Thanks for the crits I realise it still looks very basic.
My tactic right now i to do a base pass over most props so I can at least get the scene together in the given timeframe, and then go on to a detail pass for everything.
But yeah, you have a good point, and thanks for linking me to that tutorial. I already have some ideas for materials, effects and lighting.
Stay tuned
Also, I really like the WIPs you've been putting up. Good stuff, keep it up!
@Esselle: You seem to have some problem with your bake of normal map. All of your smoothed edges shows a glitch in the normal map.
First of all you need to split the uvs whenever you have a hard edge. everytime. And have some space between the uvs of both faces of the hard edge.
It might be because you had hard edges on your low poly. You should either smooth those edges (same smoothing group), bevel the edges where you have this issue ( but then you need to work on your uvs ), or use a cage mesh for your bake (Which is my method. Not practical when you need to make changes afterward or when you need to explode you mesh to bake normal and then bake ao with the mesh non-exploded. But it seems to be the easier to really control the bake).
All these methods are explained in the url I posted.
===
I am now on my ground and walls. I think I am using a method I think similar to the one used in the screenshots of Deus Ex (Thanks to Clyponyx for uploading them !): http://www.flickr.com/photos/94727274@N06/8623691880/in/set-72157633171671053/lightbox/
And I mixed what I saw on the refence and from those screenshots.
I put all of them on one single texture to avoid losing time, since I will be using the same material on most of the parts. (+Baking everything at once. A lot faster, imo)
So, highpoly+bake normal and AO done. Next: texturing. I don't plan to put lots of writing on those, I will probably use decals instead.
@LankusMaximus - Thanks man! Just trying to push the most out of my textures.
@uberphoenix - Yeah the buttons on the War Table are normal mapped. Basically the rule of thumb at least for me is if it's a smaller detail like that where it doesn't affect the silhouette then it should probably go in the normal map.
@ZeroStrike - Thanks man, no worries! The glow from the screens comes from an alpha map in the diffuse that defines which parts you want to glow. Cry has some awesome glow features and colour bleeding effects which make it look pretty cool, and it's pretty easy to use too.
@nick2730 - Thanks dude! Posting those texture sheets and high polys just for you and you can observe the messiness haha. I just baked out the high poly to the low poly in Xnormal, getting the occlusion and cavity maps from there no wizardry. Important thing to note is that more anti aliasing makes a lot of difference, same goes for how many samples you put into the bake too! I baked a selection mask using a multi sub in Max to help separate the different elements out so it's way easier to texture.
Here's the texture sheets and high poly for the War Table, in case anyone wants to see them. I used a lot of mirrored UVs where I could, so I could pump detail out of these maps. I learned from working in a studio environment that you basically need to try to be as efficient as you can in terms of your maps, because later down the line they might get down sized if your game was running out of memory, so be smart in your Tetris placing of your UVS!
awesome thanks, what setting did you use in xnormal ( AA, Render type, Cosine?, Bucket size, did you set a cage up in max or in xnormal? Ive been trying to use xnormal but i can never get good bakes always get good bakes inside of max.
Why Xnormal over default max ?
I cannot quite tell on the low poly is the side facing up closest totally flat ? Even with that massive bevel going into it? I think i always use to much geometry on my low poly when i can make it flat
what setting did you use in xnormal ( Bucket size )
I don't know what he did use but I can explain what bucket size does, since I just made some research about it. Basically the value of the bucket size don't change the render at all, it just change how the render will be made, what resolution each core of the cpu will work on at the same time.
From what I read it is better to keep it small (like 32) otherwise the L2/L3 cache will be saturated and xnormal will need to use the ram instead, which is slower.
awesome thanks, what setting did you use in xnormal ( AA, Render type, Cosine?, Bucket size, did you set a cage up in max or in xnormal? Ive been trying to use xnormal but i can never get good bakes always get good bakes inside of max.
Why Xnormal over default max ?
I cannot quite tell on the low poly is the side facing up closest totally flat ? Even with that massive bevel going into it? I think i always use to much geometry on my low poly when i can make it flat
Seriously love it
Hey Nick,
The side facing up closest is totally flat, it's the normal map doing the work there. There's a drawback to it though, when it look at it from the side you can notice that it's flat, it's really just a balancing act of how many polys it's gonna cost to put in that bevel against just putting into the map. It wouldn't have cost much too many tris to just put that bevel in, but oh well I'm already at this stage, I might come back to it later if I'm unhappy with it.
