Jump to content
The Dark Mod Forums

Dragofer's Stuff


Dragofer

Recommended Posts

I've tidied up both my original post in this thread and my assets:

  • The original post has an index of all downloadables, at this point I also took the opportunity to add more assets to this thread, such as my prefabs.
  • I've extensively reviewed the majority of my assets and compiled them into an all-in-one package, without overlaps in terms of materials etc. This actually goes back to the beta of 2.05, but things started too late in the dev cycle to make it into 2.05.

Download
[Take a look at the new original post]

Edited by Dragofer
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 9 months later...

VgysZTg.jpg

The ships of TDM, from top left by row: Airship (Pandora's Box), Carack (One Step Too Far), Caravel, Ketch, Galleon (No Honour Among Thieves, Accountant 2 & more), Steam Schooner (Down by the Riverside), Boat1, Boat2, Invernesse (Down by the Riverside), Sloop

Sorry for replying to such an old post, but I adore all the art assets you've done so far.

 

Concerning the ship models made by you and others, I had no idea we already have such great variety ! I knew about the airship and saw one or more type of boats in some missions, but I didn't bother digging deeper.

 

I think there's just one type missing there to make it complete. A cog. Granted, it would be more old-fashioned than a caravel or carack, but it would still fit TDM's setting. An old-fashioned trade ship from the northern ports of The Empire. Something in that vein. Having a small ship, not larger than the caravel, with a forecastle and an aftcastle, could make for a unique sight for players. :)

 

Either way, the sheer number of ships already available for TDM is a pleasant surprise. Now I'll have to make an FM that takes place at the docks. :D Can't resist.

Edited by Petike the Taffer
  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Nice. But the tris count seems a bit high for such a small model, isn't it?!

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Nice. But the tris count seems a bit high for such a small model, isn't it?!

Edit: both ship models were trimmed down and given LOD stages down to 2000 tris.

Edited by Dragofer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hi Petike, thanks for your appreciations and your suggestion. I'm all for making small and reusable ships to populate TDM's docks and canals with, and my old statement still holds true:

Some cog images for inspiration:

 

coghasdf.jpg

 

cog.jpg

 

36a81d734f30ccbd424dc55c3655b8239d080275

 

800px-Bremen_Hansekogge_RolandvonBremen.

 

Reconstruction of a Hansa cog at a museum in Bremen

 

640px-Hansekogge_Bremerhaven_uf.jpg

 

Remnants of a Hansa cog at a museum in Bremen

 

It's been a while since my last ship, and a lot more work goes into them since I make them fully game-ready, with variants and scale models now, so this one took some time to bring to completion.

 

So here's TDM's next ship, the yacht. As a one-master it's the smallest ship I've made so far, featuring a cabin and a small hold for supplies. This is a ship you'd mainly see in coastal waters or in canals, but I reckon it'd be sturdy enough to make a longer voyage across an ocean. Overall it's geared more towards personal transport than carrying large amounts of cargo.

 

It's made in the same weathered style and to the same specifications as my previous ship, so again there's a moored, sailing, accessible and closed variant as well as an example interior furnishing for a total of 5 prefabs, as well as a 1:30 model.

 

This goes together with a rework of the previously released ketch, which I've renamed to brig as it's a more suitable name for a ship of this size. Most notable is that I took advantage of DR's new exporter to recreate the scale model with more details, while at the same time trimming down to fewer tris than before, far fewer materials and making a better shadowmesh as well as a model stand. The lifesize version has also seen some improvements, such as new hull ladders and the use of shadowcaulk.

 

I did actually block out several different ship hulls. The cog wasn't easy to get to look proportionate because of the blackjack's ceiling height requirement, so I ended up turning that into an indiaman with 2+1 decks (80% the size of a galleon). In the end I felt most inspired to carry this one-master to completion, which is another niche that hasn't been filled yet in TDM's fleet.

 

Download

Weathered Ships - with test map

Weathered Ships

 

Both ships, the brig (formerly ketch) and yacht, are now in the same download. The test map can be started like a normal DM mission.

Very cool. B):smile: Concerning the terminology for the exact type of ship, be mindful of the fact that the type of rigging it used often made all the difference. A ketch's typical rigging, a brig's typical rigging.

