BJA@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 8:59 am : I'm currently working on a little map objects pack with some new lights, doors and crates. Here are some screens of the lights. I'll probably won't use all of them.
Here are the .max files for the first two renders. In case you want to have a closer look at it to see how things were done.
http://www.bja-design.de/images/verschiedenes/light1.maxhttp://www.bja-design.de/images/verschiedenes/light2.max
BNA!@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:19 am : Nice and clean stuff!
Kristus@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:56 am : looking really nice.
elusive@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:17 am : Yes! Very cool
modern@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:06 am : Nice modeling, and nice renders but lets see how they translate into doom please.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:35 am : agreed, very nice and clean looking models bja, and I too would like to see the low poly, normal mapped versions in game
kat@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:12 pm : Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
BJA@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:40 pm : ratty redemption wrote:
agreed, very nice and clean looking models bja, and I too would like to see the low poly, normal mapped versions in game
Me too
I'm still trying to figure out how to do render the normalmap, how close the lowpoly version should be to the highpoly model and things like that.
Quote:
Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
Thanks for the hint! I really think I should get some models ingame before making other highpoly versions to see where I have to pay attention and what works and what not.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:54 pm : bja, understood and keep us informed of how close the low poly versions end up compared to the high poly please
BNA!@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 6:02 pm : BJA wrote:
Quote:
Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
Thanks for the hint! I really think I should get some models ingame before making other highpoly versions to see where I have to pay attention and what works and what not.
Kat has a good point, but after taking a second look I'd like to recommend to keep an even keener eye on the angle of the insets / bevels.
Everything that goes up or down in a straight 90 degree angle will simply look flat in a normalmap.
To avoid the loss of tiny detail during renderbump I suggest to shrink the "flat" faces of the UV map and stretch the faces carrying the detail.
When I did early "crate" tests I had a lot of fun growing very detailed handles on the UV map to cover two thirds of the resulting skin.
Needless to say it looked great ingame, albeit visual detail on the flat box sides appears to be a bit pixelated
My biggest hope of level-wide megatexturing is the unification of texture scaling for everything, world, mapobjects and characters (ok, give the player weapon and hands something in awsome max res).
Very often the skinning of mapobjects appears to be much more refined as compared to wall textures. This leads to the impression of low-res texturing as the viewer automaticall sees the highest resolution as the "normal" resolution while everything else gets judged as low res.
mikebart@Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:58 am : Nice work BJA, I like that you've kept a consistent style.
BJA@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:49 pm :
elusive@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:11 pm : I really like them!
They look excellent
In a few cases I'd have optimized the UVs a bit but it's great as it is! Keep up the good work!
ratty redemption@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:16 pm : agreed, they are very well done bja
m!chi:be@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:44 pm : very nice. clean modelling and texturing.
mikebart@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:51 pm : Nice job
elusive wrote:
I really like them!
They look excellent
In a few cases I'd have optimized the UVs a bit but it's great as it is! Keep up the good work!
either that or use object space normalmaps instead of tangent, they're much better for anything static, you just cant rotate part of the mesh or the normals get miss-read but you can hide seams quite easily and you can get away with alot less chamfers on your mesh.
Just something to look into incase you dont already know, you might need a plugin for what ever app you're using.
But I think they're fine the way they are, im sure they'l get alot of use from mappers.
Kiltron@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:06 pm : I encourage you to apply at id mate! Nice map work!
BJA@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:04 pm : Thanks guys for the kind words!
Yeah, sometimes the UVs are a bit stretched and I could have used the texture space a bit more carefully.
@mikebart: thanks for the tip, have to try that! btw. I'm using 3ds max 7.
I noticed when looking at the models from doom3 that they mirrored a lot of UVs for the smaller models. I always thought that every piece should have his own texture space and you're not allowed to have overlapping vertices when dealing with normalmaps.
I also read that your lowpoly model should have only 1 smoothing group for making the normalmap in 3ds max and that you should make sure that you reset Xforms on your lowpoly model after finalizing the UV map. I tried that but the generated normalmap and the model looked kind of strange in doom3. And I really don't know what's that Xform modifier is for. Does it reset your modifier stack or what? (couldn't figure it out from the 3ds max reference).
