Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: didli on April 06, 2007, 07:19:51 pm
-
Hi everyone !
Here is my first 3D creation with Blender (so please ... be indulgent with me ) :
http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_fighter_2.jpg
http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_fighter_1.jpg
Actually 1744 poly. I found somewhere (in the wiki I think) that a fighter must have less than 2000 polygons ...
Do you think this model will be fine for freespace 2 ? Could you give me some advices if it's not ?
Thank you !
-
Do you think this model will be fine for freespace 2 ? Could you give me some advices if it's not ?
Thank you !
It's fine for Freespace. 2k polys is a guideline. Break it if you have to, but.. spend them well. The small guns tie up polys while the main body lacks them. The guns look like they have an internal space in the barrel. Except in screen shots you will never notice, and texture can take care of the black circle.
In other words - the guns look great but they show up the lack of attention to the body.
With good texturing you could probably get away with it as it is.
You can also use blender for unwraping and painting concept textures on the model.
For a first attempt, very good ;)
-
Try to use as few subobjects as possible.
Using one cube only is pretty much optimal. Although just sticking more objects into it, can save a lot of polygons.
BTW that model is pretty nice. ;)
-
Cut down on the number of sides for the guns, the big ones probably 6 or 8 sided, those little ones (or are the some sort of intakes, on the port side) those can be removed and handled with textures. The engines are probably ok, hard to really tell. If you can get any with using textures instead of details for small stuff then do it. I would personally cut out where the cockpit glass would be, if nothing else it'll help you if you want to add a cockpit down the road.
-
subdivide alot to add detail through extrusion, then make f-gons to reverse the poly-increase without losing detail.
-
Very nice work - for a first model that's quite impressive! :D
As far as advice goes, pretty much what's been said so far - if you can cut down on the polys used in the guns, you can add more detail elsewhere to much greater effect. Polycount is no longer really an issue as long as the ship uses just one UV-mapped texture. As Water says - the 2000 poly count is just a general guideline. One that I've broken with.....oh....just about every model I've done since the HTL engine was first implemented. ;)
subdivide alot to add detail through extrusion, then make f-gons to reverse the poly-increase without losing detail.
No, that's a really bad way of doing it sorry. What that's effectively doing (aside from causing uncountable possible problems in terms of mesh stability) is making whatever detail you add out of whatever shapes result from the subdivisions. This is bad because you have little to no control over what these details will look like - you're basically just picking polygons you want to extrude. It's an easy way of adding primitive detail, but it will come back to bite you later on.
If you want a ship to look right, you have to shape the details to look as you want them to look - not based on the shapes you can extrude from subdivided polygons. It takes a bit longer, but it's far better modeling practice, and will enable you to build FAR more complex ships than you would be able to otherwise. :)
-
Thanks all of you ! I'm relieved that I could still use this model in FS2. I will do as you said, cut some edges in guns and some other little things, in order to add some details on the main part of the ship. Textures will hopefully enhanced this main part, but for the moment I know very few about UV mapping, especially in Blender and low-poly modeling. I have a lot to learn, and understand, what I can and cannot do.
And just another thing :
I would personally cut out where the cockpit glass would be, if nothing else it'll help you if you want to add a cockpit down the road.
I'm not sure to understand what you meant Scooby_Doo. Sorry for that, some difficulties with english :sigh:
I intented to map the cockpit with a texture, and here where I would have done it : http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/cockpit.jpg (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/cockpit.jpg)
Is it what you suggest Scooby_Doo ? :confused:
Thanks again !
./me return to Blender now :)
-
delete those faces and make a cockpit tub. then make a piece of "glass" and skin both sides of it (or else it will only show from the outside) with a .tga texture, also with an alpha channel (or else the glass will be opaqe).
-
Actually don't delete those faces, simply make them a seperate object. This becomes the "glass". Then you can hide the glass and stick a cockpit tub in there. Once your done, unhide the glass and give it a glass texture :)
-
you could always have a raised cockpit :rolleyes:
-
That would work too, then you wouldn't need those polys. Although you might realize you need to slice some of those polys if you think the cockpit hole is too big.
-
I'm not sure to understand what you meant Scooby_Doo. Sorry for that, some difficulties with english :sigh:
I intented to map the cockpit with a texture, and here where I would have done it : http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/cockpit.jpg (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/cockpit.jpg)
Is it what you suggest Scooby_Doo ? :confused:
Thanks again !
