Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => FS2 Open Coding - The Source Code Project (SCP) => Topic started by: F1gm3nt on May 09, 2004, 07:57:46 am
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I've been contemplating going through all the fighter models and doing some poly smoothing and maybe adding subsystems to them for guns and engines(not sure if engines already work this way). I wqs also considering adding some other detail things like maybe transparent cockpits, guns, misslepods(or somesuch), ect. Seeing as this would unquestionably(sp?) raise the polycounts by quite a bit and would take a massive amount of time on my part, Does anyone think I should do it, or possibly is it just a bad idea in general?
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:welcome:
Welcome to the HLPBB, mate.
The exits are to your left and right. Flamethrowers are under your seats, but they are sometimes filled with water. If this occurs, please check the lockers for the old shotguns.
Stay away from the admin's weapon lockers and the air vents. If you see a large, insectoid-looking creature inhabiting the latter, throw him a large piece of meat (preferably not yourself), and he will leave you alone.
Thank you and have a nice day!
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do some of it, (myrmidon), post some screenies and we'll decide then
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you should pick a fighter, and rebuild it in higher detail from scratch. 2000-3000 polys would be best. then when you're done, and you feel up to it, pick another one and do the same. that would be better than making subtle changes to a bunch at a time.
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Aight, I suppouse I'll get myself in gear on the Myrmidon. I'll start out trying the smoothing thing and detailing first, depending on how that turns out I may just rebuild.
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A typical will-be-useful-for-the-FreeSpace-Upgrade-Project guy, right? :D
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shhh, just let him work for SCP, maybe we can recruit him for Inferno later...
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Originally posted by F1gm3nt
I've been contemplating going through all the fighter models and doing some poly smoothing and maybe adding subsystems to them for guns and engines(not sure if engines already work this way). I wqs also considering adding some other detail things like maybe transparent cockpits, guns, misslepods(or somesuch), ect. Seeing as this would unquestionably(sp?) raise the polycounts by quite a bit and would take a massive amount of time on my part, Does anyone think I should do it, or possibly is it just a bad idea in general?
Doing High Poly versions of all of the ships is something the community has been doing slowly anyway so if you want to try you're more than welcome to do so.
As Turambar said, pick a single model, upgrade that and then show us the results. You'll almost certainly get a lot of feedback that will help you with the rest (or make you fling up your arms and stomp away from the community in disgust :D )
A couple of quick points though.
1) Don't go mad with the polys :) Although the HT&L upgrade means that we can spend more on ships if a ship has too many polys it will completely kill the framerate (especially with fighters).
Karma's Fenris was around 7,000 triangles and Nico's latest fighter is around 4,000 IIRC. I think the highest poly ships anyone have done are Omni's Star Trek conversions at around 10-12,000. Don't go too far above that with capships. In fact you may want to stay a fair bit lower.
2) I believe that the SCP are planning to add external guns and missile pods in FS2_open 3.6.1 anyway. You might want to see how they are doing it rather than wasting time building models that won't be able to use that system.
3) Be careful about doing stuff like adding new subsystems. In player flyable craft too many subsystems can cause crashes. Adding new subsystems to existing craft can break missions which will limit the use of your craft.
Apart from that feel free to give it a try :)
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Do you know the basics of modelling/POF Editing?
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I hope he does cause otherwise he's being pretty optimistic :D
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Karajorma:
1) Don't go mad with the polys Although the HT&L upgrade means that we can spend more on ships if a ship has too many polys it will completely kill the framerate (especially with fighters).
I was thinking about the 2,000 to 3,000 range in general. I think thats a fairly decent upgrade as the Myrmidon has around ?600 or so polys originally.
3) Be careful about doing stuff like adding new subsystems. In player flyable craft too many subsystems can cause crashes. Adding new subsystems to existing craft can break missions which will limit the use of your craft.
I saw that they basicaly allready have the two I was thinking of.( i.e. engines and guns) That all depended on the weapons pods really anyways, which I think I'll hold off on for the 3.6.1 release.
TopAce:
Do you know the basics of modelling/POF Editing?
I've been modeling for only a year or so now with Maya, mostly it's been school stuff. As far as POF goes, over the last month or two I've been lurking in the forums and reading everything I could find about it. Still I haven't actually *done* anything yet but I geuss experience is the best teacher.
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Sounds reasonable to me. Go for it.
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Originally posted by TopAce
:welcome:
Welcome to the HLPBB, mate.
