Hard Light Productions Forums

Community Projects => The FreeSpace Upgrade Project => Topic started by: peterv on July 07, 2009, 10:30:36 pm

Title: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 07, 2009, 10:30:36 pm
Question: I added a part of the originall texture that's not UVmapped in the retail model where the missile bays are supposed to be.

Do i proceed with this?


(http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/3408/tht.jpg)

Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Woolie Wool on July 07, 2009, 10:36:11 pm
Do i proceed with this?

:eek:

YES!
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: NGTM-1R on July 07, 2009, 10:41:30 pm
And yes, i know that you can see no differences. Neither do i. So here's a prove that i am actually HTLing this.  :lol:

Actually you can, or at least I can.

The gun details are purely extranous, IMO, and you should probably try to match the tail a little closer to the other model...

Also, fighter with a forehead looks weird. Not wrong, mind you, just...weird. :P
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 08, 2009, 02:27:02 am
Looks gorgeous. I love the topside greebling, and when combined with DaB's lovely Thoth normal map it should be very impressive indeed. :D

However, I would like to suggest that you try some more things at the back - as that's the main area that makes the second pic nessecary. ;)

The blockyness of that engine bank thing shows up very strongly, as does the relative low detail of the tail fin - and unfortunately those are some of the main features your eye is drawn to on this model. I'd suggest therefore that you smooth the fin out some more (I think making it curvey in a way that matches the curves elsewhere on the hull would be great), make it a bit thinner height wise, and then just.... do something cool with the engine block so you can tell at a glance if it's the high or low detail version.

Well done though. :)
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Black Wolf on July 08, 2009, 02:51:43 am
I like it, and incidentally, I also like the gun detail. Sure, it's tiny detail, but visible enough, and in a part of the model where small detail makes a certain amount of logical sense. Proper shine maps will make it look particularly good.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: shiv on July 08, 2009, 04:19:01 am
I love your job, mate :pimp: Absolutely cool. Now only normal map should be put on that sexy beast, good texture and perfect HTL model's done ;) :D
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Snail on July 08, 2009, 06:25:54 am
You never cease to amaze.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: shiv on July 08, 2009, 07:12:06 am
At least those are standards set by Earth Defense member, Snail :D
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Trivial Psychic on July 08, 2009, 07:54:43 am
I don't suppose you're gonna try to add any cockpit modeling.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 08, 2009, 09:30:32 am
I don't suppose you're gonna try to add any cockpit modeling.

Hard to resist, why?
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Woolie Wool on July 08, 2009, 09:42:02 am
He's just saying that because no one's tried it before, except Aldo. If you want a guide for your Vasudan cockpit to ensure consistency, use this:

http://www.freespacemods.net/download.php?view.532
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 08, 2009, 09:54:06 am
Thanks for that, Aldo's perpective is priceless.
Yet we have tried it before with the Uly. The problem was that it was used as an alternative model to the terran cocpit with a map change to switch from terran - to vasudan. The existance of both models created a bug, but every time i added it alone it worked fine.  :)
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: 0rph3u5 on July 08, 2009, 02:46:07 pm
Oh YES!
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Woolie Wool on July 08, 2009, 03:11:18 pm
Thanks for that, Aldo's perpective is priceless.
Yet we have tried it before with the Uly. The problem was that it was used as an alternative model to the terran cocpit with a map change to switch from terran - to vasudan. The existance of both models created a bug, but every time i added it alone it worked fine.  :)

Can I get a copy of the Ulysses with a Vasudan cockpit? I could have some use for this in Twist of Fate, since the Fifth Columnist rebels (the only faction in ToF who use the Ulysses) would have to shore up their ranks with Vasudans when the GTA start killing large numbers of their pilots.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 08, 2009, 04:30:09 pm
check your PM's  :)
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Colonol Dekker on July 08, 2009, 04:34:50 pm
I urge you to do the Horus as well.. Mebbe add a new shine / glow map  ;7
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 08, 2009, 04:39:46 pm
Avec pleasure.   :)
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Galemp on July 08, 2009, 05:48:47 pm
Very nice. Like VA said, though, be sure to make the silhouette curvier. Smoothing out the curve on the tail fin would be a big plus, as well as doing some deeper and more drastic alterations to the engine block. Also, please, upgrade the guns from triangles to octagons at least.

