So, for example, in the first image of the thread you tiled a texture on the floor, made a division and took the polygon on the right and vertex painted it yellow or did you have to make two divisions very close to one another?
Also, how long did the whole scene take to make? I'm really impressed with what you've done.
So, for example, in the first image of the thread you tiled a texture on the floor, made a division and took the polygon on the right and vertex painted it yellow or did you have to make two divisions very close to one another?
Also, how long did the whole scene take to make? I'm really impressed with what you've done.
It's just a plane with an edge loop where I want different coloring. It's pretty simple really. Always try the simplest solution to tackle your problems
You can see a wireframe of that specific plane here:
The whole environment took about 6 months to complete, counting all the research and tests, but the actual environment production took about 3 months or so.
Just find it quicker and more flexible to use a 3x3 FFD for curved parts. Its still important to use the right length for the intended curve so your not squashing or stretching the modular piece but i find its quick and accurate because you can use snaps on the FFD control cage.
Just find it quicker and more flexible to use a 3x3 FFD for curved parts. Its still important to use the right length for the intended curve so your not squashing or stretching the modular piece but i find its quick and accurate because you can use snaps on the FFD control cage.
Well, if you use the right length so there's no stretching or squashing, that means with bend you'd get a perfect curve that would fit in the grid.
Something like this (hopefully you can see it, I uploaded it to a private album on my Google+ account):
Ye thats ok as long as your only ever going to do 90 degree angles, using a FFD is more flexible.
For example doing a curve like this would be a nightmare to do with the bend modifier while keeping it on the grid.
excellent tutorial taught me alot. Two questions though you talk about the one to one ratio does that simply mean just keep everything in a square box? Also how to you go about unwrapping the low poly do you A) combine everything on one sheet or do you have individual texture sheets.
amazing i do not know how to thank you with other means except with words. I am humbled and i appreciate your time for doing this so that others can learn. I really thank you for your time and for the help.
excellent tutorial taught me alot. Two questions though you talk about the one to one ratio does that simply mean just keep everything in a square box? Also how to you go about unwrapping the low poly do you A) combine everything on one sheet or do you have individual texture sheets.
What I meant is: Set a base size for all pieces and that will serve as reference for the entire set. If your base piece is 128x128 (1x1), then a 2x1 piece should be 256x128, but never 192x128 for example. If you keep all the entire set relative to the base piece's dimensions you won't have trouble combining them inside the editor. If you have different sizes for each piece then it will be a nightmare to work with them.
As for the low poly I use the textures outlined in the pictures: most of the pieces were built with one tiling texture + another sheet with a bunch of trim textures mashed together.
Thanks for the reply back. The one to one ratio now makes sense to me. Another question I just thought of is how do you stick to the grid with the low poly. Because when I make my high I stay on the grid but when I make my low its slightly smaller then the grid to bake down properly which leaves a gap in between my meshes.
Thanks for the reply back. The one to one ratio now makes sense to me. Another question I just thought of is how do you stick to the grid with the low poly. Because when I make my high I stay on the grid but when I make my low its slightly smaller then the grid to bake down properly which leaves a gap in between my meshes.
I always make the lowpoly first when working with this kind of modular pieces, I find that a lot easier.
Great tut, really did help put things into perspective, however it would be great if you could add more information about the UVmap management to the tutorial as that seems like the main key part of this whole thing.
The big that slightly confuses me is:
If you have a sheet full of textures you have created, you then go to UVunwrap, does this mean you have to fit the UV coords to the texture, rather than the other way around (Draw on them)?
If this is the case (I am quite sure it is), then will you not be wasting UV space (resolution) through not using the optimal amount that you could use.
This kind of question/answer would more than help people if you added it to the tutorial, I am sure of it.
Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to share personal work with peeps, I feel it's not done enough.
Great tut, really did help put things into perspective, however it would be great if you could add more information about the UVmap management to the tutorial as that seems like the main key part of this whole thing.
The big that slightly confuses me is:
If you have a sheet full of textures you have created, you then go to UVunwrap, does this mean you have to fit the UV coords to the texture, rather than the other way around (Draw on them)?
If this is the case (I am quite sure it is), then will you not be wasting UV space (resolution) through not using the optimal amount that you could use.
This kind of question/answer would more than help people if you added it to the tutorial, I am sure of it.
Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to share personal work with peeps, I feel it's not done enough.
Yes, that's the idea. You will probably get a little stretching here and there but nobody will notice.
The unwrapping process is pretty straight-forward: Select faces - flatten mapping/planar mapping - map them on specific parts of the trim texture.
I'll add a FAQ to the tutorial based on the questions asked on this thread.
FFD and Bend create imperfections that Path Deform WSM avoids while maintaining a deformation that remains live and so can be moved outwards or inwards toward the origin point of the curve.
Hey, how would you go about making pipes and such? Do you have a way of adding the smoothness to a normal map or do you rely on smoothing groups or extra geometry?
Hey, how would you go about making pipes and such? Do you have a way of adding the smoothness to a normal map or do you rely on smoothing groups or extra geometry?
Baking a normal map from a 512-sided cylinder and applying it to an 8-sided cylinder won't make it smoother!!
FFD and Bend create imperfections that Path Deform WSM avoids while maintaining a deformation that remains live and so can be moved outwards or inwards toward the origin point of the curve.
I could never get my head around Path Deform. It works so bizarrely for me.
For 90º sided curves I think bend is definitely the faster way.
