UFO:Alien Invasion

Development => Mapping => Topic started by: Wirelizard on July 20, 2012, 12:30:31 pm

Title: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (sedan/police care WiP, 31 July))
Post by: Wirelizard on July 20, 2012, 12:30:31 pm
First off, just got back into UFO:AI after a few years and a couple of releases away, it's gotten so much more polished and awesome! Just played my first campaign through to the assault on an alien base (granted, on Very Easy...) and had a blast. The 3d work in the alien base alone is spectacular. I spent at least twenty minutes at the start of that mission just flying the camera around the base, oogling all the blinkenlights and being creeped out by the awesome alien-ness of it! Good thing this isn't an RTS, the aliens would have munched my guys while I drooled over their base...

(I'm also not sure if this should be Mapping or Artwork, so mods, please punt it around as appropriate...)

Anyway... one of the minor things that's bugged me, though, is how very non-futuristic all of the ground vehicles look in the game. Granted, there might be a great revival of 1980s/early 90s vehicle design in the 2080s (stranger things have happened in popular taste) but it would be kind of fun to have some more futuristic vehicles to hid behind while you're stalking Shevaar through the streets.

I haven't done any 3d work in five years or so, but I've also wandered back into Blender recently and rediscovered what a lot of fun that is.

A quick mental rundown of the vehicles seen on UFO:AI maps gives us a pretty short list:
- minivan
- cop car
- Hummer-like military vehicle
- freight trucks, with and without trailers
- LeCar-like subcompact (which also appears crashed into a lampost on at least one map, with crumpled hood)
(I'm sure I've forgotten a few, but these are the most common ones, anyway, especially on the RMA maps)

Before I go tearing off to Blender to start thrashing around, downloading the UFOAI source and such, a couple of questions.

1. Is there an interest in getting new meshes for these vehicles?

2. If 1=Yes, is swapping them into the maps relatively straightforward?

Anyway, I'd like to contribute, and some fairly simple low-poly semi-futuristic vehicular scenery seemed like a good starting point. Advice, feedback and possible starting points or artwork for further inspiration all welcomed!
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Sandro on July 20, 2012, 01:03:08 pm
That subject was put up several times, and yes -- having 198* vehicles in 2084 seems rather strange. While formal approval rights go to Mattn (who is our current project leader), personally I beleive your work will be appreciated.
Answering to your second question, yes. Mesh replacement is easy. There are currently some problems with replacing the shadowcasters for mesh models, which should be redone manually, but if you keep the general outline of the original model, that should not be necessary.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: H-Hour on July 20, 2012, 01:15:36 pm
1. Yes, we would be very interested in new models. But you also need to be able to create skins as well. We don't have dedicated 2D artists standing by to do that for you.

Most of the game's art assets were created before the game's story was set in the future. Upgrades to any existing models are welcome (cars, trees, equipment, etc), but the quality level must be higher when replacing existing content. That doesn't mean you should go crazy with the poly counts, but you can be a bit more detailed. Skins should be done at 1024x1024 resolution minimum (we can always scale down if we want).

2. Swapping them in and out is easy and even something you could do yourself with minimal effort. Learning how to do this in UFORadiant is pretty simple. It will be more involved than just overwriting the mesh file. But still not too difficult.

3. Please ask if you have any questions. Feel free to share work early for comments.

4. We have generally avoided an overly cartoon-ish art style. Please make your vehicles semi-realistic.

5. If you feel like making damaged vehicles (cars shot up, other signs of battle) that would be nice too. I hope to get back to mapping in the future and still hope to make a proper 2084 city map, complete wih crashed cars and buildings shot up, etc.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: geisthund on July 20, 2012, 01:43:35 pm
So question re the bullet riddled vehicles:

are we setting the game in the immediate post aftermath of the invasion (in which case an even blend of newish and damaged cars would be sensible) or in a post-holocaust late-resurgence kind of setting (in which case really badly smashed rusted cars would be good, kinda like fallout 3)

personally I'm a sucker for post-holocaust games, but the buildings are too pristine for that.

Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: H-Hour on July 20, 2012, 02:03:07 pm
are we setting the game in the immediate post aftermath of the invasion (in which case an even blend of newish and damaged cars would be sensible) or in a post-holocaust late-resurgence kind of setting (in which case really badly smashed rusted cars would be good, kinda like fallout 3)

No, the bullets/damage would come from the fact that the aliens have already been shooting the place up a bit. This would be most applicable in the case of landed terror missions, which accounts for most of our urban missions.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Mattn on July 20, 2012, 02:30:08 pm
yes - new cars would be a great addition to the maps.

btw. your praises for the alienbase all belongs to H-Hour (and to Sandro to improve the renderer)
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Crystan on July 20, 2012, 04:19:23 pm
Yeah some new cars would be awesome!
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Wirelizard on July 21, 2012, 05:02:05 am
Sounds like new cars are a hit idea, then.

My last round of 3d work was for Orbiter space sim about five or six years ago, using a Windows-based freeware 3d program I no longer remember the name of. Blender is a fair bit more powerful and featureful, but also a bit less beginner-friendly! I've also done my own skinning for various Orbiter and MSFS projects, so had already planned to deliver fully skinned objects to UFO:AI, no worries. I'm more than conversant enough with GIMP and Inkscape to handle skinning, if I can get back up to speed on the 3d side of things!

I think my anti-social TGIF evening is going to consist of a moderate amount of gin, Blender tutorials, and blowing away Ortnoks when I get tired of Blender blowing me away!
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Wirelizard on July 23, 2012, 06:09:56 am
OK, Blender is breaking my head. I'm sure it's powerful, but the UI is as opaque as hell. "Complexity purely for the sake of complexity" is the phrase that comes to mind.

Does it really have a limit of four sides/edges per face? That seems like a crazy random limit to impose and a wonderful way to uselessly drive up the number of surfaces on a model...

That said, I do have my first concept scribbles, I've been rummaging through DeviantArt and other websites for inspiration, and there are vaguely vehicle-shaped objects appearing in Blender...
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: headdie on July 23, 2012, 10:20:30 am
Blender is squares or triangles.  I cant really comment on recent builds as my preference is 2.49 because 2.5+ broke a script I need for other projects but 2.49 was all about learning the keyboard shortcuts, once you got the ones important to you memorised it is a powerful very fast tool to use.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: H-Hour on July 23, 2012, 10:32:12 am
OK, Blender is breaking my head. I'm sure it's powerful, but the UI is as opaque as hell. "Complexity purely for the sake of complexity" is the phrase that comes to mind.

Yes, I recommend spending time in tutorials rather than trying to figure it out as you go. It's interface is very different from other 3D programs but from what I hear it's very powerful once you get the hang of it. The nice thing about Blender is that it is the open-source 3D moddeler of choice, so you know it will continue to roll forward with the times. Learning any other modeller at this point is kind of like consigning yourself to a certain moment in history -- unless you can afford a new 3DSM every few years. (I am stuck in a 3DSM version from years ago with the choice to either pay money I don't have for an upgrade or learn Blender.)

Does it really have a limit of four sides/edges per face? That seems like a crazy random limit to impose and a wonderful way to uselessly drive up the number of surfaces on a model...

Every 3D asset in our game (and most games) is constructed out of triangles. Even if the surface in your editor is 4,5,6,7 sides, it will be decomposed into triangles in the game. So having a limit like this does not drive up the "actual" number of surfaces on a model.

That said, I do have my first concept scribbles, I've been rummaging through DeviantArt and other websites for inspiration, and there are vaguely vehicle-shaped objects appearing in Blender...

Cool! Look forward to seeing what you've got. Please keep in mind limits on licensing issues when modelling/skinning. This extends to concept work -- if a model looks exactly like a concept produced by someone else, it can trample on their licensing rights. Of course, we all take inspiration from each other and small changes to the concept are usually enough to make it distinct.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Wirelizard on July 23, 2012, 11:37:07 am
Yes, I recommend spending time in tutorials rather than trying to figure it out as you go.

I've been flipping back and forth between Blender itself, the Blender docs, and YouTube tutorials, and am significantly less lost than a few hours ago!

The one thing that is giving me grief is Blender's use of Boolean operations - blending/merging/cutting shapes with other shapes. The Blender 2.6 docs frankly don't seem to make sense, and sometimes Blender will reject an attempt at a Boolean op that looks, to me, like it should work.

I've been spoiled the last few years by Inkscape, I guess, which has an awesomely easy to use UI, error messages that are actually *helpful* and other refinements...

Quote
Every 3D asset in our game (and most games) is constructed out of triangles. Even if the surface in your editor is 4,5,6,7 sides, it will be decomposed into triangles in the game. So having a limit like this does not drive up the "actual" number of surfaces on a model.