I just use pretty normal settings really. I usually just bake out the maps at 2 times the size at which they'll be down rezzed. Like for example if I plan for it to be 1024x1024 I'll bake out the master files at 2048x2048. You want lots of edge padding too because of things like mip mapping, they'll create horrible seams down your models otherwise. At home because I have plenty of time, I'm using 1024 rays and anti aliasing of 4x for my ambient occlusion and cavity maps so no shadow biasing goes on. It really depends on the circumstances though. Drawback to this is that it takes about 8 hours for my computer to render these maps so I do it over night, I wouldn't do this at work if I needed to pump out this model fast. Just put as many rays and anti aliasing as your time allows.
I use Xnormal too because of it's ease of use and it produces pretty good results in my opinion, that's pretty much it. I make the cage in Max then export it out as a separate obj to import into Xnormal, I just find I have a lot more control and it's easy to set up in the cage in Max for me since I can see what's not being covered by the cage easily. Anyways, I sure there are much better workflows of doing things but this way works for me. Hope that helps answering your questions somewhat.
Can anyone give me some advice on making the war table high poly? (I've never made a high poly before that would be used in games) Should I build it out of individual pieces and use floating geo? or should I try to extrude it all out of the one mesh?
Tried to work out what Luke did with his high poly, but couldn't tell if stuff like the buttons were separate geo or if they were built into the mesh
Here's the low poly i've got at the moment, which is in 3 pieces. the main rectangle of the war table, the front panel and the lower base.
Guys, for when you make high polys and no polys. Should I make the low poly block out, then model the high poly from that piece? or should I go straight into the high then make a low poly?
@rockguy, could I see your models for the tiles? with the wires if that's possible.
Not really sure where to begin from the block out :poly122:
@Zero thanks for that link! very helpful, had no idea about the 45 degree angle idea.
I'm currently making my war table out of several different models, so it's not all one mesh currently, here's what I've got so far. Will I be able to attach these later (when they are high poly/detailed) to then be able to bake them down, or will I have to attach them as if they were part of the same mesh?
Ignore the button area, it won't actually be kept as those boxes, just for the layout atm. Am I going in a good direction with this?
@AbKl is your war table all one mesh? I've never known if it's a good idea to have separate meshes for environment pieces as I know for stuff like characters you'd model their hands separately then attach them later
@uberphoenix: Yeah, it is at the moment but I'm seriously re-thinking it, haha! It's becoming a bit difficult to handle, I might go back on myself and separate it all. Yours looks lovely and clean.
@AbKI Yours is ok , I was just asking everyone if its better to model separately as in uni my tutor would get annoyed if we used separate boxes to make one model. If we was making a chest of drawers he'd want us to extrude the handle out instead of using a different mesh for it :S
Ty for your kind words , I think it's why I work so slow, I'd rather have it clean and ready than deal with the stress of fixing it later
Its ok to model your HP in parts as along as the edges fix together and they can inner penetrate. Make sure to have good edge flow and it not pinching. Your LP should, at the end, be one piece (Except for like handles and minor stuff), however you can model it separately then attach the piece together.
Right now your models are pretty LP. Do you plan on doing HP? If so, try just doing one of the panels from the tutorial I sent you. You will have a better understanding of the workflow from HP to LP for sci-fi stuff. Its simpler then tackling the large center piece which should be pretty HP anyway.
On my floor plan I showed, it's 1 poly. A plane, but it has all the maps to make it look nice. I modeled out my HP and baked it down to the low.
For the Highpoly/Lowpoly thing, I do a little bit differently. What I do for the highpoly is start with a simple lowpoly mesh, and slowly add details to it, enable smooth preview in Maya (Key 3 from numpad, 1 to go back to default), I guess it is similar to turbosmooth in Max. What I do is simply keep a backup of my mesh when it is close to what will be the lowpoly, hide it and continue working on the highpoly. When I am finished with the highpoly, I just have to unhide my lowpoly and slightly adjust it. It is in my opinion the fastest for the way I am modeling.
@uberphoenix: You have no reason not to attach things that does not need to be separated. Usually I only detach things that might cause problems when baking the normal. Like interconnecting geometry, or two faces in front of each other, really close.
