Nosslaks stuff

[Tels]

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.

 

The diffuse for the lamp should be 1024x0124 - otherwise it will be blurry on large screens (and the glass diffuse is much sharper, it uses only half the pixels but occupies a lot less screenspace).

 

I guess the diffuse compresses well as DDS anyway, so the extra pixels won't hurt us.

 

Btw, fine piece of work

[Serpentine]

We have glass textures which pretty much have the exact same diffuse - so I wouldnt worry too much about that, best to just reuse if its not on the same texture map(just keeps things tidy, easier to fix, easier on material files and benefits from changes in normals etc)

 

(I have no idea how to set up the materials in modeling tools however)

 

Looks lovely otherwise!

[Nosslak]

The diffuse for the lamp should be 1024x0124 - otherwise it will be blurry on large screens (and the glass diffuse is much sharper, it uses only half the pixels but occupies a lot less screenspace).

 

I guess the diffuse compresses well as DDS anyway, so the extra pixels won't hurt us.

 

Btw, fine piece of work

Thanks! Baddcog, mentioned in my other thread that 512^2 is pretty common and that the character used 1024^2, so I just assumed I would have to use a 512 texture set. I got lucky this time as I made the textures at 2048^2 resolution.

 

We have glass textures which pretty much have the exact same diffuse - so I wouldnt worry too much about that, best to just reuse if its not on the same texture map(just keeps things tidy, easier to fix, easier on material files and benefits from changes in normals etc)

 

(I have no idea how to set up the materials in modeling tools however)

 

Looks lovely otherwise!

Thanks! And about that texture; I am actually using your glass texture. It was a little hard to find but after a while I found it hidden in a pk4 file and just extracted it. I have no idea how to set up the materials in Dark Radiant either but I'll go and try to learn how it works.

[Tels]

Thanks! Baddcog, mentioned in my other thread that 512^2 is pretty common and that the character used 1024^2, so I just assumed I would have to use a 512 texture set. I got lucky this time as I made the textures at 2048^2 resolution.

 

Yeah, we use a lot 512x512 textures in places where we really shouldn't (anything that occupes a lot of screenspace) and to make up for it we use a lot of 256x256 (or even 512x512) in places where we really shouldn't, either (like for anything that occupies little screenspace, like cups and candle holders and so on. The result is a lot of blurry textures mixed with a lot of very sharp textures, creating an odd experience. Unfortunately, we do not have "detail texturing" that could remedy this..

 

Anyway, 2048 is nice to have, we can always downscale it (actually, come to think of it, we could just ship the 2048, anybody with less graphic power can tell D3 to downscale textures to 1024 or less already..)

[Nosslak]

Yeah, we use a lot 512x512 textures in places where we really shouldn't (anything that occupes a lot of screenspace) and to make up for it we use a lot of 256x256 (or even 512x512) in places where we really shouldn't, either (like for anything that occupies little screenspace, like cups and candle holders and so on. The result is a lot of blurry textures mixed with a lot of very sharp textures, creating an odd experience. Unfortunately, we do not have "detail texturing" that could remedy this..

 

Anyway, 2048 is nice to have, we can always downscale it (actually, come to think of it, we could just ship the 2048, anybody with less graphic power can tell D3 to downscale textures to 1024 or less already..)

Yeah, I looked through the model archive and to be completely honest a lot of those textures were just horrible. They were very low-res and did basically just consist of one color with a bunch of noise slapped on top of it. I could perhaps take a look at some of it and try to improve them. Just tell me if there's any one in particular.

 

152 polys for the lamp + 24 for the glass. 2048^2 diffuse, normal, specularity and alpha for the lamp, 256^2 diffuse for the glass.

 

What resolution would be good to use for this texture set?

[Tels]

Yeah, I looked through the model archive and to be completely honest a lot of those textures were just horrible. They were very low-res and did basically just consist of one color with a bunch of noise slapped on top of it. I could perhaps take a look at some of it and try to improve them. Just tell me if there's any one in particular.

 

Serpentine is also working on improving our textures, but he is the only one basically atm (IIRC), so any help is welcome!

 

We have f.i. very good stone textures (I found some really good grey granite yesterday) but we have some "large rock" models that use a horrible blurry/stretched texture f.i. (I am not sure if the models are LWO, we can't replace them easily. If they were ASE...) Can you work with LWO?

 

Maybe we should give you contributor status, we have already an internal thread discussin models that need love

 

152 polys for the lamp + 24 for the glass. 2048^2 diffuse, normal, specularity and alpha for the lamp, 256^2 diffuse for the glass.

 

What resolution would be good to use for this texture set?

 

* I guess the glass texture is one we already have? 256 seems good enough and we reuse an existing material, anyway.

* specularity can be much lower (does it even have morethan uniform specularity? I think 512x512 is ok, might be even 256x256

* normalmap - as high as possible (it provides all the little details)

* diffuse - with the almost uniform material you have here, I'd say 1024x1024 would be enough, if only the lamphead 512x512 might be even enough.

 

It would help to see the model in game, tho, as it can be tricky to decide "whats good enough".

