Phantom Ops: Some structures

[phantomdesign]

Some simple structures. Need textures, but that will come later.

http://www.gryphonauto.com/Phantom-Ops/Images/Maps/010.jpg

http://www.gryphonauto.com/Phantom-Ops/Images/Maps/011.jpg

 

[IchI]

they could be made a lot easier inside of hammer and also be a lot easier to texture. Unless they where just for person use or concepting ideas. They look alright, window spaces are a bit to big on the bunker, since its suposed to be a bunker. The tower also has shit loads of wasted polgons. But if its just conepting not like it matters

 

[tim8604]

They look pretty good. Are these going to be in game at their current status, or kind of just getting some ideas in 3d?

 

[OCybrManO]

Save the simple, boxy structures like those for the level editor...

 

[phantomdesign]

The tower doesn't have any wasted polygons. There are going to be 3 LOD models of the tower. It'll look really tight when you get up close, and use practically no system resources at a medium distance, while looking no worse. At a long distance, it'll probably be 8 triangles and a simple 25x125 texture or something like that.

I need to apply some materials/textures to the tower and render it so you can see what I'm doing with it. There's a little bit of detail I'm not showing.

Why build these now? Well, I'm doing everything I can while I don't have the hammer editor to play with. What I'm doing is constructing the entire environment for the first map that will be used in my MOD, and these are quite necessary for that map. Not only having them on the map is important, but also being able to check line of sight and other things is also important.

I also need to build up a more diverse portfolio, so I'm not going to make excuses like "I should just do that later."

 

[IchI]

i dunno what it looks like on your screen but looka t this image and it looks to me like they are loads of wasted polgons.

Unless you can get a better render to prove me wrong, its hard tos ee anythin g on them. I am just going on what I can see.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by IchI
i dunno what it looks like on your screen but looka t this image and it looks to me like they are loads of wasted polgons.

Unless you can get a better render to prove me wrong, its hard tos ee anythin g on them. I am just going on what I can see.

Yep, those could definately be cleaned up by modeling it just slightly different, will save on a load of those polygons, probably even more as I imagine some area's wont be visible in that structure (unless noclipping) so you could model it with parts just slightly apart from each other like the pillars, then remove the polygons between the ends of the pillars and the base of the thing at the top of the tower. 9/10 times nobody will notice the polygons aren't there

 

[Nodbugger]

i think those are just lines of other shapes showing through.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

Originally posted by phantomdesign
Why build these now? Well, I'm doing everything I can while I don't have the hammer editor to play with.

You can still build BSP geometry in the current Hammer editor, it will transfer right over into Half-Life 2.

http://collective.valve-erc.com/ind...06159035033544900&question=106159124050453000

If you plan on putting an interior inside that bunker, then you'd be much better off using Hammer. Model polygon's don't block VIS, and thus you'll be forced to render the entire structure even if the player can't see inside.

As for the tower, well, thats really a huge waste of system resouces. Rather than try to model the complete structure, try and think of it as a collection of parts. For example, model one post and one X brace, then build the tower using 4 posts and 20 or so X braces. Use the same techinque to construct the ladder using a series of stacked H shaped steps. Finally, top it off with a BSP hut (or another static prop if you want to be fancy ).

Not only will this save on memory usage, but you can constuct towers of varying styles and height using only a half-dozen or so models.

 

[phantomdesign]

I added textures to the tower.

I made an interesting brace which will look cool if you’re really close. It approximately triples the polys though as is. I could redo those bolds as mere textures, making each of those sections 10 triangles or remove the thickness and make it 2 triangles. Although I did notice the other day while playing Half Life (1) that the ladder texture, and a texture for a button seemed to change depending on what angle you view it from which may make the 2 triangle option favorable.
http://www.gryphonauto.com/Phantom-Ops/Extra/Tower2.jpg



IchI
Thanks for the input.
http://www.gryphonauto.com/Phantom-Ops/Extra/tower0-0.jpg
half of those are erroneous overlaps, and the other half are intentional for texturing purposes (only adds 8 polygons)

Mr. Coffee

What your telling me is that it is less expensive (on system resources) to instance multiple copies of an object than it is to make a unified model? It guess it would make sense to do it this way, that way fewer polygon will have to be loaded into memory.