More models will follow but for the next few weeks I don't have much time and actually no pc
@Kiltron: thanks, but I guess you need a lot more than some lousy models and maps to get hired there
obihb@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:18 pm : The thing about having one smoothing group is more about seams then anything else. It is the safest way to make sure of the least seams. Because where 2 smoothing groups meet you will get a seam in the shading. It's a hard edge. This is because generating a normal map from a model with hard seams will miss out on some normals when the ray traces the high poly mesh.
It is however possible to make it a very hard to spot seam using Max's cage when rendering the normal map if you do have multiple smoothing groups. Because the cage will force the ray to still trace the full high poly mesh regardless of the smoothing groups. So this method is sort of in between. There are still seams but much harder to spot them.
On the other side of that, using the 1 smoothing group on something like a box can have a slight different effect in the shading where you'll spot the low poly triangle being shaded. Caused by the inaccuracy of the renderer. So there are cases where one way may be better than another. Or where you may choose to rather have some little seams compared to a bigger shading inaccuracy.
It just depends on the model and your own choices. It's still realtime game engine rendering so some inaccuracy is part of it.
I'll mention though that Max7 does not render the greatest normal maps for use in Doom3. I think if I remember correctly now there is an update to 7.5?. Either way, there is an update and this update renders much better normal maps. But the best maps can be rendered in Max8 and up. They are pretty much perfect for Doom.
I think your stuff looks good though. Really nicely done.
Oh, and about the texture space sharing. It's hard to come up with a scenario now where it's a problem, because you can share texture space. It's not like every triangle needs a unique UV space. I just can't think of the exact place where it might become a problem.
But it's basically because with normal maps you don't just "texture" your model, you also "shape" them. So if two shapes don't match but their textures do, you can't share that space even if you normally would by just having a diffuse map.
But you can for instance if you had a model with 10 poles sticking in it you can share the texture space of those 10 poles. As long as they line up 100% on the vertexes.
BJA@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:34 pm : Thanks a lot obihb, really informative post.
LDAsh@Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 6:23 am : Reminds me of Psychonauts, among other older titles, I love the slightly deflated, inwardly collapsing style of the house and the obscure angles, reminds me of my grandma's house!
Will this be seeing its way into any idTech engines or just for pics? It'd make an insane little DM environment.
BJA@Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 3:39 pm : I'm pretty much done with id tech 4, so no plans for importing it into D3 or Q4. It's just a little scene made for fun...always wanted to do a cartoonish envrionment.
Speedy@Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 4:40 pm : will you atleast release the textures used for 'Old house' and 'Lost station'? I want to get my hands on them!
BJA@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:11 pm :
6th Venom@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:46 pm : Really nice!
Kristus@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:23 pm : impressive. Wish I had that commitment and patience.
BJA@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:41 pm : Hey you're still working on a doom3 mod, so I guess you have a lot more patience and commitment than me
thanks for the kind words.
Kristus@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:59 pm : Well, you really do the work. While I just rough together something in Mudbox and slap over some hastily created diffuse map when I need a texture. For instance.
shaviro@Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:25 am : Yeah, really nice BJA
I've been following your work here and on Quake3World. I wish I had your skills. Great job.
Oh and you're welcome to exercise your patience by helping us out
BJA@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 8:59 am : I'm currently working on a little map objects pack with some new lights, doors and crates. Here are some screens of the lights. I'll probably won't use all of them.
Here are the .max files for the first two renders. In case you want to have a closer look at it to see how things were done.
http://www.bja-design.de/images/verschiedenes/light1.maxhttp://www.bja-design.de/images/verschiedenes/light2.max
BNA!@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:19 am : Nice and clean stuff!
Kristus@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:56 am : looking really nice.
elusive@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:17 am : Yes! Very cool
modern@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:06 am : Nice modeling, and nice renders but lets see how they translate into doom please.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:35 am : agreed, very nice and clean looking models bja, and I too would like to see the low poly, normal mapped versions in game
kat@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:12 pm : Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
BJA@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:40 pm : ratty redemption wrote:
agreed, very nice and clean looking models bja, and I too would like to see the low poly, normal mapped versions in game
Me too
I'm still trying to figure out how to do render the normalmap, how close the lowpoly version should be to the highpoly model and things like that.