A: I never had to but I know you can create some cool effects editing the mip-maps. For example, if you are working on a large tiling texture for a terrain you could blurry the mip steps a little to avoid obvious texture repetition. I know they did this on Far Cry 2.
That sounds cool, can I get a link? What else could you do with custom mips?
Path deform wsm is cool to clone objects along a spline to me, for every other use I tend to go for Bend of FFDs..
Path deform wsm is also known to stretch your geometry around some crucial corners points and has poor banking correction compared to the Sweep modifier.
That being said, i'm not even sure that's on topic
How so, wont it replace the faceted normals? Is it better to just use smoothing groups?
That sounds cool, can I get a link? What else could you do with custom mips?
1) There was a discussion about this on the Technical Talk forum a while ago, but I can't find it on the wiki. But yeah, you don't need to worry about baking a normal map for that, all you need is a good spec/gloss map for the highlights.
Maybe it's better if you do the test by yourself: Bake a normal map from a very smooth cylinder and apply it to an 8-sided cylinder. Place it next to a cylinder without normal map but with the smoothing groups set properly and see if it's worth the trouble
Replies
Very nice tutorial BTW.
Why? pros? cons?
They are simple planes mostly. I added a few divisions here and there for vertex color painting though.
Also, how long did the whole scene take to make? I'm really impressed with what you've done.
It's just a plane with an edge loop where I want different coloring. It's pretty simple really. Always try the simplest solution to tackle your problems
You can see a wireframe of that specific plane here:
The whole environment took about 6 months to complete, counting all the research and tests, but the actual environment production took about 3 months or so.
Just find it quicker and more flexible to use a 3x3 FFD for curved parts. Its still important to use the right length for the intended curve so your not squashing or stretching the modular piece but i find its quick and accurate because you can use snaps on the FFD control cage.
Well, if you use the right length so there's no stretching or squashing, that means with bend you'd get a perfect curve that would fit in the grid.
Something like this (hopefully you can see it, I uploaded it to a private album on my Google+ account):
For example doing a curve like this would be a nightmare to do with the bend modifier while keeping it on the grid.
The tutorial covers pretty much everything I've done. If you have specific requests just let me know so I can make additions to the tutorial
You can see a bit of my workflow on this tutorial: http://thiagoklafke.com/makingofdmzest.html
Other than that you can check PhilipK's material tutorials, they are best ever: www.philipk.net
Amazing!! Thanks a bunch!
thank you
What I meant is: Set a base size for all pieces and that will serve as reference for the entire set. If your base piece is 128x128 (1x1), then a 2x1 piece should be 256x128, but never 192x128 for example. If you keep all the entire set relative to the base piece's dimensions you won't have trouble combining them inside the editor. If you have different sizes for each piece then it will be a nightmare to work with them.
As for the low poly I use the textures outlined in the pictures: most of the pieces were built with one tiling texture + another sheet with a bunch of trim textures mashed together.
I always make the lowpoly first when working with this kind of modular pieces, I find that a lot easier.
You don't need to model the lowpoly slightly smaller btw, in fact that will result in baking errors (the gaps). You may need to check this out if you are running into troubles with baking: http://cg.tutsplus.com/tutorials/autodesk-3d-studio-max/how-to-bake-a-flawless-normal-map-in-3ds-max/
Great tut, really did help put things into perspective, however it would be great if you could add more information about the UVmap management to the tutorial as that seems like the main key part of this whole thing.
The big that slightly confuses me is:
If you have a sheet full of textures you have created, you then go to UVunwrap, does this mean you have to fit the UV coords to the texture, rather than the other way around (Draw on them)?
If this is the case (I am quite sure it is), then will you not be wasting UV space (resolution) through not using the optimal amount that you could use.
This kind of question/answer would more than help people if you added it to the tutorial, I am sure of it.
Again, thanks a lot for taking the time to share personal work with peeps, I feel it's not done enough.
Yes, that's the idea. You will probably get a little stretching here and there but nobody will notice.
The unwrapping process is pretty straight-forward: Select faces - flatten mapping/planar mapping - map them on specific parts of the trim texture.
I'll add a FAQ to the tutorial based on the questions asked on this thread.
I also added some questions Twister3 asked me for his graduation thesis.
FFD and Bend create imperfections that Path Deform WSM avoids while maintaining a deformation that remains live and so can be moved outwards or inwards toward the origin point of the curve.
Baking a normal map from a 512-sided cylinder and applying it to an 8-sided cylinder won't make it smoother!!
I could never get my head around Path Deform. It works so bizarrely for me.
For 90º sided curves I think bend is definitely the faster way.
I right click on the 3 magnet but I'm not sure which option to enable.
How so, wont it replace the faceted normals? Is it better to just use smoothing groups?
That sounds cool, can I get a link? What else could you do with custom mips?
Path deform wsm is also known to stretch your geometry around some crucial corners points and has poor banking correction compared to the Sweep modifier.
That being said, i'm not even sure that's on topic
1) There was a discussion about this on the Technical Talk forum a while ago, but I can't find it on the wiki. But yeah, you don't need to worry about baking a normal map for that, all you need is a good spec/gloss map for the highlights.
Maybe it's better if you do the test by yourself: Bake a normal map from a very smooth cylinder and apply it to an 8-sided cylinder. Place it next to a cylinder without normal map but with the smoothing groups set properly and see if it's worth the trouble
2) You can check this page for more info regarding this: http://wiki.polycount.com/MipMap
Take a red force-field texture, make all the mips blue, now you have a blue forcefield that turns red when the player gets up close.
If I tile this, wont I get terrible seams where the color will change sharply or do most engines lerp the mips?