The exits are to your left and right. Flamethrowers are under your seats, but they are sometimes filled with water. If this occurs, please check the lockers for the old shotguns.
Stay away from the admin's weapon lockers and the air vents. If you see a large, insectoid-looking creature inhabiting the latter, throw him a large piece of meat (preferably not yourself), and he will leave you alone.
Thank you and have a nice day!
*Throughs TopAce to the creature*:nervous:
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I don't think fighters are what should be worked on first. I think cap's should be modelled HTL before fighters. They're huge and you'll notice the detail on them more than a fighter zipping by your view.
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Whatevr you do, if you decide to make a hi-poly version of a fighter, please downgrade the current LOD's so that former LOD0 becomes LOD1 ? please? Both VA's Fenris and Bobboau's Herc overlooked this, so the difference between their replaced lod0 and the still original lod1 is quite an eyeshocker...
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actually, the former LOD0 IS now LOD1 in the fenris ;)
i just bumped them all down and the lowest one fell off :D
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Originally posted by F1gm3nt
I've been modeling for only a year or so now with Maya, mostly it's been school stuff. As far as POF goes, over the last month or two I've been lurking in the forums and reading everything I could find about it. Still I haven't actually *done* anything yet but I geuss experience is the best teacher.
oh, dear. it'll be hard. making a model into a .pof is entirely different than modeling it. you have tomake sure the subsystems are the excact same size, shape, and location on the ship as the original, otherwise it'll change the gameplay. and the turreting... *shudder*
just try to be as true to the original .pof as you can. don't make any thing different if you don't have to. for instance, if the weapons subsystem on a ship is 5x6x4 meters, and is located at -5x, 7y, 2z, keep those values in your new one. that way people will accept it as canon.
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I realize that about the locations for the subsystems needing to be the same size and location . ;) I know the detail would be more noticeable on the cap ships then on the fighters, but I like the fighters and so I'd rather do them since there are more people, I think working on the caps already. As far as the LOD goes those were my plans exactly. :) I'm about 1/2 done with the Myrmy right now, I'll post again when I have something to show.
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Just make sure they're compatible with the current maps and UVmapping, else we'll a) have to do new maps for all ships and b) it would hinder any of my work with env maps and other texture work.
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I doubt it'll be possible so use *exactly* the same maps on an upgraded myrmidon, and even if possible I think it wouldn't be advisable.
Actually I'd suggest a retexturing for this fighter, both for the way it was uvmapped and the low-res/low detailed textures
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it is possible to use the same map with a slightly modified UVmap without any problems.
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Originally posted by Starfighter
*Throughs TopAce to the creature*:nervous:
Sometimes I just don't understand human behaviour. :D
Did you want to welcome him first, or what the hell?
By the way, I agree that capships(including freighters) should be improved. But fighters have simpler shape, and it is simpler to make them higher poly. At least I think.
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As of right now, I haven't retextured it yet, and in actuality it *should* be able to use the same texture map as the first LOD currently uses, at least thats how I have it set up at the moment, ALthough I did plan on retexturing it for more detail, ect. and the UV doesn't need to be modified really, but the problem is a loss of detail, hence why I want to retexture it. Using the same UV on the high poly version that I have right now barely warrants any reason to actually keep doing it as the two versions look almost identical. I'm not sure that there is any way to fix it without modifing the UV. Also a quick question as to the allowable size for ship textures, I was thinking of upping it from 256x256 to 512x512 and maybe even doing an alternate set for 1024x1024 for people who have shwanky video cards like my GeForce 5900. ;7
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Originally posted by F1gm3nt
... I was thinking of upping it from 256x256 to 512x512 and maybe even doing an alternate set for 1024x1024 for people who have shwanky video cards like my GeForce 5900. ;7
It rather requires RAM memory than video card power.
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but, in theory, 4096*4096 is ok, just stick to 2^n sizes.
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Excuse me, but as far as I know, fighter texture sizes are different than any other ones. I mean a fighter texture may be 322x521, for example.
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But it needn't be. That's just wasting cycles on the GPU. If you change the size of the maps, the UV mapping will remain intact. You may even get a small performance boost.
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you can, in theory, use any possible size.
In practice, anything not 2^n is terrible wastage, and anything above 2048^2 is a complete PC killer on a fighter.
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Originally posted by kasperl
...anything above 2048^2 is a complete PC killer on a fighter.
