3D Artist Apply

[AlexDiam]

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:

Alexandros Diamantonis

Email:

asdiamantonis@gmail.com

MSN Messenger:

abruzzifr@hotmail.com (Almost never logged in. I'd prefer Skype)

Location:

Athens, Greece

Availability:

At the moment 10 hours per Week. I will propably be available for more hours in the future, depending on other jobs.

Age:

22

Occupation:

Im currently working at a Greek game Company named JinxSoft.

Skills and Experience:

I've worked in a school project 2 years ago with 3 other classmates. The assignment was a 3D RPG

using the Unity engine. We managed to make a demo for the presentation, featuring the 3D models and animations

i developed, basic advancing and combat system. My field was on 3D models, and the other 2 did the level design and programming. We all did the Game design (Story, questlines, character biographies, character advancement etc) though we didn't have enough time to feature it all. I've completed a game project in the company i am now, but i mostly did the programming part.

Motivation:

I guess i started very young as a gamer and Age of Empires 1 was actually one of the first games i played.

As i grew, i became curious to how games, programs and computers work. After a while i found myself designing and programing games in flash and i played with my friends laughing every time we found a bug (they had many but i was trying )

..and for the last 2 years my passion lies mostly on 3D art and i believe it has something to do with the infinite times

i stepped on a Lego as a kid. I was obsessed with legos.. and in a way, it's a primitive way of 3D modeling..

Personality:

Moderate, with low self-esteem and I am the best Being of them all. (I'm sorry, i was never able

to answer that question.. :/ )

Short Essay:

A friend of mine who's obsessed with strategy games found it and asked me if i could design models for it.

I thought about it and it's very good for my resume (as you know it's kinda hard to get a job in Greek with all that

economic crisis political B... anyway.) I downloaded 0AD and i've been playing some matches for about 3 weeks. I liked it and i would like to be part of it.

Interests and Hobbies:

Well i enjoy playing guitar and piano and sometimes i even write stuff. I like playing video games too! I guess all people like movies, music, hanging out with friends and girlfrieds huh? Me too! I also have many ideas about game concepts and sometimes i spend hours writting them down.

Staff:

Yeah yeah, that guy with the thing.. you know.. ok, nobody -.-

Favorite Game:

At the moment i'm about to finish Mass Effect 3 so don't spoil! I love that game.

Many hours on Gran Turismo 1 and 2 with my brother when we were kids.

Falcon 3 and Myst were the first 2 games my Father got me.. Falcon 3 was BEAST! 6 years old and i was flying like Maverick!

I played WoW for 3-4 years in highschool. I loved Syberia and the Runnaway trilogy.

Silent Hill...

Long hours on AoE, AoM & WC3 multiplayer. I used to play multiplayer with my classmates in highschool

after class.

Currently the multiplayer fun is on Diablo3 and LoL.. though i've quit them too..

There are many many more games from every genre that i can't write them all down.. Ah! Final Fantasy vii!(had to!)

Work Examples:

[plumo]

Hey Alexandros, welcome!

Someone from the Art Department will contact you soon (keep checking this thread).

Regards.

[Ludo38]

Welcome Alexandros!

What 3D program do you use ?

Oh, and I visited your country this summer and loved both the food and the landscapes. Very inspiring for a game like 0.A.D !

[AlexDiam]

Thank you!!

Yeah, food and landscapes are still good I hope you had a nice time here!

I use mainly 3ds max. It's what we were using at school and i'm used to it. I also tried Maya but it's a whole different workspace so i find it hard to navigate. I want to start using blender because it's free but i'm going to have the same problem with navigation there so i focused on making stuff for my portfolio first and 3ds is the fastest way for me at the momment.

[Enrique]

Hello Alexandros! Welcome to the forums.

What do you prefer to do for your first model? we have plenty things to choose: animals, flora, organic assets, Mauryan buildings...

