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Cathedral i've been working on...


AluminumHaste

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AluminumHaste, the cathedral looks great and I can't wait to see it in game, but please, for the love of the Builder use compressed jpgs. It's taking 45 seconds to load this page with a 7MB connection. I saved one of the images as jpg so you could see the difference. Original was 2.1MB, the jpg is 166KB (less than 10% of original).

 

post-2168-125657096816_thumb.jpg

 

 

 

God I HATE Jpeg compression!!!! All I see in that pic is the horrible artifacts in the dark areas, there's no detail anymore in the dark spots. While you may not be able to see the detail anyways if your monitor is too dark, I can. I had this thing balanced a while ago for my rooms lighting, and it's been great.

I do agree that 2 megs per shot is large, but I really don't want to use Jpeg. I will post screenies at lower res then, maybe 1280x800 instead.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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I really like the direction this is going, visually I mean. Could turn into one of those ultra awesome Oblivion-churches in big. Here are a couple of suggestions/ideas from my side though, feel free to ignore:

  • Walltexture: Better choose one with bigger Brickstones that tiles better. On distant walls you can clearly see repetitive patterns.
  • Beamtexture: The beam should not consist of single wood-panels but should be solid wood instead.
  • Benchtexture: The texture on the seat benches should be rotated by 90° and have a slight vertical offset in every row, so that no repetitive patterns can be perceived. This is also more realistic.
  • The projected light-textures and the windows: Since the light emitted by the moon is approximately parallel, the projections shouldn't be twice as big as the actual windows they originate from, at least not in a nearly orthogonal projection, like it's the case here. But since the effect is so nice, I'd just make the side-windows bigger (like a little bit smaller than the front windows at the altar). Also on such a big distance, dispersion should definitely kick in. Is it possible to blur the projected texture a bit from within the editor, or would you have to blur the texture itself and project that altered version?
  • Windowtexture: The emitted light is very very bright, which is nice, but it doesn't fit in with the window texture. A bright colorful stain glass texture would be swell!
  • Lightshafts: Maybe add some huge lightshafts to the windows! :-) (Those wouldn't even be unrealistic here because of incense)
  • Glassdome: I could also imagine a big glassdome over the compass rose, also projecting a nice light texture and emitting lightshafts of course.

Sorry, I always get hung up in my imagination and once that's the case, I tend to behave like an art director. :-) I am painting a beautiful bombastic monumental church in my mind right now. But I guess this will remain a dream, because at some point you will really have to watch performance I guess.

 

Sorry I didn't pick the wall texture, I think Sneaksie did. I am planning on changing that though, and not use a single texture. You have to realize though that it takes about 5-6 minutes to re-texture one window arch group (4 windows and arches). I then have to either repeat that process to the other 30 window groups, or delete them all and clone the changed group. Either way, I'm looking at hours of work, so it's been slow going.

 

Now for the beams, I have to disagree with you there; there is no wood beams that large that are made from a single piece. Now the orientation of those textures needs to be fixed I agree, but beams that large are actually stronger when made with multiple interlocking, glued and nailed beams. My church in town has these beams, so I know they work.

 

The benches; now that's interesting I agree with you 100%, only problem; 300 benches. I do plan on doing something though. Each group of benches is it's own entity. All I'm going to do is turn OFF texture lock, move the bench groups around randomly until the textures different for each group, then I'm going to relock the textures, then mix and match the benches.

 

Oh those projected lights on the windows are coming from the top windows, at a 45 degree angle lol. The windows on the ground also cast light, but since they are at the ground, the light is right in front of them. Yes it's way easier to blur the image in photoshop, then to resize 100 windows lol.

 

It's funny you mention the window texture but did you notice that the projected light's texture IS the window texture?

 

Lightshafts are for f'in sure!!!! I just have to learn the best way to do them, any suggestions would be welcome.

 

The glass dome would be almost useless as right now the light is streaming in from the moon outside at a 45 degree angle, a glass dome on the ceiling would not be able to shine light on the rose below. Only at midday or when the moon happens to be in the sky. Although I think a glass dome using one of my translucent stained glass windows looking out into the starry sky box, would be epic, but probably kill performance every time you looked up.

