Eyecandy!?

[comp3820]

Ok, so I've randomly made a barrel. I just took a cylinder and made it somewhat bulged, and added some rings and a texture.

I haven't checked for scale or anything, but something tells me that there are a lot of vertices in this barrel, especially since it would be such a small part of the game.

So, a couple more questions:

Is there a limit on the number of vertices? or polygons, as I see other people mentioning?

Where should I host something like this? I've hosted the picture on Picasa, but I'm not sure where I could host a file - do Google, Yahoo, or MS have anything like this, or do I need to get an account at a site like megaupload or whatever?

[Mythos_Ruler]

That looks great... but I would probably use about 1/10th of the number of vertices you have there. The generic barrel we have in the game right now is 84 tris and (I'd guess) around 20 vertices. It is kinda low poly and ugly, so maybe something with 120 tris and 30 or 40 vertices would be nice.

Triangles (and vertices) are rather "cheap" as far as rendering goes. The engine can render hundreds of thousands of triangles every frame and not break a sweat. It's things like transparent textures with alpha channels (player color; tree branches; things like that), fancy water shaders, animations, etc. that cause graphical lag at this stage. Static meshes like a barrel or some other eye candy that doesn't use an animation or transparency map are very easy on the renderer (and your graphics card).

A texture for something like a barrel should be no bigger than 128x128, but probably on the order of 64x64. DDS DXT3 compression is what we are using. PNG works too. One thing you can do if you plan on making a bunch of eye candy is put all their textures into one large texture file and UV map them all to that one texture. That cuts down on the number of texture calls the renderer has to make and the number of files we have to deal with.

Edited August 31, 2010 by Mythos_Ruler

[comp3820]

Ok, after learning a few new things and having lots of fun, I made another barrel. Incidentally, its harder to make a low quality barrel than a high quality one.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_rkVj2aF0SAM/TH22uBLv...el%20render.jpg

I think I'll do what you suggested and combined several textures into one texture file after making a few objects, so I won't upload anything now. Unless, of course, there is an urgent need for an all-important barrel.

By the way, this version of the barrel is 117 faces and 100 vertices. (I won't eve comment on how many the last one had.) Where it gets 100 vertices from is beyond me - I count 34. Does it possibly add vertices when you UV map it? or, maybe, when you mess up UV mapping it?

[Mythos_Ruler]

I'm not sure exactly how that works. Hopefully someone with more knowledge will enlighten us.

One thing you can do is post a wireframe shot of the barrel. That might assist in analysis.

[Ykkrosh]

In common mesh formats, a vertex can only have a single position and UV coordinate and normal vector. If you have two faces joining at the same position but with a sharp edge (i.e. non-equal normal vectors) then that requires two vertexes at that position. Same if they have different UVs where they join.

[Arthur_D]

Might help if you remove doubles (if any), but I suppose you've done so already.

[comp3820]

I went back to the file to check on the vertices again and it was gone. So I remade it. And now I have 34 vertices. I think I messed up the unwrapping last time, because the UV view showed some extra sections that shouldn't have been there.

Is there an updated list of objects to be made? I know a number of the ones on the third page of this thread are already in the editor.

[Aldandil]

I'm willing to compile a list of all suggestions from this thread, and let somebody else point out which have already been done, aren't realistic for the time period, etc.

Edited September 2, 2010 by Aldandil

[Mythos_Ruler]

That would be great Aldandil.

[Aldandil]

THE LIST

(but see above for more details posted by suggestors)

Buildings

*Realistic ruins (some overgrown, some covered by sand) of buildings that are actually in the game

*Realistic ruins of buildings that were actually in the setting, but not in the game

*Abandoned looking (not totally destroyed) buildings for some (if not all) buildings in the game

*Slightly damaged and more-damaged (no flames, it just doesn't look realistic) versions of each building in the game

*Non-rescueable Gaia versions of every building in the game

*Bath House

*Hippodrome

*Circus

*Roman Forum

*Theatre (done?)

