Will keep you guys updated as it goes along
EDIT: ohhh ye forgot to include the ref pic, it will look something like this when its done, thou this pic is of a very diffrent model to what I'm making.
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/4448/49661055tq2.jpg
Update 02-27-2008:
na, was more on about the endless comments I see about Insurgants being in Muttrah Citybost wrote:You take it too serious! Noone think this is driveable.
Anyways done some more work on this model this morning, some quick renders
Update 03-01-2008:
small update for you guys, been working on the "hook" mainly, all thats really left now is to add lots and lots of detail, then of course texture and import it
Update 03-03-2008:
I dunno how many of you are interested in the process of crating a static but for thous of you who are, this is a quick update of what I've done last night and a little this morning before I go back out to work of unwrapping this static to a vbf2 stock colour pallet, and the colour layer basically dose what it says on the tin, defines the colour of the object. Still got alot of work to do, all the bits that look like lots of funky colours, the wheels, the stairs, the cabin etc have not been touched yet, but the main beams etc that are yellow have
rest of the colour unwrapping, detail, bump, dirt and crack layers still to come if some of you are still wondering why it dont look at all detailed yet
Update 03-04-2008:
a little update, still working on the colour thou the door has a detail texture on it
Update 03-05-2008:
done most of the colour work now, only a few little bits left
Update 03-05-2008:
some nice renders now all my colour channel is done now
Going to now work on the detail channel
Update 03-08-2008:
I've now finished my detail and bump layers of my model, which means I've only got the Dirt and Crack layers to go, with also needing to do COL meshes and LODs before it can be 100% finnished, aswell as I still need to fix up my custom wheel texture abit aswell (it dont have any bump or spec maps yet, so will look a little plain, aswell as it having a fake shadow in the texture i need to get rid of
)heres some pics
My Detail Layer:
And my Bump Layer:
Now they may not look like much in the 2 renders above since the detail in them is pretty fine, soo from a far render like that you are not going to see the detail, soo heres a quick close up to show you the detail
Detail Layer:
Bump Layer:
As you can see, the detail layer has lots of fine detail and the bump layer, well you may not understand it but the bump layer basically makes a 2D texture look more 3D by how the light hits it ingame, which can make something very 2D look very 3D
Now ingame all the layers (Colour, Detail, Bump, aswell as the Dirt and Crack layers which I aint done yet) are all merged into 1 ingame, so to give you an idea here is my colour layer of the bit I showed you above:
My Colour Layer:
Which when complied ingame, will look something like it dose in this editor shot
As you can see, it all looks all nice and detailed with nice veration of colour over the detail, and the bump map gives a 3D impression to the 2D surfaces where it is meant too, like on the bar too the right and on the welds etc
Anyways enough of that, here are some more editor SS for you
Hope you like it so far, still got some work to do thou before this is finished
Update 03-09-2008:
a little WIP of my crack layer
EDIT: also plz note, just moved the logo on the top bar over to the left of the model to balance it out as it was making the right to "heavy" visually
Update 03-10-2008:
Anouther quick update, didn't bother with the dirt layer as most of the stock dirt textures in BF2 didn't have anything that I could really use, and thiought that the colour texture was already giving it enough of a dirty look, and only used the crack layer to add 3 logos as there wasn't really much else i could use them for, mostly the crack layer is used to put cracks in concrete walls etc.
So ye instead I've called my texture final, and started to work on my LODS
First I cloned all my mats and removed the bump maps from the clones then applied them to the LOD meshes as this means that low gfx users will not have to load the bump maps, which means they will get less lag from this static and all the other statics too as they all work like this
Then made started to work on my LOD1 mesh, which is basically a clone of my main mesh, and removed all the details from it, cut down on the polys in areas aswell as apply all my cloned mataerils without the bump maps to it. This is what the players with low gfx settings see, so they dont get to see the object in its full detail. Then with my LOD2 and LOD3 meshes, basically just used the multirez tool in max to auto cut down on the polies in areas around the model aswell as remove some more detail by hand
now ill list each mesh in order from LOD0 to LOD3 (highest to lowest detail) with also listing there poly counts
LOD0: 5040 polys - what the users with high gfx settings see when up close.
LOD1: 4222 polys - what the players with low gfx settings see when up close, and what high gfx players see when a little far away.
LOD2: 3237 polys - what all players see when a little more far away then LOD1.
LOD3: 1837 polys - what all players see when really far away.
Now these are here to mainly let players not having to load a huge mesh when really far away from a object, instead they only load the bits they can really see, like the main beams etc, you aint going to be able to see a hand rail on the stairs when 500m away from a object, even if it was drawing it for exsample so this means that your GFX card dont have to process the objects that you are not going to see anyways, thou when your up close you still get the full detail (providing your on high gfx)
Only really the col meshes to go and the final import guys, almost done!
Update 03-16-2008:
Well got hung up a little with my cols, mainly on my ladders not working quite correctly, the player was getting off them outside the walkways and falling to his death after climbing them thou with a few tweaks I sorted it
Anyways its all done now, so I've prepared a little scene to show off the final version
Bare in mind the map (Muttrah City [v2]) is still very WIP, and this little scene ive done will probably not be there in the final version, will most likely be deleted and remade in a slightly different way
Also the truck at this point have no lightmaps (shadows) cast on it, thou it will when the map is released
Hope you like it
And for thous of you who are interested in the creation of a static, here are the collisions meshes I've made for this static. The Collisions meshes determine where bullets hit a object, where players can walk on a object and where vehicles will crash into them etc
There are 3 main types of collision mesh used in BF2. Decal, Physics and Player.
Decal is used for projectiles and the like, from pistol rounds to laser guided bombs, hit the object and what kind of impact they have. The collision meshes also have materials applied to them, which detriments and effects that happen when a bullet strikes the object, for example if its metal, you will get a ping when the bullet hits it, if it was glass then you would get a glass braking sound and effect
Physics is used primary for vehicle moment, where a vehicle can and can not go. These like all the other col meshes also have materials applied to them, and when a car crashes into a metal col post, you will get a bang sound like you have hit metal
Player is really just to determine where the player can walk over the object and can not. These like all the other col meshes also have materials applied to them, and when a player walks over a metal col walk way, he will have footstep sounds as if hes walking on metal
Now the BF2 Editor has very kindly colour coded all the materials onto the col meshes so you can easily tell which surface has which materiel applied to it
Material List:
And the col meshes.
Decal:
Physics:
Player:
As you can see, they look rather plain from the meshes you can see ingame, thou this is because the game dont want to think more than it wants to, so we give it more simple meshes to work with so that we dont strain it when its trying to work out if that jet flying just clipped its wing while flying though that object
anyways hope you guys have learned from that, took me I think just under 1 month to make this from start to finish
RANGERS LEAD THE WAY!!!
Do not post stupid suggestions just because you had a bad round in PR 
