Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Davin on February 26, 2007, 08:26:41 am
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Well its the first model that I've come close to calling completed. Imput on what to do with it is welcome.
(http://img176.imageshack.us/img176/7990/fighterfullkp6.th.jpg) (http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=fighterfullkp6.jpg)
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Nice! :yes:
Are you using the mirror modifier though? It'll make your life a whole lot easier only having to model half of it. ;)
I can show you how to use it if you'd like.
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Nice! :yes:
Are you using the mirror modifier though? It'll make your life a whole lot easier only having to model half of it. ;)
I can show you how to use it if you'd like.
Yeah I mirrored it, but they way I did it I had to manually line the thing up again, oh well 5 mins work gone :p but if there is a script in blender that does that automatically it'd be great to know how to use it.
Edit: Just realised that that pic was saved as a bmp, fixed.
Edit2: Ok well I realised that I hadn't officially mirrored it the first time, but due to the thing not saving properly I had to remake the primary guns, and discovered the real mirror modifier, that'll make things easier.
Oh and does anyone know why when I go into anything to do with the textures (or try to import in into ts) a whole load of the mesh goes transparent?
(http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/4674/clearnessws8.th.jpg) (http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=clearnessws8.jpg)
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Oh you found it yourself then? Good. :)
The transparency you're seeing is because some of the normals on the mesh are facing inwards rather than outwards. Faces are only visible from the side where their normal is on. You don't see it in edit mode because you probably have 'double sided' faces enabled (mesh tools on the buttons window when it's in edit mode (F9) ).
To fix that, tab back into edit mode, select all and press ctrl+n to recalculate all normals so they're on the outside of the model.
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Let me tell you that for a first attempt its not bad at all :)
That normal recalculate only works if ur model is perfectly concealed though... so if you do it and you still have the problem, look closely for any model errors
As for what to do next... you already have a nice main body, now you just need to add details to it. Feel free to shout me in PM if u need any tips\help with tools in blender :) ... only the mesh ones though, I dont do NURBS :P
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Oh you found it yourself then? Good. :)
The transparency you're seeing is because some of the normals on the mesh are facing inwards rather than outwards. Faces are only visible from the side where their normal is on. You don't see it in edit mode because you probably have 'double sided' faces enabled (mesh tools on the buttons window when it's in edit mode (F9) ).
To fix that, tab back into edit mode, select all and press ctrl+n to recalculate all normals so they're on the outside of the model.
Oh so theres a script that does what I just did manualy... oh joy, now that woulda saved some time. Anyways back to adding some details, my only questions are would it be better to integrate them directly into the main model or have them as a seperate model like all the pipes on the hurc. That and how do you make surfaces into glass, for example the cockpit of a ship. Thanks for the help so far.
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Well about the mirroring, what I do is just use the mirror command (M then choose an axis to mirror), then I get the 2 sides together, and finally I select the middle line vertices (the ones that should b the same ones, and not 2 separated ones) and do a remove doubles.
As for question no2: it depends. If your aiming at just regular stuff, then do it in the original model (may b more time consuming, but it pays off later in the models "professionalism" and the UV mapping). However for detail object LOD stuff, obviously it has to be separate sub-objects
Reference to the HTL Hecate to see what im talking about: ive done lots of greebling\detail on the main mesh, but then it has all those separate LODed objects
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Your ship looks like the Oracle from INF SCP!
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Your ship looks like the Oracle from INF SCP!
Hmm, well it wasn't inspired by that, in fact I was trying to create something original without drawing overly on other models. Anyways some changes have been inplemented to add more detail and I'll post a updated pic sometime tomorrow after I do some more work on it.
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Glass as in glass that will be transparent and have geometry behind/beneath it?
The main thing with that at this stage is to simply make it a separate object from the rest of the model. Once your model and textures are done and you're ready to convert, you re-attach the glass object to the main mesh in Truespace before saving. What this does is ensures that the glass polygons are last in the list to be rendered in-game, so the transparency works properly and the glass doesn't hide parts of the ship beneath it.
As for the details, you'll have to use your judgment. Here are the three main options though:
1) Geometrically attach or integrate detail on to your mesh. This is the most common method and should be used on most medium-large scale details.
If something is geometrically attached to your mesh, clicking any single verticie on either the mesh or the detail and pressing ctrl + L should select all verts in both parts.
