Hard Light Productions Forums
FreeSpace Releases => Asset Releases => Topic started by: Lepanto on June 27, 2013, 12:37:36 am
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2013 MODELING CONTEST ENTRY - NEWCOMER DIVISION
Aaaaand it's done!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0-LZC1urvqDc3YteUtrUUNKS2s
(http://i.imgur.com/6TU1zm7.jpg) (http://imgur.com/6TU1zm7)
The Ammit includes two table files: Ammit-shp is a bomber, and AmmitFighter-shp is an interceptor. Copy the entry of whichever one you're using to your ships-tbm, and delete/ignore the other one.
The Ammit comes with the GVM Khepri anti-capital dumbfire rocket.
(http://i.imgur.com/Copymkw.jpg) (http://imgur.com/Copymkw)
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A modelling newbie's first model, using ShadowWolf's excellent tutorial. It's supposed to be, essentially, a post-Capella Vasudan Artemis with 1 better-placed 4-gun primary bank and the standard 3 secondary banks. Comments, suggestions, constructive criticism?
(http://i.imgur.com/fkTtdPZ.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/DfkoC7F.jpg)
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That is very good for a first model! The overall profile looks believably Vasudan, too, so you've got a good grasp of their design.
See if you can curve a few of those hard edges, mainly on the underside and fuselage. Prominent regular shapes - like the parallelograms you have for the missile bays and beneath them - can break up the smoothness of Vasudan ships.
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Mentu-Seth hybrid look which screams Zod. This is a good thing.
(even though all zods must die)
Good luck in the design contest :nod:
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A good start yes yes, I concur with what shivan hunter said.
Right now the most prominent thing that screams "no vasudan here" are those parallel lines on the underside of the body, maybe curve a few of them and remove most of the others.
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Good thing this is not a Destroyer. :p
Looks good; I'd change the underside as already suggested, not necessarily by removing the gills, but by making them more curvy/organic.
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Already an entry to the contest! :yes:
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Thanks for your positive feedback! Zods aren't the easiest to model for in the first place, and I don't have a disciplined and efficient modeling style [resulting in a messy model and headaches trying to make revisions], so this has proven a bit difficult.
Good thing this is not a Destroyer. :p
Hm?
Already an entry to the contest! :yes:
If I've actually finished this by then, I guess I'll enter it in the contest and most likely lose. This project actually started as more of a diversion from my campaign, which has gotten bogged down in an endless cycle of bugfixing and beta-testing.
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And now I've made some revisions. I liberally applied Subdivide Smooth to the Ammit's straight lines, so its lines should now look more curved and Vasudan-like.
(http://i.imgur.com/zRBqJ19.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/7O4UEp0.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/3s8dl70.png)
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That's going along fine. I'd say that the design of Vasudans is a cross between ancient egyptian aesthetics with Art Nouveau. Go along those two lines of inspiration and you'll be fine I think.
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I've about finished the mesh. Unless there's a reason to make major changes, I'll clean up, touch up, and otherwise finalize the mesh. It's over 2000 tris now; should I try to reduce its poly count, and if so, any advice on how to do so?
GVB Ammit (View in 3D (http://p3d.in/gxn3E))
(http://p3d.in/model_data/snapshot/gxn3E) (http://p3d.in/gxn3E)
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I wouldn't worry too much about polycount unless you somehow hit the hundred thousands. FSO handles fighters and bombers with 10K~ polys quite well. Just try to avoid going over 20K, IIRC that's the point where the engine will struggle with large numbers of this model.
And as for detail, it's uh... kinda, visually noisy in the middle? I think you might wanna try around with the middle and see what you can do. It's a lovely model, but the "noisiness" detracts from the shape, IMO. I'm also confused as to where the cockpit is supposed to be.
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One of the disadvantages of the Modding Contest is that I feel like I shouldn't comment too much on WiP threads. So I'll just say congrats on learning to model generally - I love that you're going Vasudanm straight out, as well by the way - they're quite tricky I find - and that I hope you see it through and enter the newcomer's contest. Good Luck!
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You're right. I don't think any of the judges can critique the ships.
It looks quite nice. Smooth it out a bit and it'll be quite neat.
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Hey Lepanto, put that p3d into p3dbrackets! Like this:
:D
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I think the mesh is 100% zod looking with zero unpleasant feels.
Keep it up :yes:
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You've got a pretty nice model there but I'll have to concur with yet another hlp'er, BritishShivans pointed out something about noisy structure. I'd say the noisiest part is the upper "neck", with that saw like scales.
