Author Topic: Curiosity with the old MOD  (Read 16911 times)

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Offline starlord

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Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
That's good to know! the asteroid field and miner certainly are assets necessary to diaspora in the long run. to know that they will be implemented someday is conforting...

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Preliminary external shell.
Needs refinement in many areas, but I figured it would be interesting for this group to see.
I need to work in part seams for the wings, upper engines, a few key curved areas, upper intake.
Add KEW points, thruster ports, key shell seams, wings need some detailing as well.

I'm looking for some professional criticism from the Diaspora team and fans about the overall shape refinements.
This is by no means a final UV shell at all.
I'm getting a little tunnel vision with it and need some extra eyes to remark about the overall shape refinement.
This was just a 3DS export from Rhino 5 Beta. Triangulation is sloppy.
A general consensus of what points of the geometry is just plain wrong is what I need.

[attachment deleted by ninja]
« Last Edit: April 08, 2011, 03:27:40 pm by KewlToyZ »

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Any thoughts on this yet gents?

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
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  • Away in Limbo
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
My words mean nothing, but here goes:

(a.) If you intend on creating normal maps for the model, this is an ideal starting point, as it's almost 20k polygons. Which is huge. That brings me to my next point...

(b.) I don't know what standards of individual ship detail Diaspora is going for, but I assume it's around the 4k to 6k polygon count per small craft. The shape is all there, but much of the detail unfortunately has to be done away with. And given the distance at which the player will see his/her ship in-game, this isn't a bad thing. The fighter is covered with all manner of small cylindrical shapes at the rear of the fuselage. You can get the same effect out of a rectangular shape, skip the boolean messes, and shave off thousands of polygons. You'll also make UV mapping this beast that much easier. Next, that canopy is gorgeous - you nailed the shape. But again, it's way overdone in terms of detail. At over 2k polygons, it's irrefutable that you've got too high a polycount for a project like Diaspora. You'll need to reduce the polycount for sure. And that's not the only place. There's way too many polygons on the forward decking of the fighter, right by the cut-out slits on top. You could probably get the same visual effect with just a few quads rather than what you've got now, and no one would know the difference.

I'll close with my feelings on the model: It's beautiful. You've done a great job on it, but it's too much to use in a program where you have a huge number of fighters flying around, along with everything else.

But, here's the good news: You've got the perfect template from which to create a useable, effective fighter. It just needs to be reduced in terms of polycount. And even better, you've already got a high-poly model from which to create normal maps. Whether or not that means that means the lighting on the model needs to be tweaked yet is beyond me, but the basis is there.

On a final note, what scaling factor are you using, x100? The model is almost a km long!
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline newman

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Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
It's not so much the detail, for lack of a better word the mesh is messy. There's a lot of subdivision in areas that don't need it. It would be possible to create a mesh that looks just as detailed that has approximately 6k easily. As such I wouldn't use this one for normal map creation.
I'm not going to comment on accuracy because right now I'm not that big of an expert on the stealthstar. Thaeris right about 20k being way too much for a fighter - some of our civilian ships have less and are much larger than this.
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
My words mean nothing, but here goes:

Nonsense. I needed some feedback. Constructive criticism and reminders, it's been awhile since I worked with it.
Thank you for taking the time  ;)

(a.) If you intend on creating normal maps for the model, this is an ideal starting point, as it's almost 20k polygons. Which is huge. That brings me to my next point...

Thanks, I'll keep that in mind with the UV mapping when I finish the cockpit, thruster ports, & KEW points.

(b.) I don't know what standards of individual ship detail Diaspora is going for, but I assume it's around the 4k to 6k polygon count per small craft. The shape is all there, but much of the detail unfortunately has to be done away with. And given the distance at which the player will see his/her ship in-game, this isn't a bad thing. The fighter is covered with all manner of small cylindrical shapes at the rear of the fuselage. You can get the same effect out of a rectangular shape, skip the boolean messes, and shave off thousands of polygons. You'll also make UV mapping this beast that much easier. Next, that canopy is gorgeous - you nailed the shape. But again, it's way overdone in terms of detail. At over 2k polygons, it's irrefutable that you've got too high a polycount for a project like Diaspora. You'll need to reduce the polycount for sure. And that's not the only place. There's way too many polygons on the forward decking of the fighter, right by the cut-out slits on top. You could probably get the same visual effect with just a few quads rather than what you've got now, and no one would know the difference.

I exported the 3ds file at the max poly count from Rhino 5 beta. I haven't made a model since 4.0 beta with it.
The export created the meshes. I'm using surfaces in the 3dm file instead of meshes to build the initial model for easier creation.
This is giving myself options to remake the meshes automatically rather than doubling my manual efforts.
When I begin UV mapping and building the final models; Detail0, Detail1, Detail2,etc...
I am going to be doing each section with different resolutions according to size and shape complexity, so I get minimal poly count and best visual effect.
Many areas are so obscure they simply do not need the attention I placed on them to begin with. Also, I will be able to match points in contours better manually in the meshes to prevent seam gaps like this model generated when I exported it as one part.


