Congrats on the banner! This is probably one of my favorite threads on pc! Too many goodies lurking inside. Hurry and post in your new thread so I can pick everyone's brains some more.
I was following this thread from day one, but only now finished reading the last few pages. Everyone on Polycount has been wonderful and the information in this thread is invaluable.
This is why the forum is so great.
In the top image, you can see there are 12 chunks of polygons, so 12 draw calls.
Every 'split' in the model is a draw call. Every UV island is an extra draw call, every smoothing group, every instance of a prop in the scene. Everything gets divvied up in to small bite sized pieces. Having two smaller pieces instead of a large one doesn't cost any more effort to render, but it does take every so slightly more time because instead of the CPU telling the GPU "now render this", it has to say "now render this, and that".
That's not correct. Drawcalls are very simply put, when the Draw() command is called for a specific mesh AND material/shader. DirectX (or any other graphics API) can render any model/object in a single call, but it can only use one material for this call. So if you have two models, that's two drawcalls. If those models have two different materials, that's 2 times 2, so 4 drawcalls, since for every model you'll have to call the draw function for the part with material A, and then for the part with material B.
Smoothing group splits and UV splits do not affect drawcalls. They do increase the FINAL vertexcount, which is more important to judge the performance impact than tri/polycount.
Sorry to detract from the work, but I'd prefer the information in a featured topic to be correct
This thread seems to be all about people chiming in with helpful info, so I don't think anyone really minds a bit.
I believe someone else said something to this affect in response already. . . I'm personally glad that people take time to post when they see info they feel to be not totally accurate.
All of this work is incredible... I admit that even if I know this is a 3D scene, it still looks much more like a 2D painting! Fantastic, I saved every screenshot for inspiration!
I was following this along the way, and love the end result and amount of work you put in. Great job, and it looks like all that hard work is really benefitting your most recent stuff!
This is absolutely amazing. I loved the render especially when you compared it to your concept. Great job. The cow is adorable.
If I have to give some suggestion, then: I love your close up shots more. I think for your big shot, you could work more on your lighting, either make your light more intense, or more saturated. I think the values on your concept doesn't have that much contrast, with hand painted textures, it is very hard to achieve the exact effect. If you have tried out your textures on your models early, you might find it easier to compare and adjust.
to piggyback on what Haiasi said-knowing the technique he suggests you could paint the textures of the materials you need first and then UV the obect to fit those tiling textures.
:] Thanks for the congratulations everyone. Aminos - I appreciate the critique on my lighting, I have much more to learn about it! ivanzu - a pen and some gray Copic markers.
I read through the thread a while back, but didn't have an account here yet. Now that I do I'd like to also like to compliment the production you have put a lot of dedication to. Just going through the thread taught me many things, and I really enjoyed seeing the progress shots of your texture work, including the colour palettes and reference material behind them.
I'm glad you're enjoying my thread bbob, and thank you lots for your advice on style vs. technicality; I will keep it in mind
As for progresss, I know it's been awhile since I've updated due to drama with curriculum at school . . . sometimes makes me want to drop out -__- But anyway! Here is a tree. Planning to create a color variant of it, either bluer or yellower, not sure, and also a cypress sapling:
500 tris. This tree is on a 1024 x 1024, but only half of the map is shown here since the other half is currently empty, as I am planning to fill it with other things.
The body of the tree here is split in 4 256 x 256 sections, of which the center two are tileable for extending the length of the mesh. The body is also tileable horizontally - thus the tree is mirrored in half with no seams. That little section of tree on the right side of the map is for the alpha cards sticking out of the tree.
Really cool but i think this is a good example what computer gaphics lacks in: silhouetes. You tree looks awesome but compared with the diablo 2.5tree tech it's not close enough to a painting.
I was at the Art of Diablo 3 talk at GDC this year and it was definitely impressive. I love their technique and execution. If you haven't seen it, Jessica, you should look it up and watch it!
Selaznog - Aw, thank you, it is really awesome to hear my work is being shared x]
Hebs - Yes, I'd love to see what you can paint. Your sculpts are awesome *_*
SirCalalot - lmao! now I'm really embarrassed lol
SimonT - I will be sure to work more on my silhouettes when designing - that is something I often forget to do, so thank you very much for the reminder!
