MrLux
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Posts posted by MrLux
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So...
Does the current model of the Apadana is enought for the wonder? It's was a bit on the small size.
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Chop chop !
Knifes done. Variants and texture and actor.
Dae and actor: knife_tool.rar
blend: knife_tool_blend.rar
Atlas screenshot of a collection of the knifes, cause I don't know how to instantiate a specific variant. Some strange reflection in the model, maybe because the texture as a high specular.
Also it might have some problems with where the unit handle the weapon. I don't know how to test that. But I tried to keep origin point of the models as close as the knife, original, one.
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Ok, great. Perfect ref pics, thanks. I
I'll take care of that.
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Nothing fancy. A knife machete to cut and splash. 79 triangles.
butcher_knife.xmlbutcher_knife.dae
Textured with the tiny texture called props_tools. Don't know if it's an artefact or not.
Comparaison in game with the present knife
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The form from those vases makes me thing of those butcher knifes use to break bones and cut tendons.
I'll take a moment to look into it this week, so that will complete my round of types of models by doing a 'weapon' prop.
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s I've done some test and boy do I have question.
Right now I understand how to replicate the 'fancy' grass elevation effect, and done some test with other textures. Feels fine, but I really don't know how to make the terrain triplanar material work. With the right textures nothing seems to happen.
Does anyone have an idea?
I've also refine the pipeline between substance designer and the engine. I'll make some terrain test along the week. The great advantage is that they are going to be tileable and coherent and easily color swapable. Substance is a proprietary software but the work done is propriety of is author. It's a standard in the game industry so I think any artist passing along will be able to pick it. Anyway, it's not perfect but it's promising.
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1 minute ago, Stan` said:
We only do when we need to. You can't bake AO on a texture atlas
You could bake a new texture from the Atlas but then you'll lose all the advantages of the texture atlas, about performance and reusability
Where I'm not getting it it's how to express multiple uvmap in the engine, because ao uv use and diffuse use are not on the same uvmap
1 minute ago, Stan` said:We use the alpha channel as the height channel
That's the only case of texture combination I know.
Ahhh, yeah of course. So for the other types, no use?
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If we bake ao into the diffuse, why do buildings have an Ao map ?
This is a example of a packed texture. It's for a pbr material but the idea is that the specular texture (in this case all is black and white) is in the red channel, roughness in the green, displacement (or height) in the blue and ao in the alpha. Then the shader gets from those channels the information, instead of getting it off 4 different textures. It helps reducing the size. In our case, i guess specular is tricky because it can be colored but if not, ao, specular and maybe height could be packed in one texture instead of having 3.Spoiler
QuoteTransparency on normal maps creates a parallax effect.
sorry, don't compute. I mean I really don't get it.
edit: Thanks, but I didn't know 0AD had a discord. Where is the link ?
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Oh ok. Would parallax be interesting for terrain or would that be to taxing ?
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So my first question are:
Should I lightpack my uv and be done with it ? I've seen the ao texture doing that, but not the rest. I know for buildings it's normal as we use atlases and they need carefull use of uv. But what about unique textures. I'm not knowledgeable of game art logic (yet) so I was wondering why.
Should all my models use all textures available? Should I make normal, spec, albedo and ao maps for everything?
Can the engine make use of combined textures in RGBA channels? I presume you are familiar with it, but since I didn't see anywhere that type of texture packing I was wondering why?
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I there, I'm taking the liberty to post this thread because I tend to have a lot of question that pop into my head while I'm doing the contributions, and when I started I was a little confuse to where to gather information to start as soon as possible the 'art' part. Tell me if it's redondant. I plan to update this first post with answer and knowledge gathered on various post that I read and also to make sure it's the desired way. So expect it to be a little empty for now. I assume some understanding of 3D terms, but I'm open to make a dictionary to allow complete beginners a way of contribution.
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ModellingSpoiler- What are the limitations for the models in terms of polycount?
QuoteSee the Guideline for extensive info.
For reference, small animals is up to fox/chicken size; medium up to dog/wolf/deer; and large bigger than that.
Polycount in models is really triangles count, as models need to be constituted of only triangles for the engine.
- Does the model have to be water thigh?
QuoteNo, to the contrary. Check the low-poly tips and you well see polycount is more important. Beware in animated models, loose geometry must be correctly weight painted to fit the animations.
- One mesh with high polycount or one mesh with low polycount and many props?
QuoteFor what are props see Export to the Engine; Actors & Templates section.
It's better to have more poly in a mesh than to have more props. Even if props are exchangeable and allow variation of content and rapid overall revision, they imply additional drawcalls in the game. So to use with moderation when doing mesh with high poly count.
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UV-layoutSpoiler- Should I pack my uv on an extreme lightmap and be done with it ?
