UFO:Alien Invasion
Development => Artwork => Topic started by: Psawhn on June 07, 2008, 07:44:22 am
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I haven't done much at all to it. I added some thick cables connecting the upper and lower platforms, and also created a flat-plane with a bunch of cabling, using a texture with alpha.
I just noticed that the polygon count is rather high at 1200. Most of those are quads, so I estimate about 2400 triangles. How much should I lower this by? A lot of detail is hidden in those tiny arms which might not even be visible later on, so I should probably get rid of those.
I have some texturing questions, though.
Do textures with alpha need to be either on-off transparency, or can there be multiple shades of alpha. (Means I'd have to fiddle around with the texture in GIMP).
How many different textures should I aim for? I doubt I can fit all the textures I need onto one 256x256 image without looking quite pixellated, and even a single 512x512 might not be enough.
How much of blue alien materials, or green glowy radiators, should I use, or are those limited to the outside hull of vehicles?
Anything else in particular to keep in mind?
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different textures only work if you made them model out of different tiles (seperated md2 files). One md2 file can only have one texture.
the alpha channel question is a good one - to be honest, i don't know. I don't think we have skins like this already. we have on/off, but not an alpha channel of 50% somewhere.
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How much of blue alien materials, or green glowy radiators, should I use, or are those limited to the outside hull of vehicles?
The device will be partially made of alien materials, and can have some of the green glowy stuff in it, just don't overdo either of them. The main thing we want to see is lots of exposed electronics and power lines.
When this is finished, Psawhn, would you also be up for designing/modelling the Alien FTL Drive? For that we'd like a visible similarity to the wormhole device, since they're built on the same technology although of course their purposes are quite different.
Regards,
Winter
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also the "rocks" (or whatever it is) and the stair should not be included in the model we are using in the maps. That is, we need two versions. One with the ground (for e.g. ufopedia) and one without the ground (stairs + "rocks")
maybe it is a good idea to separate both parts completely?
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Bump. Psawhn, do you intend to finish this?
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Yep. Finishing it is one of my plans for this holiday. Last night I actually had an epiphany of sorts regarding it - it should be slightly broken up from the crash. (I didn't quite realize that earlier.)
I've also got the main components separated for organization, but I don't see why the lower halves won't be in the maps. Wouldn't it work to have the model there, then some invisible brushes to handle the pathing?
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It'd be very cool if we could get this into 2.3. We intend for an alien base mission to be the final mission for the release, and this model would be in it.
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but please only the device, not the rocks or the stairs. they must be solid brushes in the game.
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We could use the one with rocks and stairs for the UFOpaedia, right? Plus it would help recreate them in radiant.
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I'm worried about the hassle trying to recreate the meshes and align the textures and stuff in GTKRadiant. Wouldn't it just be easier to make the solid brushes invisible, and have the md2 be what the player sees?
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Yep. Finishing it is one of my plans for this holiday. Last night I actually had an epiphany of sorts regarding it - it should be slightly broken up from the crash. (I didn't quite realize that earlier.)
I've also got the main components separated for organization, but I don't see why the lower halves won't be in the maps. Wouldn't it work to have the model there, then some invisible brushes to handle the pathing?
What crash? These particular wormhole devices are for placing in alien bases, not UFOs.
Regards,
Winter
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Ah, never mind. I got it in my head that this one was from the Carrier UFO.
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We could use the one with rocks and stairs for the UFOpaedia, right? Plus it would help recreate them in radiant.
but the model should be at least built out of two parts in this case.
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You still haven't said WHY.
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because of the collision calculation in the maps.
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That's why Pshawn suggested filling the model with nodraw brushes. We do that for other models too.
However, it's going to be necessary to split the model into multiple parts anyway. I have plans for it to count as an alien (that is, it won't be visible unless it's within the LOS and it can be attacked as well as attack the player). But the lower part should always be visible.
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then we have no shadows, not lighting and so on - that's why i said we should build those parts out of brushes that are easy to build with brushes.
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Oh, that's right. Nodraw doesn't cast shadows anymore and mesh lighting isn't that great.
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nodraw should still cast shadows - if not that is a tracing bug (but it would not cast shadows on a mesh)
and mesh lighting doesn't have a shadowmap at all - it's one color value for the whole model. that's why i may look crap on big models.
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If I can recreate the lighting setup then I can bake the lights on to the model in Blender. That way, even though it's just lit by one colour value and has no shadows, it would effectively appear like it does.
I had the model split up anyways for organizational purposes, too. It also needs to be split across multiple levels because it's too tall. I just don't want to see a bunch of duplication of work, is all. ;)
Textures are limited to one image per .md2 model, right? There's that, too - I have to split it up anyways for texturing.
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If I can recreate the lighting setup then I can bake the lights on to the model in Blender. That way, even though it's just lit by one colour value and has no shadows, it would effectively appear like it does.
I think it's best not to do that, because then we wouldn't be able to change the lighting on the map without the model looking weird. Just give it the color it's supposed to have.
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which reminds me: please also provide normalmaps for your models
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Can you please upload the model somewhere?
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He did upload it, just not to this thread. I'll dig up the link at some point if you can't find it.
Regards,
Winter
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it's already in our svn now
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OK mattn,
I remodel this thing, you like it without the stair and rocky stuff ?
Or other suggestions how the thing must look ?
Then I remake the wormhole thing, and textured it.
Willem
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without stairs and rocks please.
thanks willem.
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I remodel the device, If you like this, I texture it.
Willem
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nice work - please texture it (maybe even with normalmap? :) )
and please also submit the c4d source (as always)
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About wormhole in general, is it supposed to be like it was at psawn`s version? I need to know what should I to do in .map.
PS: sitters, glad to see you again!
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that's (sitters version) should be exactly the model that i plan to use in the alienbase map.
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Here the textured one.
and the link :
http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/shots/wormhole.rar
Willem
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very nice job sitter - looks very cool
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Here the textured one.
and the link :
http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/shots/wormhole.rar
Willem
Nice one, sitters, as usual. Thumbs up! ;)
Regards,
Winter
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Thanks winter,
Ok Mattn,
Here the model broken in three pieces, 5 models.
Two for the cable and three for the wormhole device ( low, mid and hi ).
The texture is the same.
The link :
http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/shots/wormhole_broken.rar
Willem
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slightly offtopic, could you make some other aliens techs? laboratory tables, incubators-like equipment, may be some containers looks not like humans product?
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thank you very much willem
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slightly offtopic, could you make some other aliens techs? laboratory tables, incubators-like equipment, may be some containers looks not like humans product?
I look what I can do, I am very busy on the moment
making new characters and a new map, for the game,
I'm part of the team.
Willem
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When you say "making new characters" what do you mean? Destructavator has been working hard on some new soldiers.
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he meant he is working on another game
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When you say "making new characters" what do you mean? Destructavator has been working hard on some new soldiers.
Don't worry, you cant compare it with this.
(http://www.md2.sitters-electronics.nl/shots/char.jpg)
Willem
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Don't worry, you cant compare it with this.
Willem
yay, DOOM. Nice!
-geever
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Nice job on the texturing, sitters!
My sincere apologies for not finishing it myself.
If it's any consolation, I really like sitters texturing, and I think it's a much better result than what I would have ended up with.
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Nice job on the texturing, sitters!
My sincere apologies for not finishing it myself.
If it's any consolation, I really like sitters texturing, and I think it's a much better result than what I would have ended up with.
Thanks, normally I don't do someone else's project, but they really need the model,
so I jumped in.
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BTW, the model has been included in game and is used on map now.