Renzatic's Textures

[greebo]

I asked Renzatic whether his latest textures can be added to TDM:

 

Even though I post down in the T3ed forums alot more than I do elsewhere, I made and tested all my textures with Doom 3/TDM in mind. Since I'm already in the credits and all, I say knock yourself out. You see something I've made you like, assume you're already have my permission and add as much of my stuff as you want.

 

Originally Posted by codereader

I saw this post here in the T3 Editor's Guild:

 

http://www.ttlg.com/...486#post1922486

 

I think these are very well done - would you be willing to grant TDM the right to use them too (provided they are technically suitable) or would you rather see them as T3 only?

[Baddcog]

Awesome! One of those is EXACTLY what I need for my arches. I thought I was gonna have to hack something together.

[Mortem Desino]

Gee. What a swell guy!

[SneaksieDave]

I think a few of those might already be included, not sure. Some look familiar.

 

Weird, I guess http://www.masterbuilderstore.com/ is gone?

[greebo]

Ok, so I'll append "add textures" to the "What's next" thread.

[greebo]

Anybody wanting to come up with some suitable names for these textures? There are 8 textures.

[Renzatic]

I guess since someone had the decency to fire up a thread with my name on it, I might as well use it to post about stuff I'm working on. Kinda use it as a diary/beg for help outlet without starting an entirely new thread.

 

So, I gave ole Photoshop and Modo a kickstart for the Christmas FM contest. My intentions are grand, and my goals...oh, they're lofty. But considering one of these aforementioned goals is to use nothing but custom made textures and meshes without relying on a single TDM object...well. It probably ain't gonna happen by Christmas. In fact, chances are good I'll be converting this from a little FM to a beauty map to showcase/contribute/brag about my stuff and finally live up to the little tag below my name.

 

Well, so far I have about 9 textures done. Amazingly, of those 9, I've only got one maybe destined for the recycle bin. The rest are actually halfway decent. I'm intending on building everything around a theme, instead of doing what I usually do. None of the usual a brick wall here, a door there, some trim, ect. This way, I can design everything to fit together homogeneously. Another advantage is, since I have a specific idea in mind, I end up whipping things together alot faster.

 

Anyway, here's what I've got so far. These two shots only show about 6 of the textures I've got so far. One showcasing the windows (which I need to dirty up a bit more) and another one of the two doors I've done (which isn't shown completely since I cut off the arched top for quick building purposes).

 

Windows

Door

 

I've already posted a similar shot here before, but this is the tweaked, tuned, and finalized version. Save for a couple of easily fixed issues, I'm happy with these. They're all 2048x, save for the trim, which is 512x1024. I'll be sizing them down for final release and handing out the large originals to anyone who wants them.

 

Though the windows and doors are ultimately intended for use on a model, I decided to make them usable as textures for the sake of flexibility. Next up, I'll be finishing the door frame, the window frame, and start on the hallway arches. After that, things will get tough since I intend on adding alot of alpha masked plants, roots, vines, and other miscellaneous plant life. I have yet to succeed at doing one that didn't end up looking like flat plastic crap, so it'll be a nice challenge.

[Renzatic]

Alright. Got the high poly door finished and textured, window frame well on its way. The hallway arch is still very WIP, but I should have it finished by tomorrow.

 

As usual, I'm having trouble crunching them all down to a low poly model. The meshwork itself is done on both of them, but I always have issues with the normalmap conversion. I've got Judith helping me out on that front, though...so maybe I'll have something decent by the end of the week.

[Springheel]

The door looks fantastic!

[Renzatic]

Thanks.

 

I'd love to say they're all in game and ready to roll. And they almost are...cept for the fact I can't bake a good normalmap off a high poly to save my damn life. Judith had a little more success than I did, but his only turned out slightly less screwed up than my attempts. They've always got little dips and bobs and bruises everywhere that look awful.

 

To show you where I'm at right now, I've got this nice window and frame completely finished...save for the normalmap. From 230,000 tris down to 892. I could probably shave off an extra 100-200 polys by flattening the trim details and merging some of my curve points down to tris. But I kinda have to leave them in there because I suck so horribly at baking my normals.

 

Blah. I probably need to watch another 50 hours of tutorials on cages in Xnormal or something. Anyone have any advice in the meantime?

[Baddcog]

I'd have to see the models to have a better idea of what's going on, can you save em as obj files?

 

It does look like on the window (low poly) that the arch over the window has a square edge where it sinks into the window, would be better to have a slight bevel instead of 90 degree corner. That's the only thing I can see in those pics that might cause an issue.

