Enviroment Piece

Cyph3r

Here's an enviroment piece i've modelled for a game to show off some features.



Have I modelled it how i should for a game piece? How should I go about unwrapping/texturing? cheers for any advice.

JohnnySix

Is this all one single model? From the cuts on the base, it looks like you made the majority as a single watertight mesh. Something you'll want to consider if it's game art is breaking any repeating geometry into modular pieces.

This not only allows for more freedom with creating different object/arrangements for the level designer, but give the engine a better chance at optimising/culling stuff that isn't on screen, and finally will save you a lot of texture space, time and effort in that you can duplicate several textures.

Ignore this post if you know all this already and I'm teaching grandma to suck eggs.


Just a quick example :

bluekangaroo

yeah looks alright, I would go thru and do a damage/wear n tear pass and just add imperfections to make it more realistic. Add some chips to the edges of the concrete pillars n stairs, bend some of the railings, make sure everything isnt straight, and perfect thats all. I would just unwrap everything so it fits in the uv space then apply my tileable textures and scale them accordingly. You could even blend 2 , and add a bunch of decals to hide the repeats. You've got a big ol canvas of polys to work with, I can imagine a lot interesting grafitti and water stains and damage to be added thru out this piece

Cyph3r

thanks a million for the info guys, im working on making everything modular and more detailed now.

Cyph3r

here's the stairs, redone. Poly count for the stairs is 8,500, is this too heavy?

Crits? Comments?

Cody

Probably not too bad on the tri count considering the detail [BTW count triangles not polys]. Now just figure out how to make one texture map to reuse for all of those stair pieces.

bluekangaroo

hmmm probably not the best person to answer this question but Im pretty sure the most general answer you'll get here is that it depends on the kind of game. For a next gen game I'd say thats reasonable....

Mcejn

8,500 polys for a staircase is way too much. I can see a lot of unnecessary cuts on the railings, get rid of those. As for as the whole piece goes, try to get out of the habit of making everything out of one whole mesh, it only makes it harder on yourself later when you try to unwrap, let alone make any use out of it! Like JohnnySix said, you can and probably should make that scene out of a handful of modular objects. Hope this helps! :]

Thegodzero

Looking good, but like others have said, reuse and recycle your work.

Make sure to add in a few bars in the small side of the corners. In general you could get rid of every other one.

Cyph3r

Mcejn wrote: »

8,500 polys for a staircase is way too much. I can see a lot of unnecessary cuts on the railings, get rid of those. As for as the whole piece goes, try to get out of the habit of making everything out of one whole mesh, it only makes it harder on yourself later when you try to unwrap, let alone make any use out of it! Like JohnnySix said, you can and probably should make that scene out of a handful of modular objects. Hope this helps! :]

Unecessary cuts? Where?

And what? Why make it out of one mesh? I was told to make everything modular, not out of one mesh ¬_____¬

And what?!!? They are modular pieces! Make up your mind man. :P

Mark Dygert

I think the extra cuts he sees, are the posts poking through the top.

Thegodzero wrote: »

Looking good, but like others have said, reuse and recycle your work.

Make sure to add in a few bars in the small side of the corners. In general you could get rid of every other one.

Yup I agree. More bars does not mean more detail. The savings outweigh the added detail at this point.

You also have to think about distance and what it does to small thin objects along with consider collision and players shooting through the bars. With as dense and thin as they are right now you'd probably end up going with a solid wall for the collision which will drive some people batty when they expect to shoot between the bars and it acts like a solid wall.

Also you can make your lowest stair module a copy of the other stair module, and use a custom piece under it.

RickFX

how about halfing the number of columns for a start?

- Rick.

Mcejn

I'm sorry if I'm mistaken, but on the second image you posted, it appears that you have a lot of segments on the diagonal railings. Also I said to "get out" of the habit of making everything out of one mesh, meaning don't do it! :]