From the side it looks a little straight, giving it an unnatural felling, and from the front the deepness of the gaps do not help, it's as if they seem to have a purpose but nothing seems to come to mind about it.
You could consider removing them all and using a smooth curved surface, something like in Perseus's neck, a smooth surface with a small part filled with intakes, as seen in this pic:
(http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/images/Gtfperseus-old.jpg)
of course all this is optional.
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I agree with the coolness of the model, still I have some critiques.
As I mark in red in the picture, there are some straight lines that break the curvy vasudan feel (or rather my interpretation of vasudan ship philosophy):
(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/Ammit_zps7587b244.png)
I think some of the lines can be breaked relatively easy (see the blue lines). If you are using Blender, the lattice modifier is perfect for retouching the overall shape of the model, which is somewhat difficult to see when you are working on the details.
Finally, using square insets to add detail on your ship is not a good way to go (see last image). First of all, it's rather boring and doesn't worth the added polys. Get some curvy panels over or simple leave it to the normal map.
But overall, a very good first model :yes:. It certainly has a good vasudan feel and all I've said is basically nitpicking.
I hope you'll be putting it up for the contest. :)
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I love it.
Quick note, tho: two of the dorsal ridges seem asymmetrical (the second one from the back, and the fourth one.)
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Thanks, everyone, for your positive comments and constructive criticism [especially The Dagger for your detailed and graphical breakdown]. And I'm tickled that my project got a mention on the newsletter [even if Axem does report everything going on on HLP anyway].
I kinda liked the dorsal ridges, and put them in to make the ship look a bit more Vasudan-ish, but they seem to be unpopular. Does anyone think it could work if I lowered the cockpit a bit and so gave the spine and ridges a bit of a downward curve? I've already flattened the ridges a bit, so hopefully they don't look quite so odd/noisy.
Again, Vasudans are hard to design for, especially for a newb like myself. Even after looking over some MediaVPs Vasudan strikecraft for design pointers, I haven't gotten the Vasudan ships' distinctive scaled armor down right.
I agree with the coolness of the model, still I have some critiques.
As I mark in red in the picture, there are some straight lines that break the curvy vasudan feel (or rather my interpretation of vasudan ship philosophy):
I think some of the lines can be breaked relatively easy (see the blue lines). If you are using Blender, the lattice modifier is perfect for retouching the overall shape of the model, which is somewhat difficult to see when you are working on the details.
Finally, using square insets to add detail on your ship is not a good way to go (see last image). First of all, it's rather boring and doesn't worth the added polys. Get some curvy panels over or simple leave it to the normal map.
Dagger, I'll give that lattice modifier a try. Anyone, please tell me if you think I'm missing some obvious Blender function that would make the model look better, seeing as I'm still kinda new to Blender. I now realize [after not reading through ShadowWolf's tutorial properly and putting in a lot of effort on the current armor plates] that I could've made some better looking/curvier armor scales with judicious use of the Knife tool. :nono:
This is supposed to be a post-Capella design, well after the Terran-Vasudan alliance, so tech base fusion could explain some of its Terran-looking design elements, but I still think I'll edit it a bit more to make it look more authentically Vasudan.
By now, I've been fiddling with this thing for a little while and would kinda like to just move on to texturing. But better I spend the time to improve and correct this model now, so that it looks better for the contest, and [hopefully] in mods for years to come. :p
I do plan to enter the contest, providing I retain enough motivation to finish this project.
P.S. Does anybody find it odd that the FS1 Vasudan strikecraft, despite mostly being designed in-universe BEFORE the Terran-Vasudan alliance, look somewhat more conventional/Terran in design than the distinctly curvy FS2 Zod strikecraft?
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Thanks, everyone, for your positive comments and constructive criticism [especially The Dagger for your detailed and graphical breakdown]. And I'm tickled that my project got a mention on the newsletter [even if Axem does report everything going on on HLP anyway].
Hey, you've got some promise as a modeler - not everyone's first model looks like that! (Mine looked like a turd, anyway :nervous:)
I kinda liked the dorsal ridges, and put them in to make the ship look a bit more Vasudan-ish, but they seem to be unpopular. Does anyone think it could work if I lowered the cockpit a bit and so gave the spine and ridges a bit of a downward curve? I've already flattened the ridges a bit, so hopefully they don't look quite so odd/noisy.
I, for one, like the ridges - they give it some aggression. To improve on the 'noisy' thing, perhaps consider removing one or two, and making the others larger? Curving the spine should be an improvement as well, that'll give it some more of the 'flow' that the Dagger mentioned. You may want to check out Blender's proportional editing (O key) for that.
