[C4:AC][Art and Graphics] Some 3D Graphics Research.

[gkclarkson]

Ok, I finished up all but one of the parts for the crawler, right now i have



I'm going to finish up the Reactor Mount, and everything will be done by tomorrow. This is progressing quickly

Edit: removed those bulky images and put in the finished version along with it's parts

[gkclarkson]

Ok- Crawler is complete, complete with a nifty bumpmap on the treads



hmm... what to do next?

[GeoModder]

A progenitor scout?

[gkclarkson]

Will we even be implementing the smax factions? I thought we were using the original 7 and the smax techs and projects

[GeoModder]

Don't mind my rants, just some wishful thinking.

AFAIK, it's at this stage purely SMAC.

[binTravkin]

Will we even be implementing the smax factions? I thought we were using the original 7 and the smax techs and projects

Don't worry, Geomodder is known for putting a stick in turkeys cage..

Right now you shouldn't bother about smax, if we can get the first 7 factions working it would already be a big achievement (and probably seeing our success, some more people will come in and assist in creating more advanced things, e.g. progenitors).

Keep it up!

(I can't wait for my cIV and then SDK arrive!)

[GeoModder]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Don't worry, Geomodder is known for putting a stick in turkeys cage..

Well, at the very least I improved your English with that.

[Illuminatus]

Originally posted by gkclarkson
Will we even be implementing the smax factions? I thought we were using the original 7 and the smax techs and projects

If we manage to implement original 7, 7 remaining ones will not be far from implementation.

[smacksim]

Damn, you guys are really rolling! Great work Blake and gkclarkson.

I'd originally hoped to find a way to extract the cvr files directly to another program so we could directly edit them (to use in original Smac), but never did find a way. For this project, seeing as how you have such a talented modeller, its actually much better than it couldn't be done that way: These are all original models, not using copyrighted material directly at all. A major :b! Of course, if they end up exactly the same dimensions as the original you could be harrassed, though I doubt you will.

Long way of saying: great great job modelling!

[Phasmatis]

I don't want to step on anyone's toes but that 1000+ polycount is way too high, the models in game look to be 300 polys max, I bet most of them are under 200.

I'm sure someone could do a better texture but the model below has 191 polys without that much of a reduction in detail.



Don't get me wrong, the models created by gkclarkson look great but their polycounts need to be much, much lower.

[gkclarkson]

Ok, i agree that the polycount was way too high, but I also know that we need a balance between detail and performance.

I am NOT going to lower to models to the quality as shown in that picture. By the way, is that my model or your own model?

what i can do is hope to bring the polycount down - and most of the models won't be as graphically intensive as the unity foil

I neutered this thing plenty enough as it is, just to get it to the magic poly number of 306

Every face I delete is a stab to the heart

I need a poly budget- what do you all think it should be?

Look at that crappy ass cockpit on this unity foil-306 poly's


and the original- 1502 poly's-even i admit that's a little high-meh

[Phasmatis]

300 is a lot better, without being able to look at the original models it's hard to say how high the original units are. It will be interesting to find out when the SDK arrives.

I made the model in the picture, just to demonstrate.

[wgabrie]

Phasmatis and gkclarkson, I don't think either of you should take this personally. I actually like phasmatis' foil despite the pixelated texture and of course gkclarkson's for it's life like attributes. I'd be open to the idea of giving players the choice of such basic units with texture details, for speed reasons, or more detailed ones for attractive graphics.

[binTravkin]

gkclarkson, your 306 poly foil still looks detailed enough.
I even doubt it's reactor part (the one on tail) will be distinguishable in-game, it will be just too small to zoom in so much, so no worries.

Btw - is there any possibility you could examine the existing graphics and get some statistics how much polys they have (and apologies if it hass already been done)?

[gkclarkson]

The problem with examining the existing graphics is that for the life of me, I just can't find a .nif importer that

A. Works for 3dsmax 6, which i use, or

B. Opens the .nif File correctly, I've used the open source .nif importers for blender, and it won't identify the files as .nif files. I'm gonna try the Maya 6.5 one, but I only have Maya accessible at my school, which I can't get to until Monday.

Probably, i'm gonna have to make do.
If anyone out there is researching this, and you find a way to import and export the game models, contact me PLEASE!

Until then, I can't know the limits of the engine, and how it handles different resolution models

Also, different resolution levels for the geometry for performance reasons would really be nice

you know, for the uber-high end systems, they could use that 1500 poly unity foil, and everything would look nice