Good to know. I found the suggested UFO:AI poly counts over on your wiki for reference. Assuming I'm reading the poly counts in Blender right, keeping vehicles under the suggested limit but getting them more interesting than the current UFO:AI models shouldn't be difficult.

Quote
Cool! Look forward to seeing what you've got. Please keep in mind limits on licensing issues when modelling/skinning. This extends to concept work -- if a model looks exactly like a concept produced by someone else, it can trample on their licensing rights. Of course, we all take inspiration from each other and small changes to the concept are usually enough to make it distinct.

I'm keeping that in mind, no worries. I'm involved in other open source projects (Ubuntu, Open Clipart, a few others in the past) and I'm aware of some of the perils.

I've been working on a Hummer-replacement first, for somewhere to start, and I'm quite happy with how the mesh is taking shape. Screenshots sometime in the next few days.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: H-Hour on July 23, 2012, 12:20:21 pm
I'm keeping that in mind, no worries. I'm involved in other open source projects (Ubuntu, Open Clipart, a few others in the past) and I'm aware of some of the perils.

Great! This is often one of the most difficult thing to get across to artists.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Wirelizard on July 23, 2012, 01:35:05 pm
Quick and dirty screenshot straight from Blender's 4-up view, before I fall over for some badly needed sleep.

(http://img862.imageshack.us/img862/5503/hummerreplacementwip223.png)

Early WiP, obviously! This is intended as a replacement for the Hummer model; I'll likely do a police skin for it too, as well as camo. The basic concept is lifted from the various real Hummer-replacement concepts out there, more or less - open wheel wells to deflect blast, curved underside, etc

Just for size reference, the grey vertical rod next to the vehicle is six feet tall in UFO:AI's "8 units = 1 foot" scale. I haven't yet put my mesh next to the existing Hummer mesh, but the proportions are deliberately similar. If I'm reading Blender's interface correctly, it's currently 262 triangles, although I'm using the "Mirror" function so I'm not actually sure if that's for just the side I'm actually building or for the whole vehicle.

I'm still tweaking proportions, but I'm generally satisfied with the beast. The wheels will get hubcaps in the mesh, but I'll probably leave tread and such for the skin. I might put a hatch on the roof, and still need to do axle/drive train/suspension bits so the wheels aren't just floating there...
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: H-Hour on July 23, 2012, 02:26:08 pm
Looks promising, and good level of detail in the construction. It might be nice to see what it looks like with the body sitting a bit higher off the ground.

One trick you can do later for better performance: Make the wheel a separate model with a separate skin. Then we can link them up in the map editor. It's a bit cheaper on the engine to show one model four times rather than having them built into the vehicle model. And that way if we want we can do clever things like twisting the wheels to make it look like it's turning, bending them outwards to look like it crashed, etc. You can also reuse the wheels on other models where appropriate (scale, skin, etc).
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back
Post by: Sandro on July 23, 2012, 03:36:18 pm
OK, Blender is breaking my head. I'm sure it's powerful, but the UI is as opaque as hell. "Complexity purely for the sake of complexity" is the phrase that comes to mind.

IMHO it doesn't -- it just relies on user knowing all the shortcuts; actually, almost every function can be accessed with a key combo. So download and print Blender cheatsheet :)

Does it really have a limit of four sides/edges per face? That seems like a crazy random limit to impose and a wonderful way to uselessly drive up the number of surfaces on a model...

Triangles or quads only, as headdie said. Note that quads are really supposed to be used as NURBS, so if you want a smooth shape, you can do a NURBS-based model and then triangulate it to precision you want. Also, there are many tools for them, including smoothing, stitching etc.

Also, Blender natively supports multiresolution, so you can have both the low-poly mesh for exporting and the high-poly for normalmap and ambience occlusion map baking. You can create initial (without additional detail) high-poly from low poly by "subdivide" tool.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: Wirelizard on July 24, 2012, 03:10:25 am
Looks promising, and good level of detail in the construction. It might be nice to see what it looks like with the body sitting a bit higher off the ground.

I haven't set the axles up yet, so lowering the wheel centres relative to the body will be easy. I'll bump ground clearance up a bit, stick a plane under the model and post a screenshot later tonight.

Quote
One trick you can do later for better performance: Make the wheel a separate model with a separate skin. Then we can link them up in the map editor.