Again, Vasudans are hard to design for, especially for a newb like myself. Even after looking over some MediaVPs Vasudan strikecraft for design pointers, I haven't gotten the Vasudan ships' distinctive scaled armor down right.
You're coming along fine, the armour on the side pods and centre body is definitely looking Vasudan. The engines and upper wings (marked red in the Dagger's last pic) do have a bit of a bathroom tile look though :P Perhaps consider adding some exposed techy greebles in those areas?
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Switched the bathroom tiles out for more of a fish-scale hull pattern that I do think looks more Vasudan, and lowered the neck and flattened the ridges. This should (hopefully) be my final major mesh revision.
There are a couple of triangular "spikes" in the very front. Just pretend they aren't there; they're some kind of ghost object not controllable in Edit Mode and I don't know why they're there or how to get rid of them without deleting some important vertices. Anyone know where these "ghost objects" come from?
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It's getting there though I liked those dorsal ridges and I'm sad now that they're less prominent (but do as you please, it's your model after all ;)).
Indeed the scales looks far better :yes:, though you have some square stiles still over the engines.
And regarding those "ghost objects" I guess they could be some hiden faces (use Alt-H to un-hide them, H to hide selected).
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Thanks Dagger, that was indeed the problem.
I'm finally moving on into unwrapping. I won't have a lot of nice pictures for the near future, until I get to a stage that's visually interesting again. This model has gotten so complicated that it's proving to be a bit difficult to unwrap.
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you got it pal, nice looking piece of hardware there :yes:
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Nice looking model, I liked the ridges. I think me and FSF need to bring up a "bring back the ridges petition". Just kidding. It looks sharp. Good luck in the contest and thank you for the mention, glad you found the tut useful.
I would have replied sooner but I am almost done moving and with the move and work I have had zero HLP time this week.
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Thanks, ShadowWolf. If it wasn't for your tutorial, contest or no contest, I'd never have given modeling a try.
I've gotten mixed reviews on the ridges, and thank you for your input, but right now I just want to leave the mesh more-or-less as it is and move on.
I'd rather have not asked for outright modeling help in this thread, especially for a contest project, but I'd really like help on something, and it's rather pertinent to my specific design. Any pointers for UVing this highly complicated mesh? If this were a more structurally-generic Terran design, I could probably take care of it. But with the Ammit's complicated surface shape and all its details, and my newness to UVing, I really want to be certain that I can do this right. Also, how can I tell at a glance if I've UVed a model correctly? Thanks!
This is what I've got right now:
(http://i.imgur.com/d3qcvsi.png)
I know the UV map's a mess.
On another note, while I'm here, I'll post some gameplay ideas I've got for this model, for feedback. I'm envisioning the Ammit as a high-speed dive-bomber. When flying it, you'd approach enemy capships at high afterburner speed, fire ordnance [switching banks as necessary], pull out, and loop around while waiting for secondaries to reload. It would be packaged with a new short-range anti-capship dumbfire bomb [maybe weaker than the Cyclops or the mod's Cyclops-equivalent for balance purposes], which could be fired at point-blank range on high-speed passes just before pulling out. Hopefully, this kind of craft would be an innovation on basic FS bomber-piloting gameplay, but wouldn't disrupt the basic balance of FS gameplay enough to render it incompatible with most mods. As the design doesn't scream "bomber" too loudly, I'd also include alternate tables so the model could also be used as an interceptor or superiority fighter. Questions? Comments?
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If you made a cockpit with the Zod model that is available out there you would really stand a great chance of winning one of those prices, IMHO.
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As general rule I recommend you not to break the UV so much. You don't need that many seams. Having lots of little UV islands gives you less distortion but breaks the texture flow. You need a balance between the UV strecthing and the texture flow (and it's hard to texture such a collection of mini-islands because you can't see the larger patern while at it). It's something to keep in mind...
Also, you've got some bizarre long islands crossing the others, you have to correct those, no face should be atop of another (unless you're tilemapping which isn't the case). Those things often come to me from badly unwrapped faces, so beware of them.
Finally, I don't know if the contest rules allows you to re-use other people's cockpit (though I believe it should).
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It's a really sexy fighter. I'm looking forward to seeing it completed!
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I didn't say he needed to use other people's cockpit. But suggested he make one and place there the standard Zod guy.
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Well, he'd still be using other people's zod model so the question remains the same.
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I asked about using other people's stuff in the contest thread, and:
Importing cockpits has a well established community precedent, so I'm a-OK with that - why reinvent the wheel after all? As far as importing other bits of texture, that's... trickier, and we may have to fall back on the "case-by-case" situation, as unfortunate as that is.