*Amphitheater

*Pyramids (done? I don’t know if they are available in all the real-world sizes)

*House of rich people (one for each civ)

*Peasant/farmer house (one for each civ)

*Egyptian-style peasant/farmer house

*Etruscan-style peasant/farmer house (if they were significantly different from Roman ones)

*Brothel

*Grungy plebian bar (if possible, a separate style for each civ that would have them: i.e. Greek, Roman, Persian, Carthaginian)

*Granary

*Etruscan-style temple (to no specific god)

*Egyptian-style temple (to no specific god)

*Ziggurat (of no specific god)

*Jewish temple/synogogue

*Mycenaean tomb/tholos ruin (not destructible)

*Underwater Ruins

*Tree bunker building (enterable by 1 unit)

Other Man-Made Objects

*Sunken and/or ruined ships

*Statues (including some huge ones) -- it was suggested that each unit in the game can be turned into a statue using a suitable texture plus a plinth

*Columns

*Pillars

*Archway

*Stone Arch

*Market stalls w/ people attending them

*Rickety rope bridges with swinging animation (units can go over or under)

*Wooden bridges (units can go over or under)

*Stone bridges (units can go over or under)

*Broken wooden bridge (nonfunctional)

*Broken stone bridge (nonfunctional)

*Gates

*Fences (many different kinds)

*Fence Post

*Tall palisade

*small Carthaginian-style shrine/altar (to no specified god)

*small Celtic-style shrine or small sacred tree (unless it is redundant with the large sacred tree below)

*small Greek-style shrine/altar (to no specified god)

*small Iberian-style altar (to no specific god)

*small Persian-style fire-altar

*small Roman-style shrine/altar (to no specific god)

*small Greek-style hero shrine (did only Greeks have these?)

*Huge sacred tree with ribbons, garlands, offerings, and so on hanging from it (no specific civ)

*Collapsed carts, siege machines and the like

*Fountain1 (simple fountain with base pool and water spouting up in a vertical centre spume then falling back to pool, eye candy, animated)

*Fountain2 (2-tiered fountain having ornate base pool and 2 catch basins on centre column above with water falling back to pool below from each, eye candy, animated)

*Gravestones and monuments

*Trilithon entrance for a tumulus/tomb (mound can be created with elevation tool)

*Stone Benches

*Stone Table

*Stone Table With Blood over It

*Campfire

*Wheat Bundle

*Wagon Wheel

*Tents

*Wood Pile

*Hedge

*Archery Target

*Grave Stones

*Sacks of Grain

*Attackable training dummy

*Weapon piles

*Spare weapons and knives

*Barrels (done?)

*Crates (done?)

*Pots (done?)

*Baskets (large and small)

*Rugs and mats

*Lanterns

*Treasure chest

*Sign Post

*Rope

*Cages (enterable by 1 unit)

*Loom

*Spinning wheel

*Potter’s wheel

*Kiln

*Aqueduct

*Lighthouse

*Windmill (?)

*Sun Dial

*Mine-shaft entrances

*Flags or banners

*SPQR banner

*Raider "Flag". It'd be a spear with a small flag on it (possibly another version that has someone on the spear for variety)

*Triumphal Arch

*Giant corpse cremators - a firey burning one, a smouldering one, and a ruined abandoned one

*Hangman tree with corpse

*Crucifix (with and without corpse)

*Gallows

*other torture instruments

*Head impaled on a stick or a spear

*Trophy pillar with armor and/or ship prows

*Egyptian obelisk (done?)

*Celtic carved stone/stele

*Norse carved runestone/stele

*4-way Janus arch

*Pavillions and tourney equipment (if this is the right time-period)

*Naval construction sites

*Ship-burning mirror-thing invented by Archimedies

*Torch-tower thing like the tower on the Norse Dock in AOM

*Nilometer

*Construction (?)

*dig piles like AOM (?)

Movable Vehicles

*Carts full of one of four resources with horses pulling it (moving and taskable): stone, food, wood, gold

*Something that looks like the Osirus cart in AOM. (Except for more plain-looking, and pulled by horses.)

*Wooden fishing boat

*Round hide fishing boat

*Raft

*Dugout canoe

*Egyptian reed boat

Named/Unique Buildings/Objects

*Great Temple of Jerusalem

*Mausoleum of Mausolos in Halikarnassos, present day Bodrum(?),Turkey.