As long as there are no holes (missing faces, disconnected verts etc), this is the most stable type of model during conversions and in-game.
Example:
(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/DetailType1.jpg)
2) Have your detail as a part of the same mesh, but the pieces themselves are separate. Ie, if you select a vert on the detail and press ctrl + L, only the verts that make up the detail will be selected.
This is the method you should use for small details like pipes and stuff where it would be a waste of polys to geometrically attach them.
This method is usally quite stable as long as you keep the separated objects relatively simple. If you begin building huge chunks of hull out of separate pieces, it will most likely cause problems somewhere along the line.
Example:
(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/DetailType2.jpg)
3) Have your detail as a separate mesh from your hull mesh entirely. Use this method only where you want the game to recognise the detail as a separate object, such as a radar dishes, turrets, rotating subsystems or detail boxes (basically detail that will only be drawn when close to it).
Whatever you do, don't use this method to build your ship's hull out of separate objects, because this would get you the least stable and probably a PCS crash-happy result. I can explain this in more depth if needbe - it has to do with Truespace and PCS.
Example:
(http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/Pics/DetailType3.jpg)
So yeah - just pick which type you want to use based on what type of detail you're trying to achieve.
Raven: I didn't know you used Blender? Awesome. :)
(though you might want to look up the mirror modifier in the edit section of the buttons panel - it'll mirror everything as you go rather than you having to use the mirror tool (m), and once you apply it you don't have to remove doubles ;) )
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Yes Ive always used Blender untill now... bar some "post-production" and UV mapping (when I can manage it) in 3dsMax... its an excellent progrie, its free, and simple to use on the mesh editing, so why not? :)
Only things i find lacking atm is a decent bevel and inset\outline command. And yeah i kno bout that mirror linked thingy... just not used to using it (old school eheh) :P
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say, what exactly is your method for UV mapping acurately? im exelent at models, but in UV maps i fail.
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Anyways, heres some added detail. I'm going to do some more after work tommorrow but for now that'll do. Oh that and I broke 1k polys
(http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4748/multiday4je9.th.jpg) (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=multiday4je9.jpg)
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say, what exactly is your method for UV mapping acurately? im exelent at models, but in UV maps i fail.
I use planar, cubic\box, and Unwrap... depending ont he situation
Anyways, heres some added detail. I'm going to do some more after work tommorrow but for now that'll do. Oh that and I broke 1k polys
(http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4748/multiday4je9.th.jpg) (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=multiday4je9.jpg)
Whats that ship supposed to be btw?For a rough estimate of the polys you should be aiming for
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Anyways, heres some added detail. I'm going to do some more after work tommorrow but for now that'll do. Oh that and I broke 1k polys
(http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/4748/multiday4je9.th.jpg) (http://img179.imageshack.us/my.php?image=multiday4je9.jpg)
Whats that ship supposed to be btw?For a rough estimate of the polys you should be aiming for
Its going to be a fighter, so I'd say ~2k polys
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yep, although dont be shy :D
My fighters nowadays have about 3.5k polys, without cockpit... but i tendo to do a bit more LODing prowess, not to cause slowdowns.
But yeah 2k is about it for starters, once you understand LODs better, you will see you can exagerate a bit more :)
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Agreed, lod 0 for me is usually between 2000-3000 polys depending now how much i like the model. The bigger the ship the more polys usually. Cockpits for me usually sit in the 500-600 poly range.
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Anyways I added some details, piping and stuff. Oh and I was just wondering would secondary weapons but inset tubes or missiles/torpedos with their heads sticking out like I currently have it?
(http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/4581/day5eveningcg3.th.jpg) (http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=day5eveningcg3.jpg)
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Lowering the smoothing value would help it out a lot :yes:
and if you ever release it as source (not just pof) I have some ideas that I could turn it into, either a corvette, gunboat or bomber
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Well here's an actual render, I couldn't figure out how to change the smoothing values while in edit mode, but I managed to figure how to change the render values.
(http://img182.imageshack.us/img182/7017/day5render2ei6.th.jpg) (http://img182.imageshack.us/my.php?image=day5render2ei6.jpg)
Edit: Wonders why firefox randomly shut down when I clicked post... blender did that earlier too, maybe its time for a reboot.
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Looking better. Looks like you might need to do manual selection of smoothing groups (or whatever blender uses) round the cockpit area.