Certainly, I've used pieces of other people's textures (see the Abydos for a fairly shameless rip of pieces fo the Karnak) and I know a lot of other people have to - it's a great way to add detail and help a model fit into an already established species "look". But in this case, given that we're judging people on the quality of their texture, it becomes a bit iffy, especially if it's from a non Volition ship.
If I were forced to make some kind of definitive statement, I would say that a few details from other ships are fine, as long as they're credited (particularly if they're easily identifiable - you don't have to worry too much about a few pixels if you're grabbing them for the colour palette or something), more liberal sampling is acceptable from canon ships, but excessive sampling will lose you points at least in the technical side of the texture grade.
Basically, be reasonable about it and you'll be fine.
I've been working, slowly but hopefully surely, on improving the UV map/fixing up the mesh. I didn't make the mesh with UVing in mind, and that's inconvenienced me here. I've had to make a lot more revisions to the mesh so that it plays nice with the unwrapper, especially with weird-shaped faces that often cause UV overlap when unwrapped. Here's what I've got so far:
(http://i.imgur.com/2U7GiG8.png)
This model has definitely been a learning experience so far, and I'll be "learning" much more before I'm done. The experience I've gathered here, though, will probably make any future models of mine go a lot smoother than this one has.
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First few models are a great learning experience. I am in the same boat that you are, I am still learning to model and texture. I've only done 3 models to completion and at that only two are fully textured. That includes the model for the tutorial. The thing that I have learned is that things become second nature quickly while modeling, and this helps. As far as UV goes the only thing I can tell you is to put your islands in a logical order. ie Fuselage pieces together, wing pieces together, gun pieces together...etc, etc. If not, you will truly be in hell. I didn't do that with the Pharaoh, but when I went to texture it I learned quickly that the time spent setting it up is well worth is. More than a month of texturing could have been dropped to a few weeks or less had ZI simply set my UV map up in the manner described. FSF said to in the tutorial that I used, but like a complete dumbass I got impatient and said "I'll deal with it." SO when it comes to UV don't be me, don't be a dumbass.;)
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You're following the tutorial well dude. Don't forget about details you can throw into a bump map.
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This project is NOT dead, I've just been busy/distracted/doing boring stuff.
Here's what I've got for the UV map thus far:
(http://i.imgur.com/lnHAhRR.png)
I've added the cockpit from ShadowWolf's tutorial plus Oddgrim's Vasudan pilot model. Please tell me right now if this was a horrible idea.
(http://i.imgur.com/gDDpra7.png)
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It clearly IS a good idea. :nod: keep going!
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After several passes through the AO Oven, the Ammit is now a crispy-fried, fresh-AO-baked muffin spaceship of deliciousness!
Would've used a p3d again, but the textures don't seem to be applying to the converted model right now.
(http://i.imgur.com/ncv7ADM.png)
(http://i.imgur.com/gvmAamK.png)
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Nice job. You're getting there.
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i agree, nice fighter
the hardest part is still ahead though, so good luck with it :)
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i agree, nice fighter
the hardest part is still ahead though, so good luck with it :)
You mean texturing?
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If anyone here can help, I'd really like some Blender help. I've started LODing, and ShadowWolf's tutorial mentions a Poly Reducer script to use on LODs 2 and up. But, even though I've looked through Blender and its manual, I can't find it under Mesh/Scripts (there's no Scripts entry in the Mesh menu in 3D view). Does anyone know where to find the Poly Reducer script in Blender? Thanks!
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I think you should first texture it before doing lods, so that when you use the poly reducer you've got a mesh with textures already applied and you don't have to uv and texture all over again.
It's been a while since I've tried making a ship so I'm not 100% sure about it, but still you might want to wait for someone else to confirm this.
Never mind, I missed the uv picture from above.
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As far as I know, the poly reducer script works only with Blender 2.4 (the older version), but as I said in ShadowWolf's thread, there's a Decimate modifier in latests versions of Blender that should do the trick for you.
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A belated thank you, The Dagger. That worked.
I've done LODs and the shield, and have ported the model over to PCS2. But for some reason, my pilot, damage, and cockpit textures that were on the model in Blender don't appear on the texture list in PCS2. I gave each object and subobject a material and texture, and all of the textures appear just fine in Blender, so I don't understand why exactly some of my textures are making the jump to PCS2 and some aren't. I don't want to be a pain/ask stupid questions, but some of this modeling stuff isn't exactly intuitive to me. Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong? Thanks!
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I still get problems like that while exporting from time to time.
