Jeff Parrott Dota 2 Thread

Jeff Parrott

[size=+2]My workshop stuff. Please check them out![/size]
http://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970143559/myworkshopfiles/?570

Right before the update borked the FBX uploaded I tested out the base colors in the editor for this clubber weapon for Skeleton King. Going to finish up the textures on this one this week.



Also I started a shotgun weapon for Sniper too. I have the lopoly done too. Just punching up the texture on this.



I'm going to concept up a few more weapons for stuff to do after I get these finished and in the workshop.

Jeff Parrott

Here are both of them ready to go...and waiting...

Coyo.Te

I think a little more subtle colors would work a bit better, imho but that depends on how they turn out in the ingame render. you got some shots of that ?
and maybe you could add more detail in the skull texture.

all else looks good to me.

Jeff Parrott

Good point Coyo.te. I was trying to stick close to the default weapons so they don't look out of place with the default gear. I'll put up some in game shots when I can upload FBX files. Totally agree I might have to play around with the colors then.

I will make sure to punch up the skull some. The contrast is getting washed out.

BrontoThunder

Looking at those amazing sculpts and then the finished versions, there's so much information lost and a lot of the style which shone in the sculpts is also missing.

You've got 1100 triangles to use for the sniper weapon so there shouldn't be a lot that the high poly has which the low poly doesn't.

Jeff Parrott

Totally agree with you Bronto. I think for the next ones I do I'll try to stay much closer to the silhouettes of the high poly. I had a rough time with the retopo of the club. The shotgun I was just trying to be low. I went too low. I should have added more with the wraps. But live and learn!

Jeff Parrott

Got this concept to sculpt today. Actually have the bakes done too. Hopefully texture and upload tomorrow.

Jeff Parrott

Here's the in game shots:

reverendK

lookin good. I dunno about the color on the wood though. I feel like it may be too orange and looks kind of wonky under the bright green glow. I think the color makes it feel a bit like clay.

mrpresident

Your sculpts are fantastic but so much detail is being lost in the textures, and it looks like the masks are barely being used.

Have you seen valve's texture/mask guide for dota 2? It shows you the methods they use to create higher contrast in the low res textures, stronger AO and a point light map could help a lot, and the shader guide can help give the metal parts of your items that metallic effect and quite a bit more.

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterTextureGuide.pdf
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2ShaderMaskGuide.pdf

and here's the art guide as well if you haven't seen it: http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2CharacterArtGuide.pdf

Konras

You have fantastic sculpts over here!!
I thing that main problem are textures. Because they are not symmetrical they have low pixel density on final models. Try to add symmetry when you can.

Also things like those golden spikes can be duplicated, so all 3 of theme would share same texture fragment.
Dota2 sadly has really small textures, and you need to try to save space when you can.
I am not an expert and if I am telling something stupid just ignore me
Btw, also Bobo made good tutorial about baking some textures from a hipoly at the end of his darksiders contest livestream. Be sure to look at it from 02:10:00
http://www.livestream.com/vigilnights/video?clipId=pla_69d386b0-0c57-444a-a1e5-4c820a55e9d2&utm_source=lslibrary&utm_medium=ui-thumb

Jeff Parrott

Thanks guys. Yeah I totally agree that I need to use more symmetry with this stuff to increase the texture sizes.

Yes mrpresident I've seen those guides. I've been sticking mainly to the color schemes of the default weapons to make sure they fit the characters.

Konras thanks for the Bobo link. I haven't watched that in a while. I'll rewatch it.

Thanks again guys. I'm using this all as a learning experience so I'll improve with each one.

Jeff Parrott

I updated the shotgun textures after rewatching that tutorial Konras. Thanks again! The next one I make I'm going to design it with a lot of reuse to increase texture res.

Jalcober

What are you using to bake the normals in?

Jeff Parrott

Maya for the normals. Topogun hardware ambient occlusion maps for the AO.