I was wondering about that, and that also means the separate wheels can be re-used by other models entirely - trucks and such. I'll set it up that way in the final export version.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: Wirelizard on July 24, 2012, 05:44:15 am
From the front corner, looking up at the driver's side door from roughly ground level. This is with perspective turned on in Blender; just for size reference, that tall stick is six feet tall, and the wheels on this beast are three feet high.
(http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/6013/hummerreplacementwip323.png)

...and from the rear left corner, a nice view of the rear door, rear bumper and roof.
(http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/8228/hummerreplacementwip423.png)

I've tweaked the "eyebrow" that protects the windscreen, adjusted various things, added wheel attachments (the thing lacks "axles" in the strict sense; I figure each wheel is independently electrically powered and there's fuel cells in the floorboards or similar. You can see the underside is fully surfaced, just in case some enterprising map builder wants to crash one or blow it onto it's roof.

The whole project is currently around 630 faces, which includes half a dozen random cubes and such used for scale and the two visible wheels, both of which are 32-segment cylinders. That puts the body of the Hummer-replacement at around 400 faces or so. Each wheel is likely to be around 80-100 faces modelled (need to experiment to see how far below the current 32-seg cylinders I can go and still have round wheels!) which will put a complete vehicle at 700-900 faces, very roughly. Does that seem workable in-game?

Anyone know if you can coax Blender into giving you a face count of just one mesh or component?

Finally, this thing needs a name! Calling it "replacement Hummer" might be accurate but it's boring. Naming suggestions, please!

Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: H-Hour on July 24, 2012, 10:00:11 am
Looks good. 1,000 sounds reasonable for a vehicle like this. Keep the wheels round. It's not too expensive and the wheels are always one of those things that stand out almost immediately if they are too blocky.

I would tend to go for a generic naming scheme: Tactical Vehicle or something like that, but feel free to get creative.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: homunculus on July 26, 2012, 09:49:46 am
how would you drive that car when it has been raining, i wonder?
i mean, with the front wheel open above, there would be muddy water all over everything.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: Crystan on July 26, 2012, 10:04:03 am
i mean, with the front wheel open above, there would be muddy water all over everything.
A special alloy that prevents muddy water (and other stuff like that) to cover the car and was invented around the year 2050. Problem solved... :P
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: Wirelizard on July 27, 2012, 09:57:17 am
how would you drive that car when it has been raining, i wonder?
i mean, with the front wheel open above, there would be muddy water all over everything.

 :D Actually, it's not totally clear from the screenshots I've posted so far, but the rear of the front wheel well is actually sloped inward, with the top a good bit further forward than the lower edge of that face. That should keep debris - and tire spray - off the windscreen! Although I do like Crystan's water-repelling alloy idea.

Here's a better Blender screenshot of the front end of the beast. Because I haven't had any inspiration for a better name, and because it is descriptive, let's run with H-Hour's idea of "Tactical Vehicle".
(http://img443.imageshack.us/img443/9244/hummerreplacementwip27j.png)

I hope to get this into game-usable form this weekend, before I go off camping for a week. Haven't had much time to work on the model this week, although I did start work on a (very, very rough!) draft mesh for a subcompact "city car" - currently it looks like a mutant cross between a Smartcar, a Fiat 500 and a golf cart, which is not a bad set of ancestors but the thing needs work before it sees the light of day! The Tactical Vehicle came together quite quickly, the subcompact... not so much.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: Wirelizard on July 27, 2012, 10:58:18 am
Right, having just stared at the front end of the thing a while longer while getting the screenshot above, I've rebuild the area immediately below the windscreen and where the hood joins the body. That pointy bit was bugging me, so now the centreline of the hood is one long line from windscreen down to the front bumper/ram assembly, with a sort of wedge shape off to the sides under the windscreen. It cleans up the lines of that part of the vehicle, I think.

(http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/474/hummerreplacementwip227.png)

That's the windscreen highlighted in orange; this screenshot also nicely shows off Blender's indispensable Mirror function - build half a vehicle, get a whole one!

I haven't yet installed a Blender md2 export script, but I've attached the Blender 2.62 .blend file for the Tactical Vehicle to this post, if anyone wants to have a look at it and provide feedback.

Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: H-Hour on July 27, 2012, 03:56:25 pm
Looking good. My only thought would be that the windscreen should be a lot bigger. It would be very difficult to see very well out of that and situational awareness is pretty important for a light armoured vehicle like this.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (1st WiP pic, 23 July)
Post by: Wirelizard on July 30, 2012, 09:00:33 am
Looking good. My only thought would be that the windscreen should be a lot bigger. It would be very difficult to see very well out of that and situational awareness is pretty important for a light armoured vehicle like this.