Play a bit with the export options (I think "Include Material Textures" and "Copy" should be checked, the rest of the texture options shouldn't, but I'm not 100% sure).
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when exporting stuff in blender, this is the only reliable combination of settings that i have found so far:
each texture needs its own material, guess you know that but still ;)
each object can only have one UV map (important!)
do check "include material textures" and not "include uv textures", "copy" and "only active uv layer" don't make a difference if you set up everything as it should be
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Okay, this disappearing-export-texture problem has seriously stumped me. I think I'm setting up my objects, materials, and textures right. Every object has a material, and every texture has a material of its own. I've fiddled around with different combinations of export settings, to no avail. I've even had the disappearing-textures problem with somebody else's pilot Blender model which I've been using to troubleshoot.
I'm using five textures; Ammit (my UV map), AmmitGlass (for the cockpit glass), tercoc02 (for the cockpit itself), vaspilot (my pilot), and Damage from the MediaVPs. Only Ammit, AmmitGlass, and tercoc02 seem to make the transition to .dae, and tercoc02 isn't present when I load the model in PCS2, leaving me with just Ammit and AmmitGlass. Any idea what might be going on here?
I'm seriously stumped here, and I'd rather not do any more work on my textures until I've taken care of this problem and can get all my textures to carry over. Thanks!
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update your blend file and i'll take a look
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Thank you so much for offering to help, fightermedic and The Dagger. Here's my blend file, .dae file and associated textures.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0-LZC1urvqDYTlVNmxvZDA3MGc/edit?usp=sharing (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0-LZC1urvqDYTlVNmxvZDA3MGc/edit?usp=sharing)
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that was easy, didn't take 3 minutes to find
in the material texture settings change your mapping from generated to UV mapping and actually select your UV ;)
(http://imageshack.us/scaled/large/46/bo9g.jpg)
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Okay, I tried that, fightermedic, but it didn't fix my problem. After a lot of trial and error, I think I've narrowed my problems down to the following:
-The meshes of my imported cockpit and Vasudan pilot models do not carry any textures over into PCS2, even if those textures carried over just fine on the rest of the model. I think there's some kind of setting/property that I imported with those meshes which isn't playing well with Blender's exporter.
-Damage.dds and vaspilot.dds (the texture that came with my Vasudan pilot model) do not carry over at all, no matter where they are placed on the model. I don't know what their problem is.
All of these textures display just fine in Blender, but vanish somewhere from Blender to PCS2.
Again, thanks for your help so far. If I'm being frustratingly dense, please forgive me; Blender isn't exactly intuitive in a lot of respects.
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You have several problems in your blend file.
1) You have not made a material for Damage.dds. Each texture needs its material.
2) You have not applied the materials on the faces! Select the faces in edit mode and apply them.
3) You have to configure your materials like this:
(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/step1_zps6270f1cc.png) (http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/Dagguerreotype/media/Misc/step1_zps6270f1cc.png.html)
4) You have packed your textures into the model (you shouldn't). Unpack them like this:
(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/step2_zpsbd2a9fb5.png) (http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/Dagguerreotype/media/Misc/step2_zpsbd2a9fb5.png.html)
After doing so, PCS2 imported the dae fine with all five textures.
Again, thanks for your help so far. If I'm being frustratingly dense, please forgive me; Blender isn't exactly intuitive in a lot of respects.
It's OK, you're welcome. We are a small community and must help each other... :)
EDIT: be sure to check what fightermedic said too. Also, unpacking will create a new folder called "textures" I guess that's your original layout and that's why exporting wouldn't work for me. If you mantain your file structure, you may not have to unpack the textures, but I prefer it that way (if not, your blend stores a copy of the file and you end up with the same data stored twice for nothing).
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thank's dagger, you saved me a lot of work, now i don't have to write all that down, because i was just going to write exactly the same stuff ;)
listen to the elder man fledgling, he's sharing wisdom
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Thanks, fightermedic and The Dagger! Your advice helped me to fix my problem.
It's in PCS2, and I guess it's time to start texturing. This is my basic temporary color scheme, based in large part off the Serapis. Yeah, I know the UV lines have to go. Comments?
(http://i.imgur.com/Nn3XDUY.png)
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i actually like the uv lines
decrease their visibility and blur them quite a bit, and i think they could add to the model
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Please do not use the UV lines... You can draw your own lines if you want to. :)
As to the color palette, see if you can spice it up a little with more color. Yes, zod ships are generally green/brown/beige/sandy color, but they still have some color details (think green, blue, yellow glows, some dark grey or bluish metal).
