idk yet either but me and blender are going to figure it out to the point I can place some stuff on Silk's map and see what happens. I hope it isn't necessary to dumb things down practically to the point of sticks and crayon colors. That won't be any fun at all.
I made a "how to export Valve models from Blender" for Chrono once, it might be of some use for you too. http://forums.empiresmod.com/showpost.php?p=458274&postcount=112 Hopefully you don't end up like the Chrono guy, (I'm still sure he's somewhat related to *****).
I did that in emp_chain. However there's one major problem ... well with my massive terrain maps at least ... which is that I always hit the limits of max amount of displacements, max amount of disp detail, and max amount of .. something something leaf ambient which is mostly caused by the massive amount of displacements and their lightmapscale. Before i could add the displacements rocks to chain, I had to remove over half of the displacement details in the rest of the map, plus have roughly 20% less lighting detail from having to lower lightmapscales even more. If I could've used models for those rocks, the rest of the terrain would've looked massively (better) more detailed. Also, yes to the LOD's. Things should be as cheap as possible. Certainly from a distance.
thats depending on distance - maybe you could even have bolts on the highest detail LoD model - 10m away you probably cant tell them from a bump mapped texture anyway. if you go away further it gets planes instead of beams. and even further you probably wont even notice sprites (except you look for them).
Propper to the rescue! " Using Propper With Displacements If you run the tool on a map with no brushes (displacements don't count), Propper will crash. Thus, if making a model solely from displacements, place a normal (non-displacement) brush somewhere in the vmf file. This is an obscure bug from vbsp and I haven't managed to track it down yet. " So apparently you can turn those displacements into a prop, as long as you have a tiny itsy bitsy brush placed somewhere in it.
Propper is great and I used it extensively on commgrad. That map pretty much would not have possible without it unless I would have removed 80% of the buildings. One issue with this approach is the lighting, as in the props don't cast shadows on to themselves. I tried using -staticmeshshadows or whatever its called but the shadows generated looked very unnatural and artifact-like. Maybe its different for displacement props? Either way I doubt that you will run into max displacement limits in echelon.
Blender.... mother of mercy this thing was conceived by alien technology. I've been locked in an arm wrestling match the past two evenings. I tracked down a script that would allow me to export my CAD files to wavefront format, which then lets me import to blender and go to work. Not much time this week to mess around but here's about an hours worth from tonight. Check the vertices and face count I've worked in, is that pretty good for Empire models? This is a 10 foot beam that would be joined with two others to make the tank trap "badger line". If I can get it all the way to a model, I'll get a better idea of what the size should be adjusted to in game.
I forgot to ask about this earlier.... isn't there a pretty good stock of stuff from HL2, CS and TF that can be used. Or is the something about those models that don't work well in Empires? Boulders... should be easy to make some very low poly boulders of different sizes then just texture them.
Decompiled models You need this for it to be able to import them: http://steamreview.org/BlenderSourceTools/
No Models are old and ugly, and 90% of their models were part of something else and can't be used on their own. Plus I make terrain maps, which HL2 never really had. The most decent, natural thing they made were the trees from Episode 2; however those are not available for use. Luckily rappemongo made his own pinetree models, which are as good as valve's. Their bushes, grass, boulders, rocks, clifss ... etc all look exactly as 10 year old models should look: 10 years old. And they're always roughly the same size and shape, there's no variation. Also it's amazing how unoptimized some of them are. It would be awesome if you could go through all empires maps, look at them from a certain height and think about what would be awesome to have in that map. For example: Arid and Mvalley: http://www.funwallz.com/huge-cactus-in-desert-gv-hd-wallpaper-75720.html http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3OPmj-LCxKU/UUvKwwP_KsI/AAAAAAAAJPY/lhoO6i6oraQ/s1600/015+(Large).JPG http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Z-MgGwB2-I0/UUvLKFKeRJI/AAAAAAAAJPg/Pou-0KQAh2w/s1600/037+(Large).JPG Isle: (more variation and much bigger than what we currently have) http://visualparadox.com/wallpapers/isle800.htm Duststorm: (there must be a way you can spawn these things and make them tumble) https://www.google.be/search?q=jing..._AUoAQ&biw=1920&bih=978#q=tumbleweed&tbm=isch Bush: Lots of vegetation in all colors, sizes and shapes http://www.dexsoft-games.com/models/bushes1.html Also i have no idea what a good amount of tri's is for an empires model. Can some modelers answer that ?
Might just as well share these modelling sites too: Bunch of WW2 models, tank traps should work for your beach Gaming models.de, there's a couple of pretty trees and rocks etc for you there Source sdk models, you have to register on their site to see the models, but other than that it works Then there are garrys mod and gamebanana, but I've always found those two a pain in the ass when searching for models to use.
My current preference is to divide area 2 in a concrete and terrain area. The left side would be filled with objects and models and create an infantry area like you get in district. The right side would be hilly terrain used as trenches by infantry. Between the two is a flat area for vehicles. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/234836/mapping/emp_echelon/Area 2 idea 1.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/234836/mapping/emp_echelon/Area 2 idea 2.jpg https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/234836/mapping/emp_echelon/Area 2 idea 3.jpg The concrete part would have to be made so that the buildings, together with the wall, provide visibility blocking from the beach: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/234836/mapping/emp_echelon/Visblocking.jpg Edit: Latest mapfile: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/234836/mapping/emp_echelon/emp_echelon.rar
Looks pretty sexy so far. I'm guessing you would like to have want the hill top base to look similar, having a lots of concrete buildings. Also I'm think there should be a large wall surrounding it. I think Groznyj Grad from Snake Eater makes a really good concept for what the base can look like. Maybe not as packed with detail, but lots of room for interesting combat. Wadaythink?
my vote goes for awesome. also we move on 25/26, internet comes 27th between 7 and 12am. i hope valve doesnt break even more in the meanwhile.
Looks good to start and take inspiration from, but some vertical aspects would have to be added to make it interesting for infantry in empires; a bit like you see in Escort. In that image some of the hangers could be more like buildings you can go over as infantry while tanks can drive underneath bridges, parts of the base could be lower or higher than others, ... with height added and less of a checkerboard pattern, that's a good source of inspiration. Just never forget gameplay > realism Next week i'll be concentrating on warframe again, as i started a clan in that game a few weeks ago and i've been neglecting it a bit
I spent 200 platinum on changing the name to "Catalytic Force". We have 23 members, although half of those are you and your friends So we have around 12 active people
