Nosslaks stuff

[Baddcog]

Yeah, you can have several meshes, just export as one.

 

Each material needs it's own mesh.

 

I name them accordingly as I work.

 

glass mesh gets glas tex

window trim (alpha) mesh gets window trim tex

lamp pole mesh gets lamp pole tex

collision mesh gets collision tex

shadow mesh gets shadow tex

 

The are all seperate meshes so unfortunately they HAVE to have sharp edges between them (probably not an issue).

 

The ONLY way to get sharp edges is to seperate the meshes.

 

You should try and keep as few seperations in the uvmap as possible, all seperations create more verts, but I don't think they necessarily make sharp edges, I think if the mesh is one piece then the uvmap splits (normals) are still smoothed.

 

I don't think you need to worry about texture LOD, as using dds will give you mipmaps (smaller and smaller versions of your tex) automatically. Which is in effect an lod system built into dds.

 

ALL LOD models need uvmapped, it's a pain.

 

Model looks good though, I think it's gonna look really good in game.

[Nosslak]

Yeah, you can have several meshes, just export as one.

 

Each material needs it's own mesh.

 

I name them accordingly as I work.

 

glass mesh gets glas tex

window trim (alpha) mesh gets window trim tex

lamp pole mesh gets lamp pole tex

collision mesh gets collision tex

shadow mesh gets shadow tex

 

The are all seperate meshes so unfortunately they HAVE to have sharp edges between them (probably not an issue).

 

The ONLY way to get sharp edges is to seperate the meshes.

 

You should try and keep as few seperations in the uvmap as possible, all seperations create more verts, but I don't think they necessarily make sharp edges, I think if the mesh is one piece then the uvmap splits (normals) are still smoothed.

 

I don't think you need to worry about texture LOD, as using dds will give you mipmaps (smaller and smaller versions of your tex) automatically. Which is in effect an lod system built into dds.

 

ALL LOD models need uvmapped, it's a pain.

 

Model looks good though, I think it's gonna look really good in game.

I don't really understand. Does this mean that I will give the lamp framing it's own texture map completely independent from the poles? What I mean is will I give it its own diffuse, normal, specular and alpha maps and then give the pole its own diffuse, normal and specular maps?

[Baddcog]

Yeah, if you want you can have 2 seperate materials (glass trims with alpha and pole with no alpha).

 

material is just a combo of

 

diffuse/normal/spec...

[Nosslak]

I think I'd rather just keep them all on one texture sheet. But the big question here is: Can I have one UV-layout for the diffuse, normal and specular maps and then another one for the alpha map. I want to do this because that'd enable me to make some way more high-res alpha mapping on the places that needs it (as opposed to having it split equally all over the model).

[Baddcog]

No, your alpha HAS to be part of the diffuse map. So you can uv that section larger (you only have to do one of the lamps anyway-then clone the other 2), or you make a seperate map.

[Nosslak]

So I cannot use different UV-layout?

[Baddcog]

You can use one map for the alphad glass.

 

And you can use one map for the rest of the pole.

 

Or you can use one map for everything.

 

But the alpha channel HAS to be part of the diffuse either way. You cannot UV map alpha seperatley from diffuse no matter what.

 

Each piece of the mesh can have it's own UV layout though. So the poly can be mapped cylindrical, and the pane of glass can be mapped planar.

 

 

[Nosslak]

OK, great to have that cleared out. I thought I saw some tutorial on how to do it somewhere but I might be confusing that with something else.

 

I've begun the baking process and, as anticipated, there were artifacts, as always.

In the other thread we talked about cages a little, do you think it would help if I made a cage for it?

[Baddcog]

You got a pretty wasteful uv map, I'd deffinately try to fill it in better, I could probably get 25% better useage there

 

Artifacts are hard to say, it's a simple enough shape that you 'shouldn't' need a cage.

 

Have you tried different ray distances? it's possible that maybe it's just falling short there. I'm deffinately not an expert on normal maps, I tend to try different settings until I get the best result I can, then end up editing them in photoshop sometimes. And I don't know Blender at all, I use XNormal, it actually lets you load a cage, a hi and a low.... Not sure how/if Blender handles cages.

