[Taristin]

Originally posted by aldo_14
WEll, you've seen my psd maps, haven't you? That fine-detail-overlay takes an absolute bloody age to do.........

Aye. I can understand that.

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by BlackDove
Maybe you need to read his posts.

Maybe I already have done.

[BlackDove]

Maybe you're lying.

[Taristin]

Stop it.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by aldo_14
I don't see a point in releasing low quality work, but then again I'm somewhat of a perfectionist.

It's not low quality work

It's far more detailed than the stock one and has a better texture. Sure it COULD be better, but then again, EVERYTHING could be better.

You see, there might be poeple wanting a better Athena (for their own play or for their campiang) who do not want ot wait a year to get it - get it?

[Taristin]

Erm.... the stock maps were far superior to those, I'm afraid. Now if you could have your super duper mesh use the original maps, then you'd have more a winner. IMO.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by TrashMan


It's not low quality work

It's far more detailed than the stock one and has a better texture. Sure it COULD be better, but then again, EVERYTHING could be better.

You see, there might be poeple wanting a better Athena (for their own play or for their campiang) who do not want ot wait a year to get it - get it?

IMHO, it's the same standard - and indeed technique (tiled texture with minimal on top)- of fighter map as I was making 3 years ago.  Thus, like my own work from 3 years ago, I consider it low quality; there's no hull detailing (lines, plating), no decaling (warnings, maintenance instructions), no functional detailing (properly drawn vents, access hatches), no lighting (simply shading the hull to mimick the natural play of light across it), no exterior wear (damage marks, rust, scratches), minimal colouration (simple recolouring, no evidence of painted on marks), incongruous detailing (skull and crossbones on rear tail; this has no connection with the Athena name, and it can't be a squad specific mark if it's on all the ships, so what is it for?), and there's not even a simple gradient shade or highligh upon the cockpit.

In short, it looks like you copied the AWACs tile a few times, pasted it onto a template map, and added rudimentary recolouring to it plus a bit of clipart. (EDIT; and pasted the navbuoy and Tcorv engine tile onto it)

 IMHO, that's not 'high' quality.

And the Volition originals were definately better & far more detailed.  Just look at them.

[Vasudan Admiral]

Originally posted by TrashMan
It's far more detailed than the stock one and has a better texture.

Well,.....no not really i'm afraid:

 

What 2d tools do you have? Anything more powerful than paint and you should be able to create awesome textures with a bit of practice.

And i'd say to follow Aldo's advice on the texture greebles. You simply can't get better advice than that which comes from one of the absolute best at it in this community.

Edit: What's up with that Chronos in the in-game screenie? It looks like it's using a 128x128 res texture. The Chronos is one of [V]s best texture jobs.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Vasudan Admiral

Edit: What's up with that Chronos in the in-game screenie? It looks like it's using a 128x128 res texture. The Chronos is one of [V]s best texture jobs.

Could be using the stock 256x256 maps from FS2 only.

[TrashMan]

Originally posted by aldo_14


There's no hull detailing ---  sadly yes. I didn't want to fiddle with those lines now.. And I'm not realyl good at those either.

no decaling (warnings, maintenance instructions) ---- actually there are 4 of those

 
no functional detailing (properly drawn vents, access hatches) - i do have some vents, but yes, an acess hatch - why didnt I think of that?


no lighting (simply shading the hull to mimick the natural play of light across it) - what for? we have FSOpen engine to provide the lightning?

no exterior wear (damage marks, rust, scratches) --- yep, I missed that


incongruous detailing (skull and crossbones on rear tail; this has no connection with the Athena name, and it can't be a squad specific mark if it's on all the ships, so what is it for?) --- strange - was sure the Loki had shark teeth on it and I don't recall it being a squad logo. So what's the point? It's part of the coloring scheme - there is an insignia there too.

and there's not even a simple gradient shade or highligh upon the cockpit.  --- i knew i forgot something!


 IMHO, that's not 'high' quality.

/// I never said that. I said it wasn't LOW quality. I'd call it medium quality.

And the Volition originals were definately better & far more detailed.  Just look at them.

/// V original - 320 polys
Mine ~ 990

[Roanoke]

Originally posted by TrashMan
/// V original - 320 polys
Mine ~ 990

What've we told you about using Poly Count to prove the quality of your stuff ?

