 times)

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Offline mjn.mixael

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HTL Arcadia [RELEASED]
It's released! See this post!

First thing's first. If you post in this thread, you have been prewarned. You can critique and have your opinion, but do it with tact. We will not have a repeat of this thread. Got it? That goes for me as well because I was part of the problem last time.

Now, on to the fun stuff...

RgaNoris and I have been working hard on this. The mesh (Mostly Ragingloli's but with pieces of VA's & Esarai's mixed in) itself was a complete mess, so Rga cleaned it up. We broke it down into several greeble boxes as well. This is an incredibly detailed mesh and we had some tough decisions to make. We had to deal with a very large surface area and so the biggest decision was just how many maps we would use. Retail uses 15 different tiles. We finally narrowed it down to 6 maps. This, however, is still a big compromise and sadly it's map resolution that took the hit. We know this, and we made that decision to best balance visuals and optimization. It won't change at this point either, just FYI.

UV Mapping took [what felt like] a few lifetimes too... However, the mesh is fully UV Mapped and texturing is well underway. I thought it was time to show some progress. This is clearly still WIP. A few maps are incomplete (Rga and I split up the texturing work too). Shine maps are temporary or nonexistent as well.

Without further ado..


More angles coming later.
« Last Edit: July 07, 2012, 12:39:44 am by mjn.mixael »
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Offline Ulala

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 :eek2: All I can say is wow! Bummer about the map resolution, but I think it looks great. I especially love how you guys managed to incorporate a circle and a hexagon, with impressive execution I might add. :yes::yes:
« Last Edit: March 13, 2012, 01:03:42 am by Ulala »
I am a revolutionary.

 

Offline Rga_Noris

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Its been awesome working as a team on this, although I would like to relay detail is still present in the model. In areas were texture resolution is low, there is more model detail. Where the model detail is low, texture resolution is increased. We broke all the rules on this one to make the compromise, and I must say... it looks great, especially in game. I would be surprised if anyone feels the detail is missing.

I am particularly proud of the fighter bay...
I think I'll call REAL Mahjong 'Chinese Dominoes', just to make people think I'm an ignorant asshat.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Its been awesome working as a team on this, *snip*

I think you all can safely assume that you'll see many more Mjn/Rga cooperative creations in the future.
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Offline Lester

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I think the hexagon/circle discussion can be safely put to rest, as this looks absolutely mindblowing.

 

Offline Crybertrance

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Whoa! this is a nice surprise... :D
<21:08:30>   Hartzaden fires a slammer at Cybertrance
<21:09:13>   Crybertrance pops flares, but wonders how Hartzaden acquired aspect lock on a stealth fighter... :\
<21:11:58>   *** The_E joined #bp [email protected]
21:11:58   +++ ChanServ has given op to The_E
<21:12:58>   Hartzaden continues to paint crybertrance and feeding the info to a wing of gunships
<21:14:07>   Crybertrance sends emergency "IM GETING MY ASS KICKED HERE!!!!eleventy NEED HELPZZZZ" to 3rd fleet command
<21:14:50>   Hartzaden jamms the transmission.
<21:14:51>   The_E explodes the sun

 

Offline Kolgena

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Looks incredibly stunning. Are the two towers on the top and bottom simply unfinished? I'm guessing so, since they look kind of odd without lights.

Given any thought to baking some light that will be given off the building/skyscraper/greeble inlays? I guess that'll come with the AO bake if ever.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Here's a closeup of what I did to try to recreate the retail tile texture that was slapped all over the old model.

I decided that the tile featured a few main things I had to try to recreate. Purple lines (looked like girders or something), the pipes, some windows, and the grey boxes.

I've tried to recreate that same style, but this time using some clever normal maps to make the pipes actually look like pipes along the hull. The purple lines mixed with some geometry on the HTL mesh, created an interesting and unanticipated effect. The station looks like it is sporting some sort of exo-structure. Once the shine map is complete, these should really look nice.

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Offline Kobrar44

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Can we see it without textures?
Oh guys, use that [ url ][ img ][ /img ][ /url ] :/

 

Offline Colonol Dekker

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Offline Commander Zane

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Certainly, good things come to those who wait.
I like this, the Arcadia looks great.

 

Offline Rodo

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I like what I see, guys you are clearly doing a good job and I have only praise to throw at you right now so here it goes: I WUV U ALL.
el hombre vicio...

 

Offline Nyctaeus

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It suprised me, how awesome is that texture :yes:
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Offline Rga_Noris

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FYI, It already features an AO map and baked glows are planned. Some are already baked and visible in those shots, but the bulk has yet to be started.
I think I'll call REAL Mahjong 'Chinese Dominoes', just to make people think I'm an ignorant asshat.

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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Here's a new angle in celebration of finishing the diffuse, glow, and normal on all of the platform associated greebles, and greebles located around the pylon area.



All that remains are the towers and the flat part of the platform (which I'll do last).
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Offline Rga_Noris

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That lazy shmuck your working with needs to finish those detail boxes as well.

What's his problem anyways?
I think I'll call REAL Mahjong 'Chinese Dominoes', just to make people think I'm an ignorant asshat.

 
Ooh.  First thing it reminds me of is something like


It does look rather cartoony, but I'm assuming that's because it doesn't have shine maps yet.  Should look great with shine. 

 

Offline sigtau

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No complaints from me.  Top notch compromise if I do say so myself.  Keep up the good work; I'm very impressed.  :nod:
Who uses forum signatures anymore?

 

Offline esarai

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Dat installation.  Dayum.

Only one minor nitpick I have is that there is no apparent depth difference between the surface piping and the purple hull struts that were worked into the texture. They seem to cut each other off, as if two images were pasted next to each other.  It's quite a jarring effect, so could we try making those girders' normals stand out a bit more?  Or, failing that, make the regions below the girders appear more recessed?

Then again, this might just be a fault of the camera angle, and I'm going on about nothing.

Regardless, you gents did a fine job of making this thing look like a giant space city, like it was supposed to be.  Excellent work!

EDIT:  Took another look at the picture, I can see that there is a shadow cast on the recessed regions from the struts, but the recessed regions have a border that appears beveled, making them appear even with the struts.  Perhaps cut out the bevel around the edges of the recessions and it'll look more recessed. 
« Last Edit: March 13, 2012, 11:07:04 pm by esarai »
<Nuclear>   truth: the good samaritan actually checked for proof of citizenship and health insurance
<Axem>   did anyone catch jesus' birth certificate?
<Nuclear>   and jesus didnt actually give the 5000 their fish...he gave it to the romans and let it trickle down
<Axem>and he was totally pro tax breaks
<Axem>he threw out all those tax collectors at the temple
<Nuclear>   he drove a V8 camel too
<Nuclear>   with a sword rack for his fully-automatic daggers

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RangerKarl|AtWork: stick your penis in the warp core
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amki: don't EVER do that

 

Offline mjn.mixael

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The bottom tower nearing completion. I AM UNSTOPPABLE.



But now I have to stop for a day or so....  :nervous:
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