Pirate Fort. Better way to model for game engine?

Kyuzo

Hi all,
atm i'm working at model from this http://cghub.com/images/view/90653/ concept
7
i need advice.
1). What is a better way to model roof/gates/floor on platform over the gates/etc.?
2). Hard edges, i read that hard edge should be beveled, so on render it looks more believable

i'm in fear of over-detail lowpoly mesh..

i plan to texture it by hand with crazybump/nDo for normal mapping or maybe without normal maps

here are my current progress on model


I'll be happy for any advices on modeling and further texturing
Thanks for reading

gsokol

1). What is a better way to model roof/gates/floor on platform over the gates/etc.?

You could have the roof be flat, but have a few shingles modeled that stick out a bit to help the silhouette. I would probably model the individual poles for the gates. You could make the floor above the gate one flat mesh, but if you do the planks individually you can have them warped a bit, and it would look cool. Overall, I wouldn't be afraid to add geometry to areas like this.

2). Hard edges, i read that hard edge should be beveled, so on render it looks more believable

Beveling corners helps. It looks more believable because the added angle catches light and adds a nice highlight. Take a look at the support beams on the towers of the ref. See how there is a nice highlight on the corners of the wood? Your geometry would read similarly to that.

Kyuzo

Hi gsokol, thank you for answer

gsokol wrote: »

You could have the roof be flat, but have a few shingles modeled that stick out a bit to help the silhouette.

mm, i havent thought this way(sticked out shingles), but i think that sticked out single shingles would have weird looking, because they are overlapping from upper side to down... Here are is how i tried to make silhouette better. But at cost of tris... 48 for upper and 144 for bottom, but it can be lowered by deleting bottom side of the mesh

I would probably model the individual poles for the gates. You could make the floor above the gate one flat mesh, but if you do the planks individually you can have them warped a bit, and it would look cool. Overall, I wouldn't be afraid to add geometry to areas like this.

I'm thinking about individual poles for gates too(maybe same about floor above the gate, it would really look great)

But i still interested on how much tris is this model should consist(is there some standarts on different camera types?)

gsokol

For the roof, I didn't mean model the shingles into the roof like that..I meant that you could model individual shingles and drop them on top of the roof, like this:



The drawing might make it look a little silly, but if you line up your texture on the individual shingles right, and line them up to match the texture on the roof, you can get a nice effect.


As for how many tris the model should be....the answer is always the same...it depends. Its never really an easy question to answer...is this aimed towards mobile? current gen? something else? Really...you just need to focus on making sure that your using enough geometry to get the shape you want, and not wasting it anywhere you don't need it.

Kyuzo

i understood what did you mean and picture confirms that i understood it right. It's great idea, but one thing confuse me, shingles are overlapped, and with this approach i can get lower shingle overlapping the upper one... but as i just thought, it's all about positioning it right....

thanks

felipefrango

I guess it all depends on how it's gonna be seen in game. If the player will only see this from the ground focus your detail on the gates, wood trunks and obviously terrain and foliage. If the player can, however, walk on that bridge up there effort on the roof is justified as it could be seen up close.

But I second gsokol's advice, that could work really well, but as I said, if it won't be seen from above focus the detail on the most visible edge of the roof.

This could be good reference:

http://wiki.polycount.com/ModularMountAndBlade?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryEnvironmentModularity%5Cb%29

theGrandPoobah

sorry for bumping this thread, but I couldn't help and follow up with a couple semi-relevant questions to the OP.

How did you get those overhanging supports to arch? For clarity I circled what I am referring to in this link

Kyuzo

theGrandPoobah wrote: »

How did you get those overhanging supports to arch? For clarity I circled what I am referring to in this link

Aammm.. don't understand question.

It's a simple poly modeling, nothing more.

Chase

Did you ever finish this concept? Can you post the finish scene, wires and texture sheets? Thanks