[aldo_14]

Decals; you have barely any, then.  No meaningful ones except for the cut & paste job on the missile banks.  Vents are just black lines; you should have shading on the insides, and exhaust marks.  Lighting is helping the FSO engine; for one thing, glow maps don't cast a diffuse light upon the hull - that's part of your shading effect.    Also because you're using TS by the looks of it, and you either get facets or full goraud, and that leads to less reliable lighting than, say, a realistic (25 degree IMO) angle.  Skull and crossbones doesn't have any meaning;   the Loki got away with teeth because they were a) placed in a meaningful and historically symbolic position, b) they were subtle, and c) they didn't take a place (that could be interpreted as) preserved for the squad insignia.

For example, attached below is my Chnubis map (downsized in half for upload); I'm not 100% happy with this looking back at it.  I'd say it was medium quality, with high being professional level work (like DamoclesX' stuff, for example)

If you don't like my opinion, then fine.  But I'm not going to lower the standards I hold for myself for other people.  If I think it's crap, I'll say it's crap.  Because I've made these mistakes myself, and the only way I get better was (and continuing to) recognising them.

[TrashMan]

Meh...to tell the truth I really don't care how other people precive my work, as long as I'm happy with it.

In this case I'm happy with the mesh & the POFing, but not the texture.
Slim chance that I will work on it before Chapter 1 of my campaign is done though, but you're welecome to try if you want.
(hell, I'd be more than glad - you would prolly do a better job anyway and I'm glad about ANY help whatsoever I can get)

[Taristin]

I've seen the Chnubis map in high detail, and I must say that I do consider it to be high quality. (Which makes me think I should be learning from them, too, rather than posting here... )

[Roanoke]

One thing I'm curious about is how long it takes you guys to get the template right ? I don't mean the actual unwrapping (ie to avoid stretches, that's easy) I mean the placing of the unwrapped UVs for when you come to paint it.

For example, looking at Aldo's map, I'd be inclined to weld the cockpit verts together

[aldo_14]

I create the UVs on the model in order to generate the template; it probably takes about a day (can't give exact hours or anything) depending on how complex the model it.

[Roanoke]

Do you mean the UnWrap UVW modifier ? That's what I'm trying to use. All the tuts I've got are for doing a face, and the Discreet tut shoews how to unwrap to an existing texture.

[aldo_14]

It's simple, really;

1/ Break the model into regions of faces
(that is, select a group of faces that will share UV planes - i.e. face the same way - and then assign them a material Id.  Then hide them, and repeat until all faces are assigned and thus hidden)

(then unhide all for 2)
2/Select each region with mesh select and UV it
(i.e. apply a planar UV to the selected group, then select Unwrap UV and move that group of faces - this is so you can arrage all the mapped faces later on into your template. I'd recommedn shoving them very, very far into the corners. Repeat until all faces are mapped)

(NB: I'd recommend adding a second stage of selecting groups of regions where the faces should meet, and them modifying those.  I.e. in the Chnubis map the cockpit side and top were on different UV planes - vertical and horizontal - so I selected them together and arranged them as shown.  Ditto for matching sides to tops, etc.  It makes mapping a lot easier, albeit you can't get quite as efficient texture space use as when placing stuff regardless of where the surrounding regions' UVs are)

3/Select the whole model and use Unwrap UV to arrange the previously modified face groups into a more sensible template, within the UV space (i.e. that little lined box in the window, which represents where the texture map will logically be)

4/Collapse all and extract a template bmp file.  then you can map.

[Roanoke]

Ah, I was trying to start from stage 3 with a uvw map and then unwrap UVW modifiers (just the way the tuts were done) never occured to me to use the material ID system and unwrap.

[aldo_14]

If you don't UV unwrap as you go along, you end up with all the UVs overlapping.  You don't really need to use material ids, just make sure you do it in groups of faces - but material IDs make it a lot easier to do so in an organized way, plus let you keep track of what you have & haven't mapped without hiding faces or soforth.

Oh, and I forgot to say - use the same dimensions (i.e. 512x512) for all the UV planes.  That helps keep stuff scaled (although you'll doubtless want to resize more significant faces - or move vertices to compensate for angles, etc)