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Springheel's Modular Building assets, 2.05


Springheel

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  • 1 month later...

When will you put the first mansion one out?

I have an eclectic YouTube channel making videos on a variety of games. Come and have look here:

https://www.youtube.com/c/NeonsStyleHD

 

Dark Mod Missions: Briarwood Manor - available here or in game

http://forums.thedarkmod.com/topic/18980-fan-mission-briarwood-manor-by-neonsstyle-first-mission-6082017-update-16/

 

 

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  • 4 months later...

Afternoon

 

Do you have a model request and bug thread for models that were part of this pack..?

 

I keep finding the need for altered versions of some of the models, for example -

 

- models/darkmod/architecture/fencing/springset01_bars128.lwo

 

It would handy to have a 64, 32 and single versions of this fence, its most that issue I keep running into with other models in this pack etc.

 

or I find models with bugs, for excmaple this window models has a gap in it between the window and the frame -

 

models/darkmod/architecture/windows/mansion01_window03.lwo

Edited by Bikerdude
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A bugtracker entry, with screenshots if appropriate, would probably be the best way.

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  • 1 year later...

Are all the modules supposed to be available out of the box?

 

I made a fresh install of both TDM and DR, and it seems as though a lot of your modules are missing. Under architecture/modules I only have 3 folders: ext_stone02_plain, interior_set01 and interior_set01_short, each of which only have around 4 to 7 prefabs in them. You showed a lot more stuff in your videos.

Edited by Skaruts

My FMs: By The Cookbook

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If they are lod entities, you will find them using the create entity dialog. But besides that the modules are shipped with the mod. It may be that some the modules in his videos are not yet included due to them beeing to new, but I can't say for sure as I haven't watched the recent videos. Spring should be able to tell you more. I have seven folders plus some additional modules in the folder you have mentioned.

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

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Afternoon

 

Do you have a model request and bug thread for models that were part of this pack..?

 

I keep finding the need for altered versions of some of the models, for example -

 

- models/darkmod/architecture/fencing/springset01_bars128.lwo

 

It would handy to have a 64, 32 and single versions of this fence, its most that issue I keep running into with other models in this pack etc.

 

or I find models with bugs, for excmaple this window models has a gap in it between the window and the frame -

 

models/darkmod/architecture/windows/mansion01_window03.lwo

I forgot all about this, will check and create a tracker if there isnt one.

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Prefabs are pre-created collections of brushes, models and entities, designed to save mappers time. They're like lego toys that are already put together. If you want to build your own thing, you need to use the individual pieces. Everything in those videos is available from TDM 2.06.

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I guess it's not the use of models per se, it's the fact that these particular models have a great deal more detail than what you would see in regular brushwork.

Well, I noticed they have quite some excess geometry, though. It got me curious to see how much, and so I took mansion01_wall01 and tinkered with it for a while. I managed to reduce it from 1830 tris to 1194 (-636) while also raising the detail of the shadow model a bit (+48). You can see a comparison in the image below.

 

Maybe there's some good reason for some of that geometry to be there, but I stripped this model of anything I thought wouldn't ever be needed. Also fixed some gaps. (And btw, I can give you this model if you want. If you ever think of revamping the models to do this kind of thing, it's one less model to go. :) )

 

IjzwDCI.jpg

(Updated image with a non-triangulated version of the original.)

Edited by Skaruts
  • Like 1

My FMs: By The Cookbook

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Since you seem to be a capable modeler, you'd be better off with your own models, even if they take longer to make. Stock TDM models often use excessive geometry and a lot of materials, which drags engine performance down. If you use unwrapped models, and you bake your normals from high poly stuff, you can get very decent results, to the point where you can basically ignore making shadow models.

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If your plan is to request replacement of core modeles, then you will need to make sure you dont change the location of the origin, as it will brake any mission that have used it. If your making these for your own mission, have at it.

 

Wasn't quite planning on that (mentioned it as an afterthought while editing the post). But I'd keep the origin in mind. This was just a curiosity thing. I might not mind helping out if anyone ever tries to do that kind of thing though.

 

Since you seem to be a capable modeler,...

