Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: Enioch on September 29, 2008, 08:32:39 am
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Been working on this for a week now.
GTT Pelargos ("Stork" in English). Heavily armored transport for non-military VIPs. Pretty old (pre-Great War) design, upgraded with flak guns and still in use, wherever deploying an Argo is a no-go. Can't be used as a troop transport, since the payload space is limited to the centrifuge wheel -the whole 'back' section is just an engine room. Engines are independent from one another, so even if one is destroyed, the ship can still move.
Modeling is done. Texturing is at ca 90%.
[attachment deleted by ninja]
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Wow, that's gorgeous! Really rugged. The texturing makes the ship here; you took what could have been an ugly gray box and made it into a beautiful gray box. :D
...Hm, on second glance that looks an awful lot like the Greeble plugin for 3DS Max. Did you bake all that onto the texture, or are all those panels and pieces contributing to the polycount?
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Polys I'm afraid. 11k of them. :(
I know, I know, it tops the Deimos. But it's worth it, up close. ;7 After all, it's an old ship and a rarely used one at that (even in the GW times); you can't expect to see more than one (two tops) in any mission.
And I've got two more detail levels (as yet untextured, but coming along nicely). :cool:
det0=~10k polys
det1=~500 polys
det2=~300 polys
And the turrets (flak is ready and blob is nearly done) =~100 polys per turret (4 total)
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Polys I'm afraid. 11k of them. :(
I know, I know, it tops the Deimos. But it's worth it, up close. ;7 After all, it's an old ship and a rarely used one at that (even in the GW times); you can't expect to see more than one (two tops) in any mission.
And I've got two more detail levels (as yet untextured, but coming along nicely). :cool:
det0=~10k polys
det1=~500 polys
det2=~300 polys
And the turrets (flak is ready and blob is nearly done) =~100 polys per turret (4 total)
No, it's not worth it i'm afraid. You should never have that many polies for anything under cruiser sized :blah:
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Good work on textures :yes:, but the model doesn't give me FreeSpace feeling :blah:
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Bake it. Do the greebles with normal maps. That will probably take you down to ~2000 polies. You can then spend the rest on other fun details.
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Bake it. Do the greebles with normal maps. That will probably take you down to ~2000 polies. You can then spend the rest on other fun details.
Like what?
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Radar dishes, animated docking rings, ornamental tissue boxes...
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11k poly needs to look more complex. Don't waste polys in minor details. As Galemp said normal maps can take care of them.
http://www.acetylenegames.com/artbymasa/tuts/tut-modeling_for_next-gen_games.jpg (http://www.acetylenegames.com/artbymasa/tuts/tut-modeling_for_next-gen_games.jpg)
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I'd like also to see it more FreeSpace-Universe styled :)
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Yes, elysium mk II. I always thought those things looked/performed way better than the argo
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Baby Omega :D how sweet, i want one for a pet :yes:
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Smoothen it out a bit: I like the blocky look, but it's too blocky.
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@Snail & Galemp: good points, I'm working on it
@Bob-San: It's meant to be blocky. :p But I see what you mean. I'll try to smoothen it a bit, but don't expect any major changes
@shiv_pl: I aim to please, but I really think it is Freespace-themed. If you have any suggestions I'd be happy to implement them.
@Everybody: I think I'll set myself a 3-4k poly limit and see where it leads me. Honestly, although I have some experience with max, I've never had to work with normal maps before :nervous: (thanks for the tutorial, Water ;) ). I'll do my best.
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The other way for creating normal maps is using height maps http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,55854.0.html (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,55854.0.html)
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I'd say change most of those 90o angles into two 45o angles or something. Also, I personally dislike the Star Trek-esque engines. Blue? :(
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Also, I personally dislike the Star Trek-esque engines. Blue? :(
Gimme a break :lol:
No, really, that's easy to fix. I'd say 15' in Photoshop. But I thought since most GTA ships have blue thrusters, I might as well give it a blue cooling grid.
And I MeshSmoothed the Hull (working on the wheel and engine(s), now). The big blocky panels are still there, but their edges are more 'rounded'
As for the general 'boxy' feel, honestly I like it better as-is. I'll give it a radar dish or two, and use my extra ~7000 polies to add a few details, but the general feel is (and should be) that of a 'flying brick'. It's not meant to be beautiful. :)
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Flying brick.. now it has 3 engines :lol:
You could relay replace al those thousand of polys by good texture and bumpmap :)
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Werllll...it seems I've hit a snag. :doubt:
The normal texture MAX bakes is crappy. Even at 2048^2, I get foggy outlines and greeble offsetting. Plus, Max takes about an hour to bake the texture.