Quote:
Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
Thanks for the hint! I really think I should get some models ingame before making other highpoly versions to see where I have to pay attention and what works and what not.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:54 pm : bja, understood and keep us informed of how close the low poly versions end up compared to the high poly please
BNA!@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 6:02 pm : BJA wrote:
Quote:
Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
Thanks for the hint! I really think I should get some models ingame before making other highpoly versions to see where I have to pay attention and what works and what not.
Kat has a good point, but after taking a second look I'd like to recommend to keep an even keener eye on the angle of the insets / bevels.
Everything that goes up or down in a straight 90 degree angle will simply look flat in a normalmap.
To avoid the loss of tiny detail during renderbump I suggest to shrink the "flat" faces of the UV map and stretch the faces carrying the detail.
When I did early "crate" tests I had a lot of fun growing very detailed handles on the UV map to cover two thirds of the resulting skin.
Needless to say it looked great ingame, albeit visual detail on the flat box sides appears to be a bit pixelated
My biggest hope of level-wide megatexturing is the unification of texture scaling for everything, world, mapobjects and characters (ok, give the player weapon and hands something in awsome max res).
Very often the skinning of mapobjects appears to be much more refined as compared to wall textures. This leads to the impression of low-res texturing as the viewer automaticall sees the highest resolution as the "normal" resolution while everything else gets judged as low res.
mikebart@Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:58 am : Nice work BJA, I like that you've kept a consistent style.
BJA@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:49 pm :
elusive@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:11 pm : I really like them!
They look excellent
In a few cases I'd have optimized the UVs a bit but it's great as it is! Keep up the good work!
ratty redemption@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:16 pm : agreed, they are very well done bja
m!chi:be@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:44 pm : very nice. clean modelling and texturing.
mikebart@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:51 pm : Nice job
elusive wrote:
I really like them!
They look excellent
In a few cases I'd have optimized the UVs a bit but it's great as it is! Keep up the good work!
either that or use object space normalmaps instead of tangent, they're much better for anything static, you just cant rotate part of the mesh or the normals get miss-read but you can hide seams quite easily and you can get away with alot less chamfers on your mesh.
Just something to look into incase you dont already know, you might need a plugin for what ever app you're using.
But I think they're fine the way they are, im sure they'l get alot of use from mappers.
Kiltron@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:06 pm : I encourage you to apply at id mate! Nice map work!
BJA@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:04 pm : Thanks guys for the kind words!
Yeah, sometimes the UVs are a bit stretched and I could have used the texture space a bit more carefully.
@mikebart: thanks for the tip, have to try that! btw. I'm using 3ds max 7.
I noticed when looking at the models from doom3 that they mirrored a lot of UVs for the smaller models. I always thought that every piece should have his own texture space and you're not allowed to have overlapping vertices when dealing with normalmaps.
I also read that your lowpoly model should have only 1 smoothing group for making the normalmap in 3ds max and that you should make sure that you reset Xforms on your lowpoly model after finalizing the UV map. I tried that but the generated normalmap and the model looked kind of strange in doom3. And I really don't know what's that Xform modifier is for. Does it reset your modifier stack or what? (couldn't figure it out from the 3ds max reference).
More models will follow but for the next few weeks I don't have much time and actually no pc
@Kiltron: thanks, but I guess you need a lot more than some lousy models and maps to get hired there
obihb@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:18 pm : The thing about having one smoothing group is more about seams then anything else. It is the safest way to make sure of the least seams. Because where 2 smoothing groups meet you will get a seam in the shading. It's a hard edge. This is because generating a normal map from a model with hard seams will miss out on some normals when the ray traces the high poly mesh.
It is however possible to make it a very hard to spot seam using Max's cage when rendering the normal map if you do have multiple smoothing groups. Because the cage will force the ray to still trace the full high poly mesh regardless of the smoothing groups. So this method is sort of in between. There are still seams but much harder to spot them.