*Paging Vasudian Admiral* :D
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i use blender too... ;)
well it looks like he made some new faces after he set the smoothing, just reselect and smooth again
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Actually I wouldn't bother looking into smoothgroups blender-wise, since there's no way they'll survive the conversion to cob. ;)
Scoob, stop stressing about smoothgroups so much! :p As I said in the other thread, just let the geometric detail speak for itself rather than hiding it under smoothing. The process of making sure the smoothing is right is just about the last thing you do before converting your cob->pof, so it really doesn't matter at this stage.
Anyways, good progress Davin. :)
Out of curiosity, have you got a cockpit modeled under where I presume the glass is?
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If your doing blocky FS2 type ships then yes, smoothing is really irrelevant. If your doing aerodynamic style, then smoothing is quite important, it'll allow you to get away with blockier ships than you would actually need. Personally this early on I'd remove smoothing all together.
Is this sorta what you were aiming for Davin?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/davin1.jpg)
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i use blender too... ;)
well it looks like he made some new faces after he set the smoothing, just reselect and smooth again
Nope the auto smooth setting didn't like those faces, had to mess around with the wacked goemetry around the cockpit. If my original plans for this ship went right it'd be more of a destroyer now, but seeing as it looked to me alot more like a fighter I changed it, and the cockpit addon wasn't done the best.
Edit: Updated the pic in my last post.
If your doing blocky FS2 type ships then yes, smoothing is really irrelevant. If your doing aerodynamic style, then smoothing is quite important, it'll allow you to get away with blockier ships than you would actually need. Personally this early on I'd remove smoothing all together.
Is this sorta what you were aiming for Davin?
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/davin1.jpg)
Not quite, when I was modeling my ship I really couldn't visualize what I wanted clearly enough, and thats whats taken me the longest about making this thing. Just a question, how long did it take you to model that?
Anyways, good progress Davin. :)
Out of curiosity, have you got a cockpit modeled under where I presume the glass is?
I really wish there was, I'll probably work on that thursday night, tommorrows a bit busy so i won't have any time to do work on it then. I was experimenting with glass materials with blender, and I wonder, If I did it in blender would it survive the conversion to cob? Because I personally loath ts 3.2
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oh u are using autosmooth... i thought u were hand selecting the verts u wanted smooth. ok. well that last one turned out nice
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I'm writing up a tutorial on the whole subject at the moment actually, and I'm happy to say that yes, you can do everything but heirarchy setup in Blender.
The transparency of the cockpit actually comes from simply having the glass on a separate texture map to the main hull called 'glass', rather than having to do with setting up proper transparency in the 3d app.
So, what I'd suggest you have a go at is selecting the polys you want to be the glass and press P to separate them from the ship object. (You will re-merge it in the heirarchy setup stage) Now move your new glass object straight up and out of the way, holding ctrl to snap it by increments to make putting it back in place later a lot easier.
Then go back to your ship and see if you can model in a simple cockpit beneath the glass. Doesn't have to be fancy. :)
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:yes: i did't know that every thing could be done in Blender.... this is good. Very good :nod:
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Not quite, when I was modeling my ship I really couldn't visualize what I wanted clearly enough, and thats whats taken me the longest about making this thing. Just a question, how long did it take you to model that?
Probably ten minutes or so.. I was jumping back and forth between max and your pictures.
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I'm writing up a tutorial on the whole subject at the moment actually, and I'm happy to say that yes, you can do everything but heirarchy setup in Blender.
The transparency of the cockpit actually comes from simply having the glass on a separate texture map to the main hull called 'glass', rather than having to do with setting up proper transparency in the 3d app.
So, what I'd suggest you have a go at is selecting the polys you want to be the glass and press P to separate them from the ship object. (You will re-merge it in the heirarchy setup stage) Now move your new glass object straight up and out of the way, holding ctrl to snap it by increments to make putting it back in place later a lot easier.
Then go back to your ship and see if you can model in a simple cockpit beneath the glass. Doesn't have to be fancy. :)
Thanks for the advice, I'll have to remember this.
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I have a idea, we create all a cruiser, and we place in mission and BATTLE!!!!!!!!!!!
We will see the best cruiser :lol: :lol: :lol:
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:doubt:
not good idea?...
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yeah blender can do almost anything, but I prefer reserving UV mapping to toher proggries... as far as im aware, blender catn bake maps from tiles nor it can UV unwrap... I may be wrong though.
