By the by, you need to stop being a lazy triple A talented bugger and start adding some attachment concepts as well what the hell am i paying you for?!
Edit: joking if you can't tell! But not at the same time! But I am! Sort of!
heh, I will! I hardly even have time to get my own art done! You guys will see new guns or attachments coming down the line EVENTUALLY. PROBABLY.
Any donations to the help joseph quit his job and draw more often fund are appreciated.
I'm digging the character model a lot. Strong design changes to make the character a little more interesting and intimidating. Dont overdo it with the skin detail!
It looks almost like the render was odd... Like, its been upscaled, contrast adjusted, and sharpened? That may be why its looking noisey. Plus, viewport renders ALWAYS look naff. No ambient light, a shitty point light etc...
Thx guys.. sorry for the late update but there were some problems on the low poly gear and body so I had to redo the UV and bakes there but heres an little update on the textures on the head enjoy
Well well its done whoo!:) Pics from Toolbag so it will look a bit different in game tho. The tris count ended up to 11813.
The texture is 1k x 1k for the head and 2k x 2k for the body and 512 x 512 for chain around his neck.
Heres the actual ingame asset, rendered in-engine. Toolbag seems to be doing odd things with the colour above, but these pics are actual ingame renders:
As for videos, you can find lots on our YouTube channel!
Well well its done whoo!:) Pics from Toolbag so it will look a bit different in game tho. The tris count ended up to 11813.
The texture is 1k x 1k for the head and 2k x 2k for the body and 512 x 512 for chain around his neck.
I haven't checked the whole thread so sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere but is this zombie fella customizable/modular in any way? If not, why have the head, body and chain in different textures? And have textures as big as these? These specs really sound overkill, specially having a separate 512² (which can actually hold quite a lot) just for the chain. Even if is was an important NPC/player model I'd say it could be downsized a bit, but if it is a regular enemy model you could easily cram all that into one single 1024², or maybe just go with one 2048² if you're feeling really generous cause unless head/body/chain are somehow interchangeable I see no reason to have them use different textures and, consequently, materials.
I agree, you could easily get away with at least halving those sizes, e.g. 256 for the chain, a 1k for the body and keep the head as 1k if necessary. Dude looks awesome though
Bodu is at 2048x2048, all bodies are. Heads are swappable between all classes per team, as its a multiplayer title, not a single player title. The chain I've already mentioned, as it was mapped wrong and was too late to change it. But the chain uses alpha, so it was better to have the chain on its own surface rather than use alpha masking on the whole body.
Hmm, yeah, having separate textures definitely makes sense. I actually read about swappable player heads but just assumed this wasn't a player model, my bad.
Having said that, I still think textures are really big. Is there really noticeable loss of detail when you cut them in half? I might be wrong but I doubt it, even at 2048² it must be using the 1024² mip level most of the time anyway, you must only really see them full res when the models get really close to the camera.
2048x2048 has been standard for, what, 3 or so years? At least? I think in the next coming year, that will be lower end. Plus if you don't like it or it runs too poorly, you cna adjust them in the UI anyway, we give plenty of options
To be fair, it's possible to complain because it's 4x the pixels to author a texture at that res than at 1024. I would say make sure it's worth it before committing. And if you go that way, make sure you're leveraging the additional 3 1024x1024 textures you have at your disposal.
I'm all for authoring textures in at least twice the higher resolution needed at the moment, more than once I saw myself being able to pump up the budget a bit only to find out source files don't have more resolution, but it's all about using as much resolution as you need. I'd say 2048² textures is barely a standard unless you rule out consoles completely and focus on PC only, and even so it's mostly for FPS weapons and other stuff that's in the player's face all the time, or maybe a player character model in a 3rd person game.
It's been discussed in detail in another thread so I won't reproduce all of it here:
But basically, download the multicolored calibration texture and apply to your model and test the model in a game-like situation, depending on what mip level color shows up on the model you'll know the maximum texture size you'll possibly need. If the 2048² really does show up a lot then I have to agree it's needed and you should keep it. Although I still don't think halving it would result in a big loss of detail and even though it's 4x less pixels it's also 4x less memory and a game is only beautiful if it performs well, so yeah.