Current vehicles (like the US Army's Stryker) are increasingly using cameras and screens to increase situational awareness without vulnerable windows; I've made the assumption that that trend will only continue, so giant windscreens aren't strictly necessary.  Once I unwrap the mesh and start painting, there will be a full set of windows down the sides and across the back, though.

The next vehicle has reached a shape I'm more-or-less happy with, or at least willing to share! It's a subcompact replacement, with obvious inspiration from the Smartcar and similar vehicles. It's nearly cubical, designed to get maximum volume on a a minimal footprint. Unlike the Tactical Vehicle, the wheels on this one are an integral part of the mesh, and it weighs in around 500 tris all up.

(http://img827.imageshack.us/img827/9624/subcompactdraft29july20.png)

Something about the proportions and details is still bugging me, though. This one definitely hasn't come together as fast as the Tactical, despite being (in theory) a simpler design and more basic vehicle...
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (subcompact WiP, 30 July)
Post by: H-Hour on July 30, 2012, 10:15:18 am
Cute. I like it.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (subcompact WiP, 30 July)
Post by: Wirelizard on July 31, 2012, 12:52:40 am
Glad you like it, something about the design is still bugging me, though! This might just be a case of being too caught up in my own creations and not realizing they're good enough, that sort of thing...

Anyway, I put the subcompact aside last night and this morning and began sketching out a truck cab mesh. This one has come together quickly, although it doesn't have a chassis or back end details yet. Currently weighing in at a mere 180 faces, too, although that's without wheels and with the back half still unbuilt.

(http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/8235/truckdraft30july2012.png)

Anyway, I'm off first thing Tuesday morning for a week holiday out of town, most of which time I'll be up a mountain well away from any computer or internet! After I get back I want to get the truck and subcompact finished, and get all three current vehicles painted and into usable game-ready form, hopefully before being distracted by the next design!

Still on the agenda: a sedan-type vehicle, for both civilian and police use, and a replacement for the most 80s-tastic vehicle currently in the game, that minivan!
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (truck cab WiP, 30 July)
Post by: Wirelizard on July 31, 2012, 01:45:05 pm
Speaking of sedans, something of a teaser before I head off to the mountains for a week:
(http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/9868/sedandraft31july2012.png)

The proportions are still too tall and chunky for a sedan, I think, although cab-forward designs like this (short hood, wheels well out toward the corners of the chassis) are never going to be as sleek-looking. I'm probably going to squash the whole thing down a bit, though, and might yet re-work the back end. Currently around 210 faces, with no wheels.

Possible light-bar for a police version of the mesh thrown on just to see what it looks like.

Feedback on all the meshes much appreciated, especially the truck and sedan as they're the least finished.

I'll have one or two days during my holiday time when I'll have computer access (or internet access via my phone) but can't promise to check in here, but will be back properly in about a week!
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (sedan/police care WiP, 31 July))
Post by: H-Hour on August 25, 2012, 08:29:59 pm
Any progress lately.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (sedan/police care WiP, 31 July))
Post by: Wirelizard on August 26, 2012, 06:54:17 am
Not much, I'm afraid, I got back from holidays and the rest of August went past in a blur of work and other commitments!

My schedule looks saner going into this last week of August and into September, so I should be able to finish up the meshes and start unwrapping the UVs and skinning the vehicles.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (sedan/police care WiP, 31 July))
Post by: H-Hour on August 26, 2012, 11:21:12 am
Looking forward to it.
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (sedan/police care WiP, 31 July))
Post by: Crystan on August 26, 2012, 06:35:29 pm
Me 2 :)
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (sedan/police care WiP, 31 July))
Post by: Wirelizard on February 09, 2013, 12:51:25 am
Just for info, I have not forgotten about this project, but currently can't even run UFO thanks to screwed up Intel graphics drivers in Ubuntu 12.10, so haven't worked on it in months.

I've still got all the Blender files, of course. If someone wants, I can bundle them all into a zip file and attach it here, Public Domain (CC0) Licensed so someone else can run with them. Failing that, next release of Ubuntu is in April, so possibly two months or so I'll have working 3d accel again?

 :P
Title: Re: Giving the 1980s their vehicles back (sedan/police care WiP, 31 July))
Post by: krilain on February 10, 2013, 09:04:32 pm
Go on, attach it. It can always serve.

I've never understood why those old vehicles hadn't been immediatly changed. Just removing the wheels would have given them a futuristic touch :)