Hard Light Productions Forums
Hosted Projects - Standalone => Fate of the Galaxy => Topic started by: rhettro on October 19, 2010, 02:56:42 pm
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Hi guys,
Long time without an update so here you go. This is still an unfinished Naboo Fighter model that I'm doing for learning purposes so I'm sharing it with anyone who wants to improve on it or learn as well. :)
Recap: The ship was originally modeled using NURBS in Rhino and exported to polygons. Since then I've been dabbling in Blender, Wings and Silo to clean it up. This version is mostly symmetrical now, and I've tried to locate and clean up all my naked edges. Any advice on how to locate and fix the rest of them in Blender/Wings/Silo would be appreciated. Another issue I'm working on is the entire model has now been assigned to be smooth, however the shading is a bit messed up around the corners that should be sharp. I know how to change those edges to be sharp in Wings, but I don't no how to get that information to translate to Collada format. Once I get that figured out, I'll refine the mesh a little more and try my hand at texturing.
http://www.box.net/shared/z0oc3vl7rj (http://www.box.net/shared/z0oc3vl7rj)
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sounds good.
would it be too much to ask to see WIP picture for us lazy folk?
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Here you go:
(http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/rhettro1/naboo-10-17.jpg)
The shading errors are pretty evident. Hopefully I'll get that fixed. Trying to figure out the environmental mapping for the chrome areas is going to be fun.
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It's not too hard probably, just make it really shiny. Figuring out the base color will probably be more difficult, but as long as you have a high white intensity on the env map you'll get good reflectivity.
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I'm going to say keep at it, but that's no where near done. If you need help with Silo, I can direct you to Quanto, who also uses the program.
Needless to say, keep it up. Would you mind posting a wireframe, by the way?
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Ahh, I spot Blender. Which means that there's excellent documentation on converting to POF on the Wiki! For smoothing, see here (http://www.hard-light.net/wiki/index.php/Blender_to_POF_Conversions#Smoothing:).
Also delete vertex colouring that may have been leftover from importing (see attachment), that could cause the shading issue as well.
[attachment deleted by admin]
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I'm going to say keep at it, but that's no where near done. If you need help with Silo, I can direct you to Quanto, who also uses the program.
Oh I know it needs a lot of work, this is basically an exercise for me to get a better understanding of modern polygon editors and texturing. I only have the demo version of Silo but I may purchase a retail copy when my income situation improves. In the mean time I think Blender and/or Wings instruction would be more helpful. That said, I really do like Silo, editing individually polys is a lot easier on it than any other program I've tried.
Here are some wireframes to inspect.
(http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/rhettro1/naboo-wire-1.jpg)
(http://i79.photobucket.com/albums/j126/rhettro1/naboo-wire-2.jpg)
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Ahh, I spot Blender. Which means that there's excellent documentation on converting to POF on the Wiki! For smoothing,
Thanks, I definately check it out.
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Holy polycount, Batman!
You really should do some heavy mesh optimizing there.
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That's NURBS for you. Dunno if that'll ever be optimizable enough for in game use, solid modeling app models rarely are.
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That's NURBS for you. Dunno if that'll ever be optimizable enough for in game use, solid modeling app models rarely are.
Well, yes and no. Rhino is more of a surface modeler than a solid, but it can do that too. As for the "whole lot o polygons", a lot of that is my fault. There are sliders and settings to reduce the polycount. The model really needed to be broken out into several parts so each piece could be individually optimized, then pieced back together. But again I undertook this project as a learning exercise. My future process for modeling would be quite a bit different. :)
That said, NURBS still excel at modeling curvilinear shapes such as the Naboo.
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A quick check of Blender says its currently just over 7000 polygons. Considering the target range of under 6000, I wouldn't say it was grossly over. Rebuilding the engine pods would be a quick way of getting under 6000.
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Is that triangles, or non-triangular polygons? FSO ships have to be triangulated.
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Yes, all the polys are triangles.
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This is what I've learned so far - triangles are to be avoided. You can certainly use them, and they'll automatically be created when you produce a quad, but in general, model in quads. Keep in mind that FSO will automatically triangulate a model, so you don't need to worry about triangulating things beforehand.
First of all, keep in mind lighting. Now, you can manually adjust and change lighting effects, but in general a "triangle mess" will look poorly regardless of whether or not the shape is proper due to lighting effects.
In terms of expanding or flowing detail, quads are better still. It's a heck of a lot easier to divide, manipulate, and expand upon a quad than a triangle. If you need proof, try it yourself! The thing to really avoid is 5- or more-sided polygons... I suppose you can get away with it if the polygon is flat, but in general, always keep a surface to 3 or 4 sides.
Now, I still hold that triangles aren't terrible, as Quanto might tell you, but I will certainly say you ought to avoid them. If you need a better explanation of this, I might need to bring Quanto into the conversation. :)
Thus, this is my advice - make sure the model has "mirrorable" geometry along whatever axis is your target line of action for the fighter. Next, start reducing detail where it's not needed, and start modeling in quads. Ideally, you should have a good flow of what we call "edge loops" which link together, thus making a coherent, fused model (or at least an individual object IN the model) from strat to finish of the geometry. As an example, take a look at a gun turret I just finished working on for our project:
(http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1puQGS9d6OPCHyqwrnS2bQkmqyv2Ma5pBCt1vhp0mn2FgymZ0zeRkIkdY906QJYiuY_UoCF8BapmgxL4jP_idf5w/Light%20Turret%20Wireframe.png?psid=1)
Now, I am also not the world's greatest modeler, nor am I as expereinced as someone who was formally trained in modeling game/software graphics. However, from what I've learned from such people before suggests that's good advice to start from.
