How to tackle multiple buildings for an evnironment?
Me and a friend have been task with creating this :
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l625/LampProject/Roman/Roman%20Docks/PTDC0219.jpg
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l625/LampProject/Roman/Roman%20Docks/PTDC0217.jpg
The trouble is , we want to know the best way to tackle this? Originally we thought of just building each building individually, unwrapping them uniquely etc. But the tourble with this would be, how do we keep carry the continuation of the textures between each building, so there isnt certain buildings which have a slightly bigger wall texture for example than others.
The only way i thought of tackling this, and giving us more time overall , would be to work extremely modular, creating a generic plane for the walls, generic wooden beams and tiles etc, then constructing the buildings like lego. However with this we wont have the ability to alpha map.
I may not have explained everything properly, we are 2nd year uni students attempting our first big environment, any kind of direction and insight would be extremely appreciated!
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l625/LampProject/Roman/Roman%20Docks/PTDC0219.jpg
http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l625/LampProject/Roman/Roman%20Docks/PTDC0217.jpg
The trouble is , we want to know the best way to tackle this? Originally we thought of just building each building individually, unwrapping them uniquely etc. But the tourble with this would be, how do we keep carry the continuation of the textures between each building, so there isnt certain buildings which have a slightly bigger wall texture for example than others.
The only way i thought of tackling this, and giving us more time overall , would be to work extremely modular, creating a generic plane for the walls, generic wooden beams and tiles etc, then constructing the buildings like lego. However with this we wont have the ability to alpha map.
I may not have explained everything properly, we are 2nd year uni students attempting our first big environment, any kind of direction and insight would be extremely appreciated!
Replies
I'm not really sure what you mean by not having the ability to alpha map?
Ive never played with vertex shading at all , so ill have to read up on that! thanks guys, much love.
You can see in my rough paintover below I blacked stuff out. This is all stuff that easily repeats in the level / design. There is still more that could easily be blacked out but for the sake of time I did not.
Then I added color to the pieces that are similiar and that should belong together in the same modular set / texture sheets.
My best advice would be to establish your scale right away and DO NOT go away from it. Stay on the grid and break this scene and pieces down into modular chunks that are easily rotated, moved, and snapped to one another.
Are you using UDK or any other game engine?
How much time do you have for this?
DO NOT make each building individually. That would be foolish on a time mgmt standpoint and the sheer fact that the roofs are exactly the same on each piece. Why not just model that once? Create Variations from it and call it a day.
Cheat if you have to. If there are one off pieces then use something you already have.
Good luck.
You can check out My ninja city script too. It creates building using a modular building approach. Its also a procedural city generator.
as for the AO.. you can bake out AO for each module if each module has a unique texture.
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The UDK, which is confusing because i thought UDK complained about overlapping UVs?
How much time do you have for this?
Around 2 months.
Its still mind boggling on how to attack this. Looking at BK3Ds generator thing, it seems easier to create modular modern buildings, all the detail helps them tile onto eachother, but all i really have is general flat walls, but some need gaps for windows etc.
Like Jesse pointed out start by blocking it in and getting your scale correct. You need some basic shapes to get you moving, those shapes should resemble the modular pieces. You don't need to make them detailed but the dimensions should be spot on. Using standard units you can start to rough things in, players are 72-96 units high each max unit is equal to one unreal unit. You can export from UDK a player model or create your own measuring stick.
As for the actual construction of the buildings you should probably start to plan out your materials as well as your modules they kind of go hand in hand. You can start do things like mix and match pieces if you plan them properly.
For example, the bottom windows in this scene aren't the same as the windows in the rest of the scene, but you could easily do a custom model that reuses different parts of the materials that are already there, then splice them together to make a new unique module out of old pieces.
So when you look at your scene, start to think which pieces will I be able to get the most mileage out of and start modeling those, but not before you get the block out finished and your scale set, that is job #1.
What size should you make the textures? Most games use a 4:1 ratio. 4 pixels for every game unit. So if you have a modular wall piece that is 128 x 128 unreal units then you need a texture that is 4x as big (512px) to get the desired pixel ratio.