How is a single texture supposed to kill something that has no heart, not breathing, doesn't feel pain? :D
And it is unneccessary, too. Even after there are so many collisions in FS.
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Well heres some quick screenies from within Maya. I just finished with my finals at college, thats what took so long. The new model has ~2100 faces or so.
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/compare.jpg)
There aren't any new textures yet, as I said earlier it uses the old uv map just fine, but because of the map geometry it sorta makes the model look less Hi-Poly. I don't have a POF version ready because whenever I try to convert it I get an empty LOD0 followed by the correct LOD's (i.e. LOD0 has nothing in it but LOD1 has the hi poly model, etc.) :confused: When I convert it in PCS and look at the submodels tab it lists [000] as Freespace Model, which is the main model group name.(see below)
My Heirarchy looks like this in truespace:
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/quest.jpg)
Can someone tell me what I'm doing wrong? I've followed the directiions in all the tuts that I could find on the message board and the LOD's show in the correct order after the null one. At any rate, here is the cob file if someone else wants to mess with it.:D Theres no textures with it, just the cob.
Hi-Res Myrmidon .cob (http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/myrmidon.zip)
[Edit: Put bigger pics up.]
[Edit Again: Nevermind I figured out what my problem with converting was.]
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So small pics, please post bigger ones. :( I want to see where you are hiding you polies.
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I don't really see where the high poly count is making it better. It looks more as if you just subdivided the model.
Could you post a wireframe shot?
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Which is sorta what I did, I used the old model as a reference and smoothed out the poly's for a sleeker look. Which is also why the UV isn't broke. As of right now it's still very much a WIP. I intend to add some finer details like the cockpit supports and missle/gun holes as well as a retexture which there is no way around. However thats why I asked if anyone would be interested because all that would likely set back env mapping. IMHO, I think just smoothing the model out makes it look better and as you can tell from the textured shots the UV is slightly off in some areas, so even with just the smoothing the texture has to be redone with a slightly modified UV.(look at the large missle holes to see what I mean, they're slightly warped.)
At any rate here are some wireframe screenies.
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/comp2.jpg)
I'm not claiming that this is the best way to go about things but I'm offering time to go and do it, with all the fighter ships if people will want to use them. :)
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Kinda how I made the Anuket smoother. It's horrible to UV.
Honestly, I don't think terran vessels have much to gain from being smooth divided. Vasudan vessels, on the other hand, show a stark improvement.
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Aye, I see your point, I did the Myrmidon because it was suggested. I happen to like it smoothed out, I agree that Terran vessels have less of a need for it but I personally like it. I'll post some in game shots when I have em.
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Looks pretty :)
I bet that would look good on something like colossus or any capship...
Do a Orion :nod:
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Kinda how I made the Anuket smoother. It's horrible to UV.
Honestly, I don't think terran vessels have much to gain from being smooth divided. Vasudan vessels, on the other hand, show a stark improvement.
True dat. You might have more success by taking the original model and adding detail onto it, using the textures as a reference.
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Hey Figment, welcome to HLP. :)
And yeah, the approach to adding detail to Terran ships is a little more different. Look for the hi-poly Fenris in the modding forum for an idea of what works well with Terrans. :nod:
:welcome:
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yay! can i DL it an start making new maps??
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Just smoothing the ship isn't enough IMO. With Vasudan ships it might look good, but terran ships could use some more details. Try to model some of the details from the textures.
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*starts work on new maps for Myrmidon*
Hey, If DaBrain and Lightspeed are doing it, I might as well jump on the bandwagon ;)
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Just smoothing the ship isn't enough IMO. With Vasudan ships it might look good, but terran ships could use some more details. Try to model some of the details from the textures.
Yep, I know. I'm working on it now. As I mentioned before, I'm gonna add details like the cockpit braces, I was also considering sinking in the texture mapped missle and gun holes but I'm not sure that it's worth it in terms of polys and I really don't think it would look quite right. I want to add anything on top of smoothed versions of models for two reasons. 1) The additions themselves will be easier for me to add this way due to how I actually modelled in school. (We did -alot- of 20,000+ poly models) and 2) I remember reading somewhere on the forums that the more vertices there are, the better the shading and such. So in theory it should look better in game just because of this. But hey, I'm open to suggestions on just what kind of things you guys would like to see in detail. I look at the Myrmidon texture and the thing that stands out most are the cockpit braces and the gun vents on the outer weapon pods.
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These for no other reason than that they look cool.
