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Atheran

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I'm limited to 512x512 normal map resolution I guess
Not sure where you got the idea of 512x512 being a limit, there are plenty of textures that are 1024x1024 (both diffuse and normal) among the TDM defaults, and I bet it's possible to go way higher.

Both the statue and the door handles (that you mentioned in another thread) are objects player is likely to get very close to, so using 1024 isn't entirely unreasonable compared to, say, wasting the same 1024 squared on a spoon even if its size is about the same as a door handle. In general, you don't want new objects to feel out of place in an environment TDM is currently capable of.

(I don't know the inner workings btw, so my advice doesn't hold any authority. It's just guidelines I use myself)

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You definitely would not use a 1024x1024 texture for a door handle. Generally speaking, the smaller the object, the less detail it needs. 1024x1024 would be appropriate for something like a door, which is both large and something the player gets close to. Anything bucket-sized or smaller should probably be 512x512.

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Good... Now I understand. But if anything the door handles are the thing that player really gets close to :) Joking aside, I have a serious question. The way people usually handle modular buildings or anything modular in that case is with a single big texturemap. As in a 2048x2048 file with door/wall/window/etc textures in it, same with the UV maps and normal maps for these things. Three big texture files (diffuse/UV/normal (can be applied to other maps as specular as well if needed)) and then having several models access those files at their respective space each. At least that's how we learned to do it in Unreal. Does DR support that? Or it needs every model to have it's own texture files (even if they are used across several models according to specific needs).

 

Because I'm not sure that the above made any sense here's an example.

 

1 big texture file --- Door, window, wall, door frame, window frame, another door etc.

vs

1 texture --- Door

1 texture --- Window

1 texture --- Door Frame

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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For specific objects, it's generally better for each model to have its own texture. Otherwise, a mapper who only uses the window has to load and store a 2048x2048 file instead of a single 512x512 one. However, if the object is mostly made of a generic material, like basic wood or stone, it's better to use textures that already exist.

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Yikes, 512 for a door handle? How about 256? A good guideline is how much of the screen it'll take up, how often does a door handle take up a quarter of the screen? Often enough for us that 128 would sometimes be a bit low.

 

You can see how many polygons existing models have by clicking the "info and options" display on the "create models" file requester in DR, most existing seem to have a hundred or two.

 

It may also help to consider how often a model might be used, something special and unique is one thing, but a door handle on both sides of a door left cracked open with others in the same hallway, suddenly ten times the stuff on display!

 

Doesn't bulking textures together only make sense for shared resources? Otherwise you are loading four times the info with no use for three-quarters of it.

"The measure of a man's character is what he would do if he knew he never would be found out."

- Baron Thomas Babington Macauley

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Atheran, don't try to maintain all tasks in one day... What about your table? What about your statue? I think you should forget about modular buildings , while didn't done with 1-5 models, put it to TDM with textures and skins, and post it to know what really you make right and what wrong... That's only my opinion, but you try to handle with to many tasks in a little term of time, better finish your first tries and then go further

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I am working on the statue :) Even right now... As for the table it's on hold until I find out how to fix the normals bug. Or I release a blocky looking 1k poly version of it but I don't see any reason of doing so as we already have a lot of tables. What I wanted to do with this one was to use normals to add some roundness to a beveled low poly version. But bevels and normals are not working well on maya :(

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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I'd certainly love that Melan. It'll save me time from watching Thief 1 Let's Plays in youtube :P

Here are some concept sketches I came up with on my train ride this weekend:

post-2023-0-72906500-1396257004_thumb.jpg

There is an industrial thermometer with Builder-inspired design, a large demijohn, a boiler (which would be useful in multiple sizes), and a metal gizmo that measures something. Let me know if you'd like to create these kinds of things or something different.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I like those Melan :) Altho' I do not really understand how the demijohn fits with the machines but anyways... Correct me if I'm wrong but don't we already have a couple different boilers? As for the fourth one that's exactly what I had in mind. Along with the generators/distributing antennas from T1. I loved those antennas but I'm not sure if remaking them would be considered a copyright breach.