./me return to Blender now :)
Doing the cockpit with textures is a good choice for your first model. Scooby is talking about when you have finished the model and then decide LATER to add a modeled cockpit. Basically having an area set aside for it, makes it easier, which you have done with that red lined area. Continue on with modeling the body. Trying to do a cockpit at this stage will just slow you down.
If you haven't used it already the knife tool is very useful- shift k
and merge vertices - w > merge
-
Alt-M will do the trick better for the merging :P
-
one quick question, excactly how long have you been making this!?
-
Thanks all of you ! Very nice from you all to give me an hand on this !
Well for now I've cut some edges, reduced the cylinders used for the guns (1517 poly (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_fighter_(1517).jpg) for the moment) and will begin some tweaks on the main part.
Also thanks to you I know all about ... cockpit modeling (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/cockpit_tweaks.jpg) for freespace 2, arf !
I will give it a try for the two methods I read about here and will decide the one I prefer later :
Actually don't delete those faces, simply make them a seperate object. This becomes the "glass". Then you can hide the glass and stick a cockpit tub in there. Once your done, unhide the glass and give it a glass texture :)
Doing the cockpit with textures is a good choice for your first model(...)
I will post the results as I make some progress. As I already said, I have to learn about UV Mapping, subobjects creations and some other details...
one quick question, excactly how long have you been making this!?
Why're you're asking :) ? Hard to tell as I learn Blender while I'm creating this fighter. Maybe 6 hours or more for the moment. Imagine this, everytime I have a problem I'm running here or into a Blender french community asking dumb questions... wait for smart answers ... then continue with the modeling. A quite great loss of time :D (I think that I would have soon succeeded making them lose patience… :lol:!)
PS : here's a strange blender behavior (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/damn_blender_behavior.jpg) while I have seperate the cockpit. It happens only when rendering, some edges I surrounded here in red do not appear like this in edit mode or object mode ... grr ...
Well now thanks again all of you, and have a nice day !
(01:54 AM here)
-
You've got the cockpit idea down pat... :) Theres a pilot model somewheres here. I could upload it if necessary. One more thing with cockpits, you will need to make sure the edge vertices of the cockpit match up with the edge vertices of the ship, otherwise you'll get slivers and be able to see the background throught the ship.
As for the guns, make the very little ones on the starboard 4-6 sides only. 8-10 is usually max needed for most. Also don't forget to remove the backside polygons, parts of the cylinder that will never be seen. On squares it isn't as important, you only delete 2, but on cyclinders it can add up over time.
-
6 HOURS? did you download a tutorial model and go off that!? it takes most people a month to make a model like that!
-
A month takashi? Wtf? Er...no. Just no. Why don't you do us all a favor and stop trying to give advice?
-
6 HOURS? did you download a tutorial model and go off that!? it takes most people a month to make a model like that!
See what happens when someone asks dumb questions (blender forum?), *listens* to the advice, thinks about it and uses what he has learned. Basically it's simple steps and figuring out how to make it better.
@didli If you don't figure what is causing that error - I'm happy to take a look at it for you.
-
That's totally awesome for your "first" fighter! I like how the ship itself is symmetrical but the weapons aren't. :yes:
Especially that you did it low poly (a decent model is nice but after adding slight detailing a really good texture will enhance it more). I've got "Fighters" in game at 8k (The Gundams) with no problems mostly, so don't be worried about limiting yourself in the future.
Don't worry about cockpits for now if you want to get used to the process and get it in game. You can always go back and redo a second version later once you become more comfortable with the whole process. (plus you know if there is a problem in the conversion process and have to go back and do more model work anyway.)
I always do an "alpha" test for stability first. (cause in my case if it fails 99% of the time I can't do anything with it t and it goes in a failure drive as I move on to the next thing.)
-
Hi again everyone ! I was pretty busy for the past few days, so I didn't have enough time to begin the whole cockpit process etc. I've made some minor updates anyway, and want to submit them to you :
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_%5b1671%5d.jpg) (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_%5b1671%5d.jpg)
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_back.jpg) (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_back.jpg)
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_face.jpg) (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_face.jpg)
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_right.jpg) (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_right.jpg)
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_top.jpg) (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_top.jpg)
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_weaponsLeft.jpg) (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_weaponsLeft.jpg)
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_weaponsRight.jpg) (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/fighter_weaponsRight.jpg)
(Hope I'm not abusing with the number of pictures posted here ...)