My new maps are so sharp in photoshop, then theyre blurry ingame... ill figure it out
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/6918/475.jpg)
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/2900/476.jpg)
(http://img16.imageshack.us/img16/5749/screen03.jpg)
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The new and the old model look EXACTLY the same.
Add details instead of wasting polies :)
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thugh, the waisted polys will give it better lighting.
still it would be better if you modeled in details
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what Lightspeed saiid. Sorry, but I just don't see a noticeable improvement.
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There's a small one, mainly in the hull shaping, from what I saw.
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a small, almost unnoticable one, not worth the huge increase in polys, imo. always go for detail first and foremost.
turambar, the reason for your maps looking the same in-game might be because you don't have the registry hack. without it, the game always scales your maps down to 256x256.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
thugh, the waisted polys will give it better lighting.
I knew you were going to say so:lol:
btw I still remain of the idea that a game model has to be efficent, where efficent means to obtain a certain result using as less edges as possible without loosing quality.
Unfourtunately that's not this case. you can't see much differences between the old and the new versions for at least 90%of the ship, actually I can see some improovements only in a couple of points, and surely nothing worth of that increase in the pcount.
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Originally posted by Carl
turambar, the reason for your maps looking the same in-game might be because you don't have the registry hack. without it, the game always scales your maps down to 256x256.
Not with SCP anymore. All you need to tick is the 'use large textures' in the launcher.
His problem, I guess, is that he uses his textures with low res shine maps. :rolleyes:
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Originally posted by Lightspeed
Not with SCP anymore. All you need to tick is the 'use large textures' in the launcher.
To be fair to Carl all that actually does is install the registry hack for you :D
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Do we even need to bother with the registry switch anymore? I mean, does it really affect systems that badly?
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I am on the same opinion as the others. There is no apparent change, only in the Frames/Second value, at most.
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How about something more like this?
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/prev.jpg)
Some beveled stuff on the thrusters, extruded cockpit brace, and some beveled armor plates. I need to smooth out the cockpit braces some and maybe add a little more curvet o the cockpit glass. Hey let me know if I'm on the right track.
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better, but still can use a lot of improvement. :)
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See? That's what I like. :D I don't know how well it'd work in game, but I don't care 'cause it looks awesome! :D
Edit: Meep, looks like being on the same ship is making us look at the same posts. :lol:
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MUCH better
add some stuff to the gun pods on the wingtips
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Edit: Meep, looks like being on the same ship is making us look at the same posts. :lol:
Must be 'cause we're looking out of the same window. :p
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you're in right direction, now.
you still could smooth some points, as you said, and maybe add the holes for some of the guns. Also I'd work in some points like all those flat vertical faces
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yea partaly round the tops of some of the moudles, and do somthing about the triangular ass of the thing
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she'll look great with DaBrain's maps :)
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fix up the back, have it come to a point or something, then smooth it all (not too much) and then do a Herc 2 hi-poly. herc 2's are unappreciated
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smooth the cockpit!
make holes for the missiles/guns!
make the texture into detail!
use the hi poly fenris as a guide!
rebuild the model from scratch!
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Originally posted by Carl
smooth the cockpit!
make holes for the missiles/guns!
make the texture into detail!
use the hi poly fenris as a guide!
rebuild the model from scratch!
what he said :)
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Mmh, I've done the same for the mara ( yup :D ), I'm not convinced, you just can't see the difference, the maps swallow any detail thrown in. And I've exagerated the extrusions, let me tell you. But still no good imho.
Ah, pics, so you can see by yourself what I mean:
(http://www.ifrance.com/venom2506/fs2/mara02.jpg)
ooh, looks detailled enough, right?
(http://www.ifrance.com/venom2506/fs2/mara01.jpg)
Huh! Didn't reemember, but actually, you CAN see the difference: now it looks like ****. No wonder I've never posted about that.
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what that needs is good maps.
LS will come across the Mara soon in his quest down the lst
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Myrmy is noce, but needs to be smoothed I reckon, at least in parts. The point of the myrmidon, Herc 2 and Perseus was, IMO, a heavy handed attempt by V to demonstrate the Vasudan influence on Terran ship design, because, put simply, Vasudan = curves and these ships are noticeably curvier than their FS1 counterparts. Smoothing those curves should be at least some kind of priority IMO.
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I'm sure no-one could care any less, but I think high poly fighters are a waste. Unless you take the time to closely examine each one on the techroom, you're not going to see them long enough ingame to truly appreciate it.
