Refinery Rock

So I spent about an hour and came up with this refinery rock/ err whatever it is supposed to be. I've kept it at about 600 polys.

It's still a WIP so keep that in mind. I was thinking of making it more chimney-like because right now it's kind of hill-ish

Comments?



I'm not sure but do models need to have a bottom surface? and can mappers submerge this down into the ground?

 

Yeah stuff can be put into the ground

Do you have a preliminary texture for it?

 

loks like a termite hill, its nice though

some suggestions:

considering some maps have there refinery nodes on top of concrete plating it would be diversifying if you added large rock chunks (in the sand) that stick out like it was pushed up and sidewards by the steam coming out

this way it fits on sandy terrain (the rocks where part of the soil) and concrete terrain (the rocks are concrete cracked open because of force and the ref node came out of this)

 

what do you mean by preliminary texture?

I've already slapped one on, is that not sufficient?

 

A coloured one, but the current one already has very nice detail

 

I think that refineries should be something else other than a rectangular piece of rock sticking out of the ground or a wagon wheel.

 

I lol'd

 

IMO little mini-volcanoes everywhere are a little too cartoonish for Empires. I don't see a problem with the smoking rocks.

Also, we require more Vespene gas!

 

This is nice! What program do you use?

 

XSI I'd guess, or max with a different colour grid.

Personally I think making it look more like a fissure would be good, like a pushed up and cracked piece of earth.

 

and ... we havvvvee a winner.

I'll make a few of these over the weekend. I agree it's kind of volcano-ish.

I was originally going to make something like a vespene geyser from starcraft but those super-detailed ridges wants to push the model up beyond 1k poly.

This is just 600 with detail + bump map.

 

I think this will be a nice change from normal rocks, and probably look awesome in-game with a smokestack.

 

Now to just add frothy lava highlights hehe.

Anything else refinery rock wise you want to see CB? Now that I'm back from vacation.

Maybe a mapper who knows how to export 3dsmax or obj to smd could implement it? I have yet to figure that out.

 

Considering you won't see many of these at once I don't think having them use more than 1k polies is a problem.

 

That is a good point... what do you think, other people?

 

How did you make the diffuse texture by the way? I suck at texturing.

 

Just export the UVW Map.. and fill'er in.

At least that is what I used to do before I switched to Mudbox. It is a seriously amazing program.

Get your hands on a trial copy or something, import a .obj and then make a paint layer for diffuse(this rock is 2048^2 tga). You can also make a paint layer for bump.

Then it is as simple as air-brushing the details on.

I still do final touch-ups or saturation editing etc. in photoshop... but mudbox has cut down my texturing time by like a factor of 10.

For a quick tutorial, check out http://modeling.empires.sleepingrock.com/

 

fraggdandangfg trial copies...

 

Refinery rock wise, I'm out of ideas.

I am personally interested in seeing more Empires-themed props like statues, but I don't make maps anymore. Maybe ask Keef-Shandy if they have some requests for mvalley/duststorm.