But this is only for the lowpoly and for the bake.
In the end you will have to merge them, but while working on it, you should do what is the most confortable for you ! Having them in separated object can be cool because it is easier to isolate what you are working on.
At the moment I'm blocking out the basic shape before I add more edge loops to make them high poly, adding buttons and bolts etc. Currently watching a tutorial from 3Dmotive about making high polys so I'm learning alot from that and will give it a try on my war table and post it later
So the screenshots I posted, would you say they don't need to be merged together? and could be separated?
In this tutorial I'm following, he has made every single piece individually, and added a turbosmooth to it after adding edge loops to support the form he wants.
Hmm, so I should maybe stop at some point with the low poly, make a copy hide it, then work on the high poly version of it?
@uberphoenix Oh, if it is for the highpoly it can be a lot easier to separate meshes.
But in your case, I don't see why you would separate them. Especially if you want it to be a flat surface betweem those parts. Separating them would bring more problems/downside thant upside.
Right I get you, so if it actually would be connected like the panel with the buttons, it should be connected rather than separate. Ok that helps alot! shall get cracking
@uberphoenix - Good start man! Yeah it's all about the 45 degree angles and support edges You're allowed to have separate objects when you model, but it's depends what you want to have a smooth crease or between intersecting objects. Just go to the Polycount Wiki and it has a wonderful library of resources just in sub-d modelling that'll get you boss in no time.
@ng.aniki & rockguy - Looking good guys! The scenes is coming together, keep it up!
Hey folks, sorry for the lack of updates again. I've been slowing chipped away at this scene, doing a little bit of tweaks here and there and pumping out some models and more forms of block outs. Worked on lighting too, to give it that Deux Ex Human Revolution vibe. Hopefully I haven't overdone it. Still lots to work on, the consoles on the left, and the door to model will be the bare bones of the scene. After that got some girders, pipes, decals, text, wires, TV screens, cables and all other shenanigans to add. Details!!! Also, maaan I misjudged the scope of this scene. Please feel free to give any feedback on this, it will be much appreciated!
Progress on the ground + walls:
Got some troubles with udk, specular source seems to be wrong on some faces. I checked and fixed most flipped UVs (What a pain in the a**) on the ground but still. It may be also because of light bake. hmm. We need UE4 !
lukepham101 : Thank you sir , since you are more a head in the project you could start playing with emissive materials and also suggesting give your height fog a slightly blue tone. ng.aniki : some screenshots will help us understand your problem, good job with spec maps tough.
@uberphoenix - I'm using a combination of 128x128 and 128x64 tiles. I have no idea if this is optimal haha.
Here's my attempt thus far:
Critiques / opinions Very welcome!!
Edit: unique models are (mostly) color-coded.
PS - I'm reversing my usual workflow, making all the low poly first and then I'm gonna ZBrush it and polish off the small details in nDo.
If anyone cares to weigh in on potential issues I might have from this feel free. I'm a little hesitant myself but hopefully it'll work :poly122::poly122::poly122:
I dont think you guys are noobs
I would really like to participate but I have no idea how to make game ready models. My background is archi models. I tried to look at polycount wiki but could not find any tutorials how to make game ready models.
How do I start? I see game models are triangles. Do I have to triangulate my models manually? How do I bake normals and displacements? What is the correct way to bake textures, with shadows or without? Is there a proper way to uvmap that is different to typical archi models?
Sorry for the noob questions.
ng.aniki : some screenshots will help us understand your problem, good job with spec maps tough.
Sure !
To make it more obvious I removed the normal, the diffuse, and the specular texture on my material adn replaced them with int.
And here is what it looks like:
They are all planes, they should not have different normal directions. Yet, it looks completely wrong.
When I move the prefab so it removes the baked lightmaps, everything looks fine again. Hm, I checked and I don't have flipped uvs in the lightmap (the whole floor is attached in the uv2).. This is.. Weird.
basically on single meshes have uv seams running vertically.
setting Indirect Normal Influence Boost to 0 (I think it's in global settings).
My issue was on mirrored UV's on a single object, which from what I read, has no fix. Simply have to do your best to hide seams for objects with mirrored uv's.
Hokay, getting off to a bit of a late start here. Had other stuff that I knew would be forgotten if I didn't finish before jumping in.