 

One cool side effect of me redoing some of the architecture and making everything entities, is that performance is wayyyy up from when Sneaksie tried it a few days ago.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Now for the beams, I have to disagree with you there; there is no wood beams that large that are made from a single piece. Now the orientation of those textures needs to be fixed I agree, but beams that large are actually stronger when made with multiple interlocking, glued and nailed beams. My church in town has these beams, so I know they work.

Ah yeah, that makes sense of course. What really struck me was the texture-orientation, so we're on the same path here.

 

The benches; now that's interesting I agree with you 100%, only problem; 300 benches. I do plan on doing something though. Each group of benches is it's own entity. All I'm going to do is turn OFF texture lock, move the bench groups around randomly until the textures different for each group, then I'm going to relock the textures, then mix and match the benches.

Uhhhh nice approach, good thinking. And another example of DR's awesomeness!! :D

 

Oh those projected lights on the windows are coming from the top windows, at a 45 degree angle lol. The windows on the ground also cast light, but since they are at the ground, the light is right in front of them.

I couldn't see those windows on any of the screens, but if those are responsible for the big projections, everything is fine. Would've been hardcore weird, if those small side-windows illuminated the whole place.

 

It's funny you mention the window texture but did you notice that the projected light's texture IS the window texture?

I did. The difference is only, that the projection is veeeery bright, in contrast to the actual window. And a brighter window texture will also look better when you install a brightish lightshaft. I have no idea how to realize those by the way, sorry. I've only done the advanced basics with DR.

 

Although I think a glass dome using one of my translucent stained glass windows looking out into the starry sky box, would be epic, but probably kill performance every time you looked up.

Worth a try I guess. I don't even think that it would be such a hit to performance, because you got no shadows up there.

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Sorry I didn't pick the wall texture, I think Sneaksie did.

I only grabbed the first stone texture in the repo to get it to compile, not what I'd really choose there.

 

I agree with the comments about the textures. These just don't really seem like a good fit. If I try to put it to words, it is (as said above) that the columns and walls are lost, and in too much detail (I liked your original shots more than now) and the floor is too overstated and contrasty.

 

For the projected lights, can they be laid down such that they're believably slanted like real window lights, or must they be rotated TDS style (not realistic). It looks like from this one, it's possible (the windows all the way to the right slant almost correctly). The bottom straight edges of the windows should run parallel to the side walls.

 

http://img198.imageshack.us/img198/8632/shot00013ro.png

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Here's what I mean:

post-58-12565814704_thumb.jpg

 

However, I guess this might be a result of perspective correcting or just viewing angle. If the rotated/slanted windows cannot be made with bottom straight edges running parallel to the walls (as they should), that would be a shame. If they can, it's well worth doing, as the other method is fake looking. Parallel light textures?

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God I HATE Jpeg compression!!!! All I see in that pic is the horrible artifacts in the dark areas, there's no detail anymore in the dark spots. While you may not be able to see the detail anyways if your monitor is too dark, I can. I had this thing balanced a while ago for my rooms lighting, and it's been great.

I do agree that 2 megs per shot is large, but I really don't want to use Jpeg. I will post screenies at lower res then, maybe 1280x800 instead.

 

I certainly understand your dislike of jpeg compression, but now that I am at work I am stuck on a 384Kb connection (thank the Builder for Opera Turbo), and many others simply don't have the bandwidth to handle png images. If you still do want to use png instead of jpg, then please don't embed the images and just link to them. Thanks :)

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Looks cool for sure. I really like how you did the pillars. And I love large open spaces, I just don't see how you can possibly optimize it for good performance.

 

As of right now it's running better than ever, 50 fps for me. =D

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Looks cool for sure. I really like how you did the pillars. And I love large open spaces, I just don't see how you can possibly optimize it for good performance.

 

You'd be surprised how many visportals can you put in one area.

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Here's what I mean:

post-58-12565814704_thumb.jpg

 

However, I guess this might be a result of perspective correcting or just viewing angle. If the rotated/slanted windows cannot be made with bottom straight edges running parallel to the walls (as they should), that would be a shame. If they can, it's well worth doing, as the other method is fake looking. Parallel light textures?