I trust you about the bunker. Thanks for the info. Is necessary for me to build it for the environment, even if I must rebuild it later.


Fenric1138
I’m not quite sure I understand, but I’ll try to figure it out by talking to you on Instant Messenger.

 

[IchI]

Hmmmm, also with prop's inside of hl2 you can not see the wireframe of there geometry (not like unreal). I would just sujest waiting for hl2. The actual tower looks a bit chunkey anyway and the ladder seems way to thick. Its always good to just model something so when you come round to doing it u know exactly what you want and exactly what it will look like at the end. I would just sujest making something more constructive for your mod. Maybe start making LOD for player models which I still havn't seen anyone do or evan 3rd person LOD for weapons. I havn't even seens anyone make a highpolgon model for bump mapping but yet people are always saying this if anyone says that they missed detail. "well ye this part of the model will be bump mapped"

 

[phantomdesign]

Why make a high-poly model for bump mapping? Usually Photoshop works best in 90% of cases if you know what you're doing.

The bunker and tower are mostly needed as place holders so I can make the map. Chances are I'll have to redo a bit of the map work, but I want to create the map anyway, so I can experiment with trees, strategic layout, and special effects.


Player models? I suppose now is as good of a time to start as any. Chances are my first few 1-2 will suck, but I have plenty of time to replace them. Nothing wrong with a good learning experience

Thanks for the input.

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by phantomdesign
Why make a high-poly model for bump mapping? Usually Photoshop works best in 90% of cases if you know what you're doing.

Bump maps yeah, but not normal maps, to get them working correctly you need to generate those from high poly data. Drawing those from scratch isn't a good idea, and the 2D normal map generators such as the nVidia one for Photoshop doesn't give as good results as genuine methods as its trying to create three dimensional data from a 2D image where as the correct method its calculated in 3D space so the results look much nicer and accurate.

 

[IchI]

Originally posted by Fenric1138
Bump maps yeah, but not normal maps, to get them working correctly you need to generate those from high poly data. Drawing those from scratch isn't a good idea, and the 2D normal map generators such as the nVidia one for Photoshop doesn't give as good results as genuine methods as its trying to create three dimensional data from a 2D image where as the correct method its calculated in 3D space so the results look much nicer and accurate.

yep thats so what i ment, herere. But yet we still see all these people saying yet we will use normal maps on this part. I havn't seen one mode generate a high polgon player model to start of with :O

 

[The Dark Elf]

Originally posted by IchI
yep thats so what i ment, herere. But yet we still see all these people saying yet we will use normal maps on this part. I havn't seen one mode generate a high polgon player model to start of with :O

Yeah, bit worrying isn't it. I really hope some don't plan on drawing the normal maps manually *shivers* that would certainly be hardcore though right

I imagine many don't really know what normal maps are, or are planning on generating textures separately from different high poly objects, which would still work (Valve did it for the rock texture for an example) But can you imagine doing it that way when trying to get folds in clothing major headache trying to map something like that correctly on a character model. Once you've got the high detailed version you can generate everything you need from it, textures, normal maps, GI lighting, shadows. even a low poly model if you wanted to. Using as many decals and maps and procedurals as you want, cause its all just baked to UV maps in the end

The only time I'd use the 2D normal map plugins/filters would be for the small featues, wood grain, maybe veins and so on. At that level it could work but even then I guess if I was making a high poly version of a character I'd just straight model them too.

Then there's the other use of the high poly models. Showing off. Create wallpapers or other imagery, posters or T-shirts done with the high poly stuff.

 

[phantomdesign]

I'm new to normal mapping. How do you mimic it in 3DS Max, and how do you extract a normal map from a model??