I think comparing it to BF is generous, lol. Tried to play last night and couldn't find any servers. Awesome!
Refresh button help? Seriously that happens to most Source Mods...you have to refresh half a dozen times to get the proper list up
I'm getting really fucking pissed now. I devoted most of yesterday and 5 hours of today to figure out this texture stretching bullshit. I made a fucking lamp post but my dumb ass forgot how to light a scene so fuck this. Goddamn it I hate stopping my work flow to fix shit. A couple more days to solve this crap.
From the looks of the tank barrier the problem seems to be that you are projecting the texture from one direction. Textures work like rock: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_(confectionery) You project the 2d image onto the 3d object and it goes through the object, if you project it from an angle other than the face normal, it will stretch just as if you cut diagonally through a stick of rock. So, in order to texture something like that barrier, you'd need to either use a specialist tool that lets you paint directly onto the model, but those are expensive and require practise with, or you would have to unwrap it and draw your texture straight onto the template. The easier option is to not make curved corners like that, but if you want them it will be harder to texture. Also yes, texturing is stupid, it's easily 75% of the workload for a modeller because UVs are way harder to work with than modelling and no fun whatsoever, but it is the only method we have at the moment until someone invents a new one, and you'll probably be expected to do it if you go for a job as a modeller.
Hey take your time on anything you do for emp. You don't need to frustrate yourself over things concerning this mod. I'm guessing you are new to the modding community cause before a mod blows up like GMOD or even CSS it goes thru this kind of period of no activity when it hasn't had a release in awhile.. But empires usually gets good activity when a new release comes out and has been alive and done better then most mods even ones that were funded. It's a hard game to just pick up and play. It really is a lot like BF if you understand how to play, but the devs are working on making it easier to learn(tutorial map) and hopefully make it easier to just be able to understand out the box.
i swear more of my hair has fallen out because of the stress i've put myself under to learn this shit. that and previous college assignments and of course life lessons of improper dieting... anyways i unwrapped the ole watch tower with a few modeling changes to simplify it some. the unwrapping went perfectly, surprise surprise and i'm working on texturing it right now. maybe i'll see if some empire servers are open later on. the watch tower will probably take a month to do so when i get bored of it i'll knock out those signs and barriers i was having trouble with earlier today. i think i figured out how to properly unwrap shit in maya, which if it's true, is one of my greatest maya accomplishments.
The other thing is I think you are playing at the least active times. Try on the weekends or earlier in the day. This is usually when Americans are sleeping and euros are at work. edit: like I was playing earlier 15 v 15 then i talk to my girl on the phone for a couple hours and now its 7 ppl in game. Just the worst time to try and play.
Made more progress on the watch tower texturing. My red roof has got to go lol. Playing what little empires I have I know a red roof has no place in there. Some brown, white, grey is my palette mostly I think. I will post pics of the progress and since I've figured out the uv unwrap process I'll re-do the tank barrier and I have a bunch of signs and a fence I want to do. Today is looking like a good work day.
In my absence I've been working on simpler objects to texture. Totally restarted all my texturing projects. I made a flower today. Wretched thing though. Will redo right now, gathering refs b/c I forgot what a flower looks like. I can't post images but I will have downloads later today once I finish my website redo. I made a sort of generic flower. I will probably put that up for download along with the texture map. Next up is a proper flower. I have selected a sunflower first and then later a vine flower thing. Maybe something to be placed as a prop against a building or something like that.
website got it's ass updated. super tired. downloads tomorrow before i slump over on this freaking desk http://cahemdue.net
If you model a flower, you shouldn't put it in game, I would instead suggest you render off pictures of it at two or three angles, paste the resultant images onto flat planes, and then put that in game, it's a very efficient method of doing massed foliage, and the more angles you get the better it looks. It's also ideal for use with the detail prop system which can place masses of them on displacement surfaces.
That technique sounds effective Chris but I dunno how I would do that exactly. I'll ask around. -- Well here's that fabled flower thing http://cahemdue.net/images/SecondFlower_SunFlower_1.png http://cahemdue.net/images/SecondFlower_SunFlower_2.png http://cahemdue.net/images/SecondFlower_SunFlower_3.png Obviously needs work.
Well in max, you just render a viewport (or camera) set to orthographic, then texture a plane with the result. Generally I would call the technique billboarding, not sure of any online resources for it though, you can see it in most really old 3d games though as the method used for all foliage. You can also do a really simple version which is just photographing it from the side and then rotating the face around so that it always faces the player, the detail prop system can also do that.
Well I don't use max I use maya so I'll look up billboarding and see what I get. In the meantime I will finish the flower and maybe make a tree thing and move on to more general use things like fences, rubble, etc.
FLOWERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