And finally, have you considered using p3d? It's free and goes a long way to show your model (if your system can handle it, of course).
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It works on android phones.
My tip is to erase minor uv lines, add a new Photoshop/gimp layer, and trace the main ones, draw some Zod'esque panels, and emboss them.
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Layer. Layer. Layer.
I always put new stuff on a new layer, such as blur, grime/dirt, symbols, etc. This allows for ease of manipulation later.
R
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Layer. Layer. Layer.
I always put new stuff on a new layer, such as blur, grime/dirt, symbols, etc. This allows for ease of manipulation later.
QFT. I have always repented when not following this rule.
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Okay, some progress and some more snags.
Progress:
(http://i.imgur.com/dcaq8GT.png) (http://imgur.com/dcaq8GT)
I skipped ahead and, editing the Artemis's table, got it working in-game. I find that, compared to modeling and texturing, tabling and balance should be a breeze.
Also, I've started work on a new missile which I'll release with the Ammit, the GVM Khepri:
(http://i.imgur.com/aMi5rxg.png) (http://imgur.com/aMi5rxg)
The Khepri is a dumbfire torpedo, designed to be fired at point-blank range by an after-burnering Ammit.
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But, as usual, I've been having some more problems.
First, I'm moving slowly on the texture. My texturing skills are unimpressive, as I've never actually textured anything before, and I think my finished product will be rather mediocre compared to other people's recent models. I'll post an update when I have something worth posting.
Also, I'm having trouble getting the textures on my models to appear in-game, even once I've finally gotten them to work on my POF. That's because the Ammit's .DAE which I exported, and then turned into a .POF, was reading its textures from the texture files which I had copied over into the models folder of my test mod when I exported it (not the textures folder). So, even though PCS can read the textures, FSO can't, and so my textures aren't appearing in-game. How do you make sure that the .POF uses textures from the textures folder?
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Put them into a folder named "maps". That should do it.
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Put them into a folder named "maps". That should do it.
:banghead:
... Wow, I really should've remembered to do THAT. Thanks.
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nice update
make sure to release this before the end of september though, NO matter how unfinished it is
you might win the newcomer price of the modeling contest, since so far i'm not having any competition on the shivan models and i would be your ony competitor in that area ;) *shrug*
also we need to crack that 10 model threshold to activate the public prize :lol:
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nice update
make sure to release this before the end of september though, NO matter how unfinished it is
you might win the newcomer price of the modeling contest, since so far i'm not having any competition on the shivan models and i would be your ony competitor in that area ;) *shrug*
also we need to crack that 10 model threshold to activate the public prize :lol:
I have every intention of finishing and releasing in time for the contest, even if the texture ends up looking mediocre. TBH, if I had to bet, I'd say you'd win the Newcomer prize, but I'll give it a shot.
The contest has turned out to be a disappointment. Unless a lot of models are entered at the last second, we won't have a lot of entrants. While that DOES give me a better shot at the newcomer prize than I'd have had otherwise :) , I'm more disappointed that the contest hasn't inspired a lot of next-gen Vasudan and Shivan models.
Then again, modeling is hard, what can I say. :)
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Mine won't be done. School and work took precedence.
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Okay, heading into the home stretch. This is about as good as my basic map's probably gonna get, but it should at least be functional. Still got to do the shine and normal maps.
I'd use p3d instead of screenshots, but I'm having problems getting p3d to show textures, and I don't want to bother getting it to work right now.
(http://i.imgur.com/ttAr38g.png) (http://imgur.com/ttAr38g)
(http://i.imgur.com/lug7Kow.png) (http://imgur.com/lug7Kow)
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the texture is too clean for my taste
just slap a bit of surface irregularity on it
slightly overlay the beige and brown areas with a proper tile texture
if you don't want to search use this one:
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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You have the base colors down. Now use layers and add in grime, oil, panels, etc. Also put those lights on the side onto another layer. Also bevel said lights.
R
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Thanks, guys. I'm still a newb, and I can still use all the help I can get.
Rampage, the side lights are already part of my glowmap. I'll still try to fix them up, so they look better.
I'm thinking about deleting the cockpit and the pilot model, to boost performance, as I've been having performance problems with the Ammit in FRED. Opinions?
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I don't know about FRED but in FSO, what gives the most problems is textures. Lots of big textures = bad. You can have a lot of modelled details if you keep your texture count and size down.
However, if your fighter has less than 20k triangles and has one square texture of 1024,2048 or 4096 pixels, your ship is fine for FSO. Most of what I've done is above 10,000 triangles and uses 4096 pixels textures and I haven't had any troubles with them.
