Mythic's Wall

Mike_Carlyle

So I have been working on this environment piece, from the concept art of warhammer online ( thanks mythic! ;-) ) ... The terrain in the shot right now is more or less refrence at the moment. it is sittin at about 2600 right now, and i still got the cannons and racks and some other details to put in before start on textures...

here's the mythic sketch:
Mythic Sketch

and here is where I am currently at:
Wall's Current Status

please c&c, thanks!

Xeto

You may be planing on adding them on the cannons pass but there are two cannon noseles on either side of the door on the wall itself (the gold ones) in the concept and you have two cylindrical indentations at the moment. Thats all i got though I really like where its heading! Good work.

Mike_Carlyle

Just alittle update

I hope to start textures if not tomorrow, then day afterward.

Slight update!

@ Xeto, yes, im going to go back and do those cannons, uhm now actually, and thanks! cool avatar by the way, heh..

Mike_Carlyle

Final Mesh 7100 tris

Unwrapping now..

Joe March

I'd love to see this textured!

adam crockett

Neat model!

Should there be a way to get up to the pot of boiling oil (or whatever that vat contains)? I dont see any stairs or ladders leading up there.

Mike_Carlyle

Thanks for the kind words :-) I cant wait to get it textured myself hehe...

and for the top oil pot..

Well, see that's the thing, not quite sure how they meant it. In the original mythic sketch there are what looks like some slight, uhm, edges? , that go up the side to the top, like a built in ladder-esk system, but i cant tell from the sketch if the crank wheel is accessible from the inside or not. So, I just went with what you see there. figured I would texture in the little step ledges, :-)

adam

Why do you have the 2 cannons that come out of the wall apart of the walls geometry? Break that up and have their mesh lay on top of the walls. Building it apart like that is a waste of triangles. And I reckon that any engine an asset like this is for supports intersecting geometry no problemo.

FunkaDelicDass

I'll echo what Brome said and I would also suggest that you clean up your geometry while also adding more subdivisions for better lighting. Keeping the vert allocation fairly uniform throughout your model will result in better lighting. Right now, the temp looking terrain surrounding the wall would light better than your model.

Mike_Carlyle

@ Brome - sorry that u cant really tell from that pic, lol, they are seperate.. :-D

@ Funka - Right on... thanks for the heads up

Joshua Stubbles

Hey Mike, I believe Adam was speaking about these areas:



There's really no reason to have those pieces built into the main mesh.

Mike_Carlyle

unless i am not understanding in a major way, lol, those cannons that emerge from the side of the wall, that have a dragon mold design on them, and are of bronze color, are not attached to the main mesh.

i think brome's post best describes their current situation to the main mesh. they are laying over the wall's mesh , there is intersecting geometry etc etc.. :-)

i can get u guys a better pic if you would like, just tryin to hammer at the textures at the moment...

the smoke stack, the hot oil pot, the crank wheel, the organ guns the cannons and the dragon themed wall cannons are all seperate from the wall's main mesh... :-) thanks

cholden

you gonna texture this or what? I mean, come on.

Mike_Carlyle

@ cholden - lol , haha im on it i promise, i just got alittle behind this weekend but dont worry, heh this is top prority for me right now :-)

Joshua Stubbles

You're killing me here, Mike. If those cannons aren't built into the mesh (like the image I posted) then I must be clueless....

You can clearly see you have all of the tri-fans built into the wall, connecting that cannon piece directly to the main mesh. If they're in fact NOT connected, what did you build underneath it, that required cutting into the wall geometry? Something there is obviously cut into the wall.

adam

Yah, either they are apart of the same mesh as the wall, or you've wasted a huge amount of triangles.

Mike_Carlyle

ok so now that there is no misunderstanding on the mesh, explain to me the problems with this...

also my mindset when i did this was, i would have indentation on the wall for the hole this cannon comes out of, leaving the cannon seperate from the wall for rotational purposes...

whatchya think?

adam

Yup, big waste of triangles.

You could fake that indentation with a normal map and just have that square plane be 2 triangles, rather than 16 like it is now.