I'll close with my feelings on the model: It's beautiful. You've done a great job on it, but it's too much to use in a program where you have a huge number of fighters flying around, along with everything else.

Thank you Thaeris! I am trying to capture the beauty of their design. I do think it is a gorgeous ship design.
I just hope I captured that essence in overall shape so far before I refine the poly counts and details.
I really needed more eyes on it to see if there was anything that bothered people before going to the extra steps of detailing, UV mapping, and textures.

But, here's the good news: You've got the perfect template from which to create a useable, effective fighter. It just needs to be reduced in terms of polycount. And even better, you've already got a high-poly model from which to create normal maps. Whether or not that means that means the lighting on the model needs to be tweaked yet is beyond me, but the basis is there.


On a final note, what scaling factor are you using, x100? The model is almost a km long!

I find every 3D program handles scaling differently. After hearing what you see, I am inclined to think I should stick to millimeter units instead of meters.
Rhino must simply do a decimal shift in its design interface leading to enlarged scales. I recall running into that issue when making my cob files previously as well. Took me a week to get the scale right last time and drove me nuts lol!

It's not so much the detail, for lack of a better word the mesh is messy. There's a lot of subdivision in areas that don't need it.
It would be possible to create a mesh that looks just as detailed that has approximately 6k easily. As such I wouldn't use this one for normal map creation.
I'm not going to comment on accuracy because right now I'm not that big of an expert on the stealthstar.
Thaeris right about 20k being way too much for a fighter - some of our civilian ships have less and are much larger than this.

Thanks Newman! Yes I would definitely refine the meshes, they are god awful right now. As I said I exported the entire ship as one unit at one max resolution setting for simplicity in making a 3ds file. I figured it was the easiest format for others to view it and get feedback.
But I did need to hear it again so I have a goal on the poly count.
There are many areas that are obscured from view I simply do not have to use such high detail in. Also the seams came out horrid.
The wings need detailing yet, they don't even meet the hull right yet. I just wanted to see if anyone felt the overall shape was flawed.
So far, the two of you are giving me positive remarks in that regard. I appreciate your time gents  :D

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
  • 211
  • Away in Limbo
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
KewlToyZ, keep in mind that if you're going to reduce the mesh, it's probably best to do so manually. This will allow you to cut down on the overly complex parts while retaining the componets which are presently in proper form. I do have to say that I like the form of the forward fuselage, and retaining as much of that as possible would be a plan to keep in my book. I must note that the triangulation has a good probability of being a problem somewhere down the road, but manually omitting triangles into quads should solve that problem.

That said, can you use Rhino to manually clean up the mesh? Otherwise, you might need to find a different piece of software that can do the job in question.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Oh yeah Rhino is great with meshing, and the manual rework will be minimal.
I was never sure about quads and found them problematic when I made my last model.
I found triangulating all faces and normalizing led to the best conversions before.
I used Rhino, Deep Exploration, Lithunwrap, Paint Shop Pro 7 to do my modeling last time.

This link is the last pof I made messing with Btrl:
http://www.kewltoyz.com/downloads/VipMkV.zip

 

Offline newman

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  • 211
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
For game meshes of this type it's really better to work with polygons from the start. In the end it's much faster and more efficient than using nurbs or what have you, converting that to polygons, and ending up with a mess you need to clean up afterwards. Simply put, it's far from the best route here.
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
I did at first Newman, but I was stumbling with trying to figure out the shape in the obscure areas too much.
I started back over with surfaces because its so simple to generate meshes from them with Rhino.
Refining the meshes is easier than creating them from scratch with some of the tools in Rhino for me too.
I know it would have been faster, but I didn't know how I was doing the rear underside yet.
I wanted to get the shape right then worry about the modeling. Thanks for the input though! :cool:

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Got it refined and down to 2900 polys.
I think I can add the cockpit, pilot, thrusters, KEW pods, & maybe more detail to the wings and still make the cut for poly count.
The canopy proved pretty difficult to get close. ;)

[attachment deleted by ninja]

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
  • 211
  • Away in Limbo
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
I've got to say, that's really an impressive model. You managed to get a lot of detail with only a fairly small quantity of surfaces/verts.  :D  The next thing that needs to be asked though is, "is the mesh suitable for a game?" To that question, I'm not sure. I see the 3DS file is broken up into A LOT of tiny sub-objects... I'm on the fence about wholly closed meshes, as I've seen some models that end up working just fine with some smaller details, such as canopies, modeled as only having enough surfaces to encompass the area that needs to be covered, and are open everywhere else. But, these are sub-models.