I confess I havent explored much of blender except for mesh editing tools
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It can do both actually. ;) In fact, I find the UV mapping system in Blender nicer to use than lithunwrap's once you get the hang of it.
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I dont use Lithunwrap... i use max :P
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Hmm, well here's my attempt at a cockpit. And I have to say thanks to V. Admiral for the advice on how to make my canopy look like glass.
(http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/3336/renderday7nosmoothsy5.th.jpg) (http://img86.imageshack.us/my.php?image=renderday7nosmoothsy5.jpg)
Edit: heh, forgot the link to the pic :P
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LOoking good, but kill the smoothing when ur taking pics. Not very good to see the detail of the model with smoothing
Also, u can take out the missiles from the pods, its a waste of valuable polys, in a place where a texture will do fine. Better use those polys on the underdetailed areas, like the engine pods, etc :)
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Ok, I updated the above picture, without smoothing amoung other things. As for the detailing in the engine pods, I'm actually a bit stuck there, I don't really know what to do with the front to them for detailing. I could easily add an inset section on the sides with some piping and whatnot but I really think that the front needs detail too, I'm just at a loss for what to put there.
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greebling, exausts, anything... it just cant stay plain :D
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Nice work on the cockpit! You've come a long way already, so well done indeed. :D
As for detail - what Raven said; just about anything greeble-like. Antennae, pipes, indents, extrusions, fins, domes - that kinda thing.
Just be sure that for the smaller stuff you leave it in the same mesh but separate from the hull section, and for bigger stuff merge it with the hull as I described earlier, and you should be fine on all fronts. :)
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I agree Admiral, and another thing that can be helpful before you start bevelling and greebling is to reasonably optimize the main hull, it'll make beveling/cutting much easier if you don't have to fix as many vertices after the bevel/cut. I've found it much saner after doing a cut is weld the unnecessary vertices ASP. I also recommend using and trying to keep the modifier stack, especially if your going it edit the mesh shape. If you make a mistake or don't like the result (happens plenty of times) simply remove the entry in the stack and should fix it. :)
Looking at it now, it looks much much smaller with the pilots giving it relative size.
If you want some ideas for details, you can steal some ideas from this, it's basically your model anways :P It's always good to have a collection of detail pieces storage away.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v356/Shodan_AI/davin2.jpg)
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Errm, Scooby.....did you just pinch his design? :p
And incidentally, almost none of that 3ds type advice really applies to Blender style modeling sorry. ;)
Eg:
- His modifier stack will consist of "mirror" and that's it. Blender operates more through directly and manually manipulating the mesh than 3ds. If you want to change the shape of something, you go in manually and use the tools to do it rather than a modifier stack.
- Beveling and cutting is handled in a completely different way in Blender. Optimising the geometry before or after in the way you describe is unnessecary, because you barely run into that type of problem at all.
- The 'collection of reusable details' system isn't a particularly good way to do things in Blender, simply because it's much easier to make new cooler stuff than it is to find some old stuff that fits and then properly integrate it with the hull. New stuff gives you more modeling practice too, which is most important at this stage.
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Well I did say it was his... and on the first page too. (in fact it's named after him) ;)
Hmmm what happens when you cut a rectangle (with two polys) in half? Do you end up with 4 polys or 6?
Ok I should have added "your own personaly collection", stuff that you've made up earlier (or at least collected) :P
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I mean why are you detailing it up to release level though?
Anyways, there are a number of ways to do just about any geometry related operation in Blender actually. Remember that it won't automatically triangulate all your mesh the way 3ds will, so you have a couple of options:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/BlenderCutTypes.jpg
1) Select the two edges you want to cut in half and press W>"subdivide"
2) Select the rectangle, press K to get the knife tool, click above and below the middle of the rectangle, press enter and it will split it as you specified.
3) Don't even bother making the rectangle in the first place and just make an edge. Duplicate or extrude the edge twice in the same direction.
About the object collections, I know what you mean, but I wouldn't recommend it for the same reasons as before - it's quicker to make new cool stuff that is better taylored to the ship than it is to open up old parts that won't give you much/any modeling practice. ;)
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Because I was bored, anyways I was never going to finish it so i deleted it :lol:
Ahh I forgot about not triangulation, that would make a world of difference.
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Anyways, heres some work done today, I put some details into the engine pods and also fixed some geometry problems in the cockpit. Heres picture!