 

 

--

Does your high poly go into the low poly right there?

 

If so just shrink the verts on the low to be inside, bake, then expand the verts again.

[Nosslak]

You got a pretty wasteful uv map, I'd deffinately try to fill it in better, I could probably get 25% better useage there

 

It's not as wasteful as you think. If you look at the screenshot a little bit closer you'd see that the arms aren't normal mapped and that is just because I wanted to bake them separately, but they will be included in the top right corner.

 

Artifacts are hard to say, it's a simple enough shape that you 'shouldn't' need a cage.

 

Have you tried different ray distances? it's possible that maybe it's just falling short there. I'm deffinately not an expert on normal maps, I tend to try different settings until I get the best result I can, then end up editing them in photoshop sometimes. And I don't know Blender at all, I use XNormal, it actually lets you load a cage, a hi and a low.... Not sure how/if Blender handles cages.

 

 

--

Does your high poly go into the low poly right there?

 

If so just shrink the verts on the low to be inside, bake, then expand the verts again.

I have failed maybe 19 out of 20 times at making a proper normal map so I just gave up after the first try, sorry. But you were right, I just had to change the ray distance (the other times I have tried altering the ray distance but most often it haven't help at all.

[Baddcog]

Yeah, I guess if the arms are going there

 

It's hard to know someone elses work flow

 

another for good measure

 

---------

Yeah, ray distance is tricky. Not too bad on simpler stuff but get to more complex stuff (AI with big body and tiny fingers)...

[Nosslak]

Ok, so I've started the texturing process. Here's the result:

The textures are all 2048^2 pixels but I will resize them later to 512^2. Also I haven't started any work on the alpha that's why you see some black planes on the arms.

 

I was planning to make it a pretty dark gray color but it feels like that would look very boring and un-interesting so do you have any ideas for color/material?

Edited August 2, 2010 by Nosslak

[Baddcog]

Looks really nice.

 

Dark is fine, you can always make a lighter version too. Skins are easy to do. Everyone likes dark and dirty, in fact a mapper asked me to make a dirty skin of mine... But a nice cleaner skin would be nice for ritzy parts of town.

 

Just make 2 materials. In one have a dark diffuse, your normal and spec, in the second have a lighter diffuse, but same bump and spec.

 

As far as shadows, it looks like all our electric lamps are just gonna be noshadows on tex, and a shadow mesh really isn't needed. Only a few of my lamps have them, and the latest greatest I could come up with was a cone for the shadow of the pole. It casts a shadow but 'diffuses' out at the top. If you want to do one I'd do it that way. Then if a lamp/torch guard walks by it'll cast something for the pole, but the lamp heads rarely cast shdow on anything anyway, and with trying to not shadow glass... they can be ugly.

They can also cast shadow down from the lamp and give the player a shadow to hide in which is awkward considering you hide in a light source.

[Serpentine]

Looking very nice there - love to see models that look like they were made to be low poly rather than gimped down.

 

As for the texture, please submit your high res version and highpoly mesh with the final model as they are always great to have around.

 

While you're working with this mesh it may also be a nice idea to make a wall mounted version with a similar style and perhaps one that can dangle from the roof, 'sets' of items like this will add greatly to TDM however if you don't feel like it, don't worry rather keep doing what you enjoy!

[Baddcog]

Good point, a wall version would be sweet. And you could take that top portion off the pole, slap it ontop of the lamp, and maybe put a big ring through it. (then people can hang from a chain)

 

And with a big long metal thing on top it would look completely different from anything we have, yet still match the set good.

[Nosslak]

Looks really nice.

 

Dark is fine, you can always make a lighter version too. Skins are easy to do. Everyone likes dark and dirty, in fact a mapper asked me to make a dirty skin of mine... But a nice cleaner skin would be nice for ritzy parts of town.