I'd rather see more of the kind of texturing imporovements that have been showcased on the Ulysses and Ares.
Just in case that offends anyone, I do appreciate the effort that is being put in by modellers.
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Originally posted by Deathstorm V2
I'm sure no-one could care any less, but I think high poly fighters are a waste. Unless you take the time to closely examine each one on the techroom, you're not going to see them long enough ingame to truly appreciate it.
I'd rather see more of the kind of texturing imporovements that have been showcased on the Ulysses and Ares.
Just in case that offends anyone, I do appreciate the effort that is being put in by modellers.
It will be harder to notice on high poly enemy ships but I frequently carry out "inspections" on friendly fighters while I'm waiting for the action to start :D
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Originally posted by F1gm3nt
My Heirarchy looks like this in truespace:
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/quest.jpg)
[Edit Again: Nevermind I figured out what my problem with converting was.]
you must remember the pof->Cob routines don't make a hierarchy ready to go cob->pof - but damned close
infact if you eliminate the parent node and get the others in the right order you get .scn hierarchy
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nico, aside the fact that your mesh isn't much..optimized... I don't dislike the result, I think that the bigger prob are the maps, even applying a simple general metallic material all over the mesh except the points with the red lights would give a better result
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F1gm3nt @ check your Private Messages
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I quite like this Mara. A pity I won't use it.
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Originally posted by KARMA
nico, aside the fact that your mesh isn't much..optimized... I don't dislike the result, I think that the bigger prob are the maps, even applying a simple general metallic material all over the mesh except the points with the red lights would give a better result
I put a meshsmooth on it to see how it'd ook like, forgot to turn it off on the screenshot, my bad.
Topace: nobody will use it, so who cares.
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nobody will use it mostly becase you haven't (and probly won't) put it up
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Originally posted by F1gm3nt
How about something more like this?
http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/prev.jpg
Some beveled stuff on the thrusters, extruded cockpit brace, and some beveled armor plates. I need to smooth out the cockpit braces some and maybe add a little more curvet o the cockpit glass. Hey let me know if I'm on the right track.
study dbrains and trumbars textures
(http://www.ystart.net/upload/20040516/1084660626.jpg)
(http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/7399/258.jpg)
Se that animeish "starburst" thingy outside the cockpit? modle that as detail.
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And there goes a perfectly good pair of underpants.
edit: Venom, why do think no one would use it. Yopu've shown with the Ezecheil (sp?) that you can make ships like few, few others. The Mara looks excellent, though its true that the textures obscure the details abit. With some spiffier texures care of Lightspeed, daBrain & Co., that Mara would kick ass like nothing else. I sure would use it, and I think everyone here would too.
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I agree, I like the Mara model. It looks very alien, sharp, and dangerous.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
nobody will use it mostly becase you haven't (and probly won't) put it up
in case, I bet many would...
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Maras nice but whats the polycount? Looks a bit too high for ingame or is it not finished?
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Nobody will use it for the simple reason I won't finish it :p
Gank: see the comment about meshsmooth.
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self-fulfing prophecy...
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Hehe, I can tell the future and decide wat people will do.
I'm god.
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How about this Nico, finish the model, release it, we'll make new detailed maps, and we'll have changed the future
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How about no? :D
Really, that oh so wonderful piece of work took, what, 30 minutes to do? People, just try and do the same if you want that kind of crappy upgrade, it's not any difficult. I can even make a max tutorial about how to do that, if you want, so there's no excuses like "yeah you can do that, but I can't".
There, not even a need for a tutorial, coz it's so simple: you get the mesh in max, you delete half of it ( coz there's no point detailing the same thing twice ), you right click on the mesh, choose "convert to -> editable poly", right click again, select "cut", toy around with it a bit so you understand how the tool works ( basically you click somewhere on the mesh, then some other place, hop, it'll create an edge between those two points, magic! ), you "cut" following the map ( cut two times, for inner and outer edges of each bevelled parts so you don't have to use extrude or bevel, which would mess up the UV mappings for those who don't wanna touch UVmapping with a 10 foot long trout ), then you move the resulting vertices around to create the wanted relief. You'll probably end up with unwanted vertices, then you have the second magic tool of "editable poly": you select the unwanted vertice(s), right click, "remove". Hop! the vertiex will be removed w/o deleting the polys around. Cool, heh? It will also (usually, not always, depends on the stucture of the mesh ) remove the edges around it tho so you'll probably have to cut back a few of them. Easy as pie.
