[Static] Tarin Kowt WIP

[smee]

Have changed. has slight orange look but think lighting settings would effect that

[ice_killer]

Good work, Smee! You make daddy Dune proud .

topic hijack:

was that sign ok for you m8?

[MCI]

Good work, Smee! You make daddy Dune proud .

Daddy Dune? Sounds like a pimp...

Nice work on that tower Smee

[AfterDune]

@Ice: sign is working fine. I made the tweak file myself...

@smee: is it possible for you to export the tower in one piece, instead of 4? (tower, 'floor', camo, stairs) And I don't know where the box is for

@smee: both tower and signpost look nice!

[smee]

@smee: is it possible for you to export the tower in one piece, instead of 4? (tower, 'floor', camo, stairs) And I don't know where the box is for

@smee: both tower and signpost look nice!

The ATC was meant to be in parts to allow the mapper to choose what he wants. If you import them into the editor and then copy and paste the postion in the static con your have them positioned correctly. Also if you wanted to have second but different part look.

Was going to do Rhino's tutorial once was ok'ed
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-modding-tutorials/22279-tutorial-adding-children-statics.html

[AfterDune]

The ATC was meant to be in parts to allow the mapper to choose what he wants. If you import them into the editor and then copy and paste the postion in the static con your have them positioned correctly. Also if you wanted to have second but different part look.

Was going to do Rhino's tutorial once was ok'ed
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-modding-tutorials/22279-tutorial-adding-children-statics.html

The tower can only be used on Tarin Kowt. It looks like the one in real life, so a mapper doesn't have to decide what parts get in? Would be really odd if that tower is used somewhere else, but without the stairs or a floor to walk on . I can live with the camo netting though. But stairs and the floor should be part of the tower, if you ask me. Not a childobject, but actually part of the tower? So a mapper (me in this case) only needs to drag in the tower and done.
But perhaps Rhino can say something about that, as I'm not a modeller, but to me seems much more convenient. Also then you'd have just one collision and mesh, instead of multiple (apart from camo net).

[smee]

part of the problem is the alpha's with the transparent static's works better having separate parts.

[Rhino]

Right going to take a quick look at this now.

To start off with, your file formatting is all wrong, not that I like many of the old places where some of our old statics are thou its too late to change them, but all new statics coming in all need to be in good, sensible locations and not in staticobjects/dutch/ or w/e...

since this is a military object, this should be located in pr's military statics folder would make the most seance would it not? So I would advise for it to a location like so:
\objects\staticobjects\pr\military\atc_tower_tk\

The "atc_tower_tk"is just an example of what it could be called but "atc" is far too short etc.

Then if you where going to have sub objects they would then go in there, but right now I dont see the need for sub objects other than the camo netting from what I'm looking at now but I will get into that later.

One important thing thou is that every objects name is unique and not something like "atc" or "box" as I'm seeing here, since any duplicate names of any object will seriously mess up stuff. People should be able to tell what every object is via its name and also should have a general idea of where everything is by the type of object it is, and not by what community faction it was made for... So basically, where the file is located and the naming of the object is very important, and all static objects for pr should be in the pr folder.


Now looking at the textures, ummm, ye, not good. For a start, all pr static textures should be located in: \objects\staticobjects\pr\textures\
Spreading textures out makes them hard to find for other people working on statics who might want to use your textures and it means the location of the object can not change at all.
When looking in your textures too I'm finding duplicate textures of what's in the PR textures folders such as the "null_cr.dds" which again, you should be using the pr one and your default.dds, you shouldn't even be using such a texture for testing a object or w/e....
Now looking at your textures, why on earth do none of them have any mipmaps? mipmaps are very important for performance, much like LODs, being able to render a small texture at a long distance increase performance dramatically, without it we wouldn't have any hope of getting such high view distances in our maps. You should save your textures with as many mips as possible. Only on special textures like HUD textures such as minimaps and other few examples should you save with no mipmaps or very few mipmaps.
Now onto your textures themselves, many of them are pointless and really bad tbh...
I'll start with the atc_dutch_de.dds and atc_dutch_dem.dds (which should really be "_deb.dds" at the end since its a bump/normal map...) textures.
For a start, you should have never needed to make this texture in the first place, everything in it exists in vbf2 or PR already, which for the cloth texture you even used the same detail and bump textures, just made much smaller and repeated... Then you have also not done a good spec map which has lead to it being some really shiny cloth.. All in all, it looks much worse as its now pixelated as its soo small, shiny due to the bad spec, and uses more memory than you need to since this texture already exists in the pr folder, in a higher rez and far more workable since you could UV map it so it dont look repetitive like yours dose.