On the other side of that, using the 1 smoothing group on something like a box can have a slight different effect in the shading where you'll spot the low poly triangle being shaded. Caused by the inaccuracy of the renderer. So there are cases where one way may be better than another. Or where you may choose to rather have some little seams compared to a bigger shading inaccuracy.
It just depends on the model and your own choices. It's still realtime game engine rendering so some inaccuracy is part of it.
I'll mention though that Max7 does not render the greatest normal maps for use in Doom3. I think if I remember correctly now there is an update to 7.5?. Either way, there is an update and this update renders much better normal maps. But the best maps can be rendered in Max8 and up. They are pretty much perfect for Doom.
I think your stuff looks good though. Really nicely done.
Oh, and about the texture space sharing. It's hard to come up with a scenario now where it's a problem, because you can share texture space. It's not like every triangle needs a unique UV space. I just can't think of the exact place where it might become a problem.
But it's basically because with normal maps you don't just "texture" your model, you also "shape" them. So if two shapes don't match but their textures do, you can't share that space even if you normally would by just having a diffuse map.
But you can for instance if you had a model with 10 poles sticking in it you can share the texture space of those 10 poles. As long as they line up 100% on the vertexes.
BJA@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:34 pm : Thanks a lot obihb, really informative post.
ratty redemption@Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 3:40 am : agreed.
BJA@Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 10:55 am : Thanks everybody
@ratty: I don't have the uvw texture for those tentacles right now, but the layout isn't really that complicated. I detached every branch of the root and used pelt mapping, which I think is the best way for organic models. The seams are always where the player won't be able to see them...I guess that's the general rule for placing them
If there's an urgent need, I can make a little tutorial about how I made the tentacles, but it's really not that difficult.
Texture resolution ranges from 512x512 and 1024x1024 for the floor and wall.
ratty redemption@Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 1:59 pm : bja, thanks and is pelt mapping a type of lscm unwrap? if so blender is quite good at doing that.
if your main tentacle/tree trunk is basically a cone shape, I can imagine its main seam would be on its underside where the player can't see it, but don't you end up with visible seams around the joins between the trunk and the individual branches? thats what I couldn't really see in your shots.
Bo$bevok@Posted: Mon Mar 17, 2008 5:34 pm : Quote:
I can make a little tutorial about how I made the tentacles, but it's really not that difficult
a new tutorial is always nice....
anyway, it looks great.
BJA@Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:47 pm : A little Quake4 scene, this time without any wooden tentacles or whatsoever
The fire particles are from the original game, the rest is custom content (average texture resolution 512x512).
Small screen:
http://www.bja-design.de/different/q4scene1_800x500.jpgBigger screen:
http://www.bja-design.de/different/q4sc ... 24x768.jpg
ratty redemption@Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 2:53 pm : very nice work, especially the atmosphere
Bo$bevok@Posted: Fri Apr 18, 2008 5:22 pm : cant wait until you release another map... your work looks excellent
BJA@Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 3:03 pm : Thanks
Don't know if I'll make another "playable" mp level for Q4, depends on my motivation. I mean, nobody would play it anyway, so why spend the extra time to make one?
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 4:10 pm : bja, could we see some of your textures, and wire overlays of your models?
Bo$bevok@Posted: Sat Apr 19, 2008 6:28 pm : Quote:
Thanks
Don't know if I'll make another "playable" mp level for Q4, depends on my motivation. I mean, nobody would play it anyway, so why spend the extra time to make one?
i'd play it, although i guess i see your point.... you could always make a new sp map
but i know thats alot of work. oh well, good luck with whatever you do.... i do like seeing these screens
BJA@Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 8:13 pm : Some textures I made recently.The reference photos are from a france texture-resource pack made by Thomas Heß.
Overview:
http://www.bja-design.de/different/bja_ ... erview.jpg
Overview:
http://www.bja-design.de/different/bja_ ... erview.jpg
Overview:
http://www.bja-design.de/different/door02_overview.jpgAnd a little zbrush doodle. Nothing serious, just something to get familiar with zbrush. Basemesh was done in 3ds Max but it's not really worth showing it.
http://www.bja-design.de/different/plant01_done.jpg
ratty redemption@Posted: Fri May 16, 2008 11:33 pm : bja, all very impressive, and thanks for linking to the over view shots as they are very helpful for the rest of us trying to learn these skills
rich_is_bored@Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 7:30 am : BJA wrote:
And a little zbrush doodle. Nothing serious, just something to get familiar with zbrush. Basemesh was done in 3ds Max but it's not really worth showing it.
http://www.bja-design.de/different/plant01_done.jpgI'm not sure if it was intentional but that nearly looks like the boss from Quake. I was thinking to myself "Oh! That's so awesome!" but then I read the filename.
