Mirek

October 29, 2012

I think the angular formation looks nice. And nice touch with the vegetation

About vegetation, isn't it too restrictive to bound vegetation into rock-objects? I am when you have single stone, you can place him in locations with different climate. But when there is a dry bush with it, it would not be very convincing for example in woods. I dont know how do you create new maps, maybe it is bether to add vegetation directly in map-editor, or not?

The sand dune rocks formation is a very nice Idea, I like it and they look nice. However, I think that the erosion and sand on the top part of the rock looks nice but it's not very realistic. I think it would be better to focus on the "sand covered" and erosion part of the rocks to be on one side of them rather than in the top, like if the wind blow from that direction for very long time.

Youre right with the crack. There is another on the other side of this stone. But they are to small and only few, I think it is just wasting of faces. Playing with texturing may have bether results. As mentioned in the Gen.Kenobis next post.

Btw: I inspect some rocks in current dev-version of the game and they are really much 'low-polyer' than my rocks. I am trying to create more detailed objects, but can not I harm final performance with it?

About sand, it was rather only a test. But I am glad you like it so I'll play much more with it.

...If it's something like Saara, we shouldn't have any...
...From my point of view, it is not mistake to have both of them...
...however I'd get this "sand" effect you added in the desert rocks and try to make it be like snow and scatter it all around the rocks. It will look neat!...

I agree and that is my plan (including snow drifts in fact sand was only the first step to realistic snow). And vegetation - in some enviroments it helps to an object to look more realistic I think.

Fyi - next week I have an important exam, so I'll probably have a little less time now.

No new rocks now, but do not worry. As I promised previously - I'll be back :gunsmilie:

Have a nice week, Mirek

October 26, 2012

Fyi - next week I have an important exam, so I'll probably have a little less time now.

Anyways I will continue with my work and if you like rocks that I posted above, I can bring some .dae files next time.

October 26, 2012

About the biomes, rocks need an overall update through the entire game.

I see, I'll use MAPS AND BIOME GUIDE for specific examples.

Once you finished your models and they're ready to import them in-game, you'll see how we "tell" the engine which parts use transparency

I look forward to

UV unwrapping.
Yes, It's tricky.
...

Thanks for sharing the wealth. Some things were completely new for me (conformal unwrapping, using pivot point...). I was using quick'n'dirty Smart UV Projects, but your technique with pivot point is able to achieve better resolution. I'll play with that...

Desert rocks with some vegetation...

..I left it a little angular as before. Is it too much?

.."sand dune" test (225 faces). Good idea or not? (I suppose that sand is default ground in desert biome, so it should merge together and look more realistic with sand dunes.)

as far as I'm aware of, we really need to get some snowy rocks out

On it. My "polar" design test (I know - trees are terrible - experiment. But do you like those stones?):

October 24, 2012

Waow, that last rock picture you sent is just perfect! OK then for the texture issue, fine.

I am glad to hear that. Happy customer is our goal, sir

...

Thanks for the tips & feedback. I read them carefully and I hope I'll repay them in the future

I did not know how much polygons can I afford, so details suffered sometimes. I try to keep polygons count as low as I can. But on the other side not at the expense of details (I feel, that it was happening now).

About transparency - Very nice guide, I think it will be useful not only for me. Actually, this is important only for rendering, or transparency in game also depends on this setting?

UV mapping - one stupid question. When I texture detailed objects (before, or in this game houses for example), I unwrap every single face (or few faces together) and assign it to texture image by hand. But objects like rocks have single uniform surface and I have to avoid visible seams. Before I was using blender projection, but for this purpose it is useless. So I use simple seams like this...

...and unwrap and "cut" whole object at once. Seams are hidden in a bottom of rocks, but textures are streching, working with them is not comfortable. How do you do it?

_______________

About biome..

Those rocks were not intended to have any specific purpose (biome). Some rocks (like something similar to my secound piece) hopefully be quite universal, depending on used texture. But others do not, I undestand.