[Renzatic]

I'd have to see the models to have a better idea of what's going on, can you save em as obj files?

 

I'll do that first chance I get tomorrow. Right now, I'm experimenting with a little cheat that almost..ALMOST came out perfectly. Instead of baking the high onto the low, I baked a flat texture from the high poly UV and overlaid it on the low. The front came out perfectly. All the dips and curves went where they're supposed to, no distortions whatsoever. Everything was nice. Except for the sides of the model. Since it's off a flat bake, the sides are slanted far too wildly for me to let it go as is. Still. I came THAT close to getting it perfect.

 

On the plus side, it came out good enough for me to give it a test run ingame. Here's the results. My only complaint is that since I UVed it seamlessly, I didn't get to use my texture space as efficiently as I could've. Thus, it isn't nearly as sharp and detailed as it should be. So...either I scrap it and start fresh, or say fuggit, no one will notice except for me, and move on to bigger and better things.

 

Edit: I just got through looking at Dram's site. Blackheart Manor is...damn...amazing. I had no idea it was as expansive as that, and I'm surprised you all haven't slapped up some of those shots on the TDM website.

 

Those few shots of the little overgrown shack with all the leaves, branches, and ivy growing everywhere...that's almost exactly what I'm planning on doing here. I'd love to know how he did those.

[Baddcog]

Window looks great. I wouldn't worry too much about redoing it. Most likely nobody will notcie whatever you are having issues with

More seams means more verts so I think you balanced it out well.

 

I actually do alot of my baking onto a flat sheet. Depending on the object, but that's how I did the metal chest. Side, front and top were all done flat then composited. Sometimes it's easier to do stuff manually.

 

You should make a glow tex for that window though. Lit yellow and a blue glow for moonlight in addition to the dark one.

[Renzatic]

Window looks great. I wouldn't worry too much about redoing it. Most likely nobody will notcie whatever you are having issues with

More seams means more verts so I think you balanced it out well.

 

I actually do alot of my baking onto a flat sheet. Depending on the object, but that's how I did the metal chest. Side, front and top were all done flat then composited. Sometimes it's easier to do stuff manually.

 

You should make a glow tex for that window though. Lit yellow and a blue glow for moonlight in addition to the dark one.

 

I'll show you what I'm talking about here, and why it comes so close, but ultimately can't be used..

 

Okay, this is a normal I baked from a high to low poly.

 

this is from an earlier bake. I've corrected the UV since then

 

As you can see, it's dented, bumpy, and horrible, but spatially correct. Now what I did to try and correct that is I baked a normal from the high poly UV without involving the low poly at all. I got this:

 

 

...which lines up like this on the model:

 

 

And that's...almost so great. Every single curve is in there perfectly. Only problem is the sides. Since it's going from 3D to 2D, it's trying to bake those slants in there just like it would if it were projecting to a texture. You've got too much green and too much red in there, and it messes things up a bit. The end result is it leaves those edges deeper in shadows than they should be.

 

Now if I could get the clean fitting edges of the second, but the correct angles of the first, I'd be golden. Right now, I just can't quite seem to pull it off.

[Baddcog]

Honestly the pic of the window with normals on it looks exactly like it should IMO.

 

For a 90 degree edge to the frame sides like that should be 100% pink. If you want a softer rounder edge then the low poly needs a bevel around the outside.

 

If you want to tone down the normals you can throw a layer of the base blu over top of the normals in photoshop, then just bump the opacity way down so it just adds a bit of a blu hue over the whole thing (or parts).

 

 

The top hi/low one does look screwed up though, looks like everything has a dish to it.

 

Is that a doom bake or an xnormal bake?

[Renzatic]

All my bakes are done in Modo nowadays. Xnormal looks like it'll be better for really high detailed objects because it uses cages, but for now, Modo is fitting me pretty well.

 

Anyway, I think I'm figuring out how to do all this crap. Whenever you bake a geometric normal like I've been doing, it colors everything according to angle. Whatever is pointed towards the front gets the usual normalmap color spread, and everything else gets an extreme green, red, ect depending on where they're facing. To solve that, I'll rotate my model, render out a normal, rotate again, ect, then piece it all back together in PS. It's a little more work, and ultimately just a stopgap solution, but I'm finally getting some high quality results.

 

I've now got 4 models in my map. Everything except my big archway and the accompanying trim, which I'm still trying to working on the look and shape.