My advice: keep the cockpit. If you want to optimize it a bit you should use a decimate modifier on the pilot. He's 1500 tris and you don't need all of those.
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yes keep the cockpit, it should be almost insignificant for fps with modern graphic cards
also, don't forget to post a download link today ;)
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I've still got until tomorrow, and as a major procrastinator, I'll take whatever extra time I can get.
The problem with the cockpit is that, between it and the pilot, it adds two more textures to the model. I'd heard that texture count really makes a real performance difference. I'll try decimating the pilot, and if I test it in FSO and that doesn't make a difference, I'd rather just ditch the pilot and cockpit and shave two textures off the model. I run FSO with Intelgrated graphics, and I'd like to keep this model manageable [or at least no worse than other MediaVPs models] for people like me with lower-end machines.
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Release it as-is for the contest. You can bake your textures into a single texture afterwards. It's what I do to have baked glows on my pilot. I can give you detailed instructions later if you want. It's easy once you know how.
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Release it as-is for the contest. You can bake your textures into a single texture afterwards. It's what I do to have baked glows on my pilot. I can give you detailed instructions later if you want. It's easy once you know how.
I think I'll take your advice.
Time to finish this thing up.
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Inb4 deadline. I hope it works. Didn't finish the Khepri, though. I'll add it in in a later release.
Big thanks to everyone who helped and gave me ideas. fightermedic, if I beat you, it's your own fault. :p
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nice :)
Downloaded and added to model-contest-example-mission
seems like with your ship added i've now got all the models, tomorrow will be a busy mission freding day
edit: after a first glance at it ingame i can say it does look much better now, thanks to the changed texture and of course specularity
baking the glowmap would improve the quality even further, make sure to follow The Daggers instructions and do that :)
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My release was rushed (for one thing, I made the cockpit canopy completely transparent), and the extension will give me some much-needed time to patch my release up.
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if you haven't noticed: your mirror reflectivity is way over the top, you probably should increase the transparency of your shine map
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As promised, a little guide into baking maps in Blender.
1) I suppose that you have your model looking sharp and good with all debris and stuff done. I will be using the Sekhmet to show you how to bake your pilot (or other parts) into a single texture, in order to reduce the quantity of textures. Beware that texture baking may be a math intensive process for your PC; so if you have an Intelgrated setup, you'll need a lot of patience.
The Sekhmet as released uses 3 materials:
-Sekhmet-map for the diffuse, mapped into Sekhmet.dds
-Sekhmet-trans-map for the transpared cockpit, mapped into Sekhmet-trans.dds
-Vaspilot-map for the pilot, mapped into Pilot.png
The UV layout is called UV1 and is refered by all materials. Here's an image of the materials configuration:
(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/1_zps97157cbc.png) (http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/Dagguerreotype/media/Misc/1_zps97157cbc.png.html)
UV1 includes UVs for debris too (I did it the complicated way, but since 2.68 you can use the AtlasMap addon to map several different objects into one map).
2) You'll need a new UV map. First add a new UV layout (in my case, UV2), select it and then do whatever you like to fit all your stuff into a single map. Of course your pilot UVs are huge so you'll have to reduce them. You can use the Stretch->Area option to ensure your resolution is good enough. Blue means your texture resolution is like the average, so I scale down to blue and then go up a bit, which makes it green or something (being a detailed object, the pilot deserves it).
Fortunatelly, I was able to fit my pilot UV into some unused space, so I won't touch the texture further. If you can't do that, you can move things all you need, it won't change much, but take into account that baking can blur textures a bit, so I prefer to keep the other parts the same and just add the new parts in GIMP.
(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/2_zpsfbd5f68c.png) (http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/Dagguerreotype/media/Misc/2_zpsfbd5f68c.png.html)
3) Now, create a new texture with the same size as your original one. If you don't, you'll be trying to read and write from the same file and Blender won't let you. Assign your UVs to the new map (mine's called Bake).
4) Before baking, make sure that your UV2 has the little camera on (this means that the render will use that UV instead of the other, the materials however are specified to use the other).
Now you're all set. Go to the bake menu, select textures, select your mesh and hit bake!
(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/3_zps4ab843c1.png) (http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/Dagguerreotype/media/Misc/3_zps4ab843c1.png.html)
5) Once your rendering is over, save your file and you should have something like this:
(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/4_zps3309f5ff.png) (http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/Dagguerreotype/media/Misc/4_zps3309f5ff.png.html)
6) Now, you have to reexport your model. In order to do so, I have to delete VasPilot-map as a material and apply Sekhmet instead. If you don't want to do all the conversion again, you can just delete your subobject from PCS2 and load the new one from your dae. Don't forget to check the export options, you should have "Copy" and "Material textures" checked but nothing else in the texture part. Finally, don't forget to remove your vaspilot reference from your pof. And we're done... are we?