Jalcober

Ah thats why your normals look bad. Maya bakes normals with the green channel inverted. You can just go into photoshop and inver the green channel and it should look correct in source engine.

Konras

If you look at your normalmap beveled objects like sphere should be red on left side and green on their up side, if that is so, everything should be OK in source engine.
I don't know how is it related to Maya, but default max bake is totally inverted, so one need to flip both channels ;/

Jalcober

Huh thats strange Max bakes always work perfectly for me.

Konras

Uppsss... I hope I did't screw up all my models
I have defalut setting in max like here http://docs.autodesk.com/3DSMAX/15/ENU/3ds-Max-Help/images/GUID-A95619E7-F276-4D17-AF28-F9C92E3C0F6C-low.png
Orientation: Red: Right Green: Down
Dota 2 have: Red: Left Green: Up
I don't know now... could you confirm Jalcober, maybe my defaults are wrong or something...

Pierate

Default settings in 3ds max should work in Dota 2, atleast they do for me and my settings are the same as in that screenshot.

Konras

Looking once more time on my items I need to say that your right guys haha how cruel...
I was referring to this sentence from dota requirements page:
"The "_normal" texture should be 24-bit and use the 3dsmax format(red channel is left; green is up; blue is top). If you aren't creating a custom normal map, use a flat normal color (128,128,255)."

Which lead me to thinking that it should be red-left, green-up....
Oh well time to reupload items

So default max Orientation: Red: Right Green: Down is correct. Better to know that late than ever I just hate myself now...

Jeff Parrott

Just invert the green channel in Photoshop. It's super easy. In the CgFX DOTA2 shader there is a green channel inverted click box too.

The shots are from Maya and the green channel is correct.. I actually have the direction set up correctly. The lighting would be backwards on things. So it wouldn't make things look horrible. Just incorrect shading (shadows normally on the bottom would be on the top, etc).

The normals look bad cause I have no overlapping UVs and the textures are small. I'll try rebaking the normals though.

Thanks though. I think the spec maps are killing things too. I need to get a better handle of the shader set up. I think I'm overcomplicating it a ton for myself. I've read all the Valve docs and trying to follow things spot on and looking at their examples. Just seems to be overdoing things and nothing looks that great. Live and learn!

Konras

Hihi I reuploaded items, I must have been blind when I was testing theme, so I didn't saw lightning was going from opposite direction to light source...
Anyway Jeff good luck in your progress, update thread as soon as possible, and sorry for so much spam here

Jeff Parrott

No worries Konras. Cool seeing issues get worked out. I know when I run into stuff and google things polycount threads are 99% of the time the answer I'm looking for. Maybe this will be at some point. I'll try some higher quality bakes on things and see if that helps.

Pierate

Looking forward to the new bakes man, your highpolies look good and it's a shame that much of the detail is lost in the lowpolies.

Jeff Parrott

Thanks Pierate. Here's the new bakes. I just rebaked the normal and the AO map. Using a different render set up for thumbs. I think it's working better.

Jalcober

You should work more on your textures imo. They looks really mushy and cartoony right now.

Madzia

@Jalcober is right, you should work more on textures. Improve value contrast and color harmony.

Here's some tips that I used many times:
First of all desaturate your image and check whats going one with values. Hue contrast isn't so readable as value contrast be always aware of this
Wooden part changed to flat blot, also about colors brown looks too greenish to me. To create harmonious palette I created straps with basic colors, duplicated it rotated 90 degree and change opacity to 33%. It's not allmighty solutions but it's something to work with if you looking for better approach Hope it helps!

Jeff Parrott

Thanks Jalcober and Madzia. Good call the value separation. I've been actually color picking from the base weapons in DOTA2 to make sure they stay in line with those. I totally agree about the lack of value separation. I didn't think it would fall in line with things. Guess I'll do it anyways.

Here's the version with the value changes and the texture sharper:

b9ko

need 2D textures?add me https://steamcommunity.com/id/115b9ko115298735645