 

..and this is it. A little monochrome, but it's finally starting to look like something. Next up is the big arch, the plants, then the big table, chairs, different windows, and bookshelves for the room.

[Baddcog]

If you're gonna do it that way you might as well model it out in a flat plane like it ends up looking on the texture sheet. You'll get the grooves for wood and whatnot but don't have to break it up for seperate bakes.

 

Like I said, did that with the metal chest. Then the top piece I just used a bend modifier to make it round.

[Tels]

I've now got 4 models in my map. Everything except my big archway and the accompanying trim, which I'm still trying to working on the look and shape.

 

..and this is it. A little monochrome, but it's finally starting to look like something. Next up is the big arch, the plants, then the big table, chairs, different windows, and bookshelves for the room.

 

Great athmosphere! There is a reason I am not a texture artist nor modeller nor mapper

[Renzatic]

If you're gonna do it that way you might as well model it out in a flat plane like it ends up looking on the texture sheet. You'll get the grooves for wood and whatnot but don't have to break it up for seperate bakes.

 

I might try that. Breaking everything down into component parts and flat projections seems to be the best way to do all this baking stuff. But on the plus side, I do seem to be getting a little better at doing high to low poly bakes.

 

Last night, I whipped up a little cylindrical lamp to try my hand and doing some baking on a relatively simple shape. Read a ton of tutorials on what does what, looked up some stuff on cages (still confused), all that good stuff. After that, I went ahead and did my bake...ended up with this:

 

 

...which came from this:

 

It took about half an hour of modeling, then about 3 hours getting my UVs and low poly just right. The only way I could seem to get a good bake was if I subdivided the lowpoly once. When I did that, everything came out perfectly. Problem is, 4000 tris is a little too much, and cutting down distorted the normal the more I culled. What you're seeing there is the happy medium. 1200 tris. Still a bit high, but an improvement.

 

I think it's coming to the point where I have to learn cages. The thing that confuses me about those is that the cage has to be vertex identical to the low poly in xNormal, so I can't trim, cut, and tweak it the way I think I should. It still seems to be that the final low poly model has to fit the contours of the high poly as closely as possible to get good results, specially with complex shapes. So the only way I can do it at the moment is to add more geometry.

 

There is a reason I am not a texture artist nor modeller nor mapper

 

Yeah, it's a pain in the ass sometimes. But even at it's worst, it's always fun.

[Baddcog]

Yeah, you deffinately want the low to follow the contours as much as possible. I think the cone at the bottom shows that detail fine enough, but the trims between the glass don't seem to benefit from the high polys at all.

 

I'd probably extrude the vertical trims as the define the shape alot, the horizontal trims could stay flat as they are.

 

I'm not an expert at it for sure, still learning what works best.

 

Don't forget the shadow mesh either. We can really get away with a ton of polys if there's a simple shadow mesh. Could probably make a good shadow for that at 100 polys. Maybe less and that's where the performance impact is.

 

That's a cool lamp though, you should put a ring up top, then it could be hung on a wall bracket, or from a chain.

This is something I thought of just recently and wish all our hanging lamps just had a ring up top, then authors could add any length of chain, wall bracket, whatever.

[Renzatic]

My one question here is when is more than enough too much? Even with a low res shadow mesh slapped on it, it still seems kinda high for such a small object. I'm a little wary about adding any more detail to bring out the normal because it already seems a little overkill as is, and all those tris could be used to better effect elsewhere.

 

Anyway, I've got a couple more high res meshes en route (one table and a chair that ain't cool enough to show off yet) that need a good LP, but I've also figured out that all my meshes are about two foot bigger than they should be ingame. So now I'm thinking it's time I do some cleanup work, get everything tidied up, finalize and paired up with collision and shadow meshes. Which means I've gotta figure out how to add collision and shadow meshes, I guess.

[Baddcog]

The lamp could deffinately be lower poly. Looks like 14 segments around, but you could probably throw that tex on a 12 sided cylinder.

And it looks to be about 50 segments tall. Right there you'd save 200 polys and wouldn't even notice.

Don't be afraid to 'float' polys either, that can save a ton.

You could make the bottom under the glass 2 cones that overlap. One under the glass and one under the 'ring'. The ring could be a 12 sided cylinder 1 segment high.

That would save 3 height segments per cone, at 12 sides probably about 100 polys per cone, do that to the top too.

All together you'd save around 600 polys and still retain the basic shape, and you have the normal to 'shape' it more.