However you don't simply multiply it by 4 and call it good using whatever size maps you want. You should stick to standard sizes and work off of the power of 2 rule.
(There is a long complicated explanation about this dealing with memory consumption I won't get into it here).
If you crack open enough games you notice that a lot of them use a standard size like 512px for just about everything. This doesn't mean you give your pop can and your giant statue each a 512, the pop can would be super detailed while the statue would be ultra blurry. But you do want to make sure the pixel ratios match. Maybe you put the pop can on a 512 sheet with a bunch of other objects and fill up a shared 512 sheet, and maybe your statue uses tile textures.
I went into the 4:1 ratio in greater detail with some different examples that might help you work through it:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1223840#post1223840
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1225409&postcount=8
Needless to say the more planning you do the better off you'll be. Good luck!
udk only dislikes overlapping UVs for lighmaps
UDK has a built in building generator that does what BK3Ds thing does but in-game
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ProceduralBuildings.html
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/ProceduralBuildingsTutorial.html
Thisll be the first thing i learn, I had no idea about using other map channels for Lighting.
I shouldve probably shown the progress weve made so far, we did initially model all the buildings in a very basic way , but fitting to the scale of UDK.
That is a really helpful guide image on splitting apart the design, which is what i couldnt get my head around. So i can literally texture my pieces , then cut and stick the old pieces together for any extra/different ones?
The texture information will provide a good read for the entire group! cant believe how much help youve given me, thanks.
http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentModularity
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/4135/wipproblem.png
I exported a character from unreal , and imported it into max to get the scales, However when i import my piece, it wont align correctly. But in max it aligns perfectly? I couldnt find any clear guides on just straight up setting up units, rather just a walk through of what units in unreal mean etc
This along with changing grid snap to 1 fixed my alignment problem thanks.
But now im back with those horrible smoothing group problems, Large dark triangles at the bottom right of all my pieces. They all have their own smoothing groups, and i am exporting smoothing information with it.
Modularity is important, but having connected pieces in UDK will save you a lot of trouble and generally works better. Try combining pieces and having multiple variations as distinct static meshes that use the same texture/material.
A general rule I have is to avoid multiple meshes lined up (such as multiple flat wall pieces). Even if you are very good about your UVs for lightmass and have the shading groups right, there is room for error and ugly seams (not to mention unused polys where they connect). Even when I would set things up correctly, shadows and level of detail were problematic visual issues for me when working this way.
If you really want to duplicate things as if they are connected, it's usually a good idea to have something that covers where they connect (such as a beam).
If you don't want to cover the seam with a beam then you can make a larger static mesh that extends the entire length instead of repeating one piece and possibly having problems. I believe that this method also tends to be better for performance.
The easiest way I can think of to approach this larger wall piece would be to take the small piece into the application you use, leave the UVs intact, duplicate it until you reach the length you need, delete the hidden faces, merge the pieces together, adjust and pack the lightmap UVs only, and export as a new mesh.
Or you could use bsp.
As far as shading, for flat surfaces you are going to want to make sure that the edges are hard, so give the faces their own shading groups.
For future reference don't be afraid to use shading groups with UDK, especially if they get the shading closer to how it should be. You to avoid putting unnecessary stress on your normal maps. There are some other general rules about shading groups, but mostly just try to keep UV splits and shading group splits in the same areas when possible.
If anyone with more authority wants to verify some of these things that'd be helpful. If I didn't explain anything well enough or if something is confusing just say.
Exact reason i wanted this route
Which is exactly what i got, horrible triangle shadows cast across each individual piece
This is the route ive been tests with lately. still modular but using those pieces in max to make each house and export it with unique lightmaps. But the lightmaps dont seem to work, if the model has mutliple uv slots , so 3 for wall tile etc.. Where does the lightmap uv read from?
http://img197.imageshack.us/img197/6425/wipproblem3.jpg
When i try to attach the roof pieces to the rest of the building, with my multi-sub material, the rooftiles just..dissapear. Everything is invisible, except when you display edges.... any ideas?