 

 

A while back, I made a Model addons repository article for the wiki. It lists model addons by various other authors, and your stuff is included there. If you could update the opening post of this thread with links to the newest stuff you've made, that would be great. Mission makers could find it more easily.

Edited by Petike the Taffer
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Great work, man. Put it on Arcturu's water and off you go...

Sure, I did actually try it out some time ago so I already had all the files set up and could just drop in the now finished ship. Here are the results:

 

Arcturus' water from the animated grass test map

 

 

Gz0uEFc.jpg?1

 

Mirror-like surface that'll even reflect the moon. This would be ideal for starry nights where the ships are at harbour. The surface does have a moving component so it can also be used for sailing scenarios.

 

Zf0SacB.jpg?1

 

 

 

Arcturus' water from his animated water test map

 

 

ZKo6sAv.jpg

 

Choppy waves, ideal for sailing scenarios but can also be used for windy days at the harbour. Unfortunately it's incompatible with foglights, fog emitters are fine though.

 

8NxMX27.jpg

 

Notice how the animated waves roll past the hull.

 

 

 

Misty ocean

 

 

keWSJm1.jpg

 

This is something I just assembled to emulate being lost in fog. The ship could crash into just about anything in this weather - if an author would like to start their mission this way.

 

Besides a foglight in the world and skybox, I used tdm_dustfog particles for this. #1 for horizontal fog just above the surface, #3 for volumetric fog in several layers. I moved a few of the emitters inbetween layers to better conceal the layer arrangement. There's also some rain.

 

Technically this uses Arcturus' second water, but the fog is so thick you can't see it.

 

 

The downside to Arcturus' water is that it's made up of animated meshes, so it'll need some adaptation in Blender to fit around the ship. The second water works by using a normalmap for each of the 50 frames, so that one's something of a bulky asset of 40+ mb. And both were unfortunately left behind by the recent fix to stop objects over the water from being blurred.

Edited by Dragofer
  • Like 4
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Zf0SacB.jpg?1

 

 

ZKo6sAv.jpg

 

 

 

These are so nice... Lovely work all around, my friend. Sorry, but did you mean these scenes are setup in the download files? If not, please share them, would be lovely to see this in someone's map one day. Somebosy really needs to do a new pandora's box - like mission, this time on a regular ship like yours, cruising a foggy, depressing sea...

Edited by RPGista
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I had trouble with disappearing md3 water models as you can see in my video. Have you not experienced anything like that?

My only issue was that the animated water was invisible from almost all angles when postprocessing was active, otherwise it worked flawlessly.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Somebody really needs to do a new pandora's box - like mission, this time on a regular ship like yours, cruising a foggy, depressing sea...

 

Thanks very much RPGista, it's much appreciated. Now, there are already missions that fit your description: One Step Too Far, as well as mission 2 of Down by the Riverside by some counts, both by myself.

 

But what would really capture my imagination now would be a full-size nautical mission combining atmospheric elements of One Step Too Far and Full Moon Fever. And, sometimes dreams come true, they say...

 

Sorry, but did you mean these scenes are setup in the download files? If not, please share them, would be lovely to see this in someone's map one day.

With having the files set up I only meant having the assets in my TDM. There are a couple barriers to "shipping" them:

 

- the first water type starts to tear up when the surface is split up to fit around the ship (more specifically, when several surfaces are adjacent to each other). There's also some kind of distance limit, after which you get graphical artefacts similar to those you get with the shadows of models which have been downsized via the rotation spawnarg.

 

- the second water type is a tiling animated mesh. Making some parts fit around the ship is going to take updating the skeleton and animations, so I'll have to finally sit down and learn how to handle animated meshes.

 

Tris reduction on the ship models

 

LOD stages for the models have been added to the download link:

 

- Brig: 9000 -> 6000 -> 2500 tris

- Yacht: 7000 - 4800 -> 2000 tris

- Shadowmeshes decay to half their original tris.

 

The transitions happen at 120 and 250 units (reference: humans are 84 units tall).

 

That said, Down by the Riverside used minimally processed ship models with up to 25000 tris without noticeably dragging down performance compared to similar areas. But it doesn't hurt to have LOD ;)

Edited by Dragofer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

My only issue was that the animated water was invisible from almost all angles when postprocessing was active, otherwise it worked flawlessly.