Haiasi - Aww, I super appreciate the link x] I'ma go watch that right now hehe
felipefrango - omggggg, awesome tip xD no more deleting loops, then scooting the other ones up and down to try and find the shape again!!!
Tigerfeet - moved the doorknobs down (p.s. your avatar makes me lol for some reason, I like it xD)
katana - Thanks! I did try what you said about the roof supports, but it turns out they don't look very nice fat and sparsely distributed, so I think I'm ok with the way they are now.
Here's my villa with the tileables all set up! There are 5 material ID's, 4 of which are my tileables, and the 5th being the blue areas that still need to be unwrapped and uniquely textured. When this is all done I'm also gonna go in and pop out some cobblestones and roof tiles for added silhouette. I still plan to improve the tileables in general, and I just now noticed that the cobblestone is much darker than in the concept - but for now, here they are! Critique and comments welcome:
Thanks!
Jessica
Hy Jessica, this is awsome. Could i please see how you tiled those textures? i'm quite new in texturing and i'm really lost at the moment with my WIP!!
Hey guys! Thought I would update my thread with some recent news, and my appreciation. Yesterday I received an internship from Blizzard for this summer - it was the best day ever haha. I couldn't have done it without Polycount. All of your critiques and encouraging words has kept me motivated and learning, and helped me to reach my goal :]:] Happy pandaaaaaa !!!!
Hey guys! Thought I would update my thread with some recent news, and my appreciation. Yesterday I received an internship from Blizzard for this summer - it was the best day ever haha. I couldn't have done it without Polycount. All of your critiques and encouraging words has kept me motivated and learning, and helped me to reach my goal :]:] Happy pandaaaaaa !!!!
Congratulations! You should make a post in general Jessica ;-)
Replies
This is my favorite thread on polycount for this month or so.
I was following this thread from day one, but only now finished reading the last few pages. Everyone on Polycount has been wonderful and the information in this thread is invaluable.
This is why the forum is so great.
Congrats on making the banner too, Jess
That's not correct. Drawcalls are very simply put, when the Draw() command is called for a specific mesh AND material/shader. DirectX (or any other graphics API) can render any model/object in a single call, but it can only use one material for this call. So if you have two models, that's two drawcalls. If those models have two different materials, that's 2 times 2, so 4 drawcalls, since for every model you'll have to call the draw function for the part with material A, and then for the part with material B.
Smoothing group splits and UV splits do not affect drawcalls. They do increase the FINAL vertexcount, which is more important to judge the performance impact than tri/polycount.
Sorry to detract from the work, but I'd prefer the information in a featured topic to be correct
This thread seems to be all about people chiming in with helpful info, so I don't think anyone really minds a bit.
I believe someone else said something to this affect in response already. . . I'm personally glad that people take time to post when they see info they feel to be not totally accurate.
banner well deserved, this is some super inspirational work
If I have to give some suggestion, then: I love your close up shots more. I think for your big shot, you could work more on your lighting, either make your light more intense, or more saturated. I think the values on your concept doesn't have that much contrast, with hand painted textures, it is very hard to achieve the exact effect. If you have tried out your textures on your models early, you might find it easier to compare and adjust.
beautifull work and strong/readable silhouettes/style
very nice balance between colors aswell.
Pretty clean and efficient model with a good uv to boot. Cant wait to see your texture.
Here comes another thumbs up!
frell - That one was fun! something like 12-14 hrs if I had to guess.
And thanks to everyone who's provided all these great tips
*Dons lensless glasses*
8)
Here is the link to that Diablo 3 talk at GDC
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1015306/The-Art-of-Diablo
Hebs - Yes, I'd love to see what you can paint. Your sculpts are awesome *_*
SirCalalot - lmao! now I'm really embarrassed lol
SimonT - I will be sure to work more on my silhouettes when designing - that is something I often forget to do, so thank you very much for the reminder!
Haiasi - Aww, I super appreciate the link x] I'ma go watch that right now hehe
Hey guys! Thought I would update my thread with some recent news, and my appreciation. Yesterday I received an internship from Blizzard for this summer - it was the best day ever haha. I couldn't have done it without Polycount. All of your critiques and encouraging words has kept me motivated and learning, and helped me to reach my goal :]:] Happy pandaaaaaa !!!!
Loving all your stuff, learning alot from your hand painted textures
Keep it up
Congratulations! You should make a post in general Jessica ;-)