 

antenna_zps24583225.jpg

 

The antenna I was talking about.

And yes I got all three thief games from steam so I can check things out myself now. I'd like some hints tho' on what missions should I keep my eyes open for machines :)

 

Something that may seem random for this thread... I started the tutorial on the wiki about mapping, so I know at least the basics of the engine to be able to do stuff easier(ish), but I have a problem. While dmap *** works fine, when I try to run map *** or testmap *** I get a message that there's no such command. How do I test my map?

Sorry for asking here and not in the appropriate subforum but I didn't want to start yet another thread for my noob questions.

 

But yes...I really like those scetches and especially the info on the side. The last one was exactly the kind of machines that I had in mind :)

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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Atheran: the demijohn sort of happened after I started thinking what kinds of objects could be found in a workshop. :) The boiler has some resemblance to the existing furnaces (which was conscious on my part), but it would fit into a factory or similar setting, while two of the others stick out. However, if you really want to create Thief-styled electrical equipment, I can whip up sketches for those as well - basically, you should model the things you like to work on. :)

 

If you do that dial stand and thermometer, it would be grand; and of course I've got more ideas in that department. The antenna in the screenshot is rather low-poly (and could be cobbled together from brushes), but a slightly more detailed variant would be good... and what I'd like to see most would be an equivalent to the spotlight and floodlight models that were all over Thief. I'll look for references.

 

After dmapping, "map [mapname]" should work. One problem to be aware of is that if you have a mission installed, DarkRadiant will create your .proc and .aas files in the mission folder, not the regular maps folder. Then, if you try to run the map, it won't find them. Uninstalling the current mission should do the trick.

Edited by Melan

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I started on the dial stand and the low-poly is almost ready (I only need the small antennas at the back and the UVs). At 800ish polys at the moment but If I change my bevels to less detailed ones I can drop it to 600ish. But I'm really sleepy so I'll probably save it here and continue tonight to at least finish the low poly before I go back to sculpting the owl statue. As for what I like... I'm a sci-fi nerd of some kind so anything machine-like extended to hard surface in general for practical reasons will keep me happy...Like now... Awake for 40ish hours and I jumped on this thing the moment I saw the scetch, instead of going to the bed as I was planning to. :)

 

And while I do have WS installed the .proc file is in my darkmod/maps folder as it should not in WS one.

after I run "dmap try" (try is the totally original name I found and I'm proud of it) the console ends up with that output

----- WriteOutputFile -----

writing C:/Users/Atheran/Desktop/darkmod/maps/try.proc

 

When I type "map try" after that and hit enter it outputs

>> map try

Cannot execute command map: Command not found.

in scary red letters. As for the .aas files I don't have any in any folder if that matters...

 

And as for the antenna I didn't mean to make an exact copy, but to make something like that if it doesn't already exist. It'd be pretty fast I think

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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And as for the antenna I didn't mean to make an exact copy, but to make something like that if it doesn't already exist

 

There is an antennae like that already.

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Where can I find it? :ph34r: Or do you mean the arclight in lights>non-extinguishable? That's rather different IMO.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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Spingheel you mentioned a couple of times the general texture sizes we use. Is there a generally accepted, rule of thumb, texture density among the artists here? ie 512x512/sq meter for example? Or it's up to the artists and the information he wants to transfer to his maps? For example for the above generator (waist high) I could do two things for example (considering 512x512/sq meter). 1 texture file at 512x512 for the main block but I'd loose some details as it's supposed to be 1.5m/1m dimensions and 1 texture file at either 256x256 or 512x512 for the meter and the small antennas, or one texture file at 1024x1024 with everything and probably with some better details textured in it. In the first case I get some lowres for the base model (which isn't really a big problem as the detail center will be at the meter) and a highres meter (which is good). I also allow the mappers to use the meter alone in something their working on as it'll be a seperate model with seperate textures. In the second case I get to highres everything but in 3 models/1 texture file. (3 models becase one is the main block the other is the meter itself and the third is the meter needle so it can be animated if someone animates it).

 

Which way should I go according to previous guidelines in TDM? Sorry for asking again and again but I think that this time I'll fully understand how we go about things like that. And it's something I DO need to know if I'm to make any models.