For larger, primary model elements, a closed mesh does seem to be in order, at least for FSO. Ultimately however, you need a more experienced rigger than myself to help in this issue, but I would suggest that you try to make a set of large, coherent submodels in your primary model rather than a gazillion small parts. I'm very confident in saying that the game won't like that. I'd also suggest right away that you make the greebled vents on the engines a single submodel, and those should only be seen on the LOD0. The forward hull should also definately be a single object. Anything more, and you really ought to ask the dev team what they think of making individual submodels for the engines... you know, for when you get one shot out... :)
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Thanks again Thaeris!
Yeah I made one that worked in BtRL just fine before.
I need to change my part splits for the UV and image mapping yet.
It took some trial and error the last time to get it to work, but I'm confident it will work before I am done.
After I get the UV and maps, I'll work on the lower LOD's which are a bit of fiddling around to get a shape with minimal poly's.
Not sure what I want with the damage model yet.
I work with Rhino so I'm a minority in terms of most of the other modelers.
Deep Exploration 5.5 is what I use to set the hierarchy and convert to COB.
I'm just really happy with my poly results, I could work it down to 2500 possibly yet if I don't close the meshes and remove the hidden ones.
Still debating on doing that to try and create a more singular closed model yet.
Gonna try to get some HD pics of the ship in "Hero" for the logo's and warning labels yet.
I'm gonna put the Valkyrie brand on it for sure, I think it is near the cockpit.
I just can't quite make out the other labels yet, like the coat of arms on the nose.
I noticed lots of discrepancies between the show images and the Bad Azz model.
Not sure which artistic license direction I'll take with them yet.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2011, 02:40:16 am by KewlToyZ »

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Look at this image for example:

[attachment deleted by ninja]

 

Offline newman

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  • 211
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
If you want to use it in a game then you don't want to include the markings (such as tail numbers, squadron logos, pilot names or what have you) in the main texture. What we do is we create a separate smaller nameplate map and apply it to polygons that should have the markings. Those polygons are welded into the main hull so the smoothing isn't off but they use a different material ID (2) and have UV's set for the separate smaller map. The maps need to be handled so it's all seamless and there's no ugly line separating the polygons that have the nameplate map from the rest of the ship. It's a bit of a hassle to set up right but you're left with a ship you can easily swap nameplates for later on, which is all kinds of useful when building missions.
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Thanks Newman, I did notice that on some of the cap ships when I was fiddling around on other mods.
I'll give it a shot  ;)
Although it looks like that describes a few different locations on this as far as the ID # on the Engines and labels near the cockpit.

  

Offline newman

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Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Thanks Newman, I did notice that on some of the cap ships when I was fiddling around on other mods.
I'll give it a shot  ;)
Although it looks like that describes a few different locations on this as far as the ID # on the Engines and labels near the cockpit.

Doesn't matter, you can still have it all in one id map. Just needs to be uvw mapped properly.

The next thing that needs to be asked though is, "is the mesh suitable for a game?" To that question, I'm not sure. I see the 3DS file is broken up into A LOT of tiny sub-objects... I'm on the fence about wholly closed meshes, as I've seen some models that end up working just fine with some smaller details, such as canopies, modeled as only having enough surfaces to encompass the area that needs to be covered, and are open everywhere else. But, these are sub-models.

Well, while it's good to make sure you don't have more subobjects than you need, there is definitely no need to have every mesh closed. Entire Diaspora will be evidence of this, as all of our ships are done this way and collisions work just fine thanks to FUBAR's efforts.
If you make it all closed you get several problems; higher polycount, potential smoothing issues to fix (as everything's welded together), and with subobjects there's an added perk; when you bake in occlusion the shadows of subobjects will be baked into the map on the hull below those subobjects. This makes for easier LODing as you can just delete subobjects on lower LODs, with the added benefit of those subobjects having left their shadows on the hull with the ao bake so they're still sort of visible from a distance.
Basically, totally closed meshes? No reason for it and totally not worth it.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2011, 03:28:02 am by newman »
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 

Offline Thaeris

  • Can take his lumps
  • 211
  • Away in Limbo
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Thank you for the information, Newman. I've worked for some projects where a fully closed mesh was the order of the day, and others where it was not so critical. Again, having a more skilled rigger available for advice, or otherwise a modeler more skilled with the needs of FSO is a good thing to have.
"trolls are clearly social rejects and therefore should be isolated from society, or perhaps impaled."

-Nuke



"Look on the bright side, how many release dates have been given for Doomsday, and it still isn't out yet.

It's the Duke Nukem Forever of prophecies..."


"Jesus saves.

Everyone else takes normal damage.
"

-Flipside

"pirating software is a lesser evil than stealing but its still evil. but since i pride myself for being evil, almost anything is fair game."


"i never understood why women get the creeps so ****ing easily. i mean most serial killers act perfectly normal, until they kill you."


-Nuke

 

Offline newman

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  • 211
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Thank you for the information, Newman. I've worked for some projects where a fully closed mesh was the order of the day, and others where it was not so critical. Again, having a more skilled rigger available for advice, or otherwise a modeler more skilled with the needs of FSO is a good thing to have.

Yep, fubar was pretty much instrumental in almost every phase of r1 development, especially ship conversion which is often a bottleneck.
You know what the chain of command is? It's the chain I go get and beat you with 'til ya understand who's in ruttin' command here! - Jayne Cobb

 
Re: Curiosity with the old MOD
Fubar helped me a lot when I made my first model. Dude rawks =)
I read many of his posts. Really easy to follow, he was well written.