So, what are you working on right now?

[peter_spy]

Probably not in the next few months, I'm afraid. Although if you point me to a TDM model and its reference (concept art, photos etc.), I'll see what I can do.

[Dragofer]

A mysterious ship, perhaps the grandest the world has seen, looms in the nightly mist. What could have brought it here to this frigid bay, of all places?

 

 

Should one come to venture deep into its hull, this would be one of many sounds one would hear.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Dragofer

[Bikerdude]

That is a very impressive looking ship, the sheer scale of it is impressive alone, but its all the details that dazzle!

 

Only crit is that its a little bit to contemporary and not enough medieval steampunk..( the lifeboats, I don't think these were ever stored that was back then, if at all)

Edited August 1, 2018 by Bikerdude

[Anderson]

That is a very impressive looking ship, the sheer scale of it is impressive alone, but its all the details that dazzle!

 

Only crit is that its a little bit to contemporary and not enough medieval steampunk..( the lifeboats, I don't think these were ever stored that was back then, if at all)

 

I don't know if Sea Dogs/Age of Pirates is a good comparison but if the ship isn't a 100% recreation of a historical vessel, no problem putting the lifeboats in whatever arrangement is ok with modeling in-game.

 

I think the bigger, advanced ships from 16'th, 17'th, 18'th century definitely had more lifeboats because she carried hundreds of sailors. That is if it's sail ships but steam boats as well.

 

But if it's steampunk with steam ships than it's not medieval at all.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Anderson

[Dragofer]

Thanks very much Bikerdude - regarding the time period, I've really started to take a liking towards the pioneer ambience, replete with its paraffin lamps, whaling stations and rugged individualists. And this is what their ships looked like: straight hulls, steam-powered (this is what the new steam_engine_003 was for by the way) and ever more functional design. Maybe this era could be considered as the upper end of TDM's timescale? Also, personally I found it quite interesting to alternate between working on a 16th century ship like the merchantman on the previous page and a barque like this one.

 

On the matter of lifeboats: they used to get stored on the deck itself. Later they moved to the rooves of deckhouses once ships started having those, and after that they were suspended off the sides. The advantage of the latter is that it saves a lot of space.

Edited August 1, 2018 by Dragofer

[Boiler's_hiss]

Will horizontal/vertical mirroring for grime on rectangular portholes and mirroring/rotation for round ones be sufficient or different textures would do better?

Edited August 1, 2018 by Boiler's_hiss

[RPGista]

The simple plot line, the foggy and cold environment, the sheer scale and intricate design of the boat, this is all so cool... Pretty amazing. Will be playing for sure.

[Dragofer]

Will horizontal/vertical mirroring for grime on rectangular portholes and mirroring/rotation for round ones be sufficient or different textures would do better?

Normally it's enough to rotate every 2nd or 3rd pothole to conceal patterns in the grime, though the rectangular portholes may benefit from having a mirrored model variant because they can't be rotated as freely. I've left that step for later though because most of the work I'm doing now is on the interior, churning out modules for the different environments, so the exterior parts will undoubtedly be shuffled around to accommodate the new interior when the time comes.

 

Speaking of interiors: making the soundscape for this is really being a blast, experimenting with layering all kinds of shorter local pieces on top of the base ambients.

[Bikerdude]

Made a start on getting back to work on 'Shadowhides city mission' and had a flicker of inspiration, so made a start on a classic steampunk elevator -

 

Edited August 4, 2018 by Bikerdude

[Baal]

Do I know this place?

[stumpy]

the Titanic was a steam ship, it would count in a steampunk world.

[Bikerdude]

Do I know this place?

You have been to this part of the city, but a lot has change since then...

[Bikerdude]

Made a start on getting back to work on 'Shadowhides city mission' and had a flicker of inspiration, so made a start on a classic steampunk elevator -

All the place holder work is done, so here is a view from inside the elevator cage, and yes there cage door slides to open and all the parts move as it slides - all credit goes to Obsttorte for the scripting, he is a wizard!

 

[Boiler's_hiss]

Were floor buttons remodelled?

[Bikerdude]

Were floor buttons remodelled?

Thoes one are, but some of the stuff (like those buttons) in that scene are just place holders.

[NeonsStyle]

The key to an elevator like that is the lighting, and the ceiling needs to be drop dead gorgeous (depending on location). Stained glass is a good option. I hope

after you publish this level; you'll make this into a prefab. It's beautiful work.

[Bikerdude]

The key to an elevator like that is the lighting, and the ceiling needs to be drop dead gorgeous (depending on location). Stained glass is a good option.

I hope after you publish this level; you'll make this into a prefab. It's beautiful work.

Its an outside public elevator, so hence all the meta and and not much else

I can do

 

[peter_spy]

This is not a final model yet, but you can see why I'm such a big proponent of learning modeling, and in particular, making models with unwrapped UVs, instead of simple tiling materials:

 

This high-poly concept is 501 000 tris.

 

 

This is a low-poly version (540 tris) with normals baked from high-poly:

 

 

It isn't easy, and it's time-consuming as hell, but the results are worth it IMO

[Epifire]

Nice job at masking the hard edges. Is this baked using averaged normals? That's the only way I make due without loosing corner details when baking all hard edged.

[peter_spy]

Nice job at masking the hard edges. Is this baked using averaged normals? That's the only way I make due without loosing corner details when baking all hard edged.

Yes. I finally understand what makes that method superior. Baking it in 3dsmax was a pain though. I had to divide both meshes into 6 parts to set up cages properly. I know that Substance Painter is pretty good at doing it semi-automatically, but I haven't gotten to that yet

 

Edited August 23, 2018 by Judith

[Dragofer]

why I'm such a big proponent of learning modeling, and in particular, making models with unwrapped UVs, instead of simple tiling materials:

I certainly agree that models covered in tiling materials tend to look awful, but I'd make the case that some models have custom textures that're worth using again. For example this is the wardrobe1 texture on the coffin:

 

 

It's good to see that you did after all get around to redoing some of the stock models at this level of detail. What has really caught my eye in that WIP shot though is the floor texture: without exaggerating, it'd be a perfect fit for my ship interior. Would you care to share it?

Edited August 23, 2018 by Dragofer

[peter_spy]

Sure thing, here you go: https://we.tl/t-MtUeOICrLe

Just put the textures in bumpmap / diffusemap / specularmap stages of your material, and you're ready to go. Textures are 2k, so you might want to scale them down, if necessary.

[peter_spy]

Btw. I was using these as references, but I'm not entirely sure about the material, is this rubber, or some kind of leather?

 

For now I used one of the leather patterns I have around, but I'm not sure if it's the right one.

[Bikerdude]

@Judith, all your modelling work is superb, but imho they all look too clean. If you take the two RL screenshots and then look at your wonder model, the wear and tear hasen't been replicated on said model.

[peter_spy]

That's correct, for now this is just a base material with some generic stains and dirt.