QuoteNo. The unwrapping of the uv should allow color correction and texture manipulation afterwards, so unwrapping in a texture artist friendly way is better. For AO map designed to be applied onto buildings, as they are unique, that type of unwrapping is good, allowing maximum information and minimum distortion.
The use of texture atlas also doesn't allow any type of unwrapping. It should be done with the atlas in mind.
- How to optimise my uv ?
QuoteMostly think ahead and figure where the texture are similar enough to use the same uv space. Mirror a face, or just turning it by 90deg is often enough to make variation on tethered wall pattern. On buildings look at the atlas already in use for the civilisation. It will allow you to see what types of details and patterns are available.
For organic models, to gain space symmetric uvlayout (uvlaout only half of the model and mirror it. working with a mirror modifier in blender until the very end is a good workflow) is a good choice, both by doubling the available resolution of the model and halving the time to texture it.
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TexturingSpoiler- How large are the textures allowed to be?
QuoteSee the the guide on textures for extensive info.
- additional info pending
- What type of textures are in use?
QuoteThe engine shaders can read normal, specular, baseColor (as in albedo plus baked AO) and Ambient occlusion information.
Height map are packed in the alpha channel of the normal map.
Specular is a RGB file allowing the full game of colors.
Specular is also used as a mask for coloring player information into the texture. Specular map will be tinted with the player/config specified color.
- Should all my models use all textures available?
QuoteDepends on the size of the object, sometimes diffuse is enough.
On an animated mesh (units, animals, etc) Ao is not usable and should be backed into the diffuse.
Normal maps are only supported on animated mesh with qpushkinning=true in the config file. That will then limit the number of bones to 64, instead of 255.
- Can the engine make use of combined textures in RGBA channels?
QuoteNo, in the habitual sense. The engine does not read a Specular/Displacement/Metallic/Ambien Occlusion map on a RGBA file.
However, the alpha channel in the normal map is used for parallax occlusion mapping. And the alpha channel of the specular channel allow for a inner glow effect.
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RiggingSpoiler- What are the limitations of my rig?
Quote255 bones is the maximum number of bones the engine can use in a skeleton (inclusion of non deform and helper bones is not verified in that limit). If the skinning option is true for the model (to allow use of normal map), then the maximum number of bones is reduced to 64.
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AnimationSpoiler- Under which fps value should I make my animations ?
Quote- pending
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Export to the Engine; Actors & TemplatesSpoiler- What is an actor?
QuoteIn short, Actor is the name of the .xml file that will give all the info to the engine to render correctly the model, it's animations and it's textures. Without an actor file the engine can't read the information in texture and dae files.
This great article will explain better what they are and how to use them.
- What format do 0AD use?
QuoteFor the models, Collada DAE file is the required format.
For textures, png format is wanted. The engine will convert them into dds for optimisation sake.
Animations are also exported into Collada DAE file.
- What is a prop and that prop point?
QuoteIn short props point are an empty in the mesh that give the actor file the coordinates to integrate another actor (so another different mesh) at that place, that actor being called a prop.
- What are the naming conventions for the whole thing?
QuoteThis explains the naming convention in full
In short:
<general>1_<civ>1_<type>_<extra>_<variation>_number2
Note 1: if the folder of the file already as a path explicit of the general purpose and the civilisations, don't put it in the name.
Note2: number should be two digits and are optional. eq: _01
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As I was looking through the terrains I saw those labelled 'fancy'. Do they use something like parallax occlusion mapping ? I'm not really familiar with the method,but I find the result really neat. What does the engine need to make those, because the textures that I see (a specular white pixel spots, and an albedo) don't make sense to me.
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Hey folks,
Per the #1997 ticket , starting a thread for the gharial.
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Model
The crocodile as in source blend as a comparaison. Triangle count of 507. Waiting approval.
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Texturing:
Not being able for now to procedural texture the animals given the need for high detail on low poly, I decal photo texture into the lp model. So I prefer to wait for model approval to have as little as possible deformation in the texture.
Question: I found some nice images on a website called pixabay.com . Create an account and the texture are said to be under their #pixabay licence which looks like a creative commons, sort of. Link to their terms: pixabay licence
QuoteUnder the Pixabay License you are granted an irrevocable, worldwide, non-exclusive and royalty free right to use, download, copy, modify or adapt the Content for commercial or non-commercial purposes. Attribution of the photographer, videographer, musician or Pixabay is not required but is always appreciated.
I guess that allows us to use them to texture cc0 models?
Anyway, here is my list of textures that I will use, probably not all but well. I have a list for me, but I figure that if someone wants to take the mantle for whatever reason, better documents and threads are good to have. Pixabay or wikimedia commons for the deposit source.