I'm all for authoring textures in at least twice the higher resolution needed at the moment, more than once I saw myself being able to pump up the budget a bit only to find out source files don't have more resolution, but it's all about using as much resolution as you need. I'd say 2048² textures is barely a standard unless you rule out consoles completely and focus on PC only, and even so it's mostly for FPS weapons and other stuff that's in the player's face all the time, or maybe a player character model in a 3rd person game.
It's been discussed in detail in another thread so I won't reproduce all of it here:
But basically, download the multicolored calibration texture and apply to your model and test the model in a game-like situation, depending on what mip level color shows up on the model you'll know the maximum texture size you'll possibly need. If the 2048² really does show up a lot then I have to agree it's needed and you should keep it. Although I still don't think halving it would result in a big loss of detail and even though it's 4x less pixels it's also 4x less memory and a game is only beautiful as it performs well, so yeah.
Surely character models such as his could actually benefit from a 2k map though, as in when the player becomes close enough. I completely agree that 2k from a distance is pointless (in a relative sense), however I would have thought if they can push for higher details when the characters are closer, then it would be sweet to see the higher details.
I know for consoles it wouldn't happen but I have a 4890 2GB card from nearly 4 years ago so I would presume that 2GB is almost standard for PC gamers now. Well atleast the weird 1.5gb models that nvidia seem to like. Plus from looking at gaming forums, 1080 seems to be the default resolution for players now as well monitors having the 16:9 ratio which to me is backwards.
My comment in the first place was in a bit of a jokey way, but I love to learn and I looked at your post, and I would agree with what you have presented, but surely a way to bridge the distance etc would be to do simple LODs. I mean is it that difficult to figure out? when I created a small game level I simply put in the models at base LOD and worked out from simply walking backwards where the next LOD would OK and the jump wouldnt be noticeable. Or is it alot more complicated than that? .... wait I read a bit further and it covers loading in different textures. Well that has stumped me then xD. I would have thought changing between two textures wouldnt be that difficult really. Bummer. :poly141:
Surely character models such as his could actually benefit from a 2k map though, as in when the player becomes close enough. I completely agree that 2k from a distance is pointless (in a relative sense), however I would have thought if they can push for higher details when the characters are closer, then it would be sweet to see the higher details.
Definitely, it all depends on how close the model actually gets to the camera and for how long. Even if it gets close enough to show the largest mip level it's still pointless if it's in constant motion, that's why I mentioned FPS weapons and 3rd person character models, cause they're constantly there. And as I tried to demonstrate in that thread, sometimes it's a complete waste of resources cause the depending on how close the model gets to the camera, some details just won't show, period. I'm not stating it's the case here, but it might just be, it needs testing.
My comment in the first place was in a bit of a jokey way, but I love to learn and I looked at your post, and I would agree with what you have presented, but surely a way to bridge the distance etc would be to do simple LODs. I mean is it that difficult to figure out? when I created a small game level I simply put in the models at base LOD and worked out from simply walking backwards where the next LOD would OK and the jump wouldnt be noticeable. Or is it alot more complicated than that? .... wait I read a bit further and it covers loading in different textures. Well that has stumped me then xD. I would have thought changing between two textures wouldnt be that difficult really. Bummer. :poly141:
Don't worry, man, didn't mean to sound bitchy or nitpicky, just using your quote to illustrate the point that details aren't always better, they come at a cost that can get pretty darn big and can be prevented with intelligent use of resources. Today's cards might be able to handle big textures but that's pointless if you're using available space to store useless data that could be used better by different assets.
About your second question though, I'm not sure I get it but this doesn't concern LOD meshes at all, having different LOD meshes wouldn't change anything. If you mean having different sized textures for different distances, this is kinda what mip maps are:
When you use DXT compression you have the option to generate mip maps, incrementally smaller versions of the texture that are embedded in the file, and these different versions get sorted out according to factors such as UVW density and distance from the camera. This is what I tried to show in that link, that model uses a 4096² texture with edited mipmaps, in which I've painted contrasting, solid colors for each level so you can see which ones get loaded at different distances. As you can see the original size, the "red level", only appears when the camera is on top of the character's face, and it shows that using a 4096² texture is certainly overkill.
