Modular vs single mesh
polycounter lvl 6
Well I've been struggling with concept here.
I;m going to make some arabian/egyptian/middle east/Assasin's Creed (:D) themed assets for Khemi city:
http://community.ageofconan.com/conan/frontend/files/CONTENT/khemi_1280x1024.jpg
http://community.ageofconan.com/conan/frontend/files/CONTENT/khemi5.jpg
Not exactly like this, but I hope it gives idea.
It's mainly for UDK.
That's about background.
I've been making several attempts.The modular assets are easy to see that are tilling, do not always match, and most important buildings start to look like clones, but make me able to quickly pop-up new buildings.
While modeling more complex geometry as single buildings, make easier to make buildings unique among others and feel more natural. Also My bet is that single big meshes are better for big landscapes.
Anyway I have few noob questions:
When making everything as small modular assets is simple overkill for design ?
What you would do for that themed assets (I will most likely will do them as single meshes with modular additions, but like to know).
How many submaterials is would you use ? Yeah my another problem.
Just theoretical question I've seen Warhammer Online assets used from 1 to 24, while houses used 12 (wonder where ?).
Personally I think 3-4 will be minimum (two for tillable plasters/bricks, one for windows/doors and one for decorations/woods/etc no need to tile).
I;m going to make some arabian/egyptian/middle east/Assasin's Creed (:D) themed assets for Khemi city:
http://community.ageofconan.com/conan/frontend/files/CONTENT/khemi_1280x1024.jpg
http://community.ageofconan.com/conan/frontend/files/CONTENT/khemi5.jpg
Not exactly like this, but I hope it gives idea.
It's mainly for UDK.
That's about background.
I've been making several attempts.The modular assets are easy to see that are tilling, do not always match, and most important buildings start to look like clones, but make me able to quickly pop-up new buildings.
While modeling more complex geometry as single buildings, make easier to make buildings unique among others and feel more natural. Also My bet is that single big meshes are better for big landscapes.
Anyway I have few noob questions:
When making everything as small modular assets is simple overkill for design ?
What you would do for that themed assets (I will most likely will do them as single meshes with modular additions, but like to know).
How many submaterials is would you use ? Yeah my another problem.
Just theoretical question I've seen Warhammer Online assets used from 1 to 24, while houses used 12 (wonder where ?).
Personally I think 3-4 will be minimum (two for tillable plasters/bricks, one for windows/doors and one for decorations/woods/etc no need to tile).
Replies
So if these are only ever going to be seen from far away then making whole buildings at once would be just fine.
It's actually city that you can walk on.
Anyway I've look closely at AC, and I guess best thing to do it's to make semi-modular.
Because houses here are usually boxes, it's best to make simple boxes with windows, trims etc, and then from those boxes make more complex-looking buildings.
I think it's completely impossible to make just modular walls, windows etc, here etc. and build buildings from it.
Have you looked at the way epic build their levels? the UDK comes with several sample levels. Some of the necris levels look pretty similar to what you want.
I would suggest that if you're going to be up close then you definitely want to build your modules in fairly small chunks.
You will have performance problems if you do not do this.