*Pharos lighthouse in Alexandria

*Temple of Artemis in Ephesos(?), present day Turkey

*Hanging Gardens of Babylon

*Temple of Zeus in Olympia, Greece

*Pantheon, Rome

*Parthenon, Athens

*Great Library of Alexandria

*Temple of Karnak in Egypt

*Villa of Hadrianus in Tivoli, Italy

*Kolossos of Rhodos, Rhodos

*Hadrianus' Wall, Great Britain

*Great Sphinx, Giza, Egypt

*Stonehenge, Salisbury Plain, England (full size, fully reconstructed with all the extra stone and earthen bits it used to have) refs: http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/stonehenge.html and http://stonehenge.zorger.com/ and http://www.aboutstonehenge.info/index.php?pg=stonehenge-map

*Woodhenge, England(?)

Flat Terrain Textures

*Different kinds of roads (paved, dirt, etc.) and paths (same pathfinder traits as roads)

*Plaza tiles (same pathfinder traits as roads)

*Scorched ground (e.g. burnt grass)

*Gravels

*Shoreline sands

*Leaf Litter

*Puddles

*Blood puddle

*Blood stain (soaked into the ground)

*Mud/dirt patch

*Moss patch

*Mushrooms

*Karst topography: limestone pavement

*Lava flow terrain

*Animal Trails/Tracks

Natural & Geological

*Smoke rising from the ground (animated)

*Fire with smoke (animated)

*Cracks

*Craters (different sizes, some with snow, some with sand, etc.)

*Rocks

*Interesting Rock Formations

*Rock arches (placed on water)

*wind- and water-eroded rocks

*Pillar of Stone

*various icy shapes

*Icy/rock spikes from ground

*Snow Drift

*Cave entrance (enterable?)

*Stalagmites and stalagtites

*Crystals or rough gems visible on the surface

*Den hole (enterable by animals)

*Hole in the ground

*Karst topography elements: cliff face, sinkhole with cliff rim, limestone tower

*Gaseous vent or steam geyser (animated?)

*Hot water springs (animated?)

*Streams entering and exiting underground (animated like regular water)

*Ponds (animated like regular water)

*Blow Hole (animated)

*Water Falls (animated)

*Iceberg (animated/AI)

*Frozen water

*Beaver dam

*Coral

*Lava Cracks

*Bubbling Lava (animated bubbling lava surface that can be used to make lava pools and stuff)

*Lava waterfalls (with grey rocks instead of orange)

*African termite mound

Flora

*Food/Orchard Trees (can be harvested): Almond, Apple (done?), Arbutus/Strawberry Tree, Cherry, Chestnut, Cornel Cherry, Date Palm, Fig, Lemon, Olive, Orange, Pear, Walnut

*Food Plants (can be harvested): Wheat, Grapevines and/or Vinyard, different vegtable patches

*Non-Food Trees (eye candy): Bushes, Elm, Laurel, Plane, Yew, Really Big Tree

*Non-Food Plants (eye candy): Flowers, Lilies, Tall Grass, Giant Fennel, Papyrus, Blue Nile Lily, other marsh plants, northern European bog plants

*Dead/Burnt Trees (with some branches and bark remaining): broadleaf, white birch, pine/cyprus/cedar, spruce/fir, poplar, palm

*Tree stumps (chopped, not sawed): large with brown bark, large with white birch bark, small with brown bark, small with white birch bark

*Log (rotted, no branches)

*Fallen/Uprooted Trees (with some bark and branches remaining): broadleaf, white birch, pine/cyprus/cedar, spruce/fir, poplar, palm

*Snag (dead tree with no bark or branches remaining)

*Tree roots

Fauna

*Large Domestic Dog: wanders around settlements, solitary, dangerous to enemies of its civ

*Domestic Birds: Goose, Duck (should be herdable and provide the same benefits as chickens)

*Domestic Mammals: Small/Maltese Dog, Cat (both solitary, eye-candy)

*Cheetah (solitary, dangerous) (lived in Iran as well as Africa, and probably other parts of the Middle East)

*Wild Donkey (small herd, edible) (color varieties?: African and Asian)

*Asian/Syrian Elephant (herd, dangerous, edible) (extinct, larger than North African elephants)

*Elk/Moose (solitary, edible) don't know if they're really dangerous to humans

*Great Auk (flock, flightless, edible) (they lived in northwest Europe)

*Hippopotamus (herd, violent or aggressive, edible) only for north Africa; usually stays around open water

*Wild Horse (Tarpan) (small herd, dangerous, edible) refs: http://www.petermaas.nl/extinct/speciesinfo/tarpan.htm and an image linked from http://www.livescience.com/animals/091127-...rses-botai.html

*Striped Hyena (pack, dangerous) ref: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site...ena_hyaena.html

*Golden Jackal (solitary, dangerous) (maybe with an additional color variant: side-striped?)