6th Venom@Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 10:51 am : Lol, yeah that remind me exactly the same... with this damn spikeball hunting you.... haaa... nostalgia.
I'm really impressed by all your work BJA, keep it up!
BJA@Posted: Sat May 17, 2008 9:31 pm : I must be the only one person here who didn't play through quake, so no it wasn't intentional that it looks like the boss from quake. It was really just a zbrush doodle without any reference/inspiration pictures. But yeah, I have to agree that there are some similarities...funny
mikebart@Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 1:45 am : beautiful work BJA, the textures look great, will you wrap them onto a model to accommodate the shape of the textures? or are they to be used as flat textures? either way they'll look nice.
BJA@Posted: Mon May 19, 2008 10:54 am : Thanks, and no there aren't any plans for making some models out of these
BJA@Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 12:08 pm : A little lift I made, the final model was rendered in 3ds max. By the way, does anybody know how I can set up a glowmap in 3ds max? Right now I did paint the glow of the lights on the diffuse map, in d3 I would have a seperate texture for that. Couldn't figure out how this works in max
Overview:
http://www.bja-design.de/models/lift01_overview.jpg
ratty redemption@Posted: Wed Jul 02, 2008 1:10 pm : bja, very nice design, and thanks for posting the over view shot, those really are interesting to study
one thing I noticed is you still have quite a lot of detail in the low poly model, can the d3 engine cope with that? if so cool
rich_is_bored@Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 6:05 am : I don't use 3DSMAX but another name for "glowmap" would be luminosity map. You might try searching for that and see if anything turns up.
BJA@Posted: Thu Jul 03, 2008 9:03 am : @ratty redemption: Yeah, the lowpoly model has quite a lot of polys because of all the little parts, but I'm sure the engine can handle it without any problems
@rich_is_bored: Thanks, that's what I was looking for, "self-illumination" to be specific.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Jul 05, 2008 1:05 am : BJA wrote:
@ratty redemption: Yeah, the lowpoly model has quite a lot of polys because of all the little parts, but I'm sure the engine can handle it without any problems
cool
BJA@Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:24 pm :
ratty redemption@Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 4:36 pm : bja, very polished looking as usual
do you know how long it took you to make the finished crate, assuming you started from scratch?
I'm leaning most of the basics as far as my own models and textures but I still need a lot of practice to get faster. it doesn't help me working on a low end pc that can't multitask very well but I'm hopefully getting a new one soon, and eventually I'd love to be up to your skill level and speed.
BJA@Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 8:03 am : Making the models (highpoly, lowpoly) took me an afternoon and texturing (uvw map, cleaning the normalmap, painting the diffuse) another one. Can't say exactly how many hours went in, but I'm not the fastest one either. Oh, and yeah having a good pc is always a good choice
Btw. just found those training DVDs, they seem to be really good if you want to get into "next-gen" art creation.
http://eat3d.com/training_videos/texturing
BJA@Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:17 pm : A little environment scene I'm currently working on. The trees are from 3ds max and are just placeholders, the dog and human models are zbrush base models and just there to get the scaling right. Everything very wip and all objects are randomly placed. I'm not very happy with the camera angle so I'll probably change that.
http://www.bja-design.de/different/scene_camera1.jpga different angle:
Some textured props.
http://www.bja-design.de/different/scene_props.jpg
ratty redemption@Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 4:28 pm : bja, interesting and I love the textured props shot, I assume you made all of those? I've found it a lot of fun to be modeling and texturing wooden objects, as much as I enjoy making caves
BJA@Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 8:31 pm : Thanks ratty
and yeah, except for the trees, the dog and human model everything is done by me, textureresources are mostly from cgtextures.com. Average texture resolution is 512x512.
