Micket

About the tail alpha, just do whatever you want with it. Of course, at the typical game zoom level, you can probably barely even tell that there is a tail. When I make these models, I'm thinking about the reuseability in other games as well (as well as a bit of future-proofing), so I go for a level of detail that is probably unnecessary for normal gameplay. The models are also used in promotional material. So, you don't actually need to paint it at final texture resolution. Textures are so easy to resize afterwards (of course, don't spend a huge amount of time redoing anything now, just for the future I think these are good ideas). Computers are only getting faster, so, it won't take long until that texture size is beefed up a bit. Probably!

Hi *Genrih* (sorry) Please don't think I was in any way offended! I just wanted to point out that there was probably some unnecessary (and perhaps inaccurate) mesh coarsening going on to reduce the triangle count. The baking I was referring to was just creating nice screenshots, and I mostly model animals (which are textured differently, you could easily just bake a bit of AO directly onto the diffuse texture). That would probably not work with buildings though. You can just delete the subsurf modifier (it is just applied to the pillars) if you are going to import it to another software (and just reapply a subsurf again if it ever comes to baking AO)

That painting is what i used as the reference for the model, but it might look a but to "cartoony" for the texture (seeing how realistic most other (at least the newer) animal textures are). Combining textures from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aurochs_reconstruction.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs#mediaviewer/File:TudancaBull.JPG http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Auroch.jpg http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HanAurochs.JPG will probably look nicer. Having looked at this a but closer now, I think I should make the model a bit wider. I'm looking at the skeleton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurochs#mediaviewer/File:Aurochse.jpg and I think I\ve made the legs and head to thin. I attach the new version Having looked at animals similar to the auroch, I'm far from happy how this turned out. Especially around the hip area. The shape of the head is also quite tricky. But I just can't spend any more time on this. To be clear; If someone ever wishes to tweak any of my models, I certainly don't mind! autoch.zip

Hi Tiro, You showed that my model had 16k triangles, but this is not at all correct. I had a subsurf turned on for the pillars, which is nice when baking maps, but would not be used in the final model. I can only assume you have applied the modifiers, then tried to revert it back to a coarser mesh. There is only 3699 triangles in my model without these modifiers.

I think the "attack" and "retreat" needs to be, well, shouted. At the very least, they seem to laid back right now. Otherwise they sound fine to me!

Neither animated or textured as far as I remember. But perhaps i should beef it up a bit more? Many references indicate that they are quite hefty, while my model is quite slender by comparison (longer, thinner legs and so on). I used that one drawing from wikipedia that shows the profile for the bull and cow as a reference, but in http://carnivoraforum.com/topic/9481868/1/ it seems a lot thicker.

I'm so fast I finished it over a year ago! http://www.wildfiregames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=17409&hl=auroch I didn't make it as extreme beast as some of these images in this thread suggests though. Critique is of course welcome, and I can tweak it. Regarding the comment; "Size comparison of an auroch vs domestic cow (wikipedia)" ^ I'm pretty sure that picture is showing a male and female auroch. I used this as the reference at least; http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/60/Aurochsfeatures.jpg

Yeah. I checked again, and perhaps i made the neck a little to long. I don't think the head is to small though. What I've learned from doing these animals, is that there is a huge variation in body shapes (sometimes makes it hard to find good references because every animal starts to look very much different. I know the body on my mesh might look a bit to large, but there is also hair hanging from the belly, so without those lose faces it might look a bit more proportional.

I used this for measuring out the proportions, and the neck is quite long here:

That is looking really nice (if i may say so myself). The collar is connected to the model right now, so it would deform without intersecting any all that. Should it have been a prop or something? I'm sure you guys can sort that out

fox.zip

Alright, I made a collar. I'm done. Go texture it mastiff.zip

I just took a quick texture projection from the image posted above (though it is nonfree, so we it can't be used). Gives an idea what it would look like though. 310 triangles Rigged Unwrapped I'm calling it done now. Might try and texture paint it if noone else cares to. bluefin_tuna.zip

Sorry about that Stan! I will have a go at this during the weekend.

I used this one as reference when i started http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bluefin-big.jpg I will adjust it to match the one in your photos

I imported the existing *.dae file i could find and found the polycount to be 429 triangles. There are several issues with that model though, such as a few triangles where randomly disconnected, the face has broken topology (heavily deformed and overlapping triangles). Some areas of the anatomy I think is a bit off as well, and could use a bit more tweaking. Would you guys mind if I had a go at tweaking the model a bit, and then stanislav could texture it?

That was higher than I thought (as a comparison, the tiger has 686 tris, wolfhound has 841 tris), though I wouldn't say it is wasteful in any particular place.

Out of curiosity, what is the polycount on this model?

I know this wasn't an actual reqeusted task, but there is a "tuna" model in the map editor, and it's pretty far off (just a copy of the general "fish" model). So, I made model for a big, bluefin tuna. My current problem is, I'm not sure exactly which species of tuna I should go for. Something from the mediterranean sea should fit I think, but even there, googling for references I can't even 2 references with the same number of fins...

The UV-coordinates for the tail is only mirrored in the vertical plane, but it seems you have still mirrored the texture in the horizontal plane, which is quite noticeable but not at all necessary. Was this a limitation of the available texture paint references? I thought the leg texture looked better before (if anything, the body should be a bit lighter rather than darkening the legs, if we compare to the photo you posted earlier).

So the document that Wijtmaker sent me is more focused on the romans. They used iron collars with spiked blades. Perhaps they used similar collars? I guess something like this: http://se.gamersgate.com/DLC-TWR2BOW/total-war-rome-ii-beasts-of-war Should the wolfhound also have a collar?

Really though guys, the seams aren't that visible if you have some bleed margins for the texture painting. Squeezing out more texture space than 65-70% is probably never worth it either (you won't be able to get 100%, so perhaps, at best, you might be able to reach 80%). It would only be a very marginal gain in texture resolution. So, when point out things, it's not because I think this isn't good enough for 0AD, it's just.. things I believe you could easily do, and it would make it nicer. My biggest critique of the current model + texture would be the ears, though I would actually not suggest having them as detached objects, but you should definitely put a seam around them, and along the ridge of the ear, so that they will unwrap nicely. The picky side of me also isn't to found of the shape of the legs, in particular the back legs.

I.. don't think the link works. I get page for the "ASPCA Complete Guide to Dogs" book. You could email me a reference if all else fails (micketeer is my gmail handle)

Indeed, you should only be unwrapping the mirror half. For some reason, you still seem to have a bunch of tiny pieces, like single triangles? How are you creating this UV-map? I'm surprised to see a bunch of lose triangles, one seems to be disconnected from the head (as seens as a black triangle in the texture). I always mark up the seems, as if i was skinning the animal, and then do a normal "unwrap" in blender. Then i tweak them a bit manually (this automatic one has just texture space 50% utilization)

Enrique told me to go higher poly on the other dog, so I didn't really hold back here. It's at 850 triangles now, which is about the same for all the animals I've made (both dogs and the wolf share the same base). Should I add a neck lace? Is that historically accurate? What should it look like? Another WIP. Unless I should add a lace, i'm considering this done.