Topic: 3D Modeling WIP Topic

[ratty redemption]

understood and thanks kat, i'll be posting more soon hopefully. is there a way to attach more than 3 images to a post?

[kat]

Not at the moment. I may make the ability more global in nature once I upgrade the server at some point this year to keep step with the sites growth.

[ratty redemption]

understood and cool.

[silicone_milk]

It's about time I post something again!

I've been playing around with establishing a workflow to prototype a brawler game in the UDK.

It goes something like this:

• Flesh out the shapes in GTKRadiant 1.4
• Compile to ASE texturing only the faces I want exported (normally a thin shell for easy UV unwrapping)
• Import in Blender 2.49 using the working Goofos ASE import script (I should get around to getting the script working on 2.58 to speed things up but I've been too lazy to do so hoping he'd get around to it  )
• Join all the individual faces of the mesh as one object (for some reason the importer brings each face as it's own object on import)
• Load up the saved .blend file in Blender 2.58 for tweaking and texturing

I've always been a fan of the modular approach to creating things. Legos rock!

So, I started work on my first modular wall piece. Took a while to find some shapes that I was happy with.

Unoptimized ASE Mesh - 232 vertices, 138 faces:


Optimized ASE Mesh - 68 vertices, 53 faces:


Mesh Tiled On Grid:


Sorry for the novel 

EDIT: I don't remember how to make tiny images that don't automatically expand when clicked....

[ratty redemption]

milk, cool and interesting to see your workflow. good start on the modeling. also remember we can bake normalmaps from within blender which could fit in nicely with your workflow of the various pieces.

[kat]

Yup, blocking out in Radiant is a quick way to build some basic shapes. Remember to keep the surrounding 'box' of the shape, UT doesn't like 'open' meshes so you have to make sure the tiles are complete and closed.

re: the img feature. You mean "width=[value]" in the opening "[img]" tag ("[img width=500]")?

[silicone_milk]

So, that is to say, I need a backing to my mesh and I can't have it be a simple subdivded and deformed plane?

I was looking for information on whether it needed to be a "thick" mesh when brought in to the UDK or if it could be flat like it currently is. I couldn't find anything on the subject though and saw somebody use flat meshes in the construction of a U3 level so I figured I'd be ok doing it as well.

As for the images, I meant so where the image doesn't expand in the forum window but opens it like a link to bring you to the fullsize image so as to prevent distorting the layout of the thread.

@Ratty Redemption - thanks. I'm using the nDo plugin to draw out shapes for the normal map but there are some things I haven't figured out how to draw out in photoshop and have it look good (metal hinges)

[kat]

The equivalent of LEM [lvlshot]? I don't think we've ever been able to do that have we? If you can see the 'attachments' panel when you post use that, otherwise just means wrapping the [ img ] tag with a [ url ].

I had wondered about that open mesh thing as well so went into the assets for a look some time ago, the only 'planes' I could find were decal type objects. I do recall reading something about it but can't remember where now (have a look over Hourences - if he's using open meshes then it's OK to do, if not then there will be a reason for it somewhere).

Having said that, closed meshes do have an advantage over deformed/shaped planes... the same object can have both a front and back side with different appearances, you just flip them around depending on what you want - window with shutters on one side, flip for window without - same asset doubles up.

[ratty redemption]

milk, understood and cool. also if you post your wip of the textures, we might be able to offer some advise. i'm surprised by how much i can use blender for normal maps, even ones that are going to be used on 2d type surfaces, ie what we'd normally use a 2d to normal converter for.

[silicone_milk]

Yeah, you can bake some cool stuff pretty quickly in Blender if you're fluent with modeling techniques. Unfortunately I have a hard time getting the shapes I want made quickly to bake in to a normal map when using Blender which is why I'm stoked on this nDo plugin.

It's super quick to make normal map details and you can make details from selected areas, painted areas, and even paths in photoshop. And you can move the resulting normal map detail around (rotate, scale, translate, etc...) and the entire normal map automatically gets updated with correct normal info.

@Kat - spent all day trying to find information on the flat vs thick mesh subject. The only reason I see that a flat mesh could be a problem is that if it's using a single-sided material then the backside can let light through the mesh (this isn't a problem if you've designed the mesh with it having it's backside closed off with other meshes somehow).

[kat]

That's it! It's not the lighting issue per-say but the solution to it, using double sided materials. If you do that on a complex model or models it's going to add up because the material (in the GPU) is simply duplicating and inverting outward facing surfaces to get the inverse; it's often more efficient and uses much fewer polygons to simply box up and close the mesh.

[ratty redemption]

@milk, understood and if i ever get ps (in which case i would buy it) i will definitely use the ndo plugin you recommend as i agree it sounds very powerful.

@kat, i'm finding it interesting to learn about the ue from you guys, especially as i've never tried any versions of it. do we know if the next idtech engine will be available for us to mod? if not i might start using udk.

[ratty redemption]

here's some images of my cliff faces i've been periodically working on for dersaidin's weaver project.

including normals rendered from the diffuse source image using crazybump, and then baked in blender on top of the mesh normals. i have a different modeling technique i want to try soon, which might improve the geometry but recently it's the material i've spending more time on.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[ratty redemption]

the rest of the images.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[kat]

That looks pretty decent Ratty. You're using a tiled 'generic' rock texture? These are relatively large mapobjects right? I was going to suggest seeing what a reduced polycount would look like but on big models it'll look a bit naff for that 'type' of rock. Have you got any shots in-situ?