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Tharis,
Thank you for your thought out reply, that is all useful information. I should say that when I exported the model from Rhino, I exported the polys as quads and triangles and then in Blender had it further divide the remaining quads into triangles because I thought that is what PCS2 required. For the record, the shading looks perfect in Wings when all the sharp edges are defined, In Blender I still get the triangular shading near the sharp seams but I haven't ported that model into PCS yet. I still think my process is viable, my ignorance still gets in the way. There are a lot of tools for creating clean geometry within Rhino I'm still exploring and there are plenty of tools in Wings, Silo and Blender for cleaning up and optimising meshes I don't have a clear grasp on yet. But the cool thing is how well I can share geometry between programs in OBJ format.
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Wavefront Object Format is pretty common indeed, but it does have its limitations. For instance, no shader detail is maintained when you export or import from any other format. As far as I can tell, .obj uses a sort of generic "smooth" shading which, if the model has odd groupings of triangles in a given area, will be lit poorly. Here's an example from an earlier model I did/refurbished - the actual quality of the model is intact, as it's clean and well put together, but it's all in triangles. The problem in modeling in trangles can be seen clearly, especially when you look at the bridge:
(http://public.bay.livefilestore.com/y1pFy6YMcoKWlAzdmhcas9734xrKNVCnt0PqTRW6rfaMyF1BVXw9kZdz3jVoma1fzXZs6T-_0uAP-9sYB4sMkfwUQ/UXV%20-%20No%20Texture%203.png?psid=1)
Again, not a bad model, but a poor approach to modeling. What if I needed to expand on the bridge detail? The first thing that would happen would be the fusing together of surfaces - I can guarantee that. Furthermore, as this is really an area outside of my expertice, how would I ensure that by manually changing the shading it would work in FSO? I can't answer that, and I'm guessing you can't, either. But, if it was in quads, that problem wouldn't be so pronounced, if an issue at all.
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To manually change the shading requires a full modeling suite, like Blender, or 3DS Max.
I don't use blender, so I'm not clear on how exactly you modify the Shading Groups in that software, but in max, I can show you.
I'll use one of my models as an example here...
This is a model I put together in Silo, and Imported into Max. Now, because Silo is a generalized, bare-bones modeler, all it does is give you a mesh with a generic shader. A really ugly one at that.
(http://img51.imageshack.us/img51/8475/shading01.png)
Keep in mind these steps are probably specific to 3DS Max only, but I'm showing this more to demonstrate how to modify smoothing groups rather than actually providing a full tutorial.
The next step is to select the object in "Element" mode, so that the entire model is highlighted...
(http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/2628/shading02.png)
From there, you look over to the side panel, and look for the "Polygon: Smoothing Groups" section, and you will see a numerical grid that ends with 32. Plus a slew of other buttons, that is the Smoothing Group control panel with which you can modify the smoothing groups on your model.
(http://img33.imageshack.us/img33/6941/shading03.png)
Now some people may say, "NO DON'T USE AUTOSMOOTH!! YOU TOOL!!!"
But I'm lazy, and I use autosmooth, because really, it actually gets good results if you use it right.
The key here, is in understanding how it works. Looking at the screenshot above ^^^, you may note that to the right of the "Auto Smooth" button, is a ticker with the setting "45" on it. That is the angle at which light, bouncing onto the surface of the object, will actually wrap around a surface. If set 180, light will wrap around for a full 180 degree around your model. Silo, I'm pretty sure, automatically lights to that setting, which is god awful.
To fix that, you use the angle dial that is used by the autosmooth button. By default it's set to 45. But I personally like having it set to 30.
So I'm gonna do that.
(http://img840.imageshack.us/img840/2678/shading04.png)
Alright, you may notice a few things. First, after pushing the button, we went from a yellow hightlighted "1" to the gridspaces 1-7 being blanked out. This is good, that means autosmooth did it's job. But wait, the model still looks ****ed up. What the hell?
Well, unfortunately, nothing in 3DS Max is simple, which is why I will forever tell Autodesk that they can suck my dick.
To actually see the results of the autosmooth, we need to do one more thing...
(http://img638.imageshack.us/img638/9066/shading05.png)
Thats right, you need to scroll up to the "Edit Geometry" Panel, and press "Detach". When you press Detach, window will appear, asking you if you want to detach it as an element, a clone, or as a separate object.
We want to detach it as a separate object, to do that, uncheck all the boxes, and hit "OK".
(http://img806.imageshack.us/img806/166/shading06.png)
And here is our result. Now, it's not perfect, and it will still require some manual editing, but doesn't it look a ton better than before? And that my friends is why Smoothing Groups are a nice thing to have.
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Why do you need to detach? I've never had that problem myself. I often use autosmooth as a springboard for my manual smoothing, and I've never had to detach anything...
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Yea I was wonder the same thing and I'm not even a modeler. Autosmooth is great on older ships and doing LODs (LOD 1 that is) and I've never had to detach.
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Yep, I often use autosmooth with a desired angle value and then manually fix up the rest if needed. Smoothing really isn't rocket science if you've got a modeling suite, like max, that can work it properly :)
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meh, my version max may just be weird, but I seriously need to detach in order to see the results of my smoothing.
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Thanks for the post Quanto. I certainly would like to work in MAX, but being the hobbiest I am I'm trying to stick with low cost /free solutions. Your examples look great BTW.
I'm intrigued by what Tharsis said about OBJ format not retaining the shading information. I didn't really have a problem until I tried to make my model one continuous object. I'll play around around a little bit more and see what I discover.