6th Venom@Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:08 pm : Great modeling and texturing!
what's the purpose of this scene? a map? a test? nothing?
ratty redemption@Posted: Thu Aug 07, 2008 11:18 pm : BJA wrote:
Thanks ratty
and yeah, except for the trees, the dog and human model everything is done by me
cool and I'm sure you could model the other stuff as well given enough time, so I see nothing wrong with using them as placeholders while you build up your scene. if you don't mind me asking, what is intended use for the scene, is it more of an art project then playable area? either way it looks great so far
Quote:
texture sources are mostly from cgtextures.com. Average texture resolution is 512x512.
cgtextures.com does seem to be one of the best free resources around atm. metalliandy, a friend on mine from the crazybump forums speaks highly of them.
were you restricted to 512x512 due to the source photos or did you decide you didn't need the textures to be any higher?
edit: 6th Venom posted before I finished typing
BJA@Posted: Thu Sep 18, 2008 5:45 pm : Inspired by Assassin`s Creed, here's a little scene made in 3ds max with different light settings. It's about 80.000 tris, average texture resolution for the objects is 512x512, for the buildings 1024x1024. Texture ressources are mostly from cgtextures.com, a few from google. I'll call that piece done for now, but is there anything you would have made different/better? I'm open for any suggestions and opinions
Preview Image:
http://www.bja-design.de/different/blue ... l_rand.jpghttp://www.bja-design.de/different/yell ... l_rand.jpghttp://www.bja-design.de/different/blac ... l_rand.jpghttp://www.bja-design.de/different/wireframe_final.jpgBtw. could one of the mods/admins maybe rename this thread into something like "BJA`s 3d sketchbook" and move it to the pimping forum? kind of feel that "map objects" isn't the right name for this thread anymore.
bashport@Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 11:46 am : alter poser
where ya workin?
BJA@Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 7:33 am : Nowhere. I'm currently busy getting my uni degree, but yeah I intend to work someday
Kristus@Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 1:38 pm : BJA. Damn you. Now you made me feel that I suck. :p
BJA@Posted: Thu Oct 09, 2008 3:53 pm : A little bit of a cartoon environment I'm currently working on. Those ice-cream cones in the background are supposed to be trees, in case anybody wondered.
Speedy@Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 12:30 am : those are very good environments man. impressive work!
6th Venom@Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 8:53 am : I really love the cartoonish style!
(you could use a sprite for the moon...
)
BJA@Posted: Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:13 pm : Thanks guys
The moon was kind of a placeholder and to see if it fits to the scene. I'll probably paint it on the skybox later on, not sure about it yet.
Kristus@Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 3:12 pm : looking real good.
Hostyle@Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 4:46 pm : Yeah looks realy nice.
LDAsh@Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 6:23 am : Reminds me of Psychonauts, among other older titles, I love the slightly deflated, inwardly collapsing style of the house and the obscure angles, reminds me of my grandma's house!
Will this be seeing its way into any idTech engines or just for pics? It'd make an insane little DM environment.
BJA@Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 3:39 pm : I'm pretty much done with id tech 4, so no plans for importing it into D3 or Q4. It's just a little scene made for fun...always wanted to do a cartoonish envrionment.
Speedy@Posted: Sun Oct 12, 2008 4:40 pm : will you atleast release the textures used for 'Old house' and 'Lost station'? I want to get my hands on them!
BJA@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 3:11 pm :
6th Venom@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 4:46 pm : Really nice!
Kristus@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 6:23 pm : impressive. Wish I had that commitment and patience.
BJA@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 8:41 pm : Hey you're still working on a doom3 mod, so I guess you have a lot more patience and commitment than me
thanks for the kind words.
Kristus@Posted: Thu Oct 30, 2008 11:59 pm : Well, you really do the work. While I just rough together something in Mudbox and slap over some hastily created diffuse map when I need a texture. For instance.
shaviro@Posted: Fri Oct 31, 2008 9:25 am : Yeah, really nice BJA
I've been following your work here and on Quake3World. I wish I had your skills. Great job.
Oh and you're welcome to exercise your patience by helping us out
Kristus@Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 1:29 pm : The higher resolutioned screenshots show that the textures are really a bit too low res.
