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ShaZe's Stuff


ShaZe

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Here my list of model currently done. You can make some changes on the texture if you want because I must agree that my texturer skills are not very high.

 

Download the pak Here (Version 1)

 

What does it include :

 

Staff : 160 Poly

staff.jpg

Staff v2: 160 Poly

 

The first version seemed too much heavy for a mage

staffv2.jpg

Barrel : 210 Poly

barrel.jpg

Candle : 39 Poly

candle.jpg

Candle 2 : 53 Poly

candle2.jpg

Lamp : 258 Poly

lamp.jpg

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Snake Staff : 185 Poly

staff2.jpg

 

Only need a texture

Download Here

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Hey Shaze,

 

Some of these look pretty good, but I think you're taking the "save polys" thing too far. You really shouldn't sacrifice any detail to keep an object less than 200 polys. Anything medium sized or larger, or anything that will probably only be used once in any given scene (like a mage staff) can be 300 or more (as an example, our swords are about 250 polys).

 

As it is, most of these look too low poly. Things like the mage staff could really benefit from being modelled as a high-poly object first. You use the high-poly object to create the normal-map, which is then applied to the low-poly one to simulate more detail.

 

I love the snake staff, btw...the low-poly works there, as it looks like something roughly carved out of wood. The other staff doesn't work for me the same way.

 

Btw, I haven't had time to look at these yet...what format are they in?

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Yeah I know that I am kinda maniac about saving polys, I love to optimize my models at their most. For the mage staff, yeah, something make it look really bad. I was saying myself that the geometry was fine, and it was maybe just the texture that create that look. Well, I will totaly redesign the staff or I will try to add more details to the texture.

 

And yeah, suggestions are welcome. I you feel that the barrel should be darker, that a staff need more details on a part, that a model doesn't load or is just ugly and need a re-design, just say it :)

 

By the way, I didn't found anyway to make a sort of reflection on the jewels on the staff, do you know any way to produce that effect? I added a transluant effect, but it really need some reflection.

 

Hmm, and a last question, is it alright if I upload the models as pack on my server and show it there during their process / at their final version? Or is there someone or a ftp to gather all the models?

 

Thanks :)

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Yeah I know that I am kinda maniac about saving polys, I love to optimize my models at their most.

 

Yes, definitely worth doing for the final version of the models, but really go crazy on details with your original high-poly version. That is extremely important for simulating detail in the normal maps. If your original models lack the detail, you're going to get objects that look like they're made for a last generation engine.

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And yeah, suggestions are welcome. I you feel that the barrel should be darker, that a staff need more details on a part, that a model doesn't load or is just ugly and need a re-design, just say it

 

Fair enough. :) At the moment, the biggest concerns I can see are the low poly-counts and the textures. Are you used to working with normal-maps at all? It can be kind of intimidating if not.

 

By the way, I didn't found anyway to make a sort of reflection on the jewels on the staff, do you know any way to produce that effect?

 

Check baddcog's thread, he was talking about a way to simulate this.

 

Hmm, and a last question, is it alright if I upload the models as pack on my server and show it there during their process / at their final version? Or is there someone or a ftp to gather all the models?

 

That's fine with me.

 

You might want to check out our internal models website so that you can take a look at the kinds of prop models we are creating for the mod. Some of the polycounts are listed as well so you can get a feel for that too.

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Are you used to working with normal-maps at all? It can be kind of intimidating if not.

 

Yeah but, I just find it usless for perfect rounded objects as the smoothing group give the same result. I only use it when I got weird curve in my models otherwise, I consider it like a waste of time.

 

So for example, most of the mechanical model or sharp edged model won't have a normal map.

 

Anyway, I will add more details to the staff, both for the geometry and the texture. If I succeed to do something nice with the texture, it should look nice. I will post the final result right after.

 

The process will be more slow this weekend (I got like 4 school projects to finish soon) but I will try to finish this as soon as possible :D

 

Thanks

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So for example, most of the mechanical model or sharp edged model won't have a normal map.

 

Well, all models in D3 have normal-maps, so it just comes down to whether you use a high-poly model to make them. Smoothing cannot achieve anywhere near the same results.