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Originally posted by Nico
Mmh, I've done the same for the mara ( yup :D ), I'm not convinced, you just can't see the difference, the maps swallow any detail thrown in. And I've exagerated the extrusions, let me tell you. But still no good imho.
Ah, pics, so you can see by yourself what I mean:
(http://www.ifrance.com/venom2506/fs2/mara02.jpg)
ooh, looks detailled enough, right?
(http://www.ifrance.com/venom2506/fs2/mara01.jpg)
Huh! Didn't reemember, but actually, you CAN see the difference: now it looks like ****. No wonder I've never posted about that.
Give it decent maps and it will kick ass.
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Originally posted by Nico
How about no? :D
Really, that oh so wonderful piece of work took, what, 30 minutes to do?
theat's what I call 30 minutes WELL SPENT;)
except the fact that it'd take you double of this time to optimize that mesh:p
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Originally posted by KARMA
theat's what I call 30 minutes WELL SPENT;)
except the fact that it'd take you double of this time to optimize that mesh:p
I love when nobody reads what I write :doubt:
It would take excatly 1 second to optimize the mesh since I would just have to TURN OFF THAT ****ING MESHSMOOTH I KEEP MENTIONING BUT EVERYBODY KEEPS IGNORING.
For god's sake!
There, I've deleted the max file, so nobody's gonna bother me with it anymore. Good ridance, that'll teach me not to post that kind of old stuff.
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Originally posted by Nico
There, I've deleted the max file, so nobody's gonna bother me with it anymore. Good ridance, that'll teach me not to post that kind of old stuff.
That was... Childish...
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*points Nico at file recovery software* :D
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yeah, so hows the hi-poly myrmidon coming along?
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I, for one, agree with Nico.
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usualy when I have an old uggly file that I have no further use for, I relese it, figureing someone will probly get some enjoyment out of it, but that's just me.
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Originally posted by Bobboau
usualy when I have an old uggly file that I have no further use for, I relese it, figureing someone will probly get some enjoyment out of it, but that's just me.
I like your Dark Breed ships a lot, even though you apparently don't.:p
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Originally posted by Nico
I love when nobody reads what I write :doubt:
It would take excatly 1 second to optimize the mesh since I would just have to TURN OFF THAT ****ING MESHSMOOTH I KEEP MENTIONING BUT EVERYBODY KEEPS IGNORING.
For god's sake!
There, I've deleted the max file, so nobody's gonna bother me with it anymore. Good ridance, that'll teach me not to post that kind of old stuff.
Sometimes I want to throw you off a bridge. You make all this cool ****, and then throw it away or **** with it. Do you do this just to piss us all off?:p
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Woolie: it's the curse of being an artist... we're never happy with our stuff, and if it's not up to our personal standards, it's trash :)
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Originally posted by ShadowDrakken
Woolie: it's the curse of being an artist... we're never happy with our stuff, and if it's not up to our personal standards, it's trash :)
How true.
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Originally posted by Woolie Wool
Sometimes I want to throw you off a bridge. You make all this cool ****, and then throw it away or **** with it. Do you do this just to piss us all off?:p
Well yeah, of course :D
I love when people hate me :p
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You must be in a state of pure bliss now, then. :p Not that I care. I'm more interested in TVWP ships than these V ones. But that's mainly because I make them now. :nod:
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study dbrains and trumbars textures
Se that animeish "starburst" thingy outside the cockpit? modle that as detail.
Actually in the last screenshots I posted it is one the -old- [V] textures in the process of being modeled, though I should point out that the "starburst" is actually different in the two examples you provided which brings me to...
yeah, so hows the hi-poly myrmidon coming along?
I downloaded DaBtrains maps and as I mentioned above the cockpit outlining is different, along with a few other minor details so I'm cleaning it up a bit and cleaning up some UV errors that for some reason crept in when I switched the textures. The tailend has been smoothed out a bit also. I'll post more screens when I get it sorted out a bit more.
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Use these maps for reference: clicky (http://www.penguinbomb.com/lightspeed/Myrmidon_S20.zip)
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;) Just went by that thread and started the download, nice glows on it btw.
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F1gm3nt, do you think you could to the Serapis next? I think that ship'd really benefit from having the plating bumped out on the ridges. :nod:
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Once again, Raa is right.