For starters, planning. I went into the level in-game to take a look around (and to finally play "The Missing Link") and grabbed a bunch of screenshots. While, obviously, a lot changed between concept art and the final in-engine environment, there was one thing that really stood out for me: That the end piece of the table was used all over the place. They even knocked out the center faces of that chunk to use it as a desk in a couple spots. I figured, in that spirit, I'd keep the table modular because I never know when I'm going to have some empty space that needs to be filled with a nice, greebly chunk that I've already made.
My intent here is also to make a couple base materials and make instances of them for different meshes. I noticed that that was a pretty common technique while looking at an Unreal mesh to try and figure out something that wasn't working on my most recent project. The screens and holograms will probably get their own emissive, translucent material, while everything else that's solid and metallic will utilize its own base material.
Quick UDK blockin for scale. Not much to say here.
@evermotion - Hey man, don't worry everyone has to start somewhere. The fact that you're from an arch viz background gives you a head start already. There should be plenty of tutorials around on the Polycount and the interwebs in general all teaching you how to model an game ready asset from start and to finish. Here's 1 I know off the top of my head which helped me.
Just follow those from start to finish and then start applying those same principles to your models and you'll set in no time.
Hey folks,
So I've been still chipping away at this scene. Got my map console and door assets finished, I'm only showing the door because the map console I finished looks quite similar to the other consoles I've already shown so it gets boring when you guys have already seen so many variations of consoles. I've got the main assets finished now at least, it's onto pipes, cables, light fixtures and the rest of the detail dressings. I'll be posting more updates soon once I get the scene looking a little more pimping than it is now, and hopefully it'll look sweet. Again, critiques and feedback is welcome.
Been busy with other commitments so haven't touched this in ages, trying to layout the tiles so I can then do the high polys for them, but I'm having the issue that they wont't snap together for some reason?
No matter how hard I try to snap the smaller tile to the bigger one, it just won't stick. Does anyone know why this is? (I've snapped their pivot points to their top left vertex, should I do this on another place?)
I forgot to ask this at the start, but is everyone modelling via the grid? so when you import to UDK they all snap together like legos?
im just going to move their pivots to 0,0,0 when im done so you just place it in the udk at the same coordinate.
I see, but what if you was passing this onto someone else that would place it in UDK, and they had to "build" the environment in a sense? wouldn't that make their life difficult if you wasn't working to the grid?
In the scene we are working on at the moment, what should be "on the grid"? Would it be the walls and tiles only? or do the props need to snap to the grid also?
@Esselle: You seem to have some problem with your bake of normal map. All of your smoothed edges shows a glitch in the normal map.
First of all you need to split the uvs whenever you have a hard edge. everytime. And have some space between the uvs of both faces of the hard edge.
It might be because you had hard edges on your low poly. You should either smooth those edges (same smoothing group), bevel the edges where you have this issue ( but then you need to work on your uvs ), or use a cage mesh for your bake (Which is my method. Not practical when you need to make changes afterward or when you need to explode you mesh to bake normal and then bake ao with the mesh non-exploded. But it seems to be the easier to really control the bake).
All these methods are explained in the url I posted.
Now i see why some lowpoly models still have 2-3k... Smoothing groups!! This will help me a lot, and you too aniki! Thank you so much
uberphoenixYou grid isn't actually changing size. It is just that if you zoom out too farenough, thebase lines in your grid get too small/cluttered and no longer render. The lines you see are actually the major lines.
aka, Say your grid spacing is 1unit, and the major lines are every 10. If you zoom out to the point where it appears to change, each grid is actually 10units, or your first iteration of major lines. Zoom out again until it changes, and each grid will be 100 units, or your second iteration of major lines. you can have a max value of major lines every 20 grid points.
Also, changing your units mid file, wont "update" the units of the exiting geo, so to speak. I believe if you export your existing file as an obj, update your default units, and then import the obj, it will import into your units and retain proper scale, between unit types.
Replies
Thanks for the crits
My tactic right now i to do a base pass over most props so I can at least get the scene together in the given timeframe, and then go on to a detail pass for everything.
But yeah, you have a good point, and thanks for linking me to that tutorial. I already have some ideas for materials, effects and lighting.
Stay tuned
Also, I really like the WIPs you've been putting up. Good stuff, keep it up!
First of all you need to split the uvs whenever you have a hard edge. everytime. And have some space between the uvs of both faces of the hard edge.