Let's try to keep it more objective. Which biome you need? I try to focus, google for soem reference images and make the meshes more real.

October 24, 2012

sry, "vegetation" of course. Making my dinner, I was not focused and really hungry

@Ludo: Textures were only simply generated. Final version should look more close to that:

-And the third set : same remark as above about the too visible texturing, but more important, I'd say that this shape of rock formation is extremely rare in real life and IMO would look more natural if less vertical, not looking that much like a column or a tower. Also, the slabs on the side feel like left here by humans. I think it should be more messy.

You're right, it should be more random. About that shape... I have to stop watching Westerns

October 24, 2012

Hi, finaly I am back. Some rocks for your judgement...

1. about 200 vertices&faces

2. about 250 vertices&faces

3. about 400 vertices&faces. Is it too "round" for a rock? Or you like how "desert winds" smooth the stone surface

...are they big enough? And is there enough of stones (for game usage heaps of stones like img 1& img 2 and some lonely ones like the last one seem best from my point of view)? What should I improve? If you like them, I can make some other versions and use UV texturing...

I would like to add some vegetables growing from cracks... I can create plains, unwrap them and create UV maps. But I have to use transparent background properly - can you help me?

I used "slab_desert_badlands.png" as the texture and let blender to generate it with cube projetion now. But for final objects I have to use UV maps, right?

Oh and I have few question about number of faces. Is it more important for performance to check number of vertices or faces? Or both? And is good behavior to delete faces which are hidden behind other object or visible only from bottom view? And finally, how many faces should have object like my stones for good performance?

Gen. Kenobi: nice video, thanks! It was very helpfull for me watch profesional stonemason in work

October 21, 2012

Thank you very much for your advices. I'll go and try to turn them into a bunch of fine stones

Brb in few days - work is coming

PS: Eggbirds pilars are absolutely awesome. Is it possible to download the source for lowpoly version?

October 21, 2012

What you can do, is make two or three variations of the sizes you already made.

Ok, so if the scale is right (I hope it is), I'll create some friends for those lonely stones

You can use textures from gaia as you please, we can later apply other rock textures to fit the biome or have more color variety.

And it is bether when I try to texture them myself, or this can be done later and more important is to focus on having a lot of "marble" untextured stones

-Yes you should use triangles. Pyrogenesis works with triangles, BUT, you can use quads in blender, because I think in the latest version the exporter automatically converts the quads in tris before exporting to DAE.

When I export and import simple cube in Blender, it is still the same - no changes. I try to remember it and next time fill in triangles manually.

-Yes you should use triangles... ...is a nice technique to quickly have organic look in rocks)

Thank you for tips!

BTW: May I ask you for help with Blender? Just for my fun I try to create something similar to this pillar (pic1, pic2). Final render is this...

...poor fat-cat consisting from 230 vertices including the pillar. But as usual I duplicate some vertices over each other and it is not nice and clean now.

I'll be more carefill next time while using extrude and duplicate fuctions, but when this happens, is there any tricky-way to remove all duplicities? I have problems even find them manually.

October 21, 2012

@Zaggy1024 & Ludo38: Thank you. Hope I won't disappoint you..

@quantumstate & Enrique: I start playing with some stones before I read your posts so be it

First render...

1. (14 vertices) tiny angular one

2. (29 vertices) small - still quite angular - flat stone; on sides of smaller stone you can propably see, that sides are UV mapped to follow stone texture

3. (33 vertices) small stone rounded by desert winds.

Angular to much? Do not want to waste vertices so I keep it too low maybe. Sure I can add more details. There is (green colored) iberian house and stone_granite_la_a and stone_granite_me_a so you can bether compare if is the scale right (stones are quite small as requested above). Oh and it is allowed to use any textures from gaia? Or there is some order I should follow?

btw what's the difference between rock_, stone_, quarry_ and wrld_rock?

