Project Reality Forums

[R-DEV]ballard_44 wrote:Small observation on reality.

The downspout looks unnecessary???

Water would just run off the low side overhang the way the roof is configured, which is fine.

But either add a gutter on the low side and connect it to the downspout or delete the downspout.

I noticed the same thing and Rhino posted about it earlier. The downspout also looks too large/wide for such a small amount of water flow.

Also, if you're worried about tri count (for this or future projects), you can save a lot by making a basic window opening and then texturing it with a window texture that has a _de and _deb pallet to add a 3-d look. I think 900 tris is decent but not great, given this is non-enterable. If you decide you want it lower, the windows are the easiest place to reduce that number.



BUT... you definitely have skills and I hope you continue to model!

[R-DEV]AFsoccer wrote:I noticed the same thing and Rhino posted about it earlier. The downspout also looks too large/wide for such a small amount of water flow.

Whoops, Rhino totally mentioned that already.
Just my old construction background saying, "That's not right."

Hey, thanks so much ballard and AFsoccer for the feedback.

[R-DEV]AFsoccer wrote:Also, if you're worried about tri count (for this or future projects), you can save a lot by making a basic window opening and then texturing it with a window texture that has a _de and _deb pallet to add a 3-d look.

I don't really understand that right now, but I hope down the track I'll be like "Oh yeah cool good idea" and get on with it

So I guess the #1 thing to do would be to get rid of that drainpipe. It eats up about 150+ tris anyway due to the way it's integrated into the model, so removing it will be a decent saving.

The main reason it's there is because that side of the garage looked *soooo* dull without it there, but I don't really know if that's even an issue. I sat back and thought today...

Have I ever really gone down and scrutinized any of the statics while playing the game?

The answer I came to was no.. as long as something didn't look out of place and provided some cover, I was happy it was there. So perhaps I should get over the 'visual attractiveness' aspect and remove the drainage pipe which, as you all said, appears from nowhere. I was actually going to have guttering on that bottom edge when I was playing with the corrugated roof, but turns out that's not going to happen so I'll just get rid of it then.

I'm going to see if I can simplify or cut some tri's from the windows as well, as they take up a fair amount, but then again it keeps playing in my head:

Create efficient lods and your first LOD (probably 0-30m) can be almost as high as you want

Ok well upon 3 'high-up's' advice, I've removed the unrealistic drainpipe and put in a fusebox instead which uses less tri's while maintaining the 'zomg i'm a boring empty wall' look. Basically I just want something to balance the door on the other side. The fusebox is *slightly* bigger (about 5-8 cm L/H) than my one in Australia so it is of realistic proportions. The placement is also around what the one in Australia was.





I may look at simplifying the window shutters or doing whatever the heck it was that AFSoccer suggested above (just gotta learn it first >_>). That will save about 100 tri's per shutter (I think... can't remember off the top of my head right now).

Psyrus wrote: I may look at simplifying the window shutters or doing whatever the heck it was that AFSoccer suggested above (just gotta learn it first >_>). That will save about 100 tri's per shutter (I think... can't remember off the top of my head right now).

To save on tris, some detail textures (which usually end in "_de.dds") have a corresponding texture pallet that adds a fake 3-D look. These 3-D textures are called "normal maps" and they end in "_deb.dds". So for items that would require a crazy number of tris to create with a mesh, static modelers can use this "normal" method to achieve a reasonably good 3-D look.

There are many examples, but here's a good one:



To the average player, they probably run by these Chinese walls every game and think the top is 3-D, but it if you look closely, it's composed of flat surfaces. The trick is that the modeler (EA DICE) used:

chvillage_02_de.dds for the Detail pallet
chvillage_02_deb.dds for the NDetail pallet



and it gives the illusion of 3-D by using 2-D shadows.

So, if you want to save on tris, make a basic window well with maybe a bottom ledge, and then for the main face of the window use a detail texture that has a normal. You'll have to look through the pallets but you'll see ones for doors, windows, plaster walls, tiled floors, etc. A hint: if you can, try to minimize the number of pallets that are used on a static and try not to switch between middle eastern, chinese, and american, etc.

[R-DEV]AFsoccer wrote:To save on tris, some detail textures (which usually end in "_de.dds") have a corresponding texture pallet that adds a fake 3-D look. These 3-D textures are called "normal maps" and they end in "_deb.dds". So for items that would require a crazy number of tris to create with a mesh, static modelers can use this "normal" method to achieve a reasonably good 3-D look.
...
So, if you want to save on tris, make a basic window well with maybe a bottom ledge, and then for the main face of the window use a detail texture that has a normal. You'll have to look through the pallets but you'll see ones for doors, windows, plaster walls, tiled floors, etc. A hint: if you can, try to minimize the number of pallets that are used on a static and try not to switch between middle eastern, chinese, and american, etc.