If you still have the problem:
I strongly suggest you to read this post: http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=107196
It might be because you had hard edges on your low poly. You should either smooth those edges (same smoothing group), bevel the edges where you have this issue ( but then you need to work on your uvs
All these methods are explained in the url I posted.
===
I am now on my ground and walls. I think I am using a method I think similar to the one used in the screenshots of Deus Ex (Thanks to Clyponyx for uploading them !): http://www.flickr.com/photos/94727274@N06/8623691880/in/set-72157633171671053/lightbox/
And I mixed what I saw on the refence and from those screenshots.
I put all of them on one single texture to avoid losing time, since I will be using the same material on most of the parts. (+Baking everything at once. A lot faster, imo)
So, highpoly+bake normal and AO done. Next: texturing. I don't plan to put lots of writing on those, I will probably use decals instead.
@uberphoenix - Yeah the buttons on the War Table are normal mapped. Basically the rule of thumb at least for me is if it's a smaller detail like that where it doesn't affect the silhouette then it should probably go in the normal map.
@ZeroStrike - Thanks man, no worries! The glow from the screens comes from an alpha map in the diffuse that defines which parts you want to glow. Cry has some awesome glow features and colour bleeding effects which make it look pretty cool, and it's pretty easy to use too.
@nick2730 - Thanks dude! Posting those texture sheets and high polys just for you and you can observe the messiness haha.
Here's the texture sheets and high poly for the War Table, in case anyone wants to see them. I used a lot of mirrored UVs where I could, so I could pump detail out of these maps. I learned from working in a studio environment that you basically need to try to be as efficient as you can in terms of your maps, because later down the line they might get down sized if your game was running out of memory, so be smart in your Tetris placing of your UVS!
Will hopefully be posting some wip images today. I will then seek the insight of you guys :P
Why Xnormal over default max ?
I cannot quite tell on the low poly is the side facing up closest totally flat ? Even with that massive bevel going into it? I think i always use to much geometry on my low poly when i can make it flat
Seriously love it
I don't know what he did use but I can explain what bucket size does, since I just made some research about it. Basically the value of the bucket size don't change the render at all, it just change how the render will be made, what resolution each core of the cpu will work on at the same time.
From what I read it is better to keep it small (like 32) otherwise the L2/L3 cache will be saturated and xnormal will need to use the ram instead, which is slower.
Hey Nick,
The side facing up closest is totally flat, it's the normal map doing the work there. There's a drawback to it though, when it look at it from the side you can notice that it's flat, it's really just a balancing act of how many polys it's gonna cost to put in that bevel against just putting into the map. It wouldn't have cost much too many tris to just put that bevel in, but oh well I'm already at this stage, I might come back to it later if I'm unhappy with it.
I just use pretty normal settings really. I usually just bake out the maps at 2 times the size at which they'll be down rezzed. Like for example if I plan for it to be 1024x1024 I'll bake out the master files at 2048x2048. You want lots of edge padding too because of things like mip mapping, they'll create horrible seams down your models otherwise. At home because I have plenty of time, I'm using 1024 rays and anti aliasing of 4x for my ambient occlusion and cavity maps so no shadow biasing goes on. It really depends on the circumstances though. Drawback to this is that it takes about 8 hours for my computer to render these maps so I do it over night, I wouldn't do this at work if I needed to pump out this model fast. Just put as many rays and anti aliasing as your time allows.
I use Xnormal too because of it's ease of use and it produces pretty good results in my opinion, that's pretty much it. I make the cage in Max then export it out as a separate obj to import into Xnormal, I just find I have a lot more control and it's easy to set up in the cage in Max for me since I can see what's not being covered by the cage easily. Anyways, I sure there are much better workflows of doing things but this way works for me. Hope that helps answering your questions somewhat.
Tried to work out what Luke did with his high poly, but couldn't tell if stuff like the buttons were separate geo or if they were built into the mesh
Here's the low poly i've got at the moment, which is in 3 pieces. the main rectangle of the war table, the front panel and the lower base.
@rockguy, could I see your models for the tiles? with the wires if that's possible.
Not really sure where to begin from the block out :poly122:
This is one way just to start out. Model simple HP and retopo to low. Now this is depended on the object you are creating.
http://www.philipk.net/tutorials/materials/metalmatte/metalmatte.html
For the Table it might be better to model detail vs use floaters but the link works great for panels.