BJA@Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 2:19 pm : The average texture resolution for the models and world textures ranges from 256x256 to 512x512 (some 1024x1024 for the walls). Looking at it, I think the floor looks a bit blurry or which textures did you mean?
Kristus@Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 3:50 pm : Well, mostly the floor. And the boards of wood laying on the floor.
In Phobos, all our new wall textures are within the 1024x1024 range (unless of course it's a really small texture, or a trim etc..) and that works well.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 6:39 pm : BJA wrote:
@ratty redemption: There are some lightbeam effects in Q4, I think under "effects/ambience", or something like that. It's basically the same fx I used for these shots, just a bit modified.
http://www.bja-design.de/lostandfound/q4bjadm2_8.jpg http://www.bja-design.de/poprocks/q4bjadm3_8.jpg thanks and is it a particle effect like in d3 light rays?
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The two wood planks on the window don't cast a shadow
I noticed those.
Quote:
I'm saving these to my hd, and thanks for showing us
BJA@Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 9:53 pm : @ratty redemption: Doom3 had particle effects for light rays? Didn't even know that
It's a fx, you can check out one of my last Q4 maps, I practically used that effect in all of them.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2007 11:32 pm : thanks bja and I will when I get q4, probably about the same time I get qw.
and particle light rays were used on the drop ship in the d3 sp intro movie, as well as some static lights in various d3 sp maps. never played the mp so they might not of used the effect.
rich_is_bored@Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 6:47 am : You got it. The wooden planks on the window aren't reflected in the shadow.
ratty redemption@Posted: Mon Dec 24, 2007 5:30 pm : rich_is_bored wrote:
You got it. The wooden planks on the window aren't reflected in the shadow.
that was quite fun trying to guess what you other guys were thinking. also good that bja didn't mind us looking for errors in his work
BJA@Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 2:27 pm : Quote:
also good that bja didn't mind us looking for errors in his work
Hey, don't be afraid to torn my work to shreds and tell me all the little things you don't like. I mean, listening to other peoples opinion and criticism is the best way to improve your skills and make sure you don't make certain mistakes twice. So please, feel free to comment on every little aspect that's out of place or looks strange
ratty redemption@Posted: Tue Dec 25, 2007 8:16 pm : bja, understood and cool
BJA@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 8:59 am :
BNA!@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:19 am : Nice and clean stuff!
Kristus@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:56 am : looking really nice.
elusive@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 10:17 am : Yes! Very cool
modern@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:06 am : Nice modeling, and nice renders but lets see how they translate into doom please.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 11:35 am : agreed, very nice and clean looking models bja, and I too would like to see the low poly, normal mapped versions in game
kat@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:12 pm : Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
BJA@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:40 pm : ratty redemption wrote:
agreed, very nice and clean looking models bja, and I too would like to see the low poly, normal mapped versions in game
Me too
I'm still trying to figure out how to do render the normalmap, how close the lowpoly version should be to the highpoly model and things like that.
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Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
Thanks for the hint! I really think I should get some models ingame before making other highpoly versions to see where I have to pay attention and what works and what not.
ratty redemption@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 1:54 pm : bja, understood and keep us informed of how close the low poly versions end up compared to the high poly please
BNA!@Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 6:02 pm : BJA wrote:
Quote:
Keep an eye on those thin lines you have on the models as they may get lost if you render out to anything below 512x512.
Thanks for the hint! I really think I should get some models ingame before making other highpoly versions to see where I have to pay attention and what works and what not.
Kat has a good point, but after taking a second look I'd like to recommend to keep an even keener eye on the angle of the insets / bevels.
Everything that goes up or down in a straight 90 degree angle will simply look flat in a normalmap.
To avoid the loss of tiny detail during renderbump I suggest to shrink the "flat" faces of the UV map and stretch the faces carrying the detail.
When I did early "crate" tests I had a lot of fun growing very detailed handles on the UV map to cover two thirds of the resulting skin.
Needless to say it looked great ingame, albeit visual detail on the flat box sides appears to be a bit pixelated
My biggest hope of level-wide megatexturing is the unification of texture scaling for everything, world, mapobjects and characters (ok, give the player weapon and hands something in awsome max res).