Now if you didn't want it to look repetitive its very easy even using the old cloth_folds.dds texture which I advised you to use in the first place by simply splitting bits up using polys. Remember its far easier for GFX cards to render a few extra polys rather than entirely new textures and here we would only be only adding on 8 extra tris which is nothing and easily worth reusing a texture that is already loaded into the memory from other statics.
Here's a really quick example of me just using the cloth_folds.dds texture and adding in a few extra polys to make it less reprieve on one bit, note that the left side is still just using it tiled normally.


Very quick and easy to do, much higher rez texture than yours so will look better and since its already in the mod and most likly already loaded into the memory since other statics use it, will have hardly any impact on performance compared to what your new texture would.

Anyways moving on, in the same texture you have a new tread plate texture too... This is pretty pointless since there are lots of good tread plate textures in bf2 and PR which are far more high rez etc. Yours is soo low rez it looks like a blur...


Here is one you could use thou doubt its the right colour for what your looking for.


Thou the vBF2 tread plate in the industrial texture pallets will probably be the best one for you, located in: \objects\staticobjects\industry\textures\industry_02_de.dds


I remember using that tread plate on my Container Handling Crane which I made for muttrah and was nice and easy to use etc.





I'm going to cut this short as otherwise I'll be up all night giving you detailed feedback on this as there is to be frank, too many problems with this model so I'm just going to give you an overview of the main problems apart from the ones I've already highlighted.

So ye I've already covered new, unneeded textures etc more or less, you really need to check which objects/faces are assigned what textures, in many areas epically on the sides of the cloth etc I'm finding bits of textures that belong on the hand rails etc... I'm also finding loads of hidden faces that could be deleted, such as on the outside of the walkway thingy and on the isndie of the building etc. You also really need to get rid of the base of your static, it looks like **** and its unneeded, a mapper can simply flatten the terrain under where he's going to place the object and texture it concrete. You need a very good reason to have a modelled base and I dont see it here. Also on the subject of many of your objects as separate objects, this is a really bad move tbh... All you objects except for the camo net (since it really should be a overgrowth object) and glass if you wanted glass since it needs to be exported as a bundlemesh. Everything else, the walkway, the stairs should be all the same object. Just use different materials using different shader techniques to get alpha etc, not hard. Also on the subject of your textures, with your text on the cloth, you have done it via a crack texture. This is a bad move since it overlays the texture under it 100% which isn't very good as it overlays even the bump etc, which if you want it to look like the cloth was spraypainted isn't the effect you want:

Instead you should do it via the dirt texture would most likley give you a better effect, try it and see how it looks, might be wrong but I'm pretty sure using the text on a dirt layer will work more effectively.
You should also check your objects are connecting correctly and make seance, your stairs are at the moment floating in mid air, and many of your cables dont even meet there objects etc. Also your stairs really need much more detail etc, check other stairs on statics in PR etc and see how they are made and copy them. If you are ever in doubt about how something should be made, check anouther static in pr/bf2 that has something similar to what you want to make. Also the main structure, texture wise has no detail what so ever... its just a orange colour and that's it, looks to have no detail texture, no dirt etc. I can't tell if its made of concrete, metal etc, right now if anything it looks like some kinda plastic at best...