Comments are welcome and absolutely necessary ;)
Alt-M will do the trick better for the merging :P
Thanks for this one ! I was doing "w"+"merge" before. Pretty useful shortcut ! Did someone know the one for "select/inverse" if it exists ?
6 HOURS? did you download a tutorial model and go off that!? it takes most people a month to make a model like that!
I started from scratch (exact term ?). But I made some tutorials before to try my first modeling (like the "Your_First_Animation(...)" tuto in the Blender manual (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Manual/Your_First_Animation_in_30_plus_30_Minutes_Part_I) or @ BlenderClan (http://blenderclan.tuxfamily.org/html/modules/content/?id=97). You know, I was pretty sure for my previous post that you would had answer me something like "6 HOURS?, you're damn slow !" lol. Don't forget it's really not over yet. I think I'm gonna having a hard time with cockpit and textures ...
@didli If you don't figure what is causing that error - I'm happy to take a look at it for you.
Thanks Water, I figure it out, was a "face normals" problem.
For now I'm returning to Blender now (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/blenderlove.gif)
PS : I will release different states of the .blend files if someone want to play with it :)
-
keep it up
we like pictures
-
Thanks for this one ! I was doing "w"+"merge" before. Pretty useful shortcut ! Did someone know the one for "select/inverse" if it exists ?
Usually blender has the shortcuts shown besides each tool that has one ;)
6 HOURS? did you download a tutorial model and go off that!? it takes most people a month to make a model like that!
:wtf: PLEASE!!! Dont talk about what you dont know about... 1 month for a model?!? lol.... Only way you'd take that much time was if you only worked on it 5 mins a day
I take about 12 hours MAX for a 3k poly model. And I consider myself an experienced modeler...
Actually 6 hours is just about it for the level of detail were seeing on didlis model at the moment
-
im still shocked.
-
Don't forget it's really not over yet. I think I'm gonna having a hard time with cockpit and textures ...
You will have to balance out the amount of details you add. More details makes it harder to unwrap. After a few unwraps adding more details won't be a problem. Just don't make the first one too complex. (I'm guessing you will unwrap and texture the model)
Blender's unwrapper is good. Once the model is unwrapped, Blender can be used to paint a texture directly on the mesh. Then you just save the painted uv map. I find this useful for trying several concepts before starting up a paint program. It allows you to paint lines and texture blocks across uv boundries, something that is very hard to do with photoshop/gimp.
-
Hey Didli, can you post that version of the file ready for importing (So we don't have to wait for a cockpit?) I really like the design, and would like to see it in game as is. :)
Can blender export to .cob? I tired exporting some blender files to .3ds and nothing shows up.
-
Can blender export to .cob? I tired exporting some blender files to .3ds and nothing shows up.
Yes. For simple models. Have it on layer 1 and selected before export. If that doesn't work you may need a full install of Python. For more complex models use VA[TI]'s method. http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showpost.php?p=53300&postcount=7 (http://www.game-warden.com/forum/showpost.php?p=53300&postcount=7)
-
I seem to have gotten the link to 3d Exploration mixed up in that post. :\
Here's the propper thing: http://sectorgame.com/ti-file-dump/VasudanAdmiral/3dexplor.exe
-
link broken
-
Cockpit Progress !
Take a peek inside ...
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_cockpit06_%5b1985%5d.jpg)
"Welcome Pilot !"
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_cockpit05.jpg)
"Move your head"
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_cockpit04.jpg)
"I can see you"
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_cockpit03.jpg)
"..."
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_cockpit02.jpg)
"If I'm that close ... You're dead, pilot"
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/sp_cockpit01.jpg)
3... 2... 1... Comment ! :)
Pfiouu. Had a hard time with these, cockpit and pilot (you certainly noticed that cockpit is not "closed" for the moment and that we can see inside the model, it will be done asap). I've learned a lot of new things too :)
I think I will stop with modeling before details begin to interfere with my uvmapping knowledge ...
You can check .blend + .cob files in a zip here : http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/SpSh.zip (http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/SpSh.zip)
Use it as you like and show me the result if you want to.
