Official 3D art thread - Warband

[xenoargh]

I think we're mis-understanding "texture" here.  I used a texture atlas. 

Here's the first-pass version at half-scale:

So all of the rest of the variety is achieved by hard edges, vertex effects, funky unwrapping tricks, etc., etc.

Like Docm30 and I were saying in our brief back-and-forth, this has a lot of technical disadvantages.  The method adds vertexes to meshes, which is a Bad Thing.  It has some advantages, too; low memory requirements and a single pass for everything using the material.  These advantages and disadvantages probably cancel each other out to some extent, but in the end we're trading a little bit of performance for memory efficiency.  In my case, I kind of need the memory efficiency; the mod eats a ridiculous amount of memory at this point.

Now that I'm on the second pass and stuff like LODs is done, I'm probably going to re-evaluate this atlas and make some creative changes.  I found that I wasn't using some sections very much, which means I can probably drop them entirely and get around their loss through clever use of vertex color, amongst other things.

In terms of vertex efficiency, here's a typical example.

Here's the "angelic" axe, second-pass version; first shot is with vertexes set to hard to preserve edges and achieve better lighting, second shot is how it looks with all the vertexes welded:

The difference between these two objects, in terms of vertex count, is 3%.  This may not sound like a lot, but it adds up when we're talking about a lot of objects.

 

[Bava]

Geeee, xeno, the mere thought of uv-mapping all these weapons makes me wanna kill baby kittens. Great job!

I'd like to ask if you could tell me where i can  find that kind books or help me to find information about this subject.What should I do with that gun port?

Lots of nice drawings can be found here, the online version of Chapman´s Archtectura Navalis, warships are on page 3 and 4.
Very nice job with the modelling by the way, but you should have used a better reference pic (and the keel, bulwarks and masts are too thick which makes your ship look more like a toy than a realistic vessel imo).
There´s a very good 'Anatomy Of The Ship' edition about the cutter Alert which could be very helpful for your project.

 

[xPearse]

What do you guys think of all the new faces I have done so far. I still need to soften the edges around some of them though.

 

[Temuzu]

They look good to me, the eyes might need a bit more variation, they look very similar, then again, how different can eyes be?

 

[xenoargh]

The facial hair may be an issue.  They would require specific normalmaps and couldn't use the facegen beards.

 

[rgcotl]

triangles = 2021 (that a bit much but i guess some armors may have this count)
textures 2^10

Spoiler: roman_priceps armor

 

[xPearse]

The facial hair may be an issue.  They would require specific normalmaps and couldn't use the facegen beards.

I removed all facial hair from the mod so that isn't a problem. Everyone was running around with huge beards and it looked really silly so I took them all away. People don't have beards like that anymore nether mind in japan. Never liked facial hair in M&B anyway.

 

[orangeknite1]

I think we're mis-understanding "texture" here.  I used a texture atlas. 

What made you decide to use a texture atlas, I could understand for a Enviroment when you dont have as much unique detail. With Weapons I think they have to much unique detail to make a texture Atlas work well while still looking presentable.

 

[MadocComadrin]

He cited memory efficiency as one reason.

 

[xenoargh]

Yeah, memory's a big deal.  Trying to keep the mod playable for XP users is pretty amusing sometimes   Anyhow, I think that they'll look OK in-game, but I won't know until I've done a little more polish on them and feel like coding them up

 

[wheene]

I got a (probably) noobly modding question and I thougt this would be the best way to ask it considering the concentration of great modders browsing this topic. Please dont hate on me.

So Id like to use vertex colors to simulate shading without having to add anything extra to the texture based on one of Gutekfiuteks tutorials (http://wiki.polycount.com/ModularMountAndBlade?action=AttachFile&do=view&target=Modular_MountBladeMod_04.jpg). Problem is he uses 3dStudio to include vertex colors in the obj which I dont have. What I have is Blender which seems to not natively include vertex colors in obj files. Is there some workaround/plugin you guys know of that could help me?

Thanks

 

[rgcotl]

wheene@
as i know openBRF curently cant import OBJ vertex colors
so you havet to import ply files with if i am not wrong are the only one with curently can import vertex colors in BRF

 

[wheene]

Thanks it works great. Unfortunately it brings along another problem, my model uses two texture files and thus two materials. If I import the obj it notifies me and asks whether I want to split the mesh based on materials. I click yes and then asign each part to coresponding texture. However this option to split doesnt pop up when I import ply. Im not yet familiar with module system and cant import the model to know how that would work. Is it possible to split the model according to materials in blender and then load and merge it somehow in openBRF to make object that will act as one while ingame?

 

[rgcotl]

manualy select the object parts and export it as ply (or OBJ)
just make sure u have 2 mesh exported from blender (i guess it is blender what u use)

and then when u import
simple import both meshes (and call one blablabla and other blablabla.1 )
separtated mesh in game in this way are recognized as single object (but both parts may have diferent materials and textures )

 

[xenoargh]

@Wheene:  If you want to do vertex painting, you need to construct your geometry, export to PLY, and then I'd suggest using MeshLab to do the vertex painting with.  It takes a bit of getting used to but it works OK, provided that the mesh is structured appropriately.  You can import both pieces as separate parts in MeshLab, IIRC. 

I really don't recommend using multi-mesh with multiple Materials on this engine, however; they have a pretty significant performance hit.  The issues people usually use multi-mesh to get around are best addressed by using custom shaders.

If you just want to play with gross color distribution, you can do it like I've been doing it; get the objects set up in terms of placement, then assign the various sections you want to mess with different Materials and set up your smoothing groups. Then export as OBJ, and import into OpenBRF.  When OpenBRF asks if you want to keep everything seperated, tell it yes.  Then I optimize the meshes ("clean redundant vert / pos").  This must be done first. 

Then do vertex AO (after selecting all of the sub-meshes) and then, after selecting one or more sub-meshes, proceed to alter the vertex colors.  Then use "combine meshes" to bring them all back together again, so that they're aren't a multi-mesh.  Done.

With a a little practice, it worked really well

[EDIT]Oh, and I'm almost ready, finally.  Just a few things left to do and then the items will get coded up and tested in Blood and Steel for the first time.  After that, it's time for a public release.[/EDIT]

 

[wheene]

Ok thanks for advice to both of you. I think Ill learn how to put objects ingame and try how much the engine can handle with the multimesh. If it cant get nowhere near to what I think Ill need Ill try the more complex approach.

 

[Meevar the Mighty]

triangles = 2021 (that a bit much but i guess some armors may have this count)
textures 2^10

Spoiler: roman_priceps armor

Love the cloth and the belt, in fact, pretty well everything. My one suggestion would be to work on the shading at the edges of that jacket. Your tunic handles the wavy material well, but the jacket doesn't and that stands out.

(Actually, there's also a tiny area on the side of the jacket where the crease line could be cleaned a little to match the others.)

 

[Sheriff-murder]

Working on a mandatory group project I don't care much for. Made the tilable roofs, and the torii gates. The gravestone I showed ages ago is in there somewhere as well.

 

[SupaNinjaMan]

Dude, Gray, that's fantastic!

 

[xenoargh]

@Graylord:  Looks good   I can see a couple of minor issues but it's hard to give critique given the lighting in the scene

Working on the last little stuff in the pack.  LODs are set up, getting through the last of the second-pass polish stuff.

This sucker needed a rework; it's a "demonic" blade.  You may have to refresh this page to see the new version; I'm keeping the same names for simplicity's sake.