And if you really want a hole like that don't make it 16 sides, its a bit overkill.

EDIT: You've also got a few too many edge loops on that cannon. Specifically towards its tip theres an edgeloop there thats doing nothing for the guns shape. So unless its there for textures purposes I'd kill it.

Mike_Carlyle

right on, thanks for the crit. i'm on it :-)

Xenobond

Omg... that kind of reminds me of something.

Anyway, coming along pretty nicely. I'd probably treat those cannons on top of the wall as completely separate entities (give them some real polys, and a separate texture sheet). They are pretty low poly for something that'd be the size of a player character. It's good practice, too. Gotta make sure you are always thinking of what the player is actually going to be seeing, and spend the polys/textures accordingly. Those cannons sticking out of the face of the wall could easily be half the polys, since you'd only really be able to see it from the ground.

Mike_Carlyle

heck ya thanks, ya as for the cannons on the top, separate entities/texture sheets , i know exactly what you are talkin about! with what the player will be seeing etc etc... i will beef them up , and ya those cannons from the wall have caused me nothing but problems since i started em , lol, but ya im will cut them down and do some of the things adam mentioned...

thanks everyone! :-)

Ghostscape

I think cutting it in like that isn't a bad idea if you sink the cannons into the wall a bit, but you definitely need to cut down on the cannon's edgeloops. Also I would leave it at 16 sides for the indentation cut but lower the number of sides of the cannon, as the cannon's circular shape will be obscured by the indentation, so the indentation needs to be well rounded, but the cannon itself doesn't.

Rhinokey

I'd personaly recomend against normal maps

and if your polyocount is still under 3k i would say you could go well over double that of an asset this size and still have it preform good.

i mean.. how would i know that? hmmm educated guess i supose

Sean McBride

Hmmm I think he knows what he's talking about... at least he sounds semi-competent.

It's looking good man. And damn you for posting that game on your myspace... i've lost hours of my life! Hours i'll never get back!

Mike_Carlyle

X-D LMAO @ Sean , i know exactly how you feel, lol, how far did you make it? i made it to 31 i think, before i said screw it, heh. Thanks Rhinokey, that will be the path I follow...

sorry for the lack of updates guys, im fartin around with these textures atm, i will post soon as it is presentable, thanks to everyone for the kind words, support and crits, its all very helpful...

indian_boy

i think the cannon has been made to rounded. im no pro or anything, but how close do u actually get to that cannon in-game? does that proximity warrant the use of this many triangles?

Mike_Carlyle

the wall cannon will get some work, bring it down a notch, but those wall cannons are alot closer to the ground ( aka player level ) so i didnt want them to low

indian_boy

oh okay. from the camera angle ur showing from, it looks like the gate is massive and the cannon's are a couple of stories above the ground. sorry.

Mike_Carlyle

here is a quick screen grab for ya, to let u know im still alive and working on it... note that the areas with the odd tiling brick are just areas i havent gotten to yet, the main focus is the front of the center gate and the faces on the out reaching walls



:-) i will get some more up here as soon as i got a respectable update to add.

mvelasquez

well you have the mythic style down looks good.

Armanguy

awesome texture so far no crits yet i wish there were more things like this for the 40 k universe :9

Mike_Carlyle

Thanks for the comments guys, I'll get ya another update as soon as i can :-)

Rhinokey

what are you using for reference on that texture,

Mike_Carlyle

Hehe, I know why you ask.

but uhm, mostly just the original concept art piece off of the warhammer site. I was trying to bring it to life from the concept art, without copying tit for tat of what mythic has already done with your version.

I had got done with the modeling and had just started the textures when I noticed on the Warhammer site, in the screenshots section, the finished version of this wall actually in game and on the site in screenshots. It was the first I'd seen of it, honestly. So I had made everything from that point from nothing but that concept art. so I continued to do it that way, except for instances where I needed more refrence for things like the bronze face piece or the stone faces in the out reaching walls.

might have taken a couple hints and nods and direction from some mythic pieces at that point. ;-)

oobersli

the stone looks a tad muddy/lumpy in detail. maybe some sharper highlights to hint that its stone.