Before starting you can take a look to the Art design document http://trac.wildfire...tDesignDocument (there are some things outdated, but there's also useful info)

Here you can also take a look to a thread our Art dept lead made about art assets that needs to be done

http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=16198

I suggest you to start with a small asset to get used to the workflow and importing models into the game and then jump to a more complex one.

Feel free to ask any question you may have here and also post wip pics of your work for review, critique etc...

Looking forward to your creations!

[AlexDiam]

Hello and thanks!

I'd prefer something simple, a small asset as you said, so i get used to the workflow. I think buildings are a good for start. I'll check the documents to find something and i'll start asap. Is there anyone i could contact via e-mail or so, in case i need any help or info? (for example, on how to optimize the models for the engine etc.)

[Enrique]

Hello and thanks!

I'd prefer something simple, a small asset as you said, so i get used to the workflow. I think buildings are a good for start. I'll check the documents to find something and i'll start asap. Is there anyone i could contact via e-mail or so, in case i need any help or info? (for example, on how to optimize the models for the engine etc.)

You can ask here all the questions you want. I work with blender, but you can also ask 3DMax questions and somebody may help too.

How to optimize.. is keeping the polycount as low as you can, but don't hesitate to add details everywhere

When I model buildings I usually make all the details I want. When finished, delete all faces that are not seen/occluded, and if the polycount is too high, delete excessive detailing

Also keep in mind that the polygons are not "double-sided". Only the part where the normals are facing is rendered in the engine.

Another thing you should know is that textures do not "tile". If the UV map is out of the texture space, the last pixels are stretched to the end of the polygon.

[AlexDiam]

It's pretty much the same with the unity engine too so i got the experience for that.. How about the pivot point of the object?

Should it be at the bottom of the object?

I noticed the game is not grid based so i dont think setting it at the bottom left corner is needed. Does the pivot point of the object matter at all?

How many versions of each model do i need to make ?

One more thing, i can make the mesh geometry, unwrap it properly but i'm not that good with colors.. will someone else texture it if i provide the uv map?

What kind of maps are supported? (Normal/Bump, Specular)

[Zaggy1024]

How many versions of each model do i need to make ?

What do you mean? If you mean variations, then you can make as many as you want, I'd say. You can make "prop" models which are added onto the main model, and change independently from it, so you can make different layouts of things like barrels and crates without adding to the size of the game significantly.

One more thing, i can make the mesh geometry, unwrap it properly but i'm not that good with colors.. will someone else texture it if i provide the uv map?

Each civilization has its own structure texture(s) which you can use.

What kind of maps are supported? (Normal/Bump, Specular)

Normal maps, bump maps (or heightmap used for parallax) and specular maps are all supported (the shaders were added only a few months ago, so most of the models don't have maps). For the normal maps/bump maps, we have the normal map use RGB (as it would normally), and the bump map is stored in the alpha channel.

[Enrique]

The pivot point should be at the bottom in the center of the structure.

This point dictates how the building is rotated and the height over the terrain: is good to extend the building under the pivot point to avoid floating parts on uneven terrain.

The pivot point of the object is not the "object center point" (at least in blender) The pivot point will be the origin of the scene (0,0,0) and when the building is exported into .dae it automatically creates an empty-object (prop-point) called root.

If with "versions" you refer to level-of-detail versions, just one.

If you refer building variations (different shapes but same building-type) depends on the type of building. Houses needs variations because this building is constructed several times and usually placed together, so it needs variations.

No problem about textures. Structures textures for each civ are done. You just use the texture to map the UVs accordingly.

Supported maps are normals, parallax (on the alpha channel of the normal map), specular and Ambient Occlusion (texture color multiplied) You just have to worry to make a second UV coordinates where the UV islands do not overlap to bake/map the AO

[Zaggy1024]

...and Ambient Occlusion (texture color multiplied) You just have to worry to make a second UV coordinates where the UV islands do not overlap to bake/map the AO

You probably shouldn't worry about ambient occlusion since one of our programmers is working on a script to automate the generation of the AO.