And would that roof be overkill? thinking of switching to a plane with normals..
It's because you're using directX preview. Turn directx preview off on the material you already have. Max doesn't like multi-sub materials and directx.
Why thank you sire! Another problem down.
However, I came across yet another one trying to build the buildings inside 3ds, The lightmaps go apeshit. And after trying to uniquely unwrap then buildings with no overlaps... i ended with this :
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/2504/wipporlbem5dn.jpg
As you can see, i fucked up big time. But what part of the line?
If you sample the material (using the eye dropper) in max what does the material look like? Are you using any custom shaders in max? You might want to set up a standard material and re-apply it to the object then export again.
Do any of the pieces overlap in the lightmap UV? In the UV editor go "select > select overlapped faces. If anything lights up it needs to be moved to a unique space or set to one tile to the left or right. If there is any overlap, the shadow for each object will be burned into the same spot so you end up with a pretty big mess.
Do they look that way right after you import or after you build the lighting?
This is very helpful for inspiration:
http://wiki.polycount.com/ModularMountAndBlade?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryEnvironmentModularity%5Cb%29
The roof here is very low-poly, and the main reason it has the detail that it does at all is because it will be seen at an angle.
For the lightmap if it's all one connected mesh then you're probably best off with one connected lightmap, a flat, projected UV in the 2nd channel filling up the whole UV space, should work. Just as long as it's not overlapping it should be fine.
The default channel for lightmass is the 2nd UV channel ("channel 1" in the static mesh properties in UDK because UDK starts with "channel 0"). If things keep on not working out and you still have a mesh with a decent number of verts (like you do now), then if you set the lightmass resolution to 0 I believe it will use the vert-baked lighting instead.
Without the material, it does the same thing. Looksnice pre-build, as soon as the lighting is built it flips its shit
I was using the xolilul shader for the viewport previews, but its all standard maps applied when i export it.
Do any of the pieces overlap in the lightmap UV? In the UV editor go "select > select overlapped faces. If anything lights up it needs to be moved to a unique space or set to one tile to the left or right. If there is any overlap, the shadow for each object will be burned into the same spot so you end up with a pretty big mess.
Do they look that way right after you import or after you build the lighting?[/QUOTE]
After i import. it works, building breaks it.
http://i.imgur.com/xhZVQ.jpg
This is an example of a demo building built with my pieces in max. No texture applied, as soon as i build the buildings, the lightmaps go schizo. However Gestalts response has semi cleared this up. Setting the lightmap res to 0 gave me decent ambience overall and no bugs or glitches. This is definately something good.
However i still feel it would be better for the level, and for my learning overall to get the pieces to the correct UDK scale, so i can piece them together inside the engine with no hiccups on smoothing or unusual triangulation.
@Gestalt
Thanks for the lightmap fix. And i do plan on fixing-changing the roofing, i just wanted the technical errors out of the way before i put any effort into the visuals.
Noone seems to have an idea for a fix this:
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Sorry for the video quality. But you can see the shading errors i get when building with the pieces directly inside UDK. If you guys could help me figure that out. SUCCESS will be had
I really want to figure out and do it the original way intended, for my own sanity.
http://i.imgur.com/SCSTi.jpg
This picture shows the first problem with building in UDK, the odd scale of everything. No matter what guide, every time i fit it to max units 100% unreal is JUST that little bit off.
The second error, which i encountered that one time i had the units working correctly :
http://i.imgur.com/oZR7F.jpg
If these two issues could be resolved, then i could easily continue through. But no amount of googling and trial/erroring can solve this for me.
http://www.thiagoklafke.com/modularenvironments.html
His examples provided me with a PERFECT set of grid settings, which now solves my physical modulation problem of them not lining up, I even almost got rid of the intense triangulated shadows at the bottom right of each piece.
Now im on a new error:
http://i.imgur.com/xW3LK.jpg
The corner piece is the same as the single flat piece. I used a 45 degress symetry on the flat piece to create it.