Changing post processing in the menu doesn't seem to matter on my end. Does turning lantern on cause problems? Did you try swimming with lantern on? I just noticed btw that my md3 water tests don't work at all in x64 version. It would be nice to have some kind of vertex animation working.

The second water is a tiling animated mesh. Making some parts fit around the ship is going to take updating the skeleton and animations. So I'll have to finally sit down and learn how to handle animated meshes.

It's not animated by a skeleton. It's a md3 model where each frame is stored as separate meshes.

It's only a model...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Now the water is always working for me. 64bit, 32bit, lantern on/off, post-processing on/off. Maybe my problem was map-related?

 

It might be useful to make a thread calling for people to test whether/when the water works on their end so we could track down if it's a specific card or setting that causes it. Because this water is worth it.

 

It's not animated by a skeleton. It's a md3 model where each frame is stored as separate meshes.

This I can work with. But I've noticed there's no existing .md3 in stock TDM... maybe the format isn't reliable anymore since Doom? Edited by Dragofer
Link to comment
Share on other sites

As mentioned by rich_is_bored in this thread md3 format hasn't been really used much in Doom 3 engine. One drawback is there's no interpolation between frames like there is in skeletal animation. I set water in my example to be 30 fps so it looks a bit choppy. You can bind it to game's FPS which should be smoother but then you may need more frames in the md3 file. BTW did you increase resolution of real time reflection?

  • Like 1

It's only a model...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 6 months later...

This looks impressive, indeed. Due to the sheer size and the tris count even on low stages it might be worthwhile splitting the model into several pieces. From how I've read it it sounds like it is only one big model. I am not sure this will be very good for performance if used in a mission where the size of the harbour as well as the level of detail fits the ship. ;)

FM's: Builder Roads, Old Habits, Old Habits Rebuild

Mapping and Scripting: Apples and Peaches

Sculptris Models and Tutorials: Obsttortes Models

My wiki articles: Obstipedia

Texture Blending in DR: DR ASE Blend Exporter

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you, I'm glad you appreciate it :)

 

@Obsttorte, you raise a valid point, it's a demanding asset but there are more than a few techniques available to make it perform. What comes to my mind now is, as you suggest, splitting up the ship into smaller pieces with 1 light each, then LOD for tris and shadows and, as Bikerdude showed on my other big ship, putting caulk walls into the masts for visportals. Also, there's certainly still more potential for tris savings. I think it should be reasonable from a perf viewpoint.

 

 

Harbour-wise also smaller ports might see ships like these, as they occasionally made stops on their journeys to pick up fresh food and ale and maybe also replenish their crews. If the port was too small or the water too shallow they would lay at anchor some distance away, with rowing boats to travel inbetween. A player would find an anchor chain as well as hull ladders either side of the ship as ways to sneak onboard from his rowing boat in that case.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 year later...

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Recent Status Updates

    • Petike the Taffer  »  DeTeEff

      I've updated the articles for your FMs and your author category at the wiki. Your newer nickname (DeTeEff) now comes first, and the one in parentheses is your older nickname (Fieldmedic). Just to avoid confusing people who played your FMs years ago and remember your older nickname. I've added a wiki article for your latest FM, Who Watches the Watcher?, as part of my current updating efforts. Unless I overlooked something, you have five different FMs so far.
      · 0 replies
    • Petike the Taffer

      I've finally managed to log in to The Dark Mod Wiki. I'm back in the saddle and before the holidays start in full, I'll be adding a few new FM articles and doing other updates. Written in Stone is already done.
      · 4 replies
    • nbohr1more

      TDM 15th Anniversary Contest is now active! Please declare your participation: https://forums.thedarkmod.com/index.php?/topic/22413-the-dark-mod-15th-anniversary-contest-entry-thread/
       
      · 0 replies
    • JackFarmer

      @TheUnbeholden
      You cannot receive PMs. Could you please be so kind and check your mailbox if it is full (or maybe you switched off the function)?
      · 1 reply
    • OrbWeaver

      I like the new frob highlight but it would nice if it was less "flickery" while moving over objects (especially barred metal doors).
      · 4 replies
×
×
  • Create New...