Thanks so much for the explanation... I'll see what I can do! The window shutters constitute around 50% of the tris (~380/800) so if I can make it look decent without them, it'll be better for performance.

Textures finished! On to the LOD/COL work!



_____________________________________
(LOD Spreadsheet) (Want to help?)































Sorry I just spent pretty much most of my day off fighting with the tutorial & 3dsmax trying to learn this texturing thing. I still haven't got the hang of it but progress is being made! I have decided to scrap my fancy shutters after all, they were just too much of a pain!.

Zomg new hideout

Not to be rude or anything, but considering that you sort of made this for the map Vads?, that garage doesn't look very Norwegian...
The shape is good, but the texture makes it look old.. Like pre WW2 old.
And there weren't many cars in Norway back then, and I guess even less all the way up in Finnmark. For it to look right I would say you should go with a texture looking like the one on the pic in the first post.
It would blend more in then IMO.

mockingbird0901 wrote:Not to be rude or anything, but considering that you sort of made this for the map Vads?, that garage doesn't look very Norwegian...
The shape is good, but the texture makes it look old.. Like pre WW2 old.
And there weren't many cars in Norway back then, and I guess even less all the way up in Finnmark. For it to look right I would say you should go with a texture looking like the one on the pic in the first post.
It would blend more in then IMO.

Sorry, I think you missed the joke (the coolface/trollface). I couldn't figure it out today so I just threw on a random texture to the whole model (no UV mapping) that looked somewhat plausible. I intend it to look similar (not exactly) like the picture in the first post.

Psyrus wrote:

Sorry, I think you missed the joke (the coolface/trollface). I couldn't figure it out today so I just threw on a random texture to the whole model (no UV mapping) that looked somewhat plausible. I intend it to look similar (not exactly) like the picture in the first post.

Nice to know, you got me a bit worried there

sooo....
no new hideout?

Finally started to understand the UV unwrap stuff so I did a bit of a play around this afternoon. Once I get better I can start again and finalize the texture for the shed. It currently uses four different textures (.dds) but I think I can get it down to 3...



Would like to reiterate that these are not the final texture, merely what I played around with... but it is indicative of the kind of look I'm going for.

Nice to see you're making progress still

Getting a bit better at this, but the whole colour/detail/crack layers have been a bit hard to understand.
Edit: Oh and apologies to anyone who gets annoyed at my microscopic updates. I use it as a means to keep motivated -> I can track my progress in the thread and it helps keep up the pace

Texturing BF2 StaticMeshes

Should help explain the different slots in the shader a bit better. The method used though is a bit overcomplicated though imo.

Tim270 wrote:Texturing BF2 StaticMeshes

Should help explain the different slots in the shader a bit better. The method used though is a bit overcomplicated though imo.

Thanks Tim, but I think the issue is with my slow-to-understand brain, as reading that tutorial didn't clear the waters as much as I would've liked. The main thing I'm having issues with is how to get the textures I want on there using the current pallets, but not getting that horrible stretching you can see present in these WIP shots

Cant really tell without looking at the model, I would guess though that the pixels are not 1:1 with the cm's of the mesh.

The basic way I go about this is find the texture size (using windows texture viewer to look at dds files), randomly picking one that is 1024x512. In bf2 units 512px is 3m. So our texture is going to need to be unrwapped at 6x3m if it is to be 'per pixel'.

http://i.imgur.com/4eEB4.jpg

So using uvw map, set the dimensions to the texture size. (rem to change uvw channel to 2 to see detail slot). Now the easiest way is to pick a texture first and then model to its dimensions. So here is a mesh that is 6x3x0.2, this means that the mesh and texture will be 1:1. Anything bigger or smaller and the texture will tile. Which should be fine for the wood texture you are using. ( I think its House_wood_dest_4.dds?) If so, the texture being 512x512 just set your dimensions in your uvw map modifer as 3x3x3 and it should be 1:1 and tile. You can then make adjustments by moving the gizmo in the uvw modifer.

http://i.imgur.com/DcdwG.jpg

ex

http://i.imgur.com/FJRf0.jpg

Hope that helps a little with the stretching. Gets a little more complicated when using a large pallet, but the same 'rules' still apply, setting the size so it wont stretch, then move the uvs onto the part you want using uvw unrwap edit window.

Tim270 wrote:Cant really tell without looking at the model, I would guess though that the pixels are not 1:1 with the cm's of the mesh.

The basic way I go about this is find the texture size
...
Hope that helps a little with the stretching.

Thanks so much, I'll try that later today when I get a couple of hours of free time

I hope to knock out the texturing soon because tbh I'm finding it pretty unrewarding The modeling phase was way more fun. I'm also looking forward to the LOD challenge.

The gratification for me is always the modeling part . But if you learn to master texture you will love that too.