[AlexDiam]

Ok, thanks for all the answers. More questions comming

Now i can start with the watch tower or the fortress, for example, for the Maurians. Any way of knowing if anyone else is working on that specific model?

Are there any sources (images etc) that indicate how these kind of structures looked or do i have to research?

The link you have on the ArtDesignDocumentation about the scale of the model is not working so i'd like some hints for the scale. Also do the units matter? I mean, should i model on generic units or metric? (centimeters, meters etc.)

Sorry for all these questions, i'm just trying to learn the workflow and i'm a bit anxious to start modeling.. just trying to avoid as many starter mistakes as i can.

[Enrique]

Ok, thanks for all the answers. More questions comming

Now i can start with the watch tower or the fortress, for example, for the Maurians. Any way of knowing if anyone else is working on that specific model?

Well, that's not what I call an easy model to get started with. We're still finishing the textures for Mauryans, that may be an inconvenience. Actually I'm working on some models testing shapes and textures and one of them was turning into the fortress But I haven't posted it on the public forums yet.

Now that we have moved the art development forum to public, you can start there a thread of your own as a task in the title "task - Mauryan docks" for example. And there you post your wips, questions, updates...

Are there any sources (images etc) that indicate how these kind of structures looked or do i have to research?

Take a look here: http://www.wildfireg...showtopic=16056

There are a lot of pages on the thread, but is full of information and pics.

The link you have on the ArtDesignDocumentation about the scale of the model is not working so i'd like some hints for the scale. Also do the units matter? I mean, should i model on generic units or metric? (centimeters, meters etc.)

The best way to get the scale properly is importing an already existing .dae file of a building similar to the scale you want to create and use it in your 3D program as reference. (importing unit meshes is also a good way to get the scale right for doors and such).

Sorry for all these questions, i'm just trying to learn the workflow and i'm a bit anxious to start modeling.. just trying to avoid as many starter mistakes as i can.

Don't worry, we're here to answer them

[AlexDiam]

I installed ColladaMax so i can export .dae files. The link for the 3.02 doesn't work for 3ds 2009 so i downloaded the 3.05c version and it seems to be working.

I wanted to test the export procedure so i made a simple box, unwrapped it, exported it as .dae and moved it to the folder show in the Basic3DImplementation manual (basicly i was just doing the tutorial ).

The problem is i can't find it in the editor. All files have a .cached.pmd extention after .dae (objectName.dae.cached.pmd) so i THINK the problem is that my export stops at .dae

So.. what am i missing?

Also does it work in reverse? Can i import a .dae file in 3dsMax so i can use it for scale reference?

[Zaggy1024]

I installed ColladaMax so i can export .dae files. The link for the 3.02 doesn't work for 3ds 2009 so i downloaded the 3.05c version and it seems to be working.

I wanted to test the export procedure so i made a simple box, unwrapped it, exported it as .dae and moved it to the folder show in the Basic3DImplementation manual (basicly i was just doing the tutorial ).

The problem is i can't find it in the editor. All files have a .cached.pmd extention after .dae (objectName.dae.cached.pmd) so i THINK the problem is that my export stops at .dae

So.. what am i missing?

Did you create the actor file and select the actors list in Atlas? (look at Basic3DImplementation to see what I'm talking about)

[AlexDiam]

Well, that's the part i missed

I think i got the gist of it ^^

Used a model to check the collada export and see how the uvs work, the orientations, axis differences etc.

Turned out ok!

I expected the center of the onject to be the pivot point as i set it in 3ds but it turns out it is the point 0,0,0 of 3ds viewport. Kind of usefull though.

Anyway i suppose i can start modeling a simple structure. I've been reading the "Crown-Sourced Civ: Maurian Indians" thread and i think everyone is already working on each structure. Any suggestions on a structure i could work on ?

Edited September 20, 2012 by AlexDiam