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I Want my Myrmidon model!!
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Good luck doing the next ships. :yes:
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Eh....Had the inlaws here all last week so not much got done. But I whipped through some stuff this weekend.
1) top & bottom armor plates & tail all beveled and smoothed
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/topdet.jpg)
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/botdet.jpg)
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/tail.jpg)
2) Maybe New gunpod
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/Newgun.jpg)
3) Overallshot
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/shot.jpg)
Lookin boss with the new tex maps from DaBrain & LS
Before anyone screams anything about LOD's ane env/shine maps the gun pods are UV'd to correct parts of the existing texture -and- I would have to do a new LOD for the next one down. But the gun pods are what I saw a few requests for and also what I wanted to get done first.
Now the question is, this thing is ~ 2050 polys right now and I haven't even smoothed out the cockpit yet, I -think- that'll only be about twenty-thirty more polys :yes: . So looking at the overall shot I'm not sure that I'm gonna need to do all the other missle/gunholes. Then again, the new gun pod is -very- noticable and really draws attention to the lack of depth on all the other munition holes. Opinions? Suggestions?
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What are the sizes of its textures?
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I beleive that they are 1024^2.
Heres some pics of the lowres textures to compare:
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/lowres.jpg)
(http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/lowres2.jpg)
*Note I was messing around with the bump maps last night and forgot to turn em off for these screenies and as Maya takes ages to load I don't really wanna go back and redo them. Hence the artifacts on the around the munition holes :nervous:
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You = r0x0r.
Now, make four LODs of it, each using the SAME UV MAPPING - LOD 3 would be like retail, then.
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armour plates are unnoticable, waste of polys which would be better spent rounding off parts of the model. Rebuild the model instead of just adding detail.
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The gunpods, and the 'wings' are fantastic, though :D
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armour plates are unnoticable, waste of polys which would be better spent rounding off parts of the model. Rebuild the model instead of just adding detail.
Mayhaps you're right and maybe I'll get rid of them, but as for rebuilding the whole model, I probably won't do that with the fighters, for two reasons.
1) The [V] models are perfectly fine, they just need to be spruced up which actually takes less time the rebuilding the whole model.
2) I don't think it's worth rebuilding -all- the fighters, capital ships, yes, it's worth rebuilding them because most of them are big blocky rectangular ships, which is altogether different from most of the fighter ships.
I'll think on the plates though.
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you need the major layered ones, its just those little detail ones that don't need any polys. We can do those with good shinemaps and maybe bump-mapping (someday)
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Originally posted by Gank
armour plates are unnoticable, waste of polys which would be better spent rounding off parts of the model. Rebuild the model instead of just adding detail.
I agree with the plates, but redoing the model is, in most cases, useless, at least when you know how to upgrade the details w/o screwing up the VV mappings and stuff.
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it surely change the question if you can save the uvmaps (I usually can't for example, for many reasons), elseway I still prefer to rebuild all the mesh, expecially if I want to smooth bits
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Originally posted by KARMA
it surely change the question if you can save the uvmaps
Well I can, but then again, I'm l33t :D
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yes, yes you are
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If I want to smooth a part of the model or even rebuild a part of the model I'll just seperate that part from the mesh and work on it individually then put it back on the mesh and weld the vertices when I'm done. Thats what I did with the gunpods. I used Lithunwrap to get the normals right for the gun tubes.
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I want that model :D:yes:
Oh, and F1gm3nt if you were working on that thing I ask you to do, then nevermind it didn't work out
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Now, finish it, LOD it and release it! :D :p
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*Bump*
Don't want this to get lost
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Put it into your pocket, and fasten the zip. But do not forget to take it out before washing.
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Bu..But... I have no zip on my pockets :(
:p
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I dont think those are gunpods, wait, I'm wrong. had to look through about 10 files to find the POF for it, but yeah, it's a secondary gunbank. atleast with the POF you use it's secondary :D :edit: :edit: :edit: Secondary, be Primary! now lets see how this can fly.
If you wondered, I took primary gunbank #1 (with four ports) and moved it's fireing posions to those gunpods, which should look much better, although I still want converging shots...
:edited for some spelling:
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It did look as if it were a crude attempt at barrels from the mapping job. So I like the new barrels, so long as the vent texture is UVed on it.
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Now redo the real gunpoints too and it'll be perfect :D
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Originally posted by jdjtcagle
Bu..But... I have no zip on my pockets :(
:p
I wasn't serious. Did you take it seriosuly? Because of that :( smiley ....