How's the bottom looking?
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: colecampbell666 on July 08, 2009, 06:14:02 pm
I urge you to do the Horus as well.. Mebbe add a new shine / glow map  ;7
Horus est fini.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 08, 2009, 07:08:59 pm
bien sur! evidemment! :lol:
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 09, 2009, 11:51:48 pm
Fin now is smoother and slightly different and i hope what i did with the engine block is cool.
Almost all parts of the texture are used.

I'm going for the cockpit now.

(http://img110.imageshack.us/img110/2235/tfb.jpg)

Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: colecampbell666 on July 10, 2009, 10:32:06 am
Lookin' pretty good.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Aardwolf on July 10, 2009, 01:10:27 pm
It looks as though you've left the guns triangular? Not necessarily the worst thing you could do, but it looks kind of meh.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 10, 2009, 02:23:40 pm
Guns are still a WIP  :)
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Snail on July 10, 2009, 02:30:45 pm
Got loads of potential here. :yes:
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Commander Zane on July 10, 2009, 04:20:11 pm
It looks as though you've left the guns triangular? Not necessarily the worst thing you could do, but it looks kind of meh.
You mean like the Ursa with its three-times-larger-in-size barrels? :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Galemp on July 10, 2009, 04:22:29 pm
That was a deliberate design decision. These guns, not so much.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 10, 2009, 09:04:06 pm
Looks like i need a new image host  :lol:
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Titan on July 11, 2009, 12:05:24 pm
Can you show texture-less ones instead? It's hard for me to see the details with the retail textures ATM.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 11, 2009, 09:33:21 pm
Much cooler. The little blocky protrusions on the back of the engine are great. :)

The last thing I'd recommend BTW would be to chamfer the edges on the big dark section of the engine block. The sharp edges look a bit out of place with the rest of the model as well as with the textures on it
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 13, 2009, 07:42:57 pm
The last thing I'd recommend BTW would be to chamfer the edges on the big dark section of the engine block.

done!

(http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8505/tfu.jpg)

(http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/2235/tfb.jpg)

(http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/5392/tfu2.jpg)

(http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/8859/tfb2.jpg)

Two questions:

     a. The dark parts of the cockpit are part of the model (not the cocpit's submodel). Shall i UVmap them in the TVcocpit texture or shall i add texture parts on the Thoth's texture and UVmap them there?

     b. The polycount is ~5600 so far. If i turn the guns from squares to octagons it will reach ~6400. Shall i do that or make them simple culinders and depend their shape on the normal maps?

Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Commander Zane on July 13, 2009, 07:51:18 pm
Damn.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Aardwolf on July 13, 2009, 08:03:13 pm
What about hexagons?
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Galemp on July 13, 2009, 11:39:44 pm
     b. The polycount is ~5600 so far. If i turn the guns from squares to octagons it will reach ~6400. Shall i do that or make them simple culinders and depend their shape on the normal maps?

*smack* Remove those little cutouts from the guns and just make them cylinders. Please. Texture them that way but having all those little crinkles drives up the polycount for no benefit whatsoever. 90% of the time this thing is onscreen, those guns will be smaller than a single pixel. Please, just make them octagonal cylinders.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 13, 2009, 11:45:11 pm


*smack* Remove those little cutouts from the guns and just make them cylinders. Please. Texture them that way but having all those little crinkles drives up the polycount for no benefit whatsoever. 90% of the time this thing is onscreen, those guns will be smaller than a single pixel. Please, just make them octagonal cylinders.

Yes sir   :cool:
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: blowfish on July 14, 2009, 12:12:25 am
Hey would someone mind telling me ... where are the missile points on the Thoth?
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 14, 2009, 01:15:24 am
Hey would someone mind telling me ... where are the missile points on the Thoth?


