Castle; Model's And Texture's

[mikebart]

Though id better show you guys what ive been up to I've just been working on the castle stones and mortar Ive been inspired by the chillon castle I like the bulky height of it.

These are the high poly models, Ive taken a few different aproaches like I used bump maps wich get added to the normal render and instead of using just one plane for the morter ive used 3, the first is fully opaque, then the next two I've stepped out, applied alpha channels and lowered the opacity acordingly, it helps to blend the stones in with the mortar as you can see in the closeup pic (couldnt project the alpha channels, they just get rendered fully opaque bugger ill keep trying though). Plus im spending alot more time on the models than I have in the past.

 

 

[New Horizon]

Ahhh, yes! That looks absolutely wonderful. I was hoping that castle would be inspiring for you. I simply loved the look of it.

 

Great work mike. Looking forward to seeing more when you feel it's time to reveal them.

[Dram]

Nice Is that a 2d front side though or is it all completely 3d? Just wondering, won't make a difference anyways but if it's all 3d then that's some pretty impressive modelling

[Ishtvan]

Those look great! Out of curiosity, do you have the parallax mod running?

[sparhawk]

Looking really good.

[mikebart]

The stones are high poly 3d models in 3dsmax8, the mortar is made up of 3 overlayed alpha channeled textures creating the illusion of blending between the stones and mortar, if you look closely at the closup shot you should see what i mean, problem is; I cant get the 'projection modifier' to project alpha channels, it seems to only render geometry, which is fine if im only using it to render normal maps but rendering alphas for the diffuse would be a great advantage. There's got to be a way to render alpha channels using the 'projection modifier'.

If anyones got any ideas I'd realy like to hear them, ill have a look around and post a few questions on modeling specific forums.

 

I havent played around much with paralax mapping, Ive seen the results in Oblivion though and think they look great, are we using paralax mapping for the dark mod?

[New Horizon]

I havent played around much with paralax mapping, Ive seen the results in Oblivion though and think they look great, are we using paralax mapping for the dark mod?

 

No, it's still far too intensive to use at this point. With all the extra functions going on, like the AI and Lightgem...it would likely make TDM look like a flip book.

[mikebart]

No, it's still far too intensive to use at this point. With all the extra functions going on, like the AI and Lightgem...it would likely make TDM look like a flip book.

 

Yeah, It looked great in Oblivion when you looked closely enough at it but its realy not that much of an improvement over normal mapping to sacrifice performance

[Dram]

Wow, that's pretty impressive then You go man!

[mikebart]

Just got a response from ohihb at doom3world who's also tried and failed getting projection to render alpha channeled geometry, so now im thinking it cant be done in max, which is a shame it would be very handy for rendering diffuse maps.

but it doesnt matter Ive already made the mortar out of solid geometry anyway and it looks better in some ways just not as smooth.

[mikebart]

I got a few textures running ingame, the arch is the only static mesh the rest are all brushes, most of them are tiling together quite nicely but I still need to make a few joiner tiles. Its coming along well now that the ground work is all done

 

[Crispy]

Awesome! That's looking pretty good. I like how two of the windows look different... not sure how to explain it but I think you know what I'm getting at.

 

Do they have specular? The mortar in the left-hand one looks a bit shiny.

[New Horizon]

Looking great!

[mikebart]

Awesome! That's looking pretty good. I like how two of the windows look different... not sure how to explain it but I think you know what I'm getting at.

 

Do they have specular? The mortar in the left-hand one looks a bit shiny.

 

Yeah some parts of it do look a bit silvery dont they. Ill have a play around with it, the mortar has quite a light coulor and a heavy bump but almost zero specular.

 

thanks

[Springheel]

That looks fantastic! I'm getting sick of our pretty, polished mansion textures--bring on the rock and grit!

[SneaksieDave]

Looking great for sure! (what the hell HUD is that??)

 

Actually makes me want to get back into textures. Inspiration is a true sign of admiration.

[OrbWeaver]

(what the hell HUD is that??)

 

If I'm not very much mistaken, that is Quake 4.

[New Horizon]

That looks fantastic! I'm getting sick of our pretty, polished mansion textures--bring on the rock and grit!

 

Same here. I'm more of a Dark Project 'castles' kind of guy. Like the mansions too...but the cold, dark castles just do more for me.

[OrbWeaver]

I'm not much of a mansion fan either. I much prefer the old, stone, decomposing and degraded.

[New Horizon]

I'm not much of a mansion fan either. I much prefer the old, stone, decomposing and degraded.

 

Yeah, it's going to be nice to start showing off a few more castle style screen shots. We seem to have focussed a bit much on the Thief 2 style of things. Hopefully we can balance that now and win the affections of those who really love Dark Project style missions.

[PinkDot]

Nobody likes mansions so why have you started with this theme?

 

Personaly, I don't like them neither and I think that our current set is too sweet: colours are too saturate and textiures are too clean. I think that we might consider making some subtle corrections before we release the mod... Or we can make another, more interesting mansion textures.

[sparhawk]

Nobody likes mansions so why have you started with this theme?

 

I do, which should be enough as a reason.

 

Personaly, I don't like them neither and I think that our current set is too sweet: colours are too saturate and textiures are too clean. I think that we might consider making some subtle corrections before we release the mod... Or we can make another, more interesting mansion textures.

 

I think it is always good to have more varieties in textures. No point in throwing away the current ones.

[Springheel]

Nobody likes mansions so why have you started with this theme?

 

Let me clarify. I enjoy the mansion theme a lot and think it is the primary theme of the majority of stealth missions. My tongue-in-cheek reply above was just a reaction to the fact that we've been working on that theme almost exclusively for a long time.

 

Personaly, I don't like them neither and I think that our current set is too sweet: colours are too saturate and textiures are too clean. I think that we might consider making some subtle corrections before we release the mod... Or we can make another, more interesting mansion textures.

 

I think our current textures are, for the most part, excellent. We can always use some grungier ones, though a lot of 'grime' can be achieved through decals, which is much less work-intensive and a versatile way of approaching it.

[ascottk]

I think our current textures are, for the most part, excellent. We can always use some grungier ones, though a lot of 'grime' can be achieved through decals, which is much less work-intensive and a versatile way of approaching it.

I just started using decals to dirty up askave. It works pretty well

[PinkDot]

I think our current textures are, for the most part, excellent.

Don't get me wrong - I like their design and ornaments and all of that but while playing Dram's map I've realized that something's wrong with their colours in general. They just strike my eyes - unlike some subdued colour set which would create some mood. But, well, it might be just my personal opinion...

The other thing is that fog effect often helps with raw colours in mission - it doesn't have to be used only as weather effect - more artistic mean - kind of colour perspective. In this sense fog is very underestimated effect.

 

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Oh, and I forgot to say: mikebart - these textures look really great!