So, of course, you might think it's a good idea to just make the texture as big as possible as let the engine sort it out but it doesn't really matter since the whole thing is loaded to the VRAM. Having an additional, smaller texture wouldn't help either as you'd have to load another texture altogether and it would be even more costy, so you wanna load as few textures as possible and they should only be as big as they need to be. This is actually analogous to LOD meshes, in which they're also not always necessary and in some cases will only increase memory cost with little to none performance gain. It's a case by case thing, really.
The solution, in my humble opinion, would be to analyse all possible scenarios where the model will appear on screen and consider factors like how distant will it be from the camera, for how long does the model stay on screen, when it shows up will it be static or will it be moving frantically? These answers coupled with a result from that mip map test will show you the ideal texture size for that asset. I would then author the texture double this size, just in case, but that's another story. :P
Are we REALLY gonna discuss 2048x2048 body textures on a MP game where there is, at max, a possible 10 loaded into memory at once? This is a MP game, with classes. Not a SP game where each enemy will have these are there will be dozens of them at once.
I honestly can't see an issue with 2048x2048. Its actually the norm right now, which is one point, but by the time this is done it will actually be LESS THAN what I think will be norm. I play OverDose in 1080p, and these details, trust me, they pop pretty damn lovely. All class model body textures are 2048x2048, and they do make a difference. I can't even think of a game in recent memory who didn't use 2048x2048's for bodies, to be truthful? I mean, even the original gears of war did, with 1024x1024 head textures... And that was how long ago now...?
I am all for lowering the texture size if that helps the game run smoother and does not give a huge difference, I am sure we could drop from a 2k texture to 1k without anyone knowing most of the time... But it's not up to me to decide, I still think we should try it and see what the difference is.
Are we REALLY gonna discuss 2048x2048 body textures on a MP game where there is, at max, a possible 10 loaded into memory at once?
Last time I checked this is what this board is all about. I've never claimed to be right or that your models are wrong, but optimization is a subject often overlooked around here and I thought it could fuel an interesting discussion. My whole point is that such amount of detail CAN be justified, my gripe is that you seem to be basing this decision on the assumption that it is "the norm", like it's a rule cast in stone or something. Either way, I think I've made my point.
I can't even think of a game in recent memory who didn't use 2048x2048's for bodies, to be truthful? I mean, even the original gears of war did, with 1024x1024 head textures... And that was how long ago now...?
I think that size was for the cinematic version of the models--I think the actual in-game stuff was much lower--or potentially lower...Epic likes to build two versions of things (see their weapon creation pipeline!)
Anyway, latest steam hardware survey has about 2/3 of people at or below the 1gb VRAM level still. but a 2048 is only like...3mb..and for a class based FPS it's probably not worth stressing out over...especially if you have, like you say, a way to truncate the mipchain and only load smaller textures for lowend.
Anyway, I just dropped in to say this is badass looking! It's an impressive amount of work for such a small team!
Don't have anything to say really in this discussion, was just wondering if we could see a comparison between a 1k and 2k version and all the other maps also split in two. Just interesting to see how it looks.
Yeah I`m pretty sure the 2048 textures used for the GOW characters was just the cinematic models.
Something to think about: Even though you can get away with large texture sizes, there is still a limited memory pool that could be used for more stuff! more UI, more environment diversity, more prop diversity- etc etc.
Wow nice! The one thing that really throws me off is the shower curtain. It has no folds and is bent weirdly, it almost looks like it is cardboard bent. Maybe if you could spend a little more time making it more cloth like that would be cool.
nice work man, jsut several stuff, the sink: if porselin cracks it leaves really sharp edges, these ones look rounded.
The wires connected to the battery don't seem connected in anyway, they just float.
also the shower curtain, but that was allready said:)
RE: the wires. Theres only so much you can do on the Quake 2 engine. So the wires are simple tubes, and the battery is a map model. It makes more sense to do that, than have loads of different models for each case/position the batter would be in.
Yep... This defo works. Due to the scale of the largest mesh here, I used a 1024x1024 normal map. But still, 1024x1024 is FOUR times lower res than the player model, so...... I think its safe to assume this works:
Yup, clearly 4 x 1024 would be 4096. But we are talking squared here. Four 1024 tiles would make a the same size in pixels, as a single 2048 tile. Its science.