Now you're at 600 polys which is a pretty good budget for a fancier object (I have a few items around 800 and I feel that's pushing it a bit) and a shadow mesh for that could be 100 or less (alot of lamps get the shadow turned off anyway as they usually just make lighting look bad).

 

 

Table looks good. I think the decorations around the edge might give you the same issues as the window sides.

They seem very deep, so on a low poly table edge that is flat the normals might look a bit strong where the player sees the actual shape.

If they are only half as deep it might not look quite as jarring to the player (either way most people will probably hardly even notice)

 

I think the legs might not stick out far enough to support the table though.

-----------------------

Collision and shadow are easy.

 

Collision: 2 different kinds.

 

1:static items, like the table could basically be a cube for each leg. Doesn't have any limitations on poly count. Just keep it fairly close to the shape so arrows don't hit an invisible wall 6 inches away from the table leg. Just has to be close enough that things don't hit air or fall through. For the top I'd probably stay with a cylinder of almost as many segments around so players won't drop goblets through the edges.

Can be convex or concave (but made of convex shapes).

Can be made of multiple materials - ie: the legs can have //base/tdm_collision_metal (I think that's right) and the top can have //base/tdm_collision_wood. Try to match these up with the objects materials realistically.

The Wiki has a list.

 

 

2:moveables, have a limit of 16 polys (I think).

HAVE to be convex.

Can only be one material.

sometimes you can get lucky and force a concave model through, but usually that'll make it wonky and it'll get bumped and fly through the air, bounce off stuff weird and possibly kill anything it hits.

If it doesn't work at all you won't be able to go in game, it'll give errors in console.

------------------------

 

Shadows are just a very low poly version of the model. Sometimes you can use the collision mesh and just copy it and put //base/textures/common/shadow on it. (double check that path.)

 

(shadow2 doesn't cast shadows on the object itself, good for small items like rings (well, rings don't really need a shadow at all)

 

This is the most important performance factor. You can have a model of 2000 polys, and a few lights on it and fps will dive hard. If you add a shadow mesh of 200 polys you can have 10 of the objects and get the same fps. It's the dynamic lights that really kill performance.

 

Still good to keep poly budgets in mind, but shadow counts for 90% of that. Just try to keep the general shape for the shadow but you can probably go with half as many sides on the table top, maybe less and still have a decent shadow. I use 3 sided cylinders for alot of stuff like table legs, that'll give thickness from different angles.

 

Just make sure you put noshadows on the objects material, otherwise you end up with 2 shadows cast per object.

 

The shadow mesh should be entirely encompassed inside your object too. If the shadow sticks out it can cause weirdness. This also seems to differ between lwo and ase as far as I can tell.

I get blackness on my object if my shadow sticks out, however I don't think Springheel has the same issue with his lwo's. Eitherway, keeping them inside is good.

[Renzatic]

Well, the reason why I haven't culled down the lamp is because it distorts the normalmap too much. Like I said before, the shot above is my happy medium. The lowest I could go and still keep things looking as they should, but not as low as I'd like (I could get it down to 200 tris and still maintain the silhouette...if the normals didn't distort). I've got a few baking ideas I'm gonna try out on the table. If they work, I'll redo the lamp using the same technique.

 

Also, those legs should support the table top provided the base is equally as heavy and they're secured together nicely. It won't look as clumsy when you see it with the chairs.

 

As for the shadow and collision meshes, there's one thing that confuses me. They're all separate models, right? So each of my models should have, for instance, table_1.lwo for the main mesh, table_s.lwo for the shadow, and table_c.lwo for the collision? How they're combined is my big issue here. Nothing inside of the default Doom 3 .pk4s shows me exactly how this is done.

[Tels]

That's a cool lamp though, you should put a ring up top, then it could be hung on a wall bracket, or from a chain.

This is something I thought of just recently and wish all our hanging lamps just had a ring up top, then authors could add any length of chain, wall bracket, whatever.

 

Yeah, and also I wouldn't be unhappy if that lamp (or a very similiar model) could replace the very-modernish-looking grill lights we have. It looks way more steampunk, but is essentialy the same - a lamp within a cage.

 

What does the team say, should we pull in this lamp to replace the grill light?

[Tels]

As for the shadow and collision meshes, there's one thing that confuses me. They're all separate models, right? So each of my models should have, for instance, table_1.lwo for the main mesh, table_s.lwo for the shadow, and table_c.lwo for the collision? How they're combined is my big issue here. Nothing inside of the default Doom 3 .pk4s shows me exactly how this is done.

 

I am not an expert, but we only have one .lwo file per object, so the shadow mesh etc would contained it it.