I tried NVIDIA's MeLODy, but, honestly, I have no idea how to use it. The user manual I got with it sucks; half the interface it refers to is missing. :hopping:
If you have any suggestions, please help... :nervous:
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xNormal can create maps from either high poly models or heightmap textures.
http://www.xnormal.net/2.aspx (http://www.xnormal.net/2.aspx)
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Yes, it seems it can. But I still got problems :(
Take a look at this. I've loaded my meshes (both objs and I've tried BOTH the native 3ds max exporter AND the gw:obj one. There's no difference in the result). I've given it a +/-1 ray distance, averaged the normals (for some reason I can't 'harden' them, or xNormal crashes during rendering), tried it both with and without a cage. Tried increasing/decreasing values in ray distance. I still get this nasty 'curve' thing in my normal map.
And the final hull looks like this; light comes from above and left. I hate it.
Still, it's better than anything I've achieved with 3ds max or MeLODy. I like xNormal; I find it more intuitive and effective. But, somehow I can't get rid of THE CURVE OF DOOM! (TM)
[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]
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SUCCESS! ;7
Height Map + NVIDIA Photoshop Plugin =Total WIN! :D
Who needs crappy mesh projection?
[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]
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Congrats :yes:
Saved yourself some aggro there. :)
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Just out of curiosity, how many polys in the low poly object?
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Looks like about a hundred. :blah:
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Looks like about a hundred. :blah:
Why, thank you very much! :D
Appearances can be deceiving: 550 tris.
And I've added normals not only to the panels, but to the rust/bumps as well. Tell me what you think.
I don't like the rear. If you concur, I think I'll do the airlock (the bit in the middle) with polies. I want it to stand out more. And I'll fix the diffuse texture, so that the greebles aren't all the same dull grey
I'll probably start on the wheel today.
BTW, I know it's to soon, but I like to plan ahead; Snail, you mentioned animated docking rings etc. I'm pretty sure I can do rotating subsystems (eg the wheel), but how can I do something that 'swings'? You know, like docking clamps, or similar?
[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]
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Height maps rule, but projection rules more! :D
Seriously, I want to crack my head against a wall. All I had to do, was work with no 'cage', and Max creates Normal Textures like a charm! :cool: They're 'deeper' and more accurate than anything I could have done with height maps.
Here is the new hull and Centrifuge wheel. I might tone down a bit on the 'rust' normals on the wheel.
Total faces (including the engines, which are hidden)= 1.2k
And I love it! :D
[attachment deleted by Tolwyn]
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no offense, but if you hand the maps over to a senior texturer, THEN it will look FS-ish. This is good, but the textures look like... they remind me of my very small exposure to Descent graphics...
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Remind me, do things rust in space?
(don't get me wrong, it's a great model but the maps are a bit... Dodgy)
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@Titan:
no offense, but if you hand the maps over to a senior texturer, THEN it will look FS-ish.
Got anybody in mind?
This is good, but the textures look like... they remind me of my very small exposure to Descent graphics...
:lol: Is that bad?
@Snail:
Sure they do. I think. :nervous:
You just need oxygen for things to rust. An though I admit there's no oxygen on the outside, there's definitely some on the inside of the ship. Don't forget that this is a pretty old crate; there's been time enough for the rust to seep out. And there's always holing from micro-meteors, battle damage etc, which contributes to oxygen leaking, paint scraping off etc.
Good point though. It does look a bit too rusty.
Hmmmm
I got it!
Maybe some duct tape... :D
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I'd suggest atmospheric burns from plasma blasts or planetary reentries, but not rust. For rust to form you need both water and oxygen, which I seriously doubt that there are both in space. Especially in the amounts needed for it to rust like that. That, and most FS ships aren't made out of iron.
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Right you are. I looked it up and water is a must. Funny. I always thought that it helped things along, but was not really necessary.
And you're right about the iron. Ooops... :blah:
Doesn't matter. I still got the texture psd files, and the rust is a separate layer. I'll just delete it and add some paint peeling off etc.
Will take some time, though.