dutch windmill
polycounter lvl 18
It sucks, but why? I'd like to dirty up the bottom of the wood panels on the lower part, but that's a tiled 512 texture... am I allowed to overlay another one? How?
I'm hotlinking from my own site, there are a couple more shots of it there.
There were about 5 or 6 complete maps, most have spec and normal, all of them have normals. The green paint is actually bumpy with the underlying wood showing through in some parts, so I'm going to do another close-up render of it next time I get a chance.
I was aiming for the specs of a small HL2 DM level with the windmill as the centerpiece. But complex static meshes *shouldn't* be used for level architecture, plus I'd rather spend the time on better folio pieces (diversify it).
The thatch textures were 1024, so were the sails and blades. The boards were 512, and everything else was 256.
I'm hotlinking from my own site, there are a couple more shots of it there.
There were about 5 or 6 complete maps, most have spec and normal, all of them have normals. The green paint is actually bumpy with the underlying wood showing through in some parts, so I'm going to do another close-up render of it next time I get a chance.
I was aiming for the specs of a small HL2 DM level with the windmill as the centerpiece. But complex static meshes *shouldn't* be used for level architecture, plus I'd rather spend the time on better folio pieces (diversify it).
The thatch textures were 1024, so were the sails and blades. The boards were 512, and everything else was 256.
Replies
I'd like to dirty up the bottom of the wood panels on the lower part, but that's a tiled 512 texture... am I allowed to overlay another one? How?
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Probably use a second set of UVs which multiply on a dirt/blemish map.
One main thing I'm noticing is that your normal maps don't appear to be normalized, esp. the one for the thatch. This will probably lead to pretty unpredictable results.
culturedbum, its straw. I had the great pleasure of visiting one of these windmills when i visited holland last year. I took a series of awesome reference pictures both from the inside and outside of the windmill. Being the geek that i am i also snapped a bunch of texture images too. Here's two shots of the straw surface, use it in any way you like.
www.skullsong.com/images/dump/DSC01562.JPG
www.skullsong.com/images/dump/DSC01560.JPG
I see what you mean by the corners, culturedbum. The panels I saw in the Netherlands had no supporting planks, they just overlapped the next side a little. I decided it was a waste of time to add more detail there, but I think in the end it would've been best to simply model each plank out--I wasn't exactly pushing the polycount anyway. (Also, if this were a map, the player would appreciate the modeled detail vs textured, I think.)
I didn't think about that option dnorth, I appreciate it! Doing so would increase the vertex count but considering how lowpoly this thing is (relative to it's size in a level) the addition will be neglible. But I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by normalized. Could you please elaborate or provide a link?
Yes the siding is straw. Those are excellent photos Slash, thanks! I visited them earlier this year as well and took a lot of reference pictures, but I'm afraid I was a little too excited and didn't think about what, exactly, I needed. Here's one I took:
More detailed renders, revealing some bad UV distortion and my exaggerated bump maps (so that they're more easily visible from a distance--the player would never get higher than what that platform provides):
But I'm afraid I don't know what you mean by normalized. Could you please elaborate or provide a link?
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Normal maps represent the same thing as vertex normals, but on a per pixel basis - and that thing is a vector which determines how that pixel receives lighting. In order for a vector to really mean anything, it should be normalized, which means basically that the sum of its 3 angles should add up to 1. When you see that pure blue color in a tangent space normal map, it means that the x & y direction are 0 (red and green channels in the normal map) and z (blue) is 1, so basically, the normal is pointing straight out from that pixel and is "normal" (0 + 0 + 1 = 1).
I was noticing that the thatch normal map you showed had a lot of grey in it, which makes me think there's something a bit strange about the way you made the map. You could just use the nvidia filter and normalize it, but I think there's something going on with the way you're making the map, which I'm guessing was made in Photoshop. I mean, it will work, primarily because it's all high frequency detail, but down the road you may run into some problems using the same technique.
It's a finely detailed map, but maybe that can cause problems when the detail is too fine?
The only crit I have is that if you're never going to get close to the windows and with the amount of grime you have on them you'll never see inside. So why bother cutting a hole in the main mesh of the windmill when you are already faking the window detail with textures. Might as well detach the window & frame then weld the hole shut. If you leave it how it is, you run the risk of getting some weird lighting issues around the windows in some engines. If you do that with enough windows you might be able to put in some grassy/weed planes around the base to help it blend into the surrounding area. Or use those planes for water stains under the windows?
Nice lighting
great stuff so far! i like it! the walking thingie seems a bit big IMO but it matches your reference so it actually isn't
Vig: Very good point you have there. I've seen those lighting irregularities before, so I know what you mean. But I think it's just something that would have been tested and tweaked out in the process. The reason I modeled them in though was because the original plan was to actually use it in a HL2 map I was working on, complete with floor plan:
Most of that is already unwrapped (but not finished modeling), but in the end I had to abandon it in favor of completing one major folio piece and move onto something that better represents my abilities.
With some Netherlanders here I'm surprised you didn't pick out the inaccuracies, namely the missing brake lever