*Leopard (solitary, dangerous) (maybe with a melanistic color variant for African and Indian forests?)

*Lynx (solitary, dangerous)

*Monkey (pack, edible) only for Africa and Asia

*Raven/Crow (flock, flying, eye candy)

*Red Squirrel (solitary, skittish, eye candy)

*Swan (small flock, flying, edible)

*Wild Wisent (small herd, dangerous, edible) (European bison, now nearly extinct) ref: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site...on_bonasus.html

*Whales (done?)

*different kinds of fish

*more kinds of birds (guinea fowl? peacock? ring-neck pheasant?)(perhaps they can make realistic sounds, or various bird-songs could be placeable sounds)

Units

*Babies (one for each civ?)

*Children (two for each civ?) that play and run from enemy soldiers

*Woman with infant (one for each civ?) that do chores animations (no game effects) and run from enemy soldiers

*Old geezers (two for each civ?)

*Lepers

*Non-rescueable Gaia versions of every unit in the game

Corpses

(is it possible to just use the dead model/animation of each unit and animal as an editor object?)

*Human corpse - fresh, decayed, skeleton (done?), frozen, smoldering pile of corpses

*Dead animals

Special Effects and Props

*floating stuff meant to be placed on water (food, sticks, very small rocks, etc.)

*Falling rain effects -- light to heavy (animated)

*Falling snow effects (animated)

*Falling hail effects (animated)

*Rain storm effect (animated)

*Snow storm effect (animated)

*Sand storm effect (animated)

*Lightning effect (animated)

*Mist/Fog

*Ground Mist

*small sand wirlwind (animated)

*Avalanche (animated, has to be triggered to go off)

*Explosion (animated) (temporary bursts of fire, useful for a few things, including volcanoes)

*Stars

*Clouds

*Aurora borealis

*Rainbow

*Spot Light (animated/AI) - Follows Unit

*Frost Wind (animated)

*Sun Rays Through Clouds (animated)

*Flies (animated)

*Fire Flies (animated/AI)

*Frog (animated/AI)

*Butterflies (animated)

*Waves (animated)

*Blowing Leaves (animated)

*Falling Ash (animated)

*Falling Ash + Fire (animated)

*Volcano

*Large Crater with Burning Meteor (animated)

*Volcanic eruption (animated)

Placeable Sounds

*crickets

*busy market square

*gurgling water

In-Game Effects

*damage effects on buildings (the more damage the building has taken, the more beat up it looks).

*long lasting tracks in the ground (lasting about 3-5mins)

*maybe a graphic icon in the middle-top to tell what season it is?

Interactive Eyecandy

(This is just an idea; it could be a possibility for some scenario makers???)

*Usable Weapons - can be picked up by units & may change their attack

*Armour - can be picked up by units & increases their HP

*Food Items – increases unit's health

*Resource Piles – increases resources when picked up

*Plague Rats - hurts units!

*Thief unit

Misc. Editor-Only Requests

(totally anachronistic, fantastic, mythical, or silly; wildlife not native to the area; gods; extra heroes; jokes, etc.)

Zenobia of Palmyra

Dido of Carthage

Cleopatra of Alexandria

Artimesia of Hallicarnasus

Jesus

Sword in a Rock

Burning Bush! (animated)

Shrine to Evil

Shrine to Good

Dancing Banana

Fast Food Outlet

A classic American Midwest "barn."

Dwarven Forges (varied, like in AOM) (definately have one type with long pipes going down into the ground)(ref: http://www.reocities.com/kan_apo/DwarvenForge.html)

Small industrial-looking buildings that you can overlap to make factories, etc.

A university-type building (asian)

Asian buildings (from what part of Asia?)