-
nice cockpit. slight hi-polyness in that area. also, nice overall job with noticing bad geometry and flipped normals: i see none. to put it simply: you rock!
-
Wow, well done! :) You're learning fast I see. (unlike certain others :rolleyes:)
Looking over the .blend now, it mostly looks great. However there are two things you'll need to change in order to get a stable mesh.
1) There are a lot of non-flat 4 vertex faces over the model - meaning one of the 4 vertices is out of alignment with the other 3. To fix this, you'll need to triangulate it: press space>edit>faces>convert to triangles (or ctrl+T)
Problem here is that now you'll have a pair of spots where the geometry has triangulated incorrectly - the front hinge-like thing on each wing. You'll see a darker patch appear showing where the problem edges and unwanted polygon are, and so all you'll need to do is delete them and place some new ones that fit.
If you need help here, I can post some screenies to help. :)
2) This is a slightly bigger issue I'm afraid. Go to the edit menu (F9), and under the Mesh section, find and un-press the "Double Sided" button. You'll notice that most of your model will remain the same, but a lot of the cockpits interior will suddenly turn black. You may have heard of the term 'polygon normal' somewhere before - what it is is basically a direction the polygon faces, pointing out of the face. The reason for this is that in games, polygons can _only_ be one-sided. You won't be able to see the face at all if you are looking parallel to the faces normal. (Check Wikipedia's article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_normal) for more info.)
In this case, you have the reverse side of the polygons that form the outter hull also forming the inside of the cockpit. It worked because Blender was set to display two sides to every poly, but in game, they can only be either the outside or the inside of the hull - they can't be both.
Fixing this is a bit tricky, since you're going to have to split the parts of the cockpit you want to keep off from the rest of the mesh. This will mean him, his chair and controls will need to be selected and split (press Y) off from the mesh. I'd recommend you then move him straight up and out of the way (holding ctrl to keep it in set incriments, making it easy to reposition him later) so you can work on what's called the cockpit tub.
This is basically just a fancy indent in the outter hull mesh that will form the area the pilot sits in. Even though it will be 'inside' the hull, as far as the game is concerned it's still the outside, and so will render it correctly. You then put your pilot back there, but you can keep him and his controls separate from the main hull mesh. (keep him in the same object, you just don't need to attach him to the rest of the mesh.)
It's tricky I know, but this sorta thing will get easier with practice. Just let us know if you need more specific help with any part of this. :)
Keep it up. :yes:
-
Fixing this is a bit tricky, since you're going to have to split the parts of the cockpit you want to keep off from the rest of the mesh. This will mean him, his chair and controls will need to be selected and split (press Y) off from the mesh. I'd recommend you then move him straight up and out of the way (holding ctrl to keep it in set incriments, making it easy to reposition him later) so you can work on what's called the cockpit tub.
Hmm ... unexpected.
Just Control+N for selected annoying polygons won't do the trick ?
Like this ?
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/Normals01.jpg)
(http://designed2.free.fr/work_in_progress/Normals02.jpg)
-
No sorry - the polygons are still going to be one-sided in-game. The part you just recalculated normals for will appear properly, but any walls you have that are just one polygon thick will only show up one side. In fact, just having a look at the cockpitted model in Truespace reveals what it will look like in-game:
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/BlenderTutorialStuff/CockpitFaceProblem.jpg)
Have a look at the attached .blend file for a clearer idea of how cockpit tubs work. :)
[attachment deleted by admin]
-
Can you set blender to show one sided only? I don't think you can in Truespace and Max it's default is onesided.
-
Hmm ... unexpected.
Just Control+N for selected annoying polygons won't do the trick ?
Yes it will work - for a mesh that is correctly setup to have an inside and outside, otherwise when you try to convert it to Freespace format it will cause problems. If the inside and outside share faces, it won't work as expected. Don't let the cockpit share faces with the hull.
The cockpit should be thought of as a cavity. It is NOT part of the inside of the mesh. It is part of the outside. If the model was real, and you had a paint brush - any part you can paint should be part of the mesh exterior.
For an example, look at the cockpit floor.
The poly face at the bottom of the chair (the floor for the pilot) --- and on the reverse side, it is part of the hull. Control+N won't be able to figure which part is inside or outside because they both join at this point. The only real way to sort it out is to get the model geometry correct.