I just stripped the model. :) I've tried making modules for other personal projects (not TDM) and failed miserably. Springheel did a hell of a great job making these modules look good. I'm a lousy decorator. I always get stuck at the part where I need to make a boring plane look like an actual wall...

My FMs: By The Cookbook

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Maybe there's some good reason for some of that geometry to be there, but I stripped this model of anything I thought wouldn't ever be needed.

 

 

Modeling is always a war between speed and quality. I've always leaned more towards three pretty good models now rather than one perfect one sometime in the future.

 

Having said that, there are certainly improvements that can be made after the fact. Feel free to send me the model.

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Modeling is always a war between speed and quality. I've always leaned more towards three pretty good models now rather than one perfect one sometime in the future.

 

I confess that's a lesson I've been learning the hard way...

 

 

Having said that, there are certainly improvements that can be made after the fact. Feel free to send me the model.

 

I uploaded it here.

 

I ended up reverting the shadow model to yours, as I realized there was really no point to what I was doing with it. The extra detail would only be noticed if the wall had no adjacent walls or nothing covering its sides, and I don't think you designed that particular one for that. So with that it's at 1154 tris. I decided to leave the side faces on the upper part of the wall, as they help deepen that nice little crease between those modules. I also aligned the back of the top-most and bottom-most faces to the grid in DR, as it's visually less confusing to look at (I think), but I didn't touch the front. You can place both the original and this one side by side, and they still tile perfectly, as far as I can tell. Didn't touch the origin either.

 

Also fixed some vertex positions that were causing some tiny z-fighting and gaps.

 

Now... hopefully I didn't make any fatal mistakes. I've just now started learning the ins and outs of the engine and I never dealt with .lwo's before. The process was just importing it into blender, remove some geometry (preserving UVs as they are), make adjustments, export it.

Edited by Skaruts

My FMs: By The Cookbook

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Modeling is always a war between speed and quality.

 

It is true, although in case shown by Skaruts the speed isn't exactly a factor, as it takes a few seconds to delete these edges. It's actually kinda weird that a modeling software would make it like that in the first place. A quad is a quad, it has a hidden edge that divides it into 2 triangles, but it doesn't use 6 of them unless they were added by modeller to do something. My guess would be that you actually made it with brushes in DR, and it divided it however it liked, and then you just exported it to lightwave to make .lwo out of it, and didn't check the wireframe.

 

Now that DR can export models, I checked the default interior module, and it seems to have similar issues:

obraz.pngobraz.png

 

Apart from stretched UVs, there seems to be a lot going on with the geometry that doesn't do anything here. I guess this could be fixed, although with a lot of planes intersecting each other (see the back of the module) it would probably be faster to make a new one from scratch.

 

To end on a positive note, the second batch of models (church interior) looks much cleaner, so that's a step in right direction :)

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Apart from stretched UVs, there seems to be a lot going on with the geometry that doesn't do anything here. I guess this could be fixed, although with a lot of planes intersecting each other (see the back of the module) it would probably be faster to make a new one from scratch.

In blender at least that's actually as easy as selecting those faces and pressing F, and it joins them and keeps the UVs in place. You can also use a "to quads" functionality to un-triangulate the whole model, but it doesn't work in many places, at least in those models.

 

Although a problem with blender that I've noticed is that blender's .lwo importer doesn't seem to import all the UVs properly (or there's a problem with the UVs, I don't know which). The front faces of wall01 and 02, for example, have all the UV-vertices in the same spot. Somehow, if I leave them be, it works when exported, although I noticed in one case that the scale of that texture came out different.

 

EDIT: And by the way, to make the process easier, one thing I did was to select parts of the model that are assigned to each material (you can do that in blender at least), separated each of them into their own model, worked on each of them separately, and then joined them all again. Made it less confusing to work on the model.

Edited by Skaruts

My FMs: By The Cookbook

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In max you can remove vertices and edges (as opposed to deleting them, so you preserve a face), so that's easy, but the model is always imported triangulated. That makes it tricky to figure out which edges are from triangulation and which are actual edges of the model, especially in more complex (and messy) setups. UVs seem to have been imported correctly, although they are all over the place too, there are some faces in UV space, in VW and UW space as well, actually they look most correct in UW space. I guess that's the work of some simple planar or box projection, it also happens when you're combining different objects into one.