 

Just make 2 materials. In one have a dark diffuse, your normal and spec, in the second have a lighter diffuse, but same bump and spec.

Thanks. Skins aren't so easy to do for me, though. I always find it very challenging to make the texture feel alive (if that makes sense), but you guys like it so it seems I got through it this time.

 

As far as shadows, it looks like all our electric lamps are just gonna be noshadows on tex, and a shadow mesh really isn't needed. Only a few of my lamps have them, and the latest greatest I could come up with was a cone for the shadow of the pole. It casts a shadow but 'diffuses' out at the top. If you want to do one I'd do it that way. Then if a lamp/torch guard walks by it'll cast something for the pole, but the lamp heads rarely cast shdow on anything anyway, and with trying to not shadow glass... they can be ugly.

They can also cast shadow down from the lamp and give the player a shadow to hide in which is awkward considering you hide in a light source.

I'm not completely sure what you mean but as far as I've understood it you're saying that there will be no texture applied to the light, it will just shine through the framing as if nothing is blocking it? I think it'd look a lot better with a textured light.

 

Looking very nice there - love to see models that look like they were made to be low poly rather than gimped down.

Thanks!

 

As for the texture, please submit your high res version and highpoly mesh with the final model as they are always great to have around.

 

While you're working with this mesh it may also be a nice idea to make a wall mounted version with a similar style and perhaps one that can dangle from the roof, 'sets' of items like this will add greatly to TDM however if you don't feel like it, don't worry rather keep doing what you enjoy!

Great idea, I'd love to do some variations on them. I knew it wasn't a waste of time to make such a high-res texture and if I make these other variations I can remove some uinnecassary geometry, re-UV the mesh and then just bake the old textures to it. It should be pretty quick to make the variations as I think I've got a all the parts I need already, I'll just need to rearrange them a bit.

 

Good point, a wall version would be sweet. And you could take that top portion off the pole, slap it ontop of the lamp, and maybe put a big ring through it. (then people can hang from a chain)

 

And with a big long metal thing on top it would look completely different from anything we have, yet still match the set good.

Great, I'll do that later when I'm finished with this version, which I foresee will be tomorrow. In the mean time you can try to think up something else that would be needed.

 

Also is there some kind of list/repository with all the models that you already have so that I don't end up doing something you already have? I was thinking of maybe doing a grandfather clock (or whatever they're called). I suspect you already have one, but I have no way of knowing.

 

Oh and another thing, could you please post the different textures that would be used for the glass part of the lamps?

Edited August 2, 2010 by Nosslak

[Baddcog]

You need to DL the Mod and the editor. Seriously, do that and you'll have all the content, plus you can look in the editor to see what models there are.

 

Plus you can play FM's. Don't you want to do that?

 

-------

 

anyway, don't get confused:

 

textures are what you paint. (bitmaps)

 

materials are combinations of textures (diffuse, spec, normal- plus sounds, frob highlights, illumination ,etc..) in a text file

 

skins are just a text file that referneces a model and which materials can go on it so mappers can choose th elight or dark one when they add it in their map.

 

defs are text files that add props together to make an entity (light model + light source + sounds)

 

--------

 

about the shadows (you really need to play the game)

 

The light source has a texture (all doom lights are square by default). The textures we use make them look round and also have lines in the for things like the bars that hold the glass in place (your lamp will need a new texture because of the 3 lamp thing

That texture 'fakes' a shadow for the map. Looks fine 95% of the time (better than the lamp casting a shadow). The other 5% looks pretty good if you just use a cone for the shadow mesh, from the ground up to just below the bottom of the light source. But as I said only a few of our lamps even have that and I don't think it's going to change.

 

It really isn't even too noticeable if a guard with a light walks by them (if they have no shadow mesh), you really have to look to notice. I notice because I have been working on getting the best effect for a few years

Players wont be looking foe those things so they wont notice unless somebody says something.

[Melan]

Oh, that's really nice! Well done.

 

As for the texture, please submit your high res version and highpoly mesh with the final model as they are always great to have around.