Check post no 1
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: -Norbert- on July 14, 2009, 03:20:23 am
Okay, checking first post:
Quote
Question: I added a part of the originall texture that's not UVmapped in the retail model where the missile bays are supposed to be.

Do i proceed with this?
I don't know how it is for the other people, but I still don't know were the missle banks are....
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Black Wolf on July 14, 2009, 03:49:19 am
See the grey bit where the cockpit is? There's one each on the left and right sides of that thing
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: -Norbert- on July 14, 2009, 07:19:44 am
Hm... no wonder this thing can take only so few missles....
Thanks for pointing it out, I'd never have found them on my own.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Woolie Wool on July 14, 2009, 06:39:12 pm
     b. The polycount is ~5600 so far. If i turn the guns from squares to octagons it will reach ~6400. Shall i do that or make them simple culinders and depend their shape on the normal maps?

*smack* Remove those little cutouts from the guns and just make them cylinders. Please. Texture them that way but having all those little crinkles drives up the polycount for no benefit whatsoever. 90% of the time this thing is onscreen, those guns will be smaller than a single pixel. Please, just make them octagonal cylinders.

At that distance, the model wouldn't be in LOD 0 anyway, so why does it matter?
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Sushi on July 14, 2009, 08:42:36 pm
The divot things on the gun tubes are the kind of detail that doesn't really need to be modeled, IMHO. Just use textures + normal maps and it'll look just as good.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Aardwolf on July 14, 2009, 09:36:01 pm
The divot things on the gun tubes are the kind of detail that doesn't really need to be modeled, IMHO. Just use textures + normal maps and it'll look just as good.

Lol, "divot."

I agree (in theory). But my graphics card sucks and can't do GLSL. Nonetheless, this is one of the few times I'm going to not be all like "no you selfish people save some for the low-end guys." Making them big enough to be modeled-in doesn't make sense, anyway.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 15, 2009, 04:52:33 am
Ingame:

(http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/6255/tigw.jpg)

http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=f022eb4747a0098990a82c7bb0fad7ade04e75f6e8ebb871

(well, not exactly, just a bad convertion of Lod0  :ick: )
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on July 15, 2009, 05:12:51 am
Gorgeous. :D
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 15, 2009, 07:15:18 am
I've found some UV-map problems so ignore the previous pof. I'll post a better one tomorrow  :mad:
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Rodo on July 15, 2009, 08:14:52 am
you are really fast, congrats!

I'll be glad to have a new toy to play around ^^
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Galemp on July 15, 2009, 11:07:12 am
I don't think the pilot's been smoothed.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Cobra on July 15, 2009, 04:30:03 pm
Nope. The Vasudan's blockier than a Halcyon-class cruiser.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: shiv on July 15, 2009, 05:24:39 pm
Absolutely brilliant work, peterv! :) I'd love to see more in-game pictures in hi-resolution.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Dragon on July 15, 2009, 05:28:33 pm
So download it and take pics yourself.  :)
I agree that this model is great, plus, it's the first mediavps model which have Vasudan cockpit.
I hope somebody will remake Horus and Seraphis to also include this feature.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 15, 2009, 07:15:53 pm
Nope. The Vasudan's blockier than a Halcyon-class cruiser.

... and not smoothed. After lowing the guns - polys i have no excuse: I'll try to do better  :rolleyes:
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Galemp on July 15, 2009, 08:02:20 pm
Blocky's OK, just make sure it's smoothed and it'll look fine.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: blowfish on July 15, 2009, 08:31:19 pm
I think he uses COB for conversions, so no control...

You might want to consider DAE ... I think someone on FotG got it to work successfully with 3DS Max.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Galemp on July 15, 2009, 10:24:26 pm
COB has smoothing, I've done it before. It just has to be converted to COB very carefully. It's Ancient Lore by now, so I can't help you, but maybe there's something on the Wiki or in an old thread.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: esarai on July 16, 2009, 01:51:00 am
AFAIK You could do it in cob with edge-splits, but hey, if you need it smoothed, give me the file and I'll do it.  I can smoothing with blender.  Just PM me a link, ya?
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: peterv on July 16, 2009, 03:26:12 am
I admit it: I am lazy and i always take advantage of peoples kindness. 
So Esarai please check your PM's.  :D
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Hades on July 25, 2009, 07:29:17 pm
The preliminary version has been uploaded, at -link removed because it contains a few errors-.