 

OOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHh I see what you mean, but that's just the perspective of the screenshot, that's not one light doing that, that's about 15 lights along the top and they are all oriented the same way. When you look at it from the roof, they are all correct.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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For the projected lights, can they be laid down such that they're believably slanted like real window lights, or must they be rotated TDS style (not realistic). It looks like from this one, it's possible (the windows all the way to the right slant almost correctly). The bottom straight edges of the windows should run parallel to the side walls.

Uh yeah, that one is important too. Projection in form of a parallelogram so to speak. The vertical borders of the projection have to be parallel to the borders of the window (so parallel to the sidewalls for that matter). That really looked like crap in TDS. So in conclusion, we need blurred and slanted projections for maximum realism. :)

Edited by STiFU
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Yes, STiFU that's what I meant. And I'm wondering if that is possible in TDM, because it looks like some of the shots above show that it is not, while others suggest "maybe." That while these in the shots appear like the top of this image (like TDS), they should look like the bottom if realistic. Is this possible? I thought from tests on doom3world.org that it was.

 

post-58-125659424289_thumb.jpg

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Granted my current project has no vis portals at all yet, but I get around 20-30 in everything so far.

 

My point is how would vis portals help an area that large. Even if you use 100 of them, they still aren't gonna block any lines of sight.

And if they are all in a line 10 won't help more than 1 (unless they just don't render anything beyond a certain distance which doesn't seem the case in those screens).

 

And they'd have to be huge to fill the space, in which case they won't block much anyway because the 'windows' they create are enormous.

 

Not knocking it, just curious how you manage to get such awesome framerates in an area that is so huge.

Dark is the sway that mows like a harvest

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Not knocking it, just curious how you manage to get such awesome framerates in an area that is so huge.

Biggest cause of low FPS: Moving shadows. Solution: Non-moving shadows (the map compiler can just bake shadow volumes and then it doesn't have to be calculated at runtime.)

Doom 3 can push polys like I've never seen before. This map is a great example of it. Turn on r_showtris and I'll bet half the screen turns white.

yay seuss crease touss dome in ouss nose tair

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Certainly, I wasn't sure if it was already known or obvious or not.

 

Create a normal light, apply the desired texture, and then make it Projected as shown.

In vertex mode, select and drag the top vertex in the Y direction (looking down on XY). This lengthens it:

post-58-125661510856_thumb.jpg

Then, select and drag the side vertex in the Y direction as well. This skews it like a parallelogram:

post-58-125661511888_thumb.jpg

There is some discrepancy between Doom3's projection and DR's projection (origin to projected distance); you will probably have to pull it further out from the surface for it to show up in TDM.

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Oh yeah! B)

 

I really like it, but then I already mentioned I would. I was thinking about thinner trim, but to be honest this looks really cool too, and I think looks better than what I was thinking about. Are you thinking about doing something similar with the walls, too?

 

The wall of the apse (the back wall behind the alter) is something to think about too. It doesn't always get special ornamentation, but sometimes it can be really ornamented.

What do you see when you turn out the light? I can't tell you but I know that it's mine.

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Looks nice, but I must admit the notion of wooden columns (especially this big) seems odd to me. Just my take on it though. There are probably stones near that color if you wanted to preserve the scheme.

 

Somebody posted pics of real cathedrals and one of them had stone columns with wood secondary supports just like this.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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I like the contrast/color change on the pillars, but I still think stone bricks would look better. That wood is just too smooth plain and those pillars are huge.

 

yeah for something that large, the wood portion of the pillars is probably rough wood, with a veneer over top to make it look smooth.

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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Continuing the theme of wood and trim for pillars onto support trim:

post-529-125666984394_thumb.jpg

 

Also I haven't decided on what to use for all the lights. I'm currently using projected lights to keep them from over lapping, but in this screenshot I changed the model to a chandelier and used an omni light.

post-529-12566698563_thumb.jpg

I always assumed I'd taste like boot leather.

 

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