Is a twisted mesh acceptable?

AlexLegg · May 2010

Hi guys, I'm after some help with a rope model I've made...

I've made a hi poly, modular rope, with matching tiling textures, as part of a bridge model.

I'm now making the low poly rope, and have just realised that the mesh needs to be twisted 180deg to make the texture work. As this is how I made the original hi poly.

The twisted LP doesn't too too bad, the twist actually makes it look bumpy and rough and the texture tiles perfectly.

However, I'm concerned that if I show this model and mesh to potential employers it will be seen as bad/messy modellling.

So am I better to keep the mesh as neat, tidy, clean 6 sided model and remake/adjust the textures? This texture work could be quite problematic.

I'd appreciate any input anyone out there can offer.

Thanks,

Alex

vahl · May 2010

yeah I was about to write why not twisting the uvs/matching the texture instead of breaking the mesh flow, which would end up giving shading errors.

AlexLegg · May 2010

Thanks for the advice.

I have an image to post, but have a "You may not post attachments" rule applied for some reason. Not sure how to remove that?!

The model is a rope and plank bridge for a next gen game - but I have not been given any rules by the client as to poly counts etc. The bridge will however be a main feature in one level.

I'm using 3DS Max 2010.

I'm not sure how I would go about matching the texture to the mesh/twisitng the Uvs. Any advice?

Maybe I should try baking the texture to the LP mesh?

Cheers,

Alex

Piflik · May 2010

Upload it somewhere like Imageshack and link it here.

Mark Dygert · May 2010

Dropbox. It couldn't be more useful or easy to use.
Also knowing what app you're using we can suggest construction methods and exchange ideas without having to talk generally or explain 3-4 ways to the same thing in each app you might be using.

AlexLegg · May 2010

Here you go...

http://yfrog.com/0xropecomparisionj

I'm using 3DS Max 2010

vahl · May 2010

yeah, bake the twisted high on the non twisted mesh, the other way makes little sense and is not really animation friendly, which they may want to do if this is a major asset

AlexLegg · May 2010

Thanks guys, thats good advice. I'll stick to the nice clean mesh and bake the maps.

Cheers

kdm3d · May 2010

Yeah, either bake the texture down.. OR why not rotate your texture? looks like your texture the strands on the rope are perpendicular to the edges of the texture. If you make your texture to make those strands go on a bias, you can have nice clean geo AND a rope looking thing:)

pumbaa · May 2010

6-sided rope? Is that okay for a lowpoly model these days?

Maybe depends on the size of the rope, and like 50 other factors, as usual hehe

vahl · May 2010

that's not the point of his post

and you can make a cylinder look round with 5 sides, as long as you're smart with how you hide the end edges to make it look higher poly, and a rope will be what...10 pixels wide max on screen ? Just because you can add more polies doesn't mean you need to

Mark Dygert · May 2010

You also have to be careful with how you layout the hidden edges (in max at least) some exporters choose to redo the tri-striping which could change the twists in the rope.
Triangulating the mesh before export takes care of that problem (turn to poly > 3sided polys).

pumbaa · May 2010

My bad, no threadjacking intended!
My point was actually that a 5-6 sided rope sounded too much, I usually use 3 sided cylinders for ropes, cables and whatnot, since as you say, it's only like 10 pixels on the screen anyway. But maybe 3 sides are too little for todays engines, Im not in the industry so I wouldnt really know.

Ill stop now.

vahl · May 2010

well it depends, usually 4 sides is the way to go, 3 tend to creats pretty bad shading and to be noticeable, so it'll be for really small stuff (then a single twosided plane may work even better, etc. Unless it's used for cinematics, or is a pretty big rope (if its bigger than the wrist for instance it'd look weird if it was only 3 sided) as you said, so many factors to decide what to do and why...

AlexLegg · May 2010

Thanks for all the replies, this is really useful stuff.

I debated for a while on how many polys to use. The rope is pretty big and will be reasonably important to the game, so I'm probably safe with 6, I hope. I have some much smaller ropes holding the planks of the bridge together, and was just this morning wondering if it was feasable to use 3 or 4 sides - question answered!

kdm3d,

kdm3d wrote: »

Yeah, either bake the texture down.. OR why not rotate your texture? looks like your texture the strands on the rope are perpendicular to the edges of the texture. If you make your texture to make those strands go on a bias, you can have nice clean geo AND a rope looking thing:)

Any suggestions on how I would twist the texture?

Is there a quick and easy way in PS? or would it be a case of skewing the texture, cutting of the excess and sticking back on the other end?

Alex

Mark Dygert · May 2010

I think he's implying that you should create a high poly model of twisted rope and bake it down to a low poly 6 sided mesh that follows the same twisting pattern. So instead of rendering it as a straight map and twisting the low poly, you just transfer maps/RTT the high poly geometry to the low.

You never really want to change the low poly geometry after you bake. So baking and then twisting would be a bad thing, so twist the low before you bake.

Is a twisted mesh acceptable?

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