EDIT: I didn't notice that it did not have debris, so this is not the final version. Sorry for my oversight.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Commander Zane on July 25, 2009, 07:34:54 pm
Woot!
This marks the dawn of the visible-pilot age of Vasudan small craft, now the other Vasudan fighters need the same treatment.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Cyrip on December 27, 2009, 12:04:35 pm
Is there a Model WITHOUT the vasudan pilot avalaible? Though it looks pretty good it kind of doesnt fit during the regular Campaign, since your supposed to be a terran pilot....
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: The E on December 27, 2009, 12:09:16 pm
Or maayyyybeee, you were a Vasudan all along...
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Kolgena on December 27, 2009, 12:42:01 pm
Lies. Ever alt-J too quickly too quickly after a vasudan mission?

You get yelled at, and the zod also bashes your entire race while he's at it.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Titan on December 27, 2009, 02:26:24 pm
Put it this way: IT DOESN'T MATTER.  :P

Unless you spend all your free time staring at your ship from the front external, it really doesn't matter.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Rodo on December 27, 2009, 04:07:57 pm
Well it does mater to me...

Also IIRC you can pic your race from the barracks (pilot picture).

Lies. Ever alt-J too quickly too quickly after a vasudan mission?

You get yelled at, and the zod also bashes your entire race while he's at it.

Interesting, I've never done that... will try it out to see the dialogue lines ^^
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Cyrip on December 28, 2009, 01:37:02 pm
Just thought there was an older model already available, since all other ships have non-transparent front windows.

And Titan: Youre basically right, but to be honest, all the eye candy that has been added over the years doesnt really matter at all too, its still shooting things, just like back in 99. So everything that has been done is because a few people...well almost everyone ^^... enjoy a lil bit more detail. Dont tell me you really notice the highres textures during a dogfight, whilst trying to get rid of 2 opponents at the same time as well. (If you do...Wow ;) )
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Commander Zane on December 28, 2009, 01:42:34 pm
What's so hard about looking into the details of a ship while being attacked at the same time?
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Thaeris on December 28, 2009, 06:00:51 pm
I definately notice detail when fighting up-close. The easiest subject to note this on is probably the Loki... Compare that to Retail in the same scenario - there's definately a difference!
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Commander Zane on December 28, 2009, 06:04:45 pm
And the Ulysses.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Colonol Dekker on December 28, 2009, 06:16:58 pm
My personal take on the updates is that the newer ships should definitely be discernable from the old ones. All due respect to the Thoth here. . . But it's a bit too similar to the original.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Commander Zane on December 28, 2009, 06:20:05 pm
I think it's a bit bigger in depth.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Thaeris on December 28, 2009, 06:29:40 pm
My personal take on the updates is that the newer ships should definitely be discernable from the old ones. All due respect to the Thoth here. . . But it's a bit too similar to the original.

Word-for-word, I don't think this statement is entirely accurate, Dekker.

I feel the purpose of the Media VPs is to capture the spirit of the subject vessel whilst improving upon the detail. I think Peter's Vasudan ships do exactly that. The binding issue with this one is that the textures are old. If this ship were normal-mapped, you'd definately see the new details...
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Commander Zane on December 28, 2009, 06:31:23 pm
It is normal mapped.
Title: Re: Thoth
Post by: Vasudan Admiral on December 28, 2009, 09:00:29 pm
The Thoth is a small, dark, fast and relatively simplisticly shaped ship, so no matter how well detailed it is, it's always going to be a lot harder to see and appreciate the detail on than larger brighter slower ships. ;)

I think peterv has made it as detailed as is practical and he's done a fantastic job of it.