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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There's no one-size-fits-all answer. I generally make the texture larger than it needs to be, then put the model in game and see how much I can reduce it without the quality suffering. It's also likely that certain textures on the same model can be smaller. The specularmap, for example, rarely needs to be more than 256x256. If the normalmap is not very distinct, it can often be smaller than the diffusemap.

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Quick viewport render of the lowpoly from maya. Just blin/lambert materials on it. I'd call it done unless you people think I should change something before I move to texturing. it's just a tad less than 1k polys right now, but I could probably manage to half that number if it's needed by removing all bevels it has.

 

quick_lowpoly_render_dial_zps76773e1a.jpg

 

Concrete on bottom/main machine block/antennas are 1 object dial is a 2nd one and dial needle is a third one. Reason is that someone might want to use the dial seperatelly from the machine and for the needle to be animated. That means tho' that I'll have 2 texture files for them. 1 for machine the other for the dial.

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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That's good work! Maybe adding a small metal mesh on the lower front and an indentation on the right with some machinery exposed would make it more detailed without pushing up detail. Like so:

 

post-2023-0-58427800-1396440609_thumb.jpg

 

Textures can take care of the rest, and most of the textures you need are already in the mod among terrain or object textures.

 

Omitting the dial and the display face, and adding two or three vertical grooves, the same model can become a control panel.

Edited by Melan

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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In order to get the side one visible like that it'll require ~8 more polys or so bringing me exactly to 1k. As for the front one I can't say I really understand what it is but it seems like some kind of grill to me. And that'll require a lot more polygons to be modeled, or I'll have to make a texture for it. I was planning to add metal plates and bolts with textures as you had it in the first concept. In that case I don't see how I could get the details you just posted.

 

At the end I'll make an Unreal Engine render when everything's finished as I haven't managed to get the "map" or "testmap" commands to work. Unless someone wants to get the files then and take it into DR himself.

Edited by Atheran

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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All things considered, 8 more polys is very little. 1k is probably suitable for an item of this size/complexity. The mesh on the front is for ventilation, and there is no need to fully model it - we've already got textures, so it'd be a smaller box-shaped thing. When I get home, I can give you the exact names.

 

But of course, these are just suggestions.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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I'll look my texture library as well, but when I get home. I have over 150gb of thextures I bet I can find some appropriate ones in there :) After all even if I used textures that are already in the engine they'll be as a part of my machine texture files so it won't change anything in the matter of loading more or less new textures. What I could do with it is extrude this place in (the vent part) and make a simple plane to cover it and then use an alpha texture for the transparency on the plane. That'll be 6 polygons total.

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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After all even if I used textures that are already in the engine they'll be as a part of my machine texture files so it won't change anything in the matter of loading more or less new textures.

 

Well yes, that would defeat the point. The idea is to have the model call more than one (already existing) texture. Then the engine only has to load it once.

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Here are some textures that look suitable:

dialtextures_zpseeb91623.png

The riveted plate textures could go for the sides, the rectangular panels for the top or bottom. It would be useful to have two alternate skins for the object - one bluish and new, and one brown with rust.

Come the time of peril, did the ground gape, and did the dead rest unquiet 'gainst us. Our bands of iron and hammers of stone prevailed not, and some did doubt the Builder's plan. But the seals held strong, and the few did triumph, and the doubters were lain into the foundations of the new sanctum. -- Collected letters of the Smith-in-Exile, Civitas Approved

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How about this? It's one side only but wanted an opinnion before I start the rest. Basic fast viewport render. I thought of copper as better fitting than iron for the machine block. And after searchng my library for textures it was one of the very few ones I had :( The majority of my metal textures/panels etc are made for scifi for a personal project I had before. That means that if you don't like it I'll probably use the ones that come with DR when I find out where they are saved.

 

quick_render_zpse9a8268d.jpg

 

The concrete in the base is warped. I'll need to fix my UVs for it, but sure it can be fixed.

Sometimes I want to scream

So long that life escapes

And then I'd shut my eyes

I'd be the angel of disgrace

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