Modern famous buildings (eg. CN Tower, Eiffel Tower, Sydney Opera House, Empire State Building, etc.) redesigned as anchient buildings in the style of different civilizations. -- i.e. Roman style Empire State Building.

Snowman

Crashed Spaceship

Loch Ness

Parking Meter

Trash Can

Street Light

coal mine shaft-things (shack, pulley-thing, rope going down a hole in the ground)

Moai (from Easter Island)

Trojan Horse!!! (also a Pythonic Rabbit?)

Cars

cart full of coal with horses pulling it (moving and taskable)

Panzer tank

Sherman tank

Flying machine

Redwood tree

Cactus

Tumble Weed (animated/AI)

Ents

Wizard

Kangaroo

Dragon (done?)

various Dinosaurs

Balrog

UFO

Trooper

Dwarf

Ares

Zeus

Posidion

Neptune

Hercules

Aphrodite

Town Police Units

Cannons

cowboys

Indians

town marshall

7th Cavalry (Custer's regiment)

General Custer

Crazy Horse

Capitalist Pig

Pinko Commie

Lady Godiva

Amazon warrioress of the steppes

Helen of Troy

King Kong

Cindy Crawford

Photon men

E=MC2 troopers

living colossus.......could match the statue of the 7 wonders collosus but become alive just by a change unit type effect and turned into a playable colossus....huge large myth unit made from stone

Hydra

other greek myth creatures

Achilles

heroes for the other civs

roman and other civ myth creatures

some mythical structures or at least elements to build some in the editor yourself

a laser bear with a Canadian flag tied on it

Minotaurs

Anubytes (& Anubis)

Sphinx

an American and German WW2 soldier that traveled back in time because of a malfunctiun in hitlers time machine and now work together to survive in ancient times

stone golem

Robot

Sea Monster

mythological "Gaia units" of the sorts of nature spirits believed in by each civ: Greek Satyrs, Dryads, Naiads, and River Gods. Roman Fauns, etc. Some for the other civs

Edited November 19, 2010 by Aldandil

[comp3820]

Wow! This a great list! I think I'm going to bookmark this page for when I'm bored.

I might actually try the columns next. If I'm correct, there are multiple types of columns, with fancy names that people besides me might remember. Are multiple columns worth the effort?

[Mythos_Ruler]

Yes, they are worth the effort.

Doric Order

Corinthian Order

Ionic Order

Free standing ones, broken ones, fallen ones, all would be good.

Edited September 2, 2010 by Mythos_Ruler

[Aldandil]

Should I add the list of Eye-candy from the trac/wiki, for artists who don't read it? Or have all of those already been made?

[as-saffah]

Just seconding the idea of vineyards.

A berry bush is a poor substitute. Vineyards have a visible trellis and you should be able to place them in ranks.

It could be a scenery object, or a gatherable resource a civ could build in-game.

Another fan of fruit trees. It doesn't have to be spectacular. Just add some golden yellow (apples, citrus, figs) or reddish purple (plums, cherries, black figs, olives) flecks to an existing tree with a roundish, even crown. Take a palm tree, add some reddish brown clumps at the top, you have dates and oil palms.

Again, it could be a Gaia harvestable object, similar to berry bush. Or it could be part of a buildable cultivation area, an orchard, specific to a certain civ or multiple civs.

Lastly, be aware that by 0 AD, Greeks, Romans, and Persians all had contact with subsaharan Africa, east Asia, and the subarctic. You may wish to leave open the possibility for a roleplaying campaign in one of these frontier areas. Adding in a small number of selected exotic flora, fauna, and relics from these faraway markets will add to the potential of this game. Alexander's men were acquainted with tigers from southeast Asia and India, there was a Greek market town on the Strait of Malacca, and captive Greek and Roman artisans were often taken abroad by Scythian and Parthian warlords to work gold on the frozen steppes and mountains in central Asia.

For this reason, there's also a case for making a small subset of snow terrains that correspond with European and Asian terrain types.

[Aldandil]

Hm, tigers are already in the trac as an intended animal, but I forgot cheetahs.

Should I add peacocks and pheasants? Guinea fowl would be good too.

Edited September 9, 2010 by Aldandil