Good point. In 4 or 5 years, hardware may be advanced enough to handle several higher polygon objects on screen.

[Nosslak]

You need to DL the Mod and the editor. Seriously, do that and you'll have all the content, plus you can look in the editor to see what models there are.

 

Plus you can play FM's. Don't you want to do that?

I have done that but I don't think Darkradiant is finding Doom 3, even though I have specified the right path for Doom 3 (C:\Games\Doom 3) and written darkmod or thieves_den in both of the boxes below the engine path. Here's how it looks:

 

anyway, don't get confused:

 

textures are what you paint. (bitmaps)

 

materials are combinations of textures (diffuse, spec, normal- plus sounds, frob highlights, illumination ,etc..) in a text file

 

skins are just a text file that referneces a model and which materials can go on it so mappers can choose th elight or dark one when they add it in their map.

 

defs are text files that add props together to make an entity (light model + light source + sounds)

Thanks, I thought a texture and skin was the same thing.

 

about the shadows (you really need to play the game)

 

The light source has a texture (all doom lights are square by default). The textures we use make them look round and also have lines in the for things like the bars that hold the glass in place (your lamp will need a new texture because of the 3 lamp thing

That texture 'fakes' a shadow for the map. Looks fine 95% of the time (better than the lamp casting a shadow). The other 5% looks pretty good if you just use a cone for the shadow mesh, from the ground up to just below the bottom of the light source. But as I said only a few of our lamps even have that and I don't think it's going to change.

 

It really isn't even too noticeable if a guard with a light walks by them (if they have no shadow mesh), you really have to look to notice. I notice because I have been working on getting the best effect for a few years

Players wont be looking foe those things so they wont notice unless somebody says something.

I have played the game, just not a lot. It seems that I misunderstood you, but we actually meant the same thing or that's what it seems like anyway.

 

Oh, that's really nice! Well done.

 

 

Good point. In 4 or 5 years, hardware may be advanced enough to handle several higher polygon objects on screen.

Thanks! I wanted to make a big texture so that if needed I could use it in some other project that used a more modern engine.

[Baddcog]

Is the mod in

C:\Games\Doom 3\darkmod ? if so putting darkmod in the fs_game_folder should find it.

[Nosslak]

Is the mod in

C:\Games\Doom 3\darkmod ? if so putting darkmod in the fs_game_folder should find it.

Yes, it is. But I have already tried that, do I have to place Dark Radiant in the Doom 3 folder as well? I don't think it matters but I'm using the 64 bit version.

 

OMG, I failed again. I wrote Doom3 when it should have been Doom 3. It works now. Thanks anyway.

 

Also a quick question: How do I preview the models and such that's in the model browser? I accidentally previewed a part of a cage but I can't get any previews for anything else. How do I do it?

Edited August 2, 2010 by Nosslak

[Fidcal]

It might be that you need to zoom out on some of the bigger models. Use the mouse wheel should bring them into view.

[Nosslak]

It might be that you need to zoom out on some of the bigger models. Use the mouse wheel should bring them into view.

I don't think that's the problem. When it worked I was just browsing around looking for something that sounded interesting and I found hellcage in what I think is the Doom 3 files and clicked on it and a preview with a 50% gray background came up. Then I tried to preview some other stuff, both from Doom 3 and Darkmod but I couldn't get the previews to work. So do you guys know how to fix it?

 

Here's how it looks:

It doesn't seem to work for entities either.

Edited August 2, 2010 by Nosslak

[Serpentine]

Ummm I think this might be to do with Aero again, try disabling it in the DR options under Compatibility. Restart DR after that.

[Nosslak]

Ummm I think this might be to do with Aero again, try disabling it in the DR options under Compatibility. Restart DR after that.

It helped. Thanks!

 

I'm finished with the lamppost version (if there's not anything you'd like me to add/change):

945+72 (glass) polygons, 512^2 pixel diffuse, normal, alpha and specularity; 256^2 pixel diffuse for the glass.

 

I'll go work on the other versions now.