There is a lot of work to go on this model, I aint even taken a look at the LODs or COLs yet as there is simply not point in looking at them until this model is much further along, there is loads of stuff still to do and fix in it before it can even be considered to be used in PR.

So try and fix all thous points then I will have a look at it again if I have some time.


Hope that helps, sorry I'm soo blunt but its the best way to get my point across in terms of what the problems are.

[smee]

Oh well don't worry about it. sorry to have wasted your and everyone else's time.

[Z-trooper]

Don't take it like that

Feedback can sometimes seem hard, especially if there is alot of it.
Look at it like this:

If Rhino was willing to spend that much time and effort on it, it probably means that he cares

Stick it to the ******* and make the changes go go go!

[Rhino]

Oh well don't worry about it. sorry to have wasted your and everyone else's time.

Well I wouldn't take that approach tbh.

What I would personally do is scrap this mod (at least for the time being) and start on a more simpler static, that has not overly complicated about it. No need for custom textures, no really hard bits to model, something simple that you know isn't going to take months to make, more just a few days. Then you work and work on getting this simple model in good shape, then send it to me then I can give you feedback on it etc, and with it being simple there shouldn't be too many things to report back on or look at. Then any issues there are can easily be fixed. Then once its 100% and fully working with me giving it the ok you can move onto the next thing that is then slightly more complicated but still again, not overly complicated. This is how I and basically everyone I know who has succeeded learns.

The problem you have right now is you are making stuff that is far too complicated before you have 100% grasped all the concepts, you might have partly got them but you haven't fully got them and when making something complicated like this, you need to know exactly how its going to work with the engine etc.

So I suggest try making some like ehhh, let me think a sec hehe, ehhhh, a table and/or chair perhaps? I'll let you decide but what ever it is, needs to be nice, small and simple

Dont give up w/e you do not worth it

[Glimmerman]

Yeah Smee, we appreciate your work for our faction A LOT

[Glimmerman]

[AfterDune]

You're doing great smee, don't give up on it .

Don't expect compliments from Rhino . Large amount of text, with screenshots and a lot of "looks terrible" is his way of saying "coming along nicely, though enhance this/that and keep it up, you'll get there...". It's all for the best, trust me.

[Glimmerman]

Found a little texture error, on the sign its says Neune 9km but it should be Neunen 9km.

[Maxfragg]

Found a little texture error, on the sign its says Neune 9km but it should be Neunen 9km.

lol, thats really important

[Hauteclocque]

Nice pics Glimmerman !
smee, keep up the good work !
As we say in French "C'est en faisant des erreurs que l'on apprend" Trans : It's when you make mistakes that you learn.

[JohnnOmar]

As we say in French "C'est en faisant des erreurs que l'on apprend" Trans : It's when you make mistakes that you learn.

*sigh* I hate the french language , no mate, just joking, it's really hard to learn, and in the Netherlands we have to learn it

[smee]

Now looking at the textures, ummm, ye, not good. For a start, all pr static textures should be located in: \objects\staticobjects\pr\textures\

Textures are looking in pr_edit which is what is normal setup for mapping. At what point do you change it to just pr. or is that map audit.

[Rhino]

ehhhh, if your Max exporter is setup correctly then it should not be looking for the textures in pr_edit or pr etc it should be looking for them in objects/

This is how my exporter setup looks like.



In output (note im on a 64bit system why I have the (x86) in the file path): C:/Program Files (x86)/EA GAMES/Battlefield 2/mods/pr_edit/

and for 2, my mod list I have:
/rawData/
/mods/bf2/
/mods/poe2/
/mods/pr/
/mods/pr_edit/


If you have your exporter setup like so and you get any of your textures out of any of thous mods listed, and you export it to pr_edit, then you will not have a problem with texture paths and objects can easily be switched around though mods etc.