http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61050610/rappmo_pine01_newUVs.rar <- Compiled pine01 with new materials. http://dl.dropbox.com/u/61050610/rappe_pine_texture.rar <- PSD with UVs. That is just the pine01 with new UVs, over a quick test texture using your image as a base. If you approve, I'll go over all the trees UVs so they fit this. Lemme know what you think. Also: This will break the previous trees. Just to pre-empt any whining. Edit: You said you wanted the large one... idno man... that is a pretty freakin huge tree. I'll make one that large, but I will still say it looks weird. Seeing em like this also made me want to raise the branches on the small fir a tad so the trunk shows a little more. So provided the new UVs work, I'll crank out a large version and perhaps another mid-sized to change it all up a bit? The models themselves will be small filesizes, the textures are not. So as much variation I can cram into one texture, the better. Which is also why the new UVs would be sweet, we could have two trunks side by side. One grayer for the firs, and a more tan/brown for the pines.
I'll check those soon (just got home from work) Only before i forget: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/234836/Modelling/bark_1.tga That was the original seamless bark texture i used to make the comparison image from, which showed only a small part of it. It might not be necessary anymore now, but just in case. Putting it online takes no effort after all
If you guys need more textures, here's some pictures I took last year, you can use them however you want. I also want to recommend this 3ds Max script http://dev.wallworm.com/topic/2/wall_worm_model_tools.html which makes it a lot easier to export your models for source.
Nice textures! Now I will have to make some broad leaf as well And that exporter looks really sweet. Forget about hammer and make whole levels in your 3d package? Yes please. Too bad I work in Blender.
I just checked it, and this way the level of detail is much, much better. Nice job ! Your quick test is too red though, especially for chain which has yellow/redish light. It'll be a tad too red for any map though. If you use the bigger texture i think you could achieve even some more detail, and have two trunks in one texture: (the top part was your quick test; second trunk color was just to resemble two textures) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/234836/Modelling/UV space.jpg Texture: (feel free to change the color) http://dl.dropbox.com/u/234836/Modelling/bark_1.tga I think you're pretty close to the final, polished version ! Also i'm all for the big version and the altered mid sized model you want to make
Source still uses fairly antiquated lighting methods for models, sadly. The results of an entirely model-based level would likely be pretty hideous... Though, I think someone should do it eventually just as a proof of concept.
New UVs and texture Added Fir03, Fir04 and Pine_dead Download link in the sig below. So... New texture with more detail thanks to Silk, it defenitely has more detail now. Two new firs, one hueg and another mid-size, as well as a "dead" tree with no needles. New texture has some dead space due to the elongated nature of the trees. I've got some ferns cooking that I could fill that dead space up with, any other ideas?
That huge branch in the rappe_pine.vtf texture looks like it's been a victim of pixel doubling. In fact, it's a carbon copy of the smaller one, just scaled up. It might as well not be there and leave room for something else. (More trunk texture?) Because of that, over half the texture is wasted space, and the tree trunks don't look all that great despite having a 2048x2048 texture (of which about a third is dedicated to trunk textures) available. Aside from the textures, the models look great from a distance. Up close there are some structural oddities with the trunk (the cross-section is star-shaped and the collision models don't match the outline precisely, nevermind the collisionless rootball) but it's not visually very apparent. I'm having trouble using these as static props. Apparently they haven't been compiled with $staticprop or something.
So it seems: The same goes for the other models. Will having them as dynamic entities impact performance much ? Cause swaying trees isn't that obvious on pines. They have no leafs to catch the wind. I'll compile the map with light to see if it works well with the alpha mask of the texture
No worries, I've already converted them to prop_static. I won't animate them. Great. I've tried them on small testmaps, but you've got more experience with Hammer. Lemme know how it turns out.
If they're dynamic they'll have dynamic shadows which can be costly especially if there's a lot of them. We can get around this by disabling their shadows and making an animated overlay of the shadow to replace the real one and emulate the tree's movement, which can look better and perform better (easier than it sounds). I do think having them animated is a nice touch if you can figure it out and get it working. I'm about to compile Snowstorm with fir04 and fir01 so I'll show you how that turns out.
It's not so much the figuring out part with animation, but the amount of work. Last couple of weeks I've been fiddling around with these instead of playing and I'm getting to the point where I can't see the forest for all the trees. Pun intended. Dynamic shadows = Hot shit sexy, texture alpha shadows Static shadows = Boring, uglystick, collisionmesh shadows Personally I don't see the need to have em static, it's not like there will ever be maps with thousands, or even hundreds, of trees. But it was asked for so now they are.
Dynamic props don't receive per-vertex lighting. They're only take one lighting sample for the entire prop. This works fine if the trees are alone in the middle of a well-lit plain, but can be problematic in a dense forest of if they're close to the shadow of a cliff. It's possible to have texture shadows baked into lightmaps. The only catch is that, with the large lightmap scales needed to compile Empires maps, the result isn't marvelous. Still, I think I'd take those over poorly lit dynamic props. Plus, there's always prop_dynamic_override.
This is only true of a compile using basic settings. Two images showing the difference below: http://www.tophattwaffle.com/wp-content/gallery/tutorial-74/stock_screen5.png http://www.tophattwaffle.com/wp-content/gallery/tutorial-74/best_screen5.png The tutorial that these screenshots came from(Theres more images on that page too): http://www.tophattwaffle.com/?p=2058
Exactly what Smithy said Chain was and will be compiled with these parameters: -both -final -StaticPropPolys -TextureShadows -StaticPropLighting This way static shadows will be cast from the alphamask of the foliage as well, not just the collisionmesh in the bottom part of the trunk. I did something wrong with the compile yesterday (wrong mapversion), and i'll be at work untill 8 pm today, so i'll have to compile it tomorrow (free day of the week) Also i checked the collisions, and they look okay. I still think the way the 3d branch goes over in the 2d texture is odd and i still would love to see better textures (needles as well), but if the lighting turns out okay the model is good enough for me to have them replace the EP2 trees in Chain. I'll be able to give you a comparison shot tomorrow, and i'll be sure to include the fps to compare performance as well
Allrighty then. As for the other feedback, not that I don't like me some, but I feel it's getting rather ridiculous. Ep2 on the left, mine on the right. Top: Trunk texture details, good enough. Middle: Branch texture details, more detail than Ep2. Bottom: If it's good enough for Valve, it's good enough for me. I guess I could go over them again and try to line it up better. I do appreciate your belief in me being able to achieve what Valve could not though.
It's how i am It's a fact that i'm never satisfied with anything. If it makes you feel better, this is especially true for my own creations. The moment i say "it's good enough" is usually when other people say "looks perfect!" It has one positive consequence though: you don't have to redo everything you made every 6 months because it started looking old and ugly. Also, going back to when i started mapping, ... while i very much liked reading 'all-positive' feedback, it's the people who kept pushing me further and further that i remember and respect all these years later. The others i've forgotten. For example i miss Broccoli a lot. And i still can't understand how Solokiller knew so much for his age. Arid, Bush, Chain and Vehicletraining wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for people like them. But i'll try to add more positive comments to my ... comments Edit: It's almost 9 pm, i'll start the compile, but it probably won't be ready before i go to bed