They both use the same texture, yet when i line them up and build my level, They have to different extremes of color. Which means it must be a problem inside my max file surely?
go to unlit mode in UDK. If they're the same colour in unlit mode it's not the max file.
I suspect that all these issues are due to the way you're making the lightmap UV channel.
post pics of the UV layouts and some people might be able to help.
You could be right , i do remember it looking fine in one of the modes, and it only happend once it was built.. However, I cant check right now, in between transferring from uni to home, ive hit this problem :
http://i.imgur.com/x8e7p.jpg
(My next picture has both my new error and LightmapUVWS for an arch , all my others are pretty much the same as that.)
Any guesses? Once this is fixed ill get you more info sprunghunt, thanks.
You might also want to turn on pixel snap (with an actual pixel map applied) and snap them to exact pixels. Right now they seem to be hanging half on/off a pixel and the right side (which is dark) is tiling over to the left.
This might help also
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The tutorial didnt really help me in figuring out how to lock my verts to a per pixel basis
http://i.imgur.com/t9Ruz.jpg
its irritating me that the detail lighting shows how i want it, then this black stain just intruding in on my work.
If you try to pixel snap with the default checker pattern, which is a procedural map that doesn't have pixels, you won't be able to snap to pixels that don't exist.
Honestly this problem could be solved if the UDK light baking engine would just pad light maps.
You can also try shifting the UV pieces around and hope that it lands half in, instead of half out, but that's a waste of time and you can just pixel snap the UV's to take care of it too.
This is my Edit UVS window as it is now, ive turned on what i think you were directing me at. And ive tried centred and none centred, with my 512 diffuse attached. Brand new export file, and im still getting the exact same problem, assuming ive done this right.
I even got that bored i spent half an our, zoomed in at the fullest i could get, and moved the mouse the smallest increments i could and exported these new pieces, all gave me this horrible black border with no difference on each on
i could upload my max file if anyone would take a look? there may be something glaringly obvious getting in my way.
Oh and mark.. i think i love you.
Clicking around the properties of my mesh, i noticed this. Are the black line supposed to represent my UVs? I cant see that being the case as my texture would be quite stretched on one axis. But its fine visually in that respect.
And i thought UDK gave errors on overlapping UVs, so the second one cant be my lightmap UVs. Never the less i put on some green lines to show where the UVS should be based on my unwrap in max.
EDIT:
http://i.imgur.com/x8G2m.jpg
WELL WELL WELL! After all this confusion about the UVS and the indepth reasons to its problems. I went back to check the texture again. Here is the roof material applied to the exact same model. However, the black seams arent there. the tile texture goes STRAIGHT to the edge and off.
So my diffuse is in the wrong somewhere...intredasting.
http://i.imgur.com/uaqgI.jpg
So im back to getting strange seems on the models. The two wall pieces on the right, seem to work fine together. But the exact same models 2 blocks away, aren't playing so nicely?
I feel like overall, their is a big problem with either my light set up or my light mapping set-up, since Googleing only takes me to obscure threads with very fine detail fixes that don't usually work out for me.
http://www.polycount.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-84279.html
Thi guy seems to be in the same position as me, his second to last post is the best way to describe how im stuck
EDIT:
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Progress, those horrible, horrible patchy shadows
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towards the end is how im figuring we tackle this.
Instead of looking for a technical fix. How about this:
Instead of just using a square all the time make a 2x1 and a 4x1 piece and a few other variants of the straight section. Then where you have to use more than one piece and there's a seam put a rainwater downpipe, or a chimney, there to hide it.
Yeah someone also suggested using wooden beams for the covers of seams. This doesnt solve my unusual patchy/discoloured shadows that get generated by these pieces?
Also you could create sections of walls in 3dsmax that are welded together but all reference the same tile, export that and see how that looks, if you get seams you're problem is probably with the lightmap or normal map.
Have you tried it with and without the normal maps applied?
As for the blotchy shadows that might be coming from low lightmap resolution settings?
It was more the stepped discoloration
I just finally want to ask, is there any major issues with using BSP for just my buildings walls? Literally, these are the only problem, and i figured a tool inside the engine would be better than bloating it with meshes?