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h It did look as if it were a crude attempt at barrels from the mapping job. So I like the new barrels, so long as the vent texture is UVed on it.
*sigh* whips out lithunwrap
It's LODed and such converted over to cob put in correct hierarchy and gets an error in PCS "General stack overflow...too many polys in one general area...blah blah..." So yea, I'm working on it. If anyone else wants to try, here ya go.
fightert2-05.zip (COB file, All LODs, No textures) (http://f1gm3nt3d.125mb.com/fightert2-05.zip)
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Raaaaaa! :)
Eh, little request. Can you make the first and second LOD identical poly-wise?
We could then tweak the table so the first LOD is switched pretty much at close range to the second texture LOD. You won't need anything higher than 512² unless very close up - and we could work that in pretty well with a LOD like this.
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I'll give it a go... what the heck.
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Ok... no go. I get the same error, and worse. The normals are flipped in TS, and when I fix them, the UV-ing goes bonkers. Perhaps the original maya file will work better? Or in 3ds form?
Edit: Also, when the normals are corrected, there are chunks missing. Makes me sad. :(
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More testing: I found what the major problems seem to be. I converted toe file to 3ds, and ran it through Max6, and performed a STL Check. It came up with 2800 errors. Almost all were uncapped endes, some where double faces. When I tried to fix it, Ilost some of the cocpit detail, so I stopped. This isn't working out so well. :(
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
More testing: I found what the major problems seem to be. I converted toe file to 3ds, and ran it through Max6, and performed a STL Check. It came up with 2800 errors. Almost all were uncapped endes, some where double faces. When I tried to fix it, Ilost some of the cocpit detail, so I stopped. This isn't working out so well. :(
I get that with models of mine I've seen work perfectly well in game. The problem is probably with the conversion to .3ds
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No, because TS lists the same amount of polies. And after a while, if I click on it, it'll drop to half that... But still there are problems.
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I should point out that 3Dstudio R3 ( .3DS files are the files that it used ) could not deal with unwrapped maps ( it's like 15 years old... ). It was either planar, cylindrical or spherical. And nothing else. When you convert your mesh to 3ds, you have to remember that limitation. So what happens? During the conversion process, all the polys that don't follow the above rule are separated from the mesh, creating as many planar mapped objects as needed. In Max terms, that means that all those polys are turned into elements, and have their own edges, not shared with the neighbour polygon.
That means you have to weld the vertices back when you're opening it with your program ( AfaIk, TS can't, but you can weld the verts in 3Dexploration ).
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That explains a lot. Let me try giving my model a different UV projection and trying that out.
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Nico: Does it matter that I'm not using R3? I have Max 6. Is the file format still the same? If so... I don't know how to change the UV type. :(
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Raa I hope you're joking...
'R3' is so old now that you shouldn't be using it under any circumstances. There's an option in 3d exploration to weld vertices and it will do the trick nicely, though that is somewhat dependent on where the model was originally made. If it was constructed in Max and exported to 3ds then you should be ok, but if it was done in something like Rhino, you could have problems. The reason you lose detail with a vertex weld is that the program doing the welding does not have high-enough precision to distinguish between overlapping verts and close verts with detail between, and the small details get absorbed. Increase the scale of the model before you export it and it should help lessen the problem.
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hmmm....I took the liberty of importing it into Blender. Now, I don''t know how much can be contributed to the import (direct cob -> blender) but I got a somewhat weird result...there's 4 hull's but only three set's of thrusters...also the thrusters do not align with the corresponding hull but are rotated -90x,90y (blender axes)
UV survived on all LODs and debris...removed all the double verts (they were aplenty) and sofar I do not seem to be missing any detail...
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4th LOD has no thrusters. That's why... See if you can make a good cob with it, and I'll convert it if you want.
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here ya go, you'll need to correct hierarchy and orientation as I don't have TS installed...linky (http://freespace.kicks-ass.net/fightert2-05.zip)
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Originally posted by Raa Tor'h
Nico: Does it matter that I'm not using R3? I have Max 6. Is the file format still the same? If so... I don't know how to change the UV type. :(
Doesn't matter, it's a format restriction.
No non planar/cylindrical/spherical UVs in a .3ds file
But many, many more vertices :p
Stratcomm:
I believe 3Dexploration welds only the verts sharing the exam same coordinates, so there should be no such problem.