Very often the skinning of mapobjects appears to be much more refined as compared to wall textures. This leads to the impression of low-res texturing as the viewer automaticall sees the highest resolution as the "normal" resolution while everything else gets judged as low res.
mikebart@Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 3:58 am : Nice work BJA, I like that you've kept a consistent style.
BJA@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 1:49 pm :
elusive@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:11 pm : I really like them!
They look excellent
In a few cases I'd have optimized the UVs a bit but it's great as it is! Keep up the good work!
ratty redemption@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:16 pm : agreed, they are very well done bja
m!chi:be@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 5:44 pm : very nice. clean modelling and texturing.
mikebart@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:51 pm : Nice job
elusive wrote:
I really like them!
They look excellent
In a few cases I'd have optimized the UVs a bit but it's great as it is! Keep up the good work!
either that or use object space normalmaps instead of tangent, they're much better for anything static, you just cant rotate part of the mesh or the normals get miss-read but you can hide seams quite easily and you can get away with alot less chamfers on your mesh.
Just something to look into incase you dont already know, you might need a plugin for what ever app you're using.
But I think they're fine the way they are, im sure they'l get alot of use from mappers.
Kiltron@Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:06 pm : I encourage you to apply at id mate! Nice map work!
BJA@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:04 pm : Thanks guys for the kind words!
Yeah, sometimes the UVs are a bit stretched and I could have used the texture space a bit more carefully.
@mikebart: thanks for the tip, have to try that! btw. I'm using 3ds max 7.
I noticed when looking at the models from doom3 that they mirrored a lot of UVs for the smaller models. I always thought that every piece should have his own texture space and you're not allowed to have overlapping vertices when dealing with normalmaps.
I also read that your lowpoly model should have only 1 smoothing group for making the normalmap in 3ds max and that you should make sure that you reset Xforms on your lowpoly model after finalizing the UV map. I tried that but the generated normalmap and the model looked kind of strange in doom3. And I really don't know what's that Xform modifier is for. Does it reset your modifier stack or what? (couldn't figure it out from the 3ds max reference).
More models will follow but for the next few weeks I don't have much time and actually no pc
@Kiltron: thanks, but I guess you need a lot more than some lousy models and maps to get hired there
obihb@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 2:18 pm : The thing about having one smoothing group is more about seams then anything else. It is the safest way to make sure of the least seams. Because where 2 smoothing groups meet you will get a seam in the shading. It's a hard edge. This is because generating a normal map from a model with hard seams will miss out on some normals when the ray traces the high poly mesh.
It is however possible to make it a very hard to spot seam using Max's cage when rendering the normal map if you do have multiple smoothing groups. Because the cage will force the ray to still trace the full high poly mesh regardless of the smoothing groups. So this method is sort of in between. There are still seams but much harder to spot them.
On the other side of that, using the 1 smoothing group on something like a box can have a slight different effect in the shading where you'll spot the low poly triangle being shaded. Caused by the inaccuracy of the renderer. So there are cases where one way may be better than another. Or where you may choose to rather have some little seams compared to a bigger shading inaccuracy.
It just depends on the model and your own choices. It's still realtime game engine rendering so some inaccuracy is part of it.
I'll mention though that Max7 does not render the greatest normal maps for use in Doom3. I think if I remember correctly now there is an update to 7.5?. Either way, there is an update and this update renders much better normal maps. But the best maps can be rendered in Max8 and up. They are pretty much perfect for Doom.
I think your stuff looks good though. Really nicely done.
Oh, and about the texture space sharing. It's hard to come up with a scenario now where it's a problem, because you can share texture space. It's not like every triangle needs a unique UV space. I just can't think of the exact place where it might become a problem.
But it's basically because with normal maps you don't just "texture" your model, you also "shape" them. So if two shapes don't match but their textures do, you can't share that space even if you normally would by just having a diffuse map.
But you can for instance if you had a model with 10 poles sticking in it you can share the texture space of those 10 poles. As long as they line up 100% on the vertexes.
BJA@Posted: Thu Mar 22, 2007 9:34 pm : Thanks a lot obihb, really informative post.
