Micket

Was it my model that caused problems to animate, or some older model (I didn't know there was one) ? If it's my model, I could take a look at the legs to see if I can try to improve the topology.

Wow!

Should the roofs be grass covered or is that something that happened over the years?

@plumo Google image search gave a varied result. Do you have a good reference image for it?

I can't import DAE files in the version of Blender in Debian (I suspect you mean to import them? Or should I model something specific?) I don't know what kind of stuff is historically accurate for this temple (i don't even know who the etruscans were, i just picked a random object in the art dev tasks) As usual, I didn't really plan on texturing it (sorry!). I'm not sure what kind of workflow you guys have, but if you have convenient ways of inserting a bit of props, I'd happily leave that to you guys! Because.. I'm really lazy. I just can't get motivated to get to involved and learn about the different groups in the game.. same goes for texturing/colorschemes etc, so I prefer to avoid it. Feel free to throw away any of the statues and replace them with some other existing stuff, I certainly don't mind. If you want me to model anything in specific for this temple, let me know (otherwise I'll probably go back to animals or something.. less worries about historical accuracy and such there) etruscan_temple.zip

3600 triangles. 2500 of them are in the statues on the roof.. ouch. I welcome critique, otherwise I'm pretty much done at this point.

I dunno about the decoration. Edit: Small update

Looks nice. What is the triangle count for this model? (The tiny pillars look a bit costly) Also, show us another view!

Yes, I've found that 3 loops around joints is unnecessary. In the part of the joint where it folds in, I think it's even better with just 1 loop. On the "front" of the joint, for this detail level, I think 2 is just fine. And, well, triangles are definitely not trouble. The catmull-clark smoothing algorithm isn't perfect, but that doesn't even matter in this case. For painting the texture I don't see any possible issues with triangles. (I wrote a Stam-Loop/4-3 subdivision modifier for Blender last year, which looks good for both quads and triangles http://i.imgur.com/7xwRO.png, but noone seemed interested in including it in blender, so the stigma against triangles continues.)

Thank you for the big references. If you want me to make the statue some other way just let me know and I'll try it out (but please find me some good reference picture so it stays historically accurate).

So far I got this.. and it should have 3 half-horses in front. That is the best interpretation of the references I could manage.

Ok I can see the horses.. but the wings? From the side it looks very odd. It's sort of squeezed together http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Fp1TvPT3pZg/TBR9FrVgoiI/AAAAAAAAA2k/L6v08wULOvk/s400/etruscanTempleModel.jpg

Last WIP for tonight Cube should be some sort of statue.. though I can't really tell what is going on in the reference: http://www.proprofs.com/quiz-school/user_upload/ckeditor/EtruscanTempleReconstruc.jpg Some sort of.. boat? With 3-4 people on top, one of them waving his hand.

Hrrrm.. that's not the right image.

Thanks for the correction! I threw away the roof and made a double sided square for the antefixes (doing it with alpha maps). Modeling them will certainly be to much detail (there is about a hundred of them) Back to 1183 triangles now.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand that sentence. Do you think I should make the pillar thinner? I reduced the diameter at the bottom now at least. Experimenting with a more detailed roof. Quite neat. 1599 triangles with the very detailed roof and if you bump up the subsurf it looks veeery smooth (for baking the normal map)

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Fp1TvPT3pZg/TBR9FrVgoiI/AAAAAAAAA2k/L6v08wULOvk/s1600/etruscanTempleModel.jpg Its supposed to be these log (or log-like) things lying across the roof, but I figured there would be to much detail to model them invidually. Still, you're right, I should thin the roof a bit.

Here is a WIP. 1173 triangles so far. Should have a couple of small statues on the roof as well.

I realized i forgot the fence around the top, though I don't know what it would have looked like back then as it has also been replaced. Perhaps there is some existing art assets which can be copied? At least for now, I'm leaving this as it is. Feel free to modify it

2156 triangles Unwrapped I kept the statue part separate, with its own seperate UV-map as well. No actual modeling changes since the last screenshots. As usual, I won't be texturing anything ( Also, could we possible change the forum rules to allow uploading *.blend files? ) trajan.zip

The only modifier i can think of that might cause problems is the subsurf modifier, for which only quads are preferable. I'm not sure what sort of problems you have with unwrapping and texturing this thing though. In the GPU, they will be all triangles anyway, so your quads will be triangulated in some way in the end. I usually split the quads in some critical areas beforehand if it looks like it might make a big difference (i.e. the quad isn't perfectly flat). The design document is a bit dated, so you can go over the polycount there; however, it specifies *triangles*, so you're actually at 2*762 = 1524 triangles right now, which is a bit high (compared to, say, the tiger model with 686 tris).

Looks very good. Dont feel like you're required to stick to all quads. With a few triangles you can easily cut down the unnecessary slivers of quads along the tail, and you can improve the topology of comples areas, like the face. In the end, its all triangles anyway, and there are some graphical artefacts from the distorted quads. For example, join the red areas, and cut up the quads marked in green

Another wip I don't have time to make a new statue, so i'll just wrap this up and stop there. Simple to change the statue part. Perhaps have it exchangeable in-game even, with that prop-point thing. I dunno.

Kind of hard to tell what he was holding there. I think i'll replace the book with some scroll and maybe keep his other hand empty. In total, i'm now up at around 2000 triangles. A bit high probably?. Statue part: 566 triangles Tower part: 879 triangles Pedestal: 179 triangles Bird decoration: 4*96 triangles Should i try to cut something down?

So I was thinking.. the guy on top isn't actually Trajan.. its Pope Sixtus V (so its from around 1590). I've copied the new statue (as Trajans actual statue is lost), but the book and key is to modern right? Maybe a papyrus roll and a sword or something instead?