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Yeah, to echo Springs comment, all models should have normal maps...otherwise they're just going to end up looking last generation.

 

Kinda weird because if you make the test, a sphere with smoothing group and a sphere with normal map look exaclty the same because D3 handle pretty well the smoothing groups, only on ase model of course.

 

I should have said it before, don't know if you knew about it. And thats probably the reason they all got normal maps, most of the models are lwo.

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I don't know that D3 handles the smoothing any differently--it's just that blender automatically adds smoothing (as I understand it) while LW requires you to set it manually.

 

There's a lot more to normalmaps than just rounding corners, however.

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There's a lot more to normalmaps than just rounding corners, however.

 

True

 

Otherwise, I wanna make a little test before returning on my works. Does the staff look better than the textured version? And a second question that has nothing to do with the test, what do you thinks about the 2 others design?

 

staves.jpg

 

Because I have a kind of theory that a textured model can be compared to a colored drawing. Sometimes the colors give to the picture's look a crappy look, sometimes it become something really more impressive. Everything is about the texture/color.

 

At least, I will be able to know if my theory was true, and if it is, I will just have to force myself as a texturer to give it a really nice look.

 

Thanks in advance ;)

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I see what you're getting at, and I think you have a point. It actually does look better with no texture at all. Of the three designs, I prefer the first and third. The third looks a little heavy, however. Perhaps if the 'wings' were some kind of transparent filigree?

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Yeah, I agree with the polycount thing. For something like a mage staff (weapons) I'd say you can easily go as high as 500 (if it helps).

As for your staff models. I think they all look decent, cool designs but I think they need ALOT of attention at the top where they hold the gem. I think you could easily add 50-100 polys to make that area really shine. Right now it looks very low poly and doesn't really have any style, just triangles.

It's true what you say about tex/untex. I think it's just becaue the tex on your first one is so plain. A good normal map could change that alot without changing the diffuse at all.

 

I still haven't got around to doing all the material tests I wanted too (metal, gems, ect...).

I think metal needs reflections. I think gems are different though. Gems don't reflect, I've never seen myself when I looked at one.

I'd say gems shine. So you should probably look more into a good specular map instead of reflection. I think the key it to use a really saturated specular of the same color as the gem (but it needs to be VERY dark, the doom engine seems to make specular maps make things very bright which isn't exactly what you want, you just want a good reflection of the gems color, not the lights color in the gems)

I guess that's what gems really do, it's like looking at a light thru colored glass.

 

I think you did a great job on the wall lamp. I know the one you were modeling and it looks good. again though, I think you sacrificed polys on the 'curls' and they look very low poly and flat, no dimension. On stuff like that I've been using a 3 sided piece (4 is probably most realistic/best but 3 is close and shaves alot of polys).

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Thanks a lots for the suggestions/comments, most of them are really helpful

 

I think you did a great job on the wall lamp. I know the one you were modeling and it looks good. again though, I think you sacrificed polys on the 'curls' and they look very low poly and flat, no dimension. On stuff like that I've been using a 3 sided piece (4 is probably most realistic/best but 3 is close and shaves alot of polys).

 

Can you explain more which area that need more poly, were you talking about the spiral? Because I fail to understand the things with 3-4 sided piece.

 

I thinks the things that should be smoothed would be the metal spiral, if that's what you were trying to tell me?.

 

Otherwise yeah, I had tryed the high specular map on the gem, but the effect was really bad, the lighted side were gray instead of plain white. I guessed it missed reflection. And because of that, I figured out one of the problem about the texture of the whole staff, it had a too high specular, that's why it was so ugly, and the texture didnt had enough details.

 

 

@Springheel I didn't understand how I could add a sort of "transparent filigree", but while writting this post, I just got a nice idea eheh. I will mess with it and show a screen later.

 

Thanks :)

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Yeah, the spiral. Right now they have 2 sides (front and back), basically they are a plane 'bent' into a shape.

 

3 sides meaning an extruded triangle, 4 a square. or a 3 or 4 sided cylinder, then bend it the same way as the plane is now.