7) You can also bake from one object to another and this is specially usefull for debris. First, you should already have your debris mapped. Select detail0 then your debris. Then hit bake, but this time check the option (Selected to active). This way, your debris will reflect perfectly your ship texture without using it directly. The problem when your debris is mapped to your normal texture is that your glowmaps will remain glowing after your ship is destroyed which looks stupid. And once you have integrated that bake into your diffuse you can add all the wear and tear you want to those debris.
This is how it looked like with debris baked:
[(http://i1169.photobucket.com/albums/r503/Dagguerreotype/Misc/5_zps7b55e50d.png) (http://s1169.photobucket.com/user/Dagguerreotype/media/Misc/5_zps7b55e50d.png.html)
There is some nonsense there over the cuted areas but you should be texturing over those anyway so it's no problem.
So, why should we go into all this trouble?
1- Lots of textures is bad for Freespace AFAIK. Reducing them is good.
2- Having firing debris instead of glowing blue bits of a ship looks cooler.
3- You could use the same technique to transform a tiled ship into a "UVmapped" ship.
4- Once you have a mapped mesh, you can add ambient occlusion and baked glowmaps. But baking glowmaps is another story...
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^^ I think your pics are missing. Just sayin'.
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^Yeah, thanks for the heads up, photobucket decided to change my images names when I move them to folders... :banghead:
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You're welcome. This wouldn't be great unless it had at least basic textures. Btw, nice ship you've made! I like it.
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Thanks, Husker. And thank you, The Dagger, for the texture-baking guide.
But I'm having a problem. I think I'm following the right steps to bake my pilot and ship textures together, but whenever I actually try to bake them, I get a messy texture like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/gQxoAmK.png) (http://imgur.com/gQxoAmK)
Any idea what I might be doing wrong here? Thanks!
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I've never had that problem myself, but if you upload your blend file I'll see what I can do.
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Thank you very much. Here's my blend file, just before trying to texture-bake.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0-LZC1urvqDRWxhNXlGMDVMWFk/edit?usp=sharing
The resulting texture is the mess in my previous post.
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Quick reminder that we are officially into the last 24 hours, and that all entries must be finalized by midnight tonioght GMT (22.5 hours away). We can't offer any more extensions I'm afraid.
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You have several problems:
1- You didn't create a new UV map (see step 2). You'll have to restart because the vasudan model has no reference to it's original UVmap.
2- Your materials have to have a reference to the UVmap. Also, mapping should be set to "UVmap", your is "Generated". That's probably whats giving you such strange results.
Finally, I don't have your maps, so I can't do it for you.
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Thanks again, but I think I'll finish the texture-baking later, as the current model's not slow enough to desperately need the optimization.
With that said, here's my contest entry, version 1.21:
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B0-LZC1urvqDV1BSbWd3UldmaVE/edit?usp=sharing
(http://i.imgur.com/6TU1zm7.jpg) (http://imgur.com/6TU1zm7)
The Ammit includes two table files: Ammit-shp is a bomber, and AmmitFighter-shp is an interceptor. Copy the entry of whichever one you're using to your ships-tbm, and delete/ignore the other one.
The Ammit comes with the GVM Khepri anti-capital dumbfire rocket.
(http://i.imgur.com/Copymkw.jpg) (http://imgur.com/Copymkw)
ED: Added radar icon entries to tables.
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Looks good. I especially like the volume of Khepri missiles in that picture. Are they fired in quick succession or will it rely on shear volume of bombers?
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Thanks. Khepris are two-shot missiles, so a standard twin-linked volley is 4 missiles.
BTW, fightermedic, if you're listening, when/if you're done with your contest showcase mission, could you please put up a link? I'd like to see it.
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sure, i'm not going to create a mission that nobody can play ;) in fact i have been working on it the last 2 hours, just didn't have much time last week, so it's not as far as i would have hoped
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:bump:
I've Wiki'd this ship (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/GVB_Ammit) but the download link is broken, and I was therefore unable to include any table data. Patch it up, team!
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UPDATED LINK (https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B0-LZC1urvqDc3YteUtrUUNKS2s)
Pleasantly surprised that anyone remembers this model exists. :p
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Nobody mentioned it when I was looking for a next-generation Vasudan interceptor (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=91042.0) and since it wasn't on the Wiki, it fell through the cracks.