Replies
The bake looks real nice, be sweet to see this guy textured!
On a lighter note, looks cool as hell svein
heh, I will! I hardly even have time to get my own art done! You guys will see new guns or attachments coming down the line EVENTUALLY. PROBABLY.
Any donations to the help joseph quit his job and draw more often fund are appreciated.
I'm digging the character model a lot. Strong design changes to make the character a little more interesting and intimidating. Dont overdo it with the skin detail!
Messed up the POM a tad ingame here but thats in the material:
The texture is 1k x 1k for the head and 2k x 2k for the body and 512 x 512 for chain around his neck.
As for videos, you can find lots on our YouTube channel!
This is a very early test video showing you a couple of really boring, dull things, but showing you we are starting to add in a few extras.
[ame="
I haven't checked the whole thread so sorry if this has been mentioned elsewhere but is this zombie fella customizable/modular in any way? If not, why have the head, body and chain in different textures? And have textures as big as these? These specs really sound overkill, specially having a separate 512² (which can actually hold quite a lot) just for the chain. Even if is was an important NPC/player model I'd say it could be downsized a bit, but if it is a regular enemy model you could easily cram all that into one single 1024², or maybe just go with one 2048² if you're feeling really generous cause unless head/body/chain are somehow interchangeable I see no reason to have them use different textures and, consequently, materials.
Having said that, I still think textures are really big. Is there really noticeable loss of detail when you cut them in half? I might be wrong but I doubt it, even at 2048² it must be using the 1024² mip level most of the time anyway, you must only really see them full res when the models get really close to the camera.
Your VRAM budget might, for starters.
I'm all for authoring textures in at least twice the higher resolution needed at the moment, more than once I saw myself being able to pump up the budget a bit only to find out source files don't have more resolution, but it's all about using as much resolution as you need. I'd say 2048² textures is barely a standard unless you rule out consoles completely and focus on PC only, and even so it's mostly for FPS weapons and other stuff that's in the player's face all the time, or maybe a player character model in a 3rd person game.
It's been discussed in detail in another thread so I won't reproduce all of it here:
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1468295&postcount=130
But basically, download the multicolored calibration texture and apply to your model and test the model in a game-like situation, depending on what mip level color shows up on the model you'll know the maximum texture size you'll possibly need. If the 2048² really does show up a lot then I have to agree it's needed and you should keep it. Although I still don't think halving it would result in a big loss of detail and even though it's 4x less pixels it's also 4x less memory and a game is only beautiful if it performs well, so yeah.
Surely character models such as his could actually benefit from a 2k map though, as in when the player becomes close enough. I completely agree that 2k from a distance is pointless (in a relative sense), however I would have thought if they can push for higher details when the characters are closer, then it would be sweet to see the higher details.
I know for consoles it wouldn't happen but I have a 4890 2GB card from nearly 4 years ago so I would presume that 2GB is almost standard for PC gamers now. Well atleast the weird 1.5gb models that nvidia seem to like. Plus from looking at gaming forums, 1080 seems to be the default resolution for players now as well monitors having the 16:9 ratio which to me is backwards.
My comment in the first place was in a bit of a jokey way, but I love to learn and I looked at your post, and I would agree with what you have presented, but surely a way to bridge the distance etc would be to do simple LODs. I mean is it that difficult to figure out? when I created a small game level I simply put in the models at base LOD and worked out from simply walking backwards where the next LOD would OK and the jump wouldnt be noticeable. Or is it alot more complicated than that? .... wait I read a bit further and it covers loading in different textures. Well that has stumped me then xD. I would have thought changing between two textures wouldnt be that difficult really. Bummer. :poly141:
Definitely, it all depends on how close the model actually gets to the camera and for how long. Even if it gets close enough to show the largest mip level it's still pointless if it's in constant motion, that's why I mentioned FPS weapons and 3rd person character models, cause they're constantly there. And as I tried to demonstrate in that thread, sometimes it's a complete waste of resources cause the depending on how close the model gets to the camera, some details just won't show, period. I'm not stating it's the case here, but it might just be, it needs testing.
