trying to think around modular environments
polycounter lvl 10
I'm not really concerned about modeling the outside of buildings and such, those are straight forward, modular, similar enough geometry, variation, tileable mesh to form scenery and buildings.
Here's where I start getting gaps in knowledge... Let's say I have myself several modular walls to form the outside of a building... how do I put a roof on this thing? Sure I can make the parts of the roof directly connected to the top parts of the modular walls, but what about the middle of the roof section? Do I just tile quads across say a flat roof?
What about something more complex, like a steepled roof? How do I plan for modularity on something that's irregular shaped? Do I plan that for every x number of wall sections, there is n section of roof sections?
What if one of these modular buildings required an entry into the inside of the building? do I model bridge pieces to bridge the gap between inside and outside so that the inside parts can snap properly to a grid inside the building?
I'm having some issues visualizing how it all comes together, how much of it is the artist's responsibility and where does it cross into the realm of level designer/level artist?
Here's where I start getting gaps in knowledge... Let's say I have myself several modular walls to form the outside of a building... how do I put a roof on this thing? Sure I can make the parts of the roof directly connected to the top parts of the modular walls, but what about the middle of the roof section? Do I just tile quads across say a flat roof?
What about something more complex, like a steepled roof? How do I plan for modularity on something that's irregular shaped? Do I plan that for every x number of wall sections, there is n section of roof sections?
What if one of these modular buildings required an entry into the inside of the building? do I model bridge pieces to bridge the gap between inside and outside so that the inside parts can snap properly to a grid inside the building?
I'm having some issues visualizing how it all comes together, how much of it is the artist's responsibility and where does it cross into the realm of level designer/level artist?
Replies
For roofs, I tend to just make coresponding pieces to the walls. i.e. angled straignt, angled inside corner, angled outside corner, flat, etc. Steeples, Rotundas, skylights and the like, I treat as bolt ons. Unless the steeple is really big, I wouldn't try to go modular WITHIN it.
Hope that helps, can you post pics of what you have/what you're having issues with?
edit:
Tummerboy here's what I'm talking about, This is adamBrome's work from
http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=52743
In the bit that's circled, the flat roof appears to be all 1 poly. If the scene is not seen from the top, then it's not too important I imagine, so I could put whatever there. But what if the building were bigger with bigger modules? Say the 2 opposing walls are very far apart, that piece of roof would be really stretched to get to the midline where it would meet the poly from the adjacent module.
Would I then fill the gap between with quads, with appropriate texture?
here I just whipped up something to show what I'm asking... if all the modular pieces have a small bit of flat roof, well if I put them all together there's a hole in the middle.. how do I fill the hole? with (simple quads that are also modular ) that snap into the grid?
and yes, I think I just asked the dumbest question yet, but I need someone here to prove it. :poly142::poly136:
You would make a small modular piece and tile it 4 times to fill the hole or you make a bigger tile and get rid of the roof section from the wall pieces.
As for Adams example that you are showing, the best way to do it would be to have 2 tiles. 1 tile that is square and another 1 that would be custom for that building.
The only way to know which pieces you need is to make some buildings with your modular pieces, test them and if you are missing some pieces the LD will let you know anyway.
queue the facepalm
How does one set up the ground plane? especially if it's not flat, is there any modularity in the ground or is it all just various pieces of geo that are modeled to fit the flow of the environment using vertex blending for textures?
I see modular chunks being set into ground planes like sidewalks and rails and such, but is it as simple as putting down a piece of geo and cutting what you need into it?
Is that what you were asking? or did I miss the point again?
just wanted to know the options that people usually consider when creating a scene.