[Baddcog]

To play Devil's Advocate:

 

That lamp post is in two pieces hieght wise, so it does use 2048 pixels vertically.

(and it's 'skinny' so it doesn't take alot of pixels around.)

 

2048x2048 is overkill for a lamp imo. And true alot of the smaller stuff may have higher density. It could be argues that the player examines that stuff up close more, or it could just be that we used 'generic mod textures' for alot of stuff. So if you use full UV spacce and the tex is 1024x1024 it is gonna be overkill for a small object, but it is also used for big objects/terrain/etc..

 

One option would be to have smaller lower res versions of same textures specifically for smaller objects, but that somewhat kills the purpose of having generic textures.

 

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Really at this point it's almost worthless to talk about pixel density on a mod-wide basis. That's really something that needs settled on at the beginning of a project. But 5 years ago... non-professional...free... Hoenstley like 5 years ago I'm not sure if I was even 'aware' of pixel density. (I knew higher res looked better, but can't say I considered density between one obj and the next)

It's like the AO argument, sure it does look better than none, but 5 years ago nobody had really heard about it, but to go back and redo art assets made over 5 years time with only a few people is a major undertaking.

 

---------

 

I actually think spec maps look better the same size as diffuse. Otherwise you get '4 pixel' shiny spots. Where the shine looks blocky even though the tex doesn't.

 

------

 

Also, were you looking at the textures in the model viewer? Or in the models/props/textures directory, or in dds/models/props...

 

The ones inside the models directory are low res 'editor images' in jpg format. DDS are the ones used in game.

[Tels]

To play Devil's Advocate:

 

That lamp post is in two pieces hieght wise, so it does use 2048 pixels vertically.

(and it's 'skinny' so it doesn't take alot of pixels around.)

 

Ah, yes, and it is of uniform color, so yes, 1024x1024 should be enough. As I wrote above, it would needed to be viewed in game to see it better.

 

Anyway, lets get it in game, then we can resize the texture anyway.

[Springheel]

(I am not sure if the models are LWO, we can't replace them easily.

 

I can replace anything that is .lwo and needs replacing.

 

Though if you're modifying the texture I don't see why anything would need to be changed on a model.

 

2048x2048 is overkill for a lamp imo.

 

Agreed.

[Nosslak]

Serpentine is also working on improving our textures, but he is the only one basically atm (IIRC), so any help is welcome!

 

We have f.i. very good stone textures (I found some really good grey granite yesterday) but we have some "large rock" models that use a horrible blurry/stretched texture f.i. (I am not sure if the models are LWO, we can't replace them easily. If they were ASE...) Can you work with LWO?

 

Maybe we should give you contributor status, we have already an internal thread discussin models that need love

I'm not all that good at making textures, but I think I can improve/remake some of the old ones. One important part of texture creation for me is the ambient occlusion map and if I'm not allowed to use that it will seriously handicap me and probably make my textures look like crap.

 

I'm using Blender which seems to have an importer for it. I have never used it so I don't really know how awesome it is.

 

About that contributor status; I'd love to become a contributor. I'm not sure if that gives me any additional responsibilities. If it means I will have to devote more time to The Dark Mod I should probably tell you that school starts for me soon and that I won't be able to make models as fast then.

 

* I guess the glass texture is one we already have? 256 seems good enough and we reuse an existing material, anyway.

* specularity can be much lower (does it even have morethan uniform specularity? I think 512x512 is ok, might be even 256x256

* normalmap - as high as possible (it provides all the little details)

* diffuse - with the almost uniform material you have here, I'd say 1024x1024 would be enough, if only the lamphead 512x512 might be even enough.

 

It would help to see the model in game, tho, as it can be tricky to decide "whats good enough".

I'll try to get it in-game, but I have no experience with Doom 3 so it might take a while.

 

To play Devil's Advocate:

 

That lamp post is in two pieces hieght wise, so it does use 2048 pixels vertically.

(and it's 'skinny' so it doesn't take alot of pixels around.)

I have no idea what this means.

 

One option would be to have smaller lower res versions of same textures specifically for smaller objects, but that somewhat kills the purpose of having generic textures.

I'm not really sure how all this works but couldn't you just make a script or something that calculated the models volume/diameter based on the collision model (for speed) and then compared it to the originals and chose an appropriate LOD/DDS size?

 

Also, were you looking at the textures in the model viewer? Or in the models/props/textures directory, or in dds/models/props...

 

The ones inside the models directory are low res 'editor images' in jpg format. DDS are the ones used in game.

Oh, my mistake. I thought the model viewer showed it in the best quality, then perhaps it isn't as bad as I thought.

 

I also think 2048 sounds a lot, the reason I made them in that size was just so that I could eventually use it in some other game and/or in my portfolio. I never thought you'd be interested in it un-resized.

 

BTW how many units high are the characters (just so I'll get the right scale)?

Edited August 2, 2010 by Nosslak

[Baddcog]

Blender units? have no idea.

 

I'd probably say just import one of the ase lamps (or lwo if you can) and use it as a guide.