Use a lot of the connect tool and cut tool.
Here's where I'm at so far.
I'm currently making my war table out of several different models, so it's not all one mesh currently, here's what I've got so far. Will I be able to attach these later (when they are high poly/detailed) to then be able to bake them down, or will I have to attach them as if they were part of the same mesh?
Ignore the button area, it won't actually be kept as those boxes, just for the layout atm. Am I going in a good direction with this?
@AbKl is your war table all one mesh? I've never known if it's a good idea to have separate meshes for environment pieces as I know for stuff like characters you'd model their hands separately then attach them later
Is it good practice to model this way?
This part used to be separate but I attached them together:
Ty
Ty for your kind words
Its ok to model your HP in parts as along as the edges fix together and they can inner penetrate. Make sure to have good edge flow and it not pinching. Your LP should, at the end, be one piece (Except for like handles and minor stuff), however you can model it separately then attach the piece together.
Right now your models are pretty LP. Do you plan on doing HP? If so, try just doing one of the panels from the tutorial I sent you. You will have a better understanding of the workflow from HP to LP for sci-fi stuff. Its simpler then tackling the large center piece which should be pretty HP anyway.
On my floor plan I showed, it's 1 poly. A plane, but it has all the maps to make it look nice. I modeled out my HP and baked it down to the low.
@uberphoenix: You have no reason not to attach things that does not need to be separated. Usually I only detach things that might cause problems when baking the normal. Like interconnecting geometry, or two faces in front of each other, really close.
But this is only for the lowpoly and for the bake.
In the end you will have to merge them, but while working on it, you should do what is the most confortable for you ! Having them in separated object can be cool because it is easier to isolate what you are working on.
Thanks for your response!
At the moment I'm blocking out the basic shape before I add more edge loops to make them high poly, adding buttons and bolts etc. Currently watching a tutorial from 3Dmotive about making high polys so I'm learning alot from that and will give it a try on my war table and post it later
Thanks for your response!.
So the screenshots I posted, would you say they don't need to be merged together? and could be separated?
In this tutorial I'm following, he has made every single piece individually, and added a turbosmooth to it after adding edge loops to support the form he wants.
Hmm, so I should maybe stop at some point with the low poly, make a copy hide it, then work on the high poly version of it?
But in your case, I don't see why you would separate them. Especially if you want it to be a flat surface betweem those parts. Separating them would bring more problems/downside thant upside.
Right I get you, so if it actually would be connected like the panel with the buttons, it should be connected rather than separate. Ok that helps alot! shall get cracking
Floors, walls and ceiling already in UDK ready for light test, I'm gonna have to leave it for a while so I can finish the war table.
Been kinda slow this time , but I really dont want to enter in uber stress mode with deadlines this time, so I will just relax and enjoy the project.
@ng.aniki & rockguy - Looking good guys! The scenes is coming together, keep it up!
Hey folks, sorry for the lack of updates again. I've been slowing chipped away at this scene, doing a little bit of tweaks here and there and pumping out some models and more forms of block outs. Worked on lighting too, to give it that Deux Ex Human Revolution vibe. Hopefully I haven't overdone it. Still lots to work on, the consoles on the left, and the door to model will be the bare bones of the scene. After that got some girders, pipes, decals, text, wires, TV screens, cables and all other shenanigans to add. Details!!! Also, maaan I misjudged the scope of this scene. Please feel free to give any feedback on this, it will be much appreciated!
Progress on the ground + walls:
Got some troubles with udk, specular source seems to be wrong on some faces. I checked and fixed most flipped UVs (What a pain in the a**) on the ground but still. It may be also because of light bake. hmm. We need UE4 !
Keep it up.
ng.aniki : some screenshots will help us understand your problem, good job with spec maps tough.
@uberphoenix - I'm using a combination of 128x128 and 128x64 tiles. I have no idea if this is optimal haha.
Here's my attempt thus far:
Critiques / opinions Very welcome!!
Edit: unique models are (mostly) color-coded.
PS - I'm reversing my usual workflow, making all the low poly first and then I'm gonna ZBrush it and polish off the small details in nDo.
If anyone cares to weigh in on potential issues I might have from this feel free. I'm a little hesitant myself but hopefully it'll work :poly122::poly122::poly122:
Great stuff guys, looking good.