And question - should I use "triangles" when connections vertices to each other or squares are fine? And about shading, it does not matter in final export if I use smooth/flat in editor, becose final shading is Pyrogenesys work, true?

Second render inspired by http://i.istockimg.c...k-at-sunset.jpg from road map. ..

1. (130 vertices) - sure needs some improvement to look more relistic.

2. (114 vertices) - solid rock, somewhere round, somewhere sharp

3. (116 vertices) - it looks like an alien maybe

original - 650 vertices, geo_rock_set_01_temperate_stonemine

October 20, 2012

...I am sorry, never mind. Problem is desribed here - Exporting Collada models to use in 0 A.D. I read it three times and still was not able to remember fail.

What would be your primary interest modelling? Nature/organic, hardsurface/buildings?
As you can see, you have a ton of gaia/flora assets to choose as well as some buildings for our last civilization included currently in developement: Mauryans.

You're the boss I think that animals are not good for my first steps. I am inspecting the trees, rocks and other gaia stuff. For now I can bether imagine buildings, but I understand that they have higher prio so it problably is not a good idea for new guys.

So the choice is yours...

October 20, 2012

No - I thank you

Well I'll take a look at some structures in the repo for the first time. May I ask you for a little help? How can I import textures from .dds files you use properly? I've never worked with them :[ and Google did not help... so I can not even search myself really bad day today.

October 20, 2012

Position:

3D artist

Do you understand that Wildfire Games is a non-commercial project, work for 0 A.D. is volunteer, and work is done for free?

Yes

Do you agree to distribute all your work for Wildfire Games under Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike license?

Yes

Name:

Mirek Rysan

Email:

name . surname (as is written above) hosted by google mail

MSN Messenger:

For now jabber only. But if needed, I can create a new account. PM pls...

Location:

Czech Republic, GMT +1

Availability:

I think I can guarantee 5 hours/week all the time. If everything goes well (work, family..) 10+ hours should be no problem.

Age:

27

Occupation:

technical support assistant

Skills and Experience:

Blender 3D (modeling, unwraping, basics of texturing). The problem is that I have never been working in dev team and I am not sure if I unwrap models in a user-friendly way for texture artists. On the other hand, if you can send me one or two finished models as dummies, I think that I can crawl through and become accustomed to your standards.

Oh and I must warn you - my English is not very good (I was not paying attention in school O:) ). But in case of emergency, the gestures are one of the oldest methods of communication .)

Motivation:

I am not a 'pro'. I just like modelling in Blender and would like to give a hand (I´ve been using an open source OS and various applications for a while and want repay ). Unfortunately, I am not a good programmer. I know how to program smaller apps in C#, slightly in bash and sometimes I'll have a cup of Java ME + I am currently trying to learn Haxe these days. With Blender I can probably be more useful. Oh and one more rather selfish motive - collaborating with pros like you is a great opportunity to grow and learn some new skills

Personality:

I'm pretty outspoken, friendly, sometimes a bit pedantic. And I hope teachable.

Short Essay:

I never heard about 0 a.d. until I was looking for some fine linux games for my little article on our Ubuntu wiki. The game and its spirit impressed me so much that I would like to give a little help too. I have also some experience with LH (living history), old-style archery (as is described in Toxophilus for example) and making of old-style longbows & arrows (I'm not an experienced bowyer though). Oh and my friend is an elder (about 30 year old ) of a local Stone Age settlement

Interests and Hobbies:

From IT sphere: I am trying to contribute to our ubuntu loco team, help on our local wiki, sometimes write some more or less useful posts on my blog about Ubuntu (aimed mainly for new users). Oh and when I miss some features I program small utilities (app for logging cpu, memory usage; app which prevents Win from locking the screen etc.).

Staff:

nope

Community:

From IT sphere: our ubuntu loco

Favorite Game:

Now I don't have too much time for playing games and I usually prefer to do something more "creative". But when I remember my high school gaming times? Rome: Total War and Space Empires IV forever

Work Examples: