Jerboa would like to assist

[HappyCheeze]

that looks amazing

[Jerboa]

that looks amazing

 

Ty kindly. Trying to add a descent, correct support structure.

[Jerboa]

I made the lever and the trap door seperate objects and added a basic support. Deleted the ends of the posts. I even compinsated the height so you can walk under it w/o colliding.Now all I need to do is assemble it in-game. Here is a render in modeler. This is the optimized version by the way.

[Tels]

I made the lever and the trap door seperate objects and added a basic support. Deleted the ends of the posts. I even compinsated the height so you can walk under it w/o colliding.Now all I need to do is assemble it in-game. Here is a render in modeler. This is the optimized version by the way.

 

Looks good, except the "inner" support beams are attached with their end-caps to the sidebeams - which wouldn't work in practice unless you used iant bolts driven in them

 

If you make the two bars going from front-to-end attached one bar-height lower and lengthen the 4 bars running across, they can rest on the two sidbars.

 

There is still the issue how these two bars would be attached to the poles, tho. But it is less obvious than the current setup

[Springheel]

You'll have to decide how much emphasis you want to put on architectural exactitude. I personally think the model is quite decent now as a mesh, and I'd like to see how it looks in game with a good texture applied.

[Jerboa]

The texture might be abit too grey/weathered, I'll fool around with that abit more. I did notice when I was setting up the lighting ingame that it was too harsh. I need to figure out how to soften the glow, if possible. I put handles on the trap doors and a default light on the floor beneath them.

 

At 1st when setting up the lights the shadows were so dark that you couldnt see the supports or handles on the trap doors. But, here are some pics of my attempts to get the lighting correct to expose most of the models.

[Baddcog]

I think it looks good.

 

As far as lighting, most likely alot of the details in a real level might get hidden in shadows and the lights will never look like that. I think it'll look good in a more 'natural' setting, always hard to pose models in editor for best shot.

 

I think the supports are fine, there are actually probably several ways that could work realistically.

1: as Tels mentioned might be held together with large metal spikes. This is something I could fully accept as part of the building techniques in the Darkmod universe.

 

2:they could be notched. In the real world you'd probably see the ends of tthe supports sticking through the beams. But I don't think it's needed for the model.

 

Either way the supports help define the structure and make it mopre realistic while not expending too much time or detail on small things the player probably won't notice or even think of when playing the game.

It can be real easy to over-analyze when looking at pics of an object, but in-game players are more likely to think things like:

"wow, cool a gallows" or "there's the gallows I need to find"...

 

It's usually the mapper types that look at things and go, "where are the nails?" (believe me, I do this in all games whether I want to or not).

[New Horizon]

At 1st when setting up the lights the shadows were so dark that you couldnt see the supports or handles on the trap doors. But, here are some pics of my attempts to get the lighting correct to expose most of the models.

 

For lighting, you need to setup an ambient level light. That's a single ambient that covers your entire level, but is 'very-very' dim. The level wide ambient should remain dim enough that it doesn't affect the light gem.

[Ishtvan]

That looks really good to me. I can't tell if it's all one model or not, but if it is, you might want to consider making a version of it where the noose, trap doors and lever are all separate models, so that mappers can put it together in various different ways (maybe they don't want nooses currently on it, maybe they want to hang bodies from it, maybe they want the lever to be actually frobable and open the doors, etc).

[Jerboa]

I'll pack these and send them off then. Does the mod have a guillotine? if not that would be a really fun project for me to work on next.

[Springheel]

No guillotine atm, so feel free.

[Jerboa]

That looks really good to me. I can't tell if it's all one model or not, but if it is, you might want to consider making a version of it where the noose, trap doors and lever are all separate models, so that mappers can put it together in various different ways (maybe they don't want nooses currently on it, maybe they want to hang bodies from it, maybe they want the lever to be actually frobable and open the doors, etc).

 

Yuppers, its a build of parts.

[greebo]

Thanks for the files, Jerboa, I'll try to look over them in the next few days. I'm rather busy this week, so it might take me a bit.

[Baddcog]

yeah, a guillotine would be cool. It'll give you a chance to mess with specular on the metal too.

[Jerboa]

Here is stage one of the guillotine so far. Any changes wanted let me know.

[Baddcog]

Looks pretty good.

 

Maybe make it a bit wider, it kindof seems like they might have a hard time getting to it and putting someone in there because of the supports.

 

Also, I'd probably add a pulley to the top, maybe two across the top with brackets. I suppose a very low tech one might just have rope go through a hole but this is a steam tech enviro, so simple tech like pulleys should be everywhere. Plus it's shiny metal

 

It might be possible to have an animated (scripted one with seperate blade), but the rope would be hard, it would need to be a more 'internal mechanism' machine to simplify that. The rope would be hard to animate across the top/side.

 

I'd probably seperate the head blocks in two though, at the very least put a beveled edge between so they look seperate and a little worn. And a split down the middle for blade.

[Jerboa]

I like the bevel idea to show that the head lock is two seperate pieces. Also while browsing I found a good site on them. There is one with a pully. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=htt...ficial%26sa%3DN

[greebo]

Wow, a website dedicated to guillotines... people have weird hobbies.

[Jerboa]

Here is a version with a pully system installed.

[Springheel]

I think it looks great. If I can make a suggestion, I think the rope would look better running up the support beam and going through a hole in the wood at the level of the pulley, rather than going straight there. It looks like it would get in the way atm.

[Jerboa]

Here is a screen shot of that version you suggested.

[Baddcog]

I'd probably make a few small adjustments.

 

1, around the hole, all those polys above and below are wasted. You really only need 2 polys across top and bottom of the blocks. The polys on the faces can just stretch to the corners.

 

2, either offset the pulley so the rope hangs straight down to the blade, or make the rops a straight line from the pulley to the blade. It's got a bend in it right now that suggests the rope is loose, but it would be taught with that heavy blade hanging on it.

 

3, I think it would be better to have 2 pulleys. The main reason for a pulley is smoother/easier operation. But there's gonna be alot of drag on the rope going through the hole in the wood, so that defeats the purpose of the other pulley really.

The rope could still go through a hole but going out across a pulley would make more sense.

(See my earlier post about whether or not players will care ;D and decide for yourself how you want to make it.)

[Jerboa]

Here is a two pulley version. Removed the excess polys on the face and streched taught the rope abit more w/out offsetting.

[Jerboa]

Here is a textured version.

[greebo]

Jerboa, I think you're making some nice progress there. You've proven that you're willing to stick around and improve yourself (and handle criticism and nitpicking too), which is a good thing.

 

I'd suggest you pack up this model (i.e. getting it ready for commit) and then we'll set you up with Contributor permissions so that you have access to SVN and our texture resources.

 

What do my fellow team members say?