 

sewerlightsj0.jpg

 

the 'fingers' (holding the sphere) on this lamp are 3 sided, the curve at the bottom is 4 sided.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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There's nothing wrong with 500 polys for an object like this. If you want you can make the fancy bits at the top a separate mesh and set them to not cast shadows--that would probably do more for performance than trimming 100 polys.

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Yeah, the spiral. Right now they have 2 sides (front and back), basically they are a plane 'bent' into a shape.

 

3 sides meaning an extruded triangle, 4 a square. or a 3 or 4 sided cylinder, then bend it the same way as the plane is now.

 

sewerlightsj0.jpg

 

the 'fingers' (holding the sphere) on this lamp are 3 sided, the curve at the bottom is 4 sided.

 

Oh yeah I know what you mean. Forgive me, I uploaded the old pictures, the new got exaclty what your talking about. That's one of the reason I didn't understand :)

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

For the shadow on the staff, I could remove them from the transparent wings and the little gems. And I could maybe remove the one casted my the gem, and take a low poly gem to cast the shadow. I thinks it could work if I add the property forceShadows to it, so the poly would not be rendered, except for shadow. =)

 

I just don't know if I should use caulk, or nodraw, and if it will really remove the polygons from the calcules.

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I just don't know if I should use caulk, or nodraw, and if it will really remove the polygons from the calcules
.

 

 

You shouldn't need to use caulk or nodraw on anything. Just make the wings/etc a separate mesh with a different material, and add the property "noshadows" to the material.

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Well, I bet I can reduce those polys and it'll look the same :D

 

The part that holds those 4 'arms' in place. Is that a seperate cylinder from the staff or is it just extruded outwards?

 

Using a seperate cylinder and 'floating polys' can reduce alot of polys around top/bottom.

 

Basically the pole is one cylinder and the other piece is another cylinder overlapping it. Also, the wedges below the arms, if they are extruded outwards you can probably save poly count by floating them around the cylinder.

 

Would help to see some wireframe views.

----

--edit

Yeah, i think the lamp looks better now, will have a more 3d look from all angles.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Well, I bet I can reduce those polys and it'll look the same :D

 

The part that holds those 4 'arms' in place. Is that a seperate cylinder from the staff or is it just extruded outwards?

 

Using a seperate cylinder and 'floating polys' can reduce alot of polys around top/bottom.

 

Basically the pole is one cylinder and the other piece is another cylinder overlapping it. Also, the wedges below the arms, if they are extruded outwards you can probably save poly count by floating them around the cylinder.

 

Would help to see some wireframe views.

----

--edit

Yeah, i think the lamp looks better now, will have a more 3d look from all angles.

 

There it is :

 

staff-wire.jpg

 

It is extruded, every hidden polygon are automatically removed, and every polygon group that seem to heavy only to form a circle or anything else for example, are simplified.

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Well, you can deffinately optimize the cylinder at the top, that'll save ya 2 polys :) I'd also drop that down to 14 sides instead of 16 too. I think 14 still looks very round but is getting to the high side for a cylinder, that would be 10 more polys.

 

Can't really see the details on the lower part though.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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staffv4.jpg

 

What you thinks about it?

 

Just developped a new texturing skill. I wanted to find a way to tile a texture within a textures file. Theres only one way to do it (cropping the texture to get the part you want) but D3 doesnt support it. Finaly, I just found a way to get the same things, without using a huge part of my texture. Kinda hard to explain but anyway, it's always useful.

 

Otherwise, for the gem, I thinks I reached the maximum specular level I could...

 

Edit : hmm, did someone found a way to color the shadow of certain type of material such as glass, it would be nice if the ruby could project a red shadow =)

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Looks good.

 

I think shadows are shadows, nothing can be done. Makes it hard to decide which items end up with shadows. glass objects like flasks I think are better without shadow, the shadows are just to dark for transparent items imo.

 

On that staff though I'd probably still use shadows on the gem so the shape of shadow is close to the whole model. I think that's how I'm deciding on shadows or not. If most of the object should have em the entire object will get them.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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