Looking for some real quick advice on spline tubes

solidshark91493

Hi, I am making a trophy truck that I plan on putting into a game soon. And I used splines to make the tube frame as it looked good and seemed a lot easier than trying to do it with cylinders. However, I increased the size of the tubing slightly to make it more realistic, And now the joints where multiple splines meet are showing gaps. And that will not do.

I was wondering if anyone had some tips on a way I could do this better? Or if theres just a better way to model the frame? Ill include a image of it sitting where Ive got it at. I wouldnt mind some constructive feedback on it either. (Tires are temporary). Thanks!

Eric Chadwick

Spline tubed are fine, just need to optimize them to remove any edges that don't add to silhouette, or aren't needed for smoothing.

There's a script for generating weld seams in 3ds Max. Don't have the link in front of me tho.

solidshark91493

I did a search, think this should work?
anything else you see that I could improve?
http://jokermartini.com/welder/

Eric Chadwick

Looks good so far.

But what reference are you using? If the truck has body panels which hide the frame, then the frame is a huge number of wasted vertices.

What triangle limit are you shooting for? Are you going to bake normal maps? What game engine are you aiming for?

solidshark91493

Im basically going off of eye, Im replicating a corr truck from xtreme 4x4 but I cant really make it exactly the same. It will have a very basic body so a lot of the frame will be visible.
Im not 100% sure what my poly limit is, Im going to guess 20K or so. I want to bake normal maps but I am having a bit of trouble learning it. And the game runs on havok.

Eric Chadwick

Good reference is essential. I don't get it, but my most recent students all hated gathering reference for their projects. And their work suffered because of it! WTF. Get reference. It's not cheating, or whatever is holding you back. Even if you're re-imagining your target. Especially if! You need a solid visual understanding of your subject matter. Whatever, no one listens. OK, </teaching rant>

Can you get models into that game? Try getting a simple model in there, like just a box with a texture on it, just to understand the workflow and more importantly the limits.

solidshark91493

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Good reference is essential. I don't get it, but my most recent students all hated gathering reference for their projects. And their work suffered because of it! WTF. Get reference. It's not cheating, or whatever is holding you back. Even if you're re-imagining your target. Especially if! You need a solid visual understanding of your subject matter. Whatever, no one listens. OK, </teaching rant>

Can you get models into that game? Try getting a simple model in there, like just a box with a texture on it, just to understand the workflow and more importantly the limits.

Haha nonononono dont get me wrong, I have to use the show as a reference tool just for the frame, I have a folder of images of all the rest of the parts I made, mainly random images from google but they work just fine Id say. Im having trouble finding a good blueprint to make a trophy truck body however.
My friend is the one who knows all the stuff regarding poly count for the game, So Ill have to check with him. It uses bones for animation of the suspension as well. The files are exported into a ".X" format.
Im just curious how I get rid of the gaps at the points where the tubes meet. I make sure to have all the vertices in the exact same coordinates.
Still a gap now that I increased the tubing size..

Eric Chadwick

Just interpenetrate them. No one is going to notice welding seams, too small. However if you have a driver view, then maybe the nearest frame intersections should be modeled more carefully. Check and see.

solidshark91493

Eric Chadwick wrote: »

Just interpenetrate them. No one is going to notice welding seams, too small. However if you have a driver view, then maybe the nearest frame intersections should be modeled more carefully. Check and see.

It wont, its all outside view so I wont worry about it. Only things I have left to make are tie rods and the body. I dont know how to model a engine unfortunately. So Im going to make a exhaust tube that goes underneath and behind some paneling

Then I have to bake a lot of it its sitting at about a million polys right now, Im not quite sure the best way to go about that.. Then animating, texturing and exporting.
Any advice on baking this many objects?