 

(You could always email the files to me [ myusername at gmail.com ] and I could set it up in game, send it back and you can reference how everything works, might be easier to see the files for your one object rather than digging through all the mod files trying to piece together whats required)

 

edit:

 

I was thinking too, when you export the street lmap look at it from the top. It's a triangle, make one side of that tri flush to the grid. Doesn't matter which side.

 

I think it's going to need a custom lightmap and I have an idea for one, I think it'll be alot easier to align if one side is on grid.

[aidakeeley]

New contest?

The Best Use Of Nosslak's Killer New Model In Combination With Rich's Killer New Translucency Effect All The While Exploiting The Fidcal's Killer New Killer Mushrooms Contest

[aidakeeley]

...With bonuses for using the killer new prefabs (eg. PranQ's Drawbridge)

[Nosslak]

Blender units? have no idea.

Nope, I meant in regular Doom/Darkmod units (it's pretty easy to set up Blender to replicate those).

 

I'd probably say just import one of the ase lamps (or lwo if you can) and use it as a guide.

I was trying to import a builder character but it was in MD5 which Blender can't import without a plug-in. I'll try to find some plug-in for md5 later, though.

 

(You could always email the files to me [ myusername at gmail.com ] and I could set it up in game, send it back and you can reference how everything works, might be easier to see the files for your one object rather than digging through all the mod files trying to piece together whats required).

I was very stubborn. I wanted to do it myself, but after trying for maybe 40 minutes or something with no success (even though I used the tutorial on the wiki) I had to give up. You should have it in your inbox by now. I think I got pretty close to actually making it work, not sure though.

 

I was thinking too, when you export the street lmap look at it from the top. It's a triangle, make one side of that tri flush to the grid. Doesn't matter which side.

 

I think it's going to need a custom lightmap and I have an idea for one, I think it'll be alot easier to align if one side is on grid.

It's almost completely parallel to the grid, I accidentally placed the arms just a little bit away from the center. If needed I can make it rotate it so that it is completely paralell, but I sent it to you before I understood what you meant.

 

New contest?

The Best Use Of Nosslak's Killer New Model In Combination With Rich's Killer New Translucency Effect All The While Exploiting The Fidcal's Killer New Killer Mushrooms Contest

Haha, yeah thanks!

Edited August 3, 2010 by Nosslak

[Baddcog]

Alright, I'll have a look at it when I get home tonight. Once I get all the files set-up it should be easy for you to make any tweaks, re-export and go right in game. (You can even file>refresh models in DR between exports- no need to close it)

 

If it's close to parrellel that should be good enough.

 

The 'regular' doors are 96x48 doom units. That's about the equivelant for 7'x3.5 feet. Looks like a typical door. The tallest doorframe is 112 I think. Probably an 9 foot door. So 112 units is probably around where you want to be for the full hieght, more or less. I did doors to an exact grid size so brushes and portals would snap clean. Lamps don't really matter specifically.

[Baddcog]

Check your email

[Nosslak]

With a lot of help from Baddcog I managed to get it in the game. Here's some shots:

All textures are 1024^2 pixels.

 

Still doesn't completely understand how the system works, but I'm getting there.

 

Also do anyone know why lamps undersides look like they have split edges? I checked the mesh and the normal map there was nothing that should make it look like that. The only reason I could think of was that every edge that goes out from the center has UV-split seams, but that doesn't seem to affect the pole or other places.

Edited August 4, 2010 by Nosslak

[rich_is_bored]

UV seams can cause shading issues when placed on a flat surface. You can get a better idea of what's happening if you turn on r_shownormals from the console.

 

I would split that bottom portion off the rest of the lamp in UV space so the faces could remain connected.

[Springheel]

Looks great, Nosslak.

[Baddcog]

I guess Springheel likes it lol

[Nosslak]

UV seams can cause shading issues when placed on a flat surface. You can get a better idea of what's happening if you turn on r_shownormals from the console.

 

I would split that bottom portion off the rest of the lamp in UV space so the faces could remain connected.

I'll try splitting it off and see how that works out. Thanks.

 

Looks great, Nosslak.

Thanks!

[STiFU]

Neat!! Would fit in well in a rainy city mission scenario or something à la Rose Cottage...

[Melan]

The end result is very convincing! Doesn't even look low-poly to my untrained eye.

[Nosslak]

Neat!! Would fit in well in a rainy city mission scenario or something à la Rose Cottage...

The end result is very convincing! Doesn't even look low-poly to my untrained eye.

Thanks! And yeah, I was happily surprised at how it didn't look all that lowpoly too.

Edited August 5, 2010 by Nosslak

[Nosslak]

To take the screenshots above I obviously used DarkRadiant, it was very frustrating and hard for me (as I'm new to it, and there was no tutorial telling me how to select or delete stuff) but when I created the level I made a regular cubic brush (think that's what it's called), accidentally made a couple more brushes that intersected the main one and placed my lightpost and player start and it just worked. Now I'm trying to do the same thing but when I try to compile it or whatever ("dmap name") Doom reports leaks in it and I cannot start it. What should I do about it?

 

Also Baddcog mentioned that someone here might know how to make Blender create a game-ready ASE file (no editing needed to import it into the game). So can anyone help me with this?

Edited August 5, 2010 by Nosslak