(http://img391.imageshack.us/img391/4609/renderday8afternoonqz8.th.jpg) (http://img391.imageshack.us/my.php?image=renderday8afternoonqz8.jpg)
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Nice, and I see you worked out how to make stuff transparent too.
Keep it up. :)
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I really like your transparent smooth cockpit :yes:
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Umm, just a question. how do you uv map faces (detailing) that arn't directly attached to the hull of the ship.
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I'll let Admiral explain the details on that one.
But in Max, theres two ways of handling this, that I know of. Maybe they can be translated into blender :confused:
First:
First the hard way. uvmap the main hull, export the uvmap to a bmp file (not sure what exactly the blender version for texporter is). Apply that texture to the main hull and details. Then uvmap the details piece by piece, moving the mapping so it doesn't collide with the previous mapped areas (hopefully blender allows you to see the bmp in the uv mapping window)
Second:
The Easy way :D
Attach everything into one giant object, no booleaning, welding, just plain-jane attach. You can then see everythings uvmap at once* . Once everythings to your liking and fitting nice and snug on the map, detach the details. (In max you can select subobjects and detach them, which would select all counted via vertex polys. Hence no welding or booleaning).
* although I recommend when creating the map, do it piece-meal otherwise it can be kinda overwhelming
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method "A" for UV map export... screen shot the UV's then use what ever program to crop it...
method "B"... in the image/UV editor under the UV's menu, scripts, save UV face layout.
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Ok maybe I should have been more specific. When UV mapping items that aren't directly attached to the hull via polys the UV mapping console seems to display said items with a singular line instead of a 2 dimensional polygon. At least thats my interpretation of what happens.
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Theres two things i'm thinking of right off hand...
a near zero area triangle (Max STL calls them spikes), you should find those triangles and remove them. They will confuse you when uvmapping, produce possible smoothing problems, and may even cause pcs to lockup.
or just the uvmap looks like a line rather than triangle, then thats a simple uv map editing :) (Hopefully its this one)
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Theres two things i'm thinking of right off hand...
a near zero area triangle (Max STL calls them spikes), you should find those triangles and remove them. They will confuse you when uvmapping, produce possible smoothing problems, and may even cause pcs to lockup.
or just the uvmap looks like a line rather than triangle, then thats a simple uv map editing :) (Hopefully its this one)
No, I deleted the old uv map created a new one, this one only had 1 line on it and I found that it was because of 2 faces with texture face settings different than the rest. problem seems to be solved. Gonna map it tomorrow... wait... later this morning I should say.
Edit: Yeah that fixed the problem. I have it 3/4 mapped. Mainly all I need to map it the cockpit and some other small details, although I am dreading mapping the cockpit for some reason... I should have mapping done soon (within a day or 2)
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Ok since I've wasted a few days trying to learn a good way of UV mapping without success, could someone point me to a good tutorial for how to map out my ship.
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Well, I've found a pair:
http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorial/UV-Mapping-Texturing/5852
http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/UV_Map_Basics
If they're not enough, there's a video tutorial here too:
http://blender3d.org/cms/Model_Material_Light.397.0.html
And failing all of that, ask away and I'll do my best to answer. :)
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Ok, I think I've figured UV mapping out. The absence of LSCM had been throwing me off the whole time and a thorough search online found closest thing to it in my version of blender. That being said texturing should be a very... interesting process.
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Admiral, do you know of any good tutorials for organic shaped models? Not just round or cylinder, none of my techniques really work well :blah:
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None in Max's inbuilt tut set? That seemed pretty comprehensive to me.
In Blender I know you could do a very good job with the pinning feature - where you unwrap a mesh, pin the bits you like as they are, unwrap again, pin further, unwrap again until the entire thing has been unfolded to however accurate you want it to be. This results in something like this: http://wiki.blender.org/uploads/a/ae/Manual-UV-Sue-Weld.png
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You can also use the flat angle unwrap thingie, which results in going from something like this:
http://wiki.blender.org/uploads/thumb/d/d5/Rel242_snurgle.png/642px-Rel242_snurgle.png
to something like this:
http://wiki.blender.org/uploads/thumb/8/82/Rel242_flatsnurgle.png/642px-Rel242_flatsnurgle.png
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Max will definitely have something along those lines.
Also, Davin; I've found this for Blender UV tutorials: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual
Go down to the "Painting and Modifying your UV Selection" bit. Some very good stuff there. :)