Don't worry, man, didn't mean to sound bitchy or nitpicky, just using your quote to illustrate the point that details aren't always better, they come at a cost that can get pretty darn big and can be prevented with intelligent use of resources. Today's cards might be able to handle big textures but that's pointless if you're using available space to store useless data that could be used better by different assets.
About your second question though, I'm not sure I get it but this doesn't concern LOD meshes at all, having different LOD meshes wouldn't change anything. If you mean having different sized textures for different distances, this is kinda what mip maps are:
When you use DXT compression you have the option to generate mip maps, incrementally smaller versions of the texture that are embedded in the file, and these different versions get sorted out according to factors such as UVW density and distance from the camera. This is what I tried to show in that link, that model uses a 4096² texture with edited mipmaps, in which I've painted contrasting, solid colors for each level so you can see which ones get loaded at different distances. As you can see the original size, the "red level", only appears when the camera is on top of the character's face, and it shows that using a 4096² texture is certainly overkill.
So, of course, you might think it's a good idea to just make the texture as big as possible as let the engine sort it out but it doesn't really matter since the whole thing is loaded to the VRAM. Having an additional, smaller texture wouldn't help either as you'd have to load another texture altogether and it would be even more costy, so you wanna load as few textures as possible and they should only be as big as they need to be. This is actually analogous to LOD meshes, in which they're also not always necessary and in some cases will only increase memory cost with little to none performance gain. It's a case by case thing, really.
The solution, in my humble opinion, would be to analyse all possible scenarios where the model will appear on screen and consider factors like how distant will it be from the camera, for how long does the model stay on screen, when it shows up will it be static or will it be moving frantically? These answers coupled with a result from that mip map test will show you the ideal texture size for that asset. I would then author the texture double this size, just in case, but that's another story. :P
I honestly can't see an issue with 2048x2048. Its actually the norm right now, which is one point, but by the time this is done it will actually be LESS THAN what I think will be norm. I play OverDose in 1080p, and these details, trust me, they pop pretty damn lovely. All class model body textures are 2048x2048, and they do make a difference. I can't even think of a game in recent memory who didn't use 2048x2048's for bodies, to be truthful? I mean, even the original gears of war did, with 1024x1024 head textures... And that was how long ago now...?
Last time I checked this is what this board is all about. I've never claimed to be right or that your models are wrong, but optimization is a subject often overlooked around here and I thought it could fuel an interesting discussion. My whole point is that such amount of detail CAN be justified, my gripe is that you seem to be basing this decision on the assumption that it is "the norm", like it's a rule cast in stone or something. Either way, I think I've made my point.
I think that size was for the cinematic version of the models--I think the actual in-game stuff was much lower--or potentially lower...Epic likes to build two versions of things (see their weapon creation pipeline!)
Anyway, latest steam hardware survey has about 2/3 of people at or below the 1gb VRAM level still. but a 2048 is only like...3mb..and for a class based FPS it's probably not worth stressing out over...especially if you have, like you say, a way to truncate the mipchain and only load smaller textures for lowend.
Anyway, I just dropped in to say this is badass looking! It's an impressive amount of work for such a small team!
Something to think about: Even though you can get away with large texture sizes, there is still a limited memory pool that could be used for more stuff! more UI, more environment diversity, more prop diversity- etc etc.
-awesome job guys
-blackslatejoe is in da house lol
hah! Hi!
All models, lighting and textures/effects etc by myself.
The wires connected to the battery don't seem connected in anyway, they just float.
also the shower curtain, but that was allready said:)
[ame="
excellent looking environments by the way, haven't checked in on this thread in a while, keep at it!
4 x 1024x1024 = 2048x2048.
1024x1024 = 1,048,576 pixels
1,048,576 x 4 = 4,194,304 pixels
2048x2048 = 4,194,304 pixels
[ame="
...I'm not too sure about the math here :-/
just think about it spatially, you can fit 4 1024x1024's into the same amount of space as 1 2048x2048.
Also nice mainpage! Really like the concept, I might adapt the same technique when MISERY 2 will be released
Cheers [TZP] LoNer1 from the MISERY mod