Best way is to make a cockpit with its own walls and floor - and drop that in. Get rid of any parts that come from the outside through the wall into the cockpit space.
Besides some geometry issues it looks really good. :) Add some details to the underneath part as it looks very bare.
(http://www.game-warden.com/forum/imagehosting/9584621b4ac9273b.jpg)
@Scooby_Doo
Blender can set faces to be either single or double sided.
-
Best way is to make a cockpit with its own walls and floor
Cool ! It was planned :)
I figured out the issues, thanks to you all ! (http://designed2.free.fr/forums/smileys/love.gif) Lovely forum ...
Got some work that need to be done, then I will tweak the model accordingly to the solutions I saw here.
Thanks again !
-
Best way is to make a cockpit with its own walls and floor
Yup, besides you'll need to seperate the cockpit tub from the model before you convert to POF, otherwise it won't be visible from the outside.
Another good reason is then you can recycle the tub over again on a different model :)
-
Yup, besides you'll need to seperate the cockpit tub from the model before you convert to POF, otherwise it won't be visible from the outside.
Not true actually. As long as the cockpit glass is the absolute last thing on the main hulls polygon list, then the cockpit interior - and this includes submodels within the cockpit - will render just fine, as will viewing parts of the hull right through the glass. :)
The only thing that may cause trouble is if you have a semi-transparent HUD in the cockpit. I think I know how to handle them so they have no transparency issues (ie, not being correctly transparent if viewed from outside the cockpit glass etc.), but I'm yet to test it.
-
Yup, besides you'll need to seperate the cockpit tub from the model before you convert to POF, otherwise it won't be visible from the outside.
Not true actually. As long as the cockpit glass is the absolute last thing on the main hulls polygon list, then the cockpit interior - and this includes submodels within the cockpit - will render just fine, as will viewing parts of the hull right through the glass. :)
The only thing that may cause trouble is if you have a semi-transparent HUD in the cockpit. I think I know how to handle them so they have no transparency issues (ie, not being correctly transparent if viewed from outside the cockpit glass etc.), but I'm yet to test it.
Oh, I've always read it must be seperate otherwise it won't be rendered. Course how do you make it the last thing on the list?
-
Easiest way to do it is to have the glass as a separate object alltogether right up until you're ready to convert. After ALL your other heirarchy is done, just use the scene editor to drag it onto the detail0 object group. It should appear at the bottom of detail0's list of geometry objects. (The other object groups like lods and debris will still appear below it)
-
the ventallation outcropping and the "pane;" are not only a pain to map, but dont show up in game without bold textures. along with alot of details.
-
You'd be surprised on both accounts there I think. ;)
UV mapping vents and other small details is quite easy. Just select the faces that your larger scale UV projections didn't capture properly, find a camera angle that will display the whole of them and project from view again. Repeat until all details are decently mapped.
And you no longer *need* bold textures to bring out details on stuff thanks to shine maps. Certainly good maps are still very very important, but the shine maps will basically illuminate the geometric details, like this:
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/Comanche1.jpg)
The textures there were from the original Loki, and as such are very low res and blurred, yet you can still pretty clearly see the details. :)
Bottom line: Add as much detail as you _need_ to get the ship looking as you had envisaged (within reason).
-
the ventallation outcropping and the "pane;" are not only a pain to map, but dont show up in game without bold textures. along with alot of details.
Most of your problems will be with the way you divide the model into texture regions. Trouble is that your unwrapping skills are probably not yet at the level of your modeling skills. :rolleyes:
There is nothing on this model that you can't sort out with some thought.
-
hey! A HTL LOKI!
PS: im using wings. complete with screwy camera controls and limited uvmapping abilites. but its still easier than max.....(which i still cant load a texture into)
-
You already knew about the Loki. Look here: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,46577.msg949697.html#msg949697
See? You said you liked the low poly one. :p
And actually, that's not a Loki. It's an ugly - look in this thread: http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,44840.msg914744.html#msg914744
The actual Loki I've been building has it's new textures 90% complete. There are now-out-of-date pics at the end of that ^ thread there.
-
look at the cockpit. its so..blocky. so yes, it is an ugly. give it more of a smoothing job around the front end and it will be a pretty :lol:
-
...huh?
The ugly is meant to be ugly. That's the cockpit of the FS1 support ship - why would I want to smooth it?