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Rigging
done by reusing the crocodile .blend in the source
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Animation
Crocodile animation do not cleanly translate to the new model. I need to some clean up of the swim animation. For the walking, I learned that the gharial doesn't have the musculature to walk. He gliddes by dragging is body on the ground. Animation should reflect that, but then is it possible to code the behavior for it to not go to far from shores. I mean, it would be great to see a giant reptile glidding through the map but well not really realistic. XD
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It's the sad reality that everything an art department does does not necessarily cut to the final release. I'm ok with that. On the other side, that revision was a great way to learn the use of the props and building limitations in general in the pyro engine. So for the next ones I'm confident in making better results.
I also check the tickets still pending and this one is old.
More than happy to focus on more pressing matters. as long as it's not modeling humans, really don't like that.
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Hey hey hey
So done some tweaks, cleaned the model gain and merge what was merge-able. I wanted to add some props to add detail on the roofs, but I don't really feel like that vases and rugs on a palace roofs is silly. Someone has ideas ? I was thinking about adding market stands inside the yard, would that be strange ?
So there where we are. I'll try the stairs alternative version tomorrow.
@Stan` Are the specs enough ?
28 draws for 26k tri. Closer to the other models.
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@m7600 I thought it was high but I crosschecked with the other wonders. The selenid, the actual persian wonder are higher, but other ones are indeed low, 20k for the whole actor. Mostly it's triangles on the walls that cramp the count. each is a model of 10 tri and there must be 50-100. Frankly I don't know if the technical specs for the art are about individual mesh or the whole constructed entity, so counting all the props.
@wowgetoffyourcellphone I was not satisfied by the silhouette of the block version, but it does look more defensive and fortress-like with the high towers.
For the front stairs texturing, it's the same one from the civ center. It wouldn't be hard to swap the prop, but I think it would look too similar to the civ center.
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Yep sure. 57 draw calls and 33492 model triangles.
Careful how ? is it better to have a prop with various models than various prop points ?
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Hey there,
I want to say to thanks to Enrique. Original model and texturing draft was his (for what I've understood). I cleaned it, organised, optimised and have changed texturing part of the texturing choices. To break form I chose to play with the walls and tower elevation, critiques are welcome.
I have used extensively the prop system. from the 'technical' screenshoots you can see that the wonder is made out of the inner core building and his floor. Then 4 props for the 4 towers, 3 for the outer wall, 3 for the inner, and one prop for the small frontal wall and the one for the stair. The columns in the inner yard are 8 props, so we can maybe change to the second type of column (dubbed 'heavy' in the blend file).On the outside as a test, there are 12 props, six by the Est and Ouest side, to change the outside decorum. I've put for now a bench some trees and bush. I love the prop system and the fact that with variants buildings can build/decorated themselves differently each time.
I've choose to insert more the specular tintable texture to allow better visualisation of the player team. you can see in the screenshoot how cute it is. Same template that the gardens. Critique welcome.
for the fine people that will see the hellenic vases in the rooftop of the inner building, you are not delusional. Those are placeholders for the initial in-model props I found in the file. I will make a batch of eyecandy props based on the persian texture (vases, rugs, etc) to embellish it in the afternoon. but with the prop system again, it will be easy to switch it.
Lastly I gathered a lot of question in the process. I think I will compile them in a separate threat and also update tutorial and technical doc for artist; because boy did I found some interesting things.
As a note, the material used is the spec normal player, because I still don't get how to get the ao working.
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Files
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Composition scene for a idea of style and scale
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Screenshots 'technical' - 4 views
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Screenshots 'technical' - props/parts
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Colors !
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Found it, I was looking for it in wonders.
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So, do we need to do the gate of all Nations with the stairs or the some other structure ?
I took a look at the blend file of the gate, texturing is indeed all that it needs. I guess a lot of prop points could be added. The block shape could be broken with some outside trees, columns, maybe one shop or two as props. To not have that cube like thing standing on the map.
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I like the light house wonder idea. do you have the source of your images, mostly the last one seems to be a 3dmodel of low poly. Did'nt see it in the game.
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Wait I just saw on the document that it's 25.000 triangles, not 2.500...
And there I was optimising like a mad man for a tenth of the budget
Well, it will be the smoothness running wonder.
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Just to make a pause and share technical progress.
I have 1480 triangles for now. We are good, still good.
Edit:
Abort mission, abort mission ! 3500 triangles and we are not finished. We need more dakka !
I'll get it, eventually
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===[TASK]=== WONDER: Persians: Apadana of Darius
in Official tasks
Posted
That's a nice model they did. It lacks artistic value but it's a good base.
I could say what's wrong on an artistic point of view about the persians buildings you mention, @Nescio . Could you elaborate or point where elaboration was already written ?