I would really like to participate but I have no idea how to make game ready models. My background is archi models. I tried to look at polycount wiki but could not find any tutorials how to make game ready models.
How do I start? I see game models are triangles. Do I have to triangulate my models manually? How do I bake normals and displacements? What is the correct way to bake textures, with shadows or without? Is there a proper way to uvmap that is different to typical archi models?
Sorry for the noob questions.
Sure !
To make it more obvious I removed the normal, the diffuse, and the specular texture on my material adn replaced them with int.
And here is what it looks like:
They are all planes, they should not have different normal directions. Yet, it looks completely wrong.
When I move the prefab so it removes the baked lightmaps, everything looks fine again. Hm, I checked and I don't have flipped uvs in the lightmap (the whole floor is attached in the uv2).. This is.. Weird.
I had a similar issue with my previous project in UDK. Not exactly the same but I thought I'd share what I learned:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=93063
basically on single meshes have uv seams running vertically.
setting Indirect Normal Influence Boost to 0 (I think it's in global settings).
My issue was on mirrored UV's on a single object, which from what I read, has no fix. Simply have to do your best to hide seams for objects with mirrored uv's.
For starters, planning. I went into the level in-game to take a look around (and to finally play "The Missing Link") and grabbed a bunch of screenshots. While, obviously, a lot changed between concept art and the final in-engine environment, there was one thing that really stood out for me: That the end piece of the table was used all over the place. They even knocked out the center faces of that chunk to use it as a desk in a couple spots. I figured, in that spirit, I'd keep the table modular because I never know when I'm going to have some empty space that needs to be filled with a nice, greebly chunk that I've already made.
My intent here is also to make a couple base materials and make instances of them for different meshes. I noticed that that was a pretty common technique while looking at an Unreal mesh to try and figure out something that wasn't working on my most recent project. The screens and holograms will probably get their own emissive, translucent material, while everything else that's solid and metallic will utilize its own base material.
Quick UDK blockin for scale. Not much to say here.
High Poly table model.
http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3d-studio-max/next-gen-weapon-creation-day-1-the-high-poly-model/
Just follow those from start to finish and then start applying those same principles to your models and you'll set in no time.
Hey folks,
So I've been still chipping away at this scene. Got my map console and door assets finished, I'm only showing the door because the map console I finished looks quite similar to the other consoles I've already shown so it gets boring when you guys have already seen so many variations of consoles. I've got the main assets finished now at least, it's onto pipes, cables, light fixtures and the rest of the detail dressings. I'll be posting more updates soon once I get the scene looking a little more pimping than it is now, and hopefully it'll look sweet.
Blockout
HighPoly of the sonar console
Wires
No matter how hard I try to snap the smaller tile to the bigger one, it just won't stick. Does anyone know why this is? (I've snapped their pivot points to their top left vertex, should I do this on another place?)
I forgot to ask this at the start, but is everyone modelling via the grid? so when you import to UDK they all snap together like legos?
im just going to move their pivots to 0,0,0 when im done so you just place it in the udk at the same coordinate.
I see, but what if you was passing this onto someone else that would place it in UDK, and they had to "build" the environment in a sense? wouldn't that make their life difficult if you wasn't working to the grid?
In the scene we are working on at the moment, what should be "on the grid"? Would it be the walls and tiles only? or do the props need to snap to the grid also?
I think I might be over thinking it :S
http://vince.shiftrunstop.com/dev/starting-out-with-udk
Could anyone tell me if what this guy says is correct? and if anyone else here is working this way too?
I just changed my grid settings to what he has and I tried making a box on one section of the grid and its huge compared to my current models :S
Here's what I've also noticed.
Sorry for all the spam -_- just so confusing
Now i see why some lowpoly models still have 2-3k... Smoothing groups!! This will help me a lot, and you too aniki! Thank you so much
aka, Say your grid spacing is 1unit, and the major lines are every 10. If you zoom out to the point where it appears to change, each grid is actually 10units, or your first iteration of major lines. Zoom out again until it changes, and each grid will be 100 units, or your second iteration of major lines. you can have a max value of major lines every 20 grid points.
Also, changing your units mid file, wont "update" the units of the exiting geo, so to speak. I believe if you export your existing file as an obj, update your default units, and then import the obj, it will import into your units and retain proper scale, between unit types.