Edited by Judith
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My guess would be that you actually made it with brushes in DR, and it divided it however it liked, and then you just exported it to lightwave to make .lwo out of it, and didn't check the wireframe.

 

 

Well, your guess would be wrong, if that matters. For starters, those panels aren't flat. The center vert is recessed to create some shading inside each panel, which is why it is 6 tris instead of 2. Is the subtle shading worth an extra 4 tris per panel? Arguably not. Could it have been baked into a normalmap by creating a high-poly version first? Sure, though that would limit the skins mappers could make for them. In the end, it's always a trade-off between quality and quantity, custom detail and mapper flexibility.

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Cool, I was wondering what's the premise behind this :) As for the shading, per pixel shading (normalmaps) will always look better than shading per polygon, there's no way around it. That's why e.g. using complex shapes with sharp edges nearby each other will always look awful because of the aliasing.

 

As for mappers, IMO there's no need for that much handholding. This is a hobby, not a company job; we are traditionally required to be 3d generalists, going from using other people's stuff to making custom textures, materials, models etc. If people would need to alter your textures, they will, even if it's fully unwrapped.

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That's the reason why I wasn't too inclined to fix the models myself. I figured some of that geometry might be serving a purpose I'm not aware of.

 

Well, one could still remove the backside polygons, I guess, and leave everything else as is, or something. I think, more importantly, those models (the mansion ones, at least) could use some fixing in terms of gaps and z-fighting. I noticed some misaligned vertices here and there.

 

There's a gap in wall01 for example:

hqMNyaI.jpg

 

And some z-fighting in wall02 (those lines move as I turn the mouse or move around):

WCTWFAk.jpg

 

I think that's z-fighting because I changed the brush behind them white and the lines remained orange. It's barely noticeable (or not at all) if you play with high AA. I can't paly with AA (because old PC), so I notice this at times. (And after I tinkered with the model, it disappeared.)

 

I also noticed some strange things going on with the geometry in the paintings model. The armchair1 model on the other hand seemed pretty much perfect.

Edited by Skaruts
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My FMs: By The Cookbook

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I'll have a look at those. Lines like that are appearing on lots of models since 2.06 that didn't show any problems previously.

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Well, I noticed they have quite some excess geometry, though. It got me curious to see how much, and so I took mansion01_wall01 and tinkered with it for a while. I managed to reduce it from 1830 tris to 1194 (-636) while also raising the detail of the shadow model a bit (+48). You can see a comparison in the image below.

 

Maybe there's some good reason for some of that geometry to be there, but I stripped this model of anything I thought wouldn't ever be needed. Also fixed some gaps. (And btw, I can give you this model if you want. If you ever think of revamping the models to do this kind of thing, it's one less model to go. :) )

 

IjzwDCI.jpg

(Updated image with a non-triangulated version of the original.)

 

The engine requires the model to be triangulated, so that count on the striped image is really not accurate as the model is in quads, also thick models are better than flat one sided ones, why, because of shadows, not only stencil shadows work best with closed models but also when shadow maps get included officially on TDM, geometry once again will need to be carefully rethinked.

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/dxtecharts/common-techniques-to-improve-shadow-depth-maps

 

Shadow Map–Friendly Geometry

Creating geometry that works well in shadow maps allows for more flexibility when combating artifacts like Peter Panning and shadow acne.

Hard edges are problematic for self-shadowing. The depth disparity near the tip of the edge is very small. Even a small offset can cause objects to lose their shadows.

Sharp edges cause artifacts stemming from low-depth disparity with offsets

Narrow objects such as walls should have backs even if they are never visible. This will increase the depth disparity.

 

It's also important to make sure that the direction the geometry is facing is correct; that is, the outside of an object should be back facing and the inside of an object should be front facing. This is important for rendering with back-face culling enabled, as well as for combating the effects of depth bias.

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