Competetion #13 - Lord Ash

[Lord Ash]

This, will be interesting. I know that my skills are very far from the level I see around here, but I think I can muster up the courage to enter a serious competitor. Being in college, sometime I get very busy and have to let sideline things like this go, but I think with the time frame I can manage. I already have come up with a clear concept of what I am doing, I think it will be real fun.

I have a couple of questions... first, we can "share" the maps between both ships ? Like I can put all my light for panels on both ships on the little map, but let both read from it ?

Ok, I can only have 2 ships, but i will budget a few dozen tris for a "missile-pod" or something, that could be added to a 'officer' ship or similar...mid-level boss I understand that it is only for my benefit.

I will have some animated parts, I want to make this as close to functional as I can. I also want to learn to rig simple machine type stuff like doors and gun turrets and gears n levers n stuff. This compo is a great chance to really learn a lot about low-poly techniques, and basic stuff like this. Getting art into a game.

We don't need animation, but I will at least lay the ground work with a glow map, my Armada has extensive Force Field Technology... that and I want to learn to use glow maaps, i still don't have a renderer that displays them...


So 2 new technologies I want to learn, basic mechanical type rigging, and glow maps... any good free renderer that handles glow maps... I may have on and not even know it... I think I have something that can rig laying around...


So pictures, I will start with my proto types in wings, and my sketches, I use my $500 wacom in my $500 photoshop, but still, not as good as pencil paper and some hours can do... still don't use my wacom very much... it is a waste I think... very hard for me to use, ithink I will try the other overlay next month, maybe it will help... being able to 'just hold shift' to make straight lines would help... there is a button there on the tablet, but it is not so easy for me to push any key... I do everything with my right hand... tr it sometime, just use one hand for one hour... you will know my frustration with all this... all these ideas, that I cannot make... all this code I must take twice as long to write... but I am finding ways around it, as i have with everything... i have dragon 9 I bought, so I will get some voice commands, maybe that will help....

well pictures !!



This one show the 2 ships but is not to scale.




This one is of the "Tower"




This shows the approximate size of the asteroid,
I am modeling to scale, naturally, it really helped to rough out the shape of the asteroid before I started modeling it. Yes even the abstract shape of an asteroid....



This is the Wings shot of the Small ship,
it currently is about 3-400 tris
I have done several variations with it so far, about a dozen iterations, I have some trouble areas I will describe later... I may start it all over again, if it is better to do what I want a different way...




Here is the mother ship, sticking out of the asteroid...
It is very hard to get all that to line up right, and try to keep a near uniform shape to all the tris on the rock... so it will texture well. yeah ?



so there is both ships, be careful the mother ship is very big, um 1600x1200, the res I Use. I am making the mothership as if built from an asteroid. It will have 2 long constructed bays, where ships can take off and land, and some windows or something, sticking out of the asteroid. I took the time to wrap the asteroid surface around the bays, it took several tries, and I'm still not quite satisfied. I am wondering, since I can't take a class on this stuff in school right now, and the last stuff on modeling for games I have read talks about everything being BSP legal, can I just make the bays, and have it intersect with the asteroid, with the meshes going through each other ? Is that ok even for close up stuff like environment ?

Still a lot of work to do, but I am learning a lot about what needs to be done...

[retardedmonkey]

Originally Posted by Lord Ash

Can I make more than 2 ships, if all of them use less than the limit ? Like I have my little ship, but I wanted to make some versions of it... like a shuttle/freighter, and a fighter version.

I have an animated part, do I need to rig it ? like a turret that spins ?

Can we use an animated texture, to make blinking lights ?

You can only make the two ships, but you should be pretty tight with the current texture specs. So really it would be best to use it all up on the two ships.

You can have animated parts if you would like, the final submission won't be a video though so you won't have to animate anything. However if you want to have your animated parts at different angles, etc. you can rig it if you'd like. It's up to you.

As far as the animated texture, its the same as the rigging question. The final submission won't be a video so we will not see the animated texture at all. Would probably be better to not waste to much time on it when you're already busy

I'm at work so I can't see images, but I'll crit your stuff when I get home and can actually see it

Good luck!

[Lord Ash]

here are a couple of idea I had playing around, I don't think I will use either one, but I think I have some basic operations in wings very well understood...



a wide wing craft


the mighty stegobot!

[ColdRolled]

Originally Posted by Lord Ash

I am wondering, since I can't take a class on this stuff in school right now, and the last stuff on modeling for games I have read talks about everything being BSP legal, can I just make the bays, and have it intersect with the asteroid, with the meshes going through each other ? Is that ok even for close up stuff like environment ?

if you are going to have a bunch of hangers or bays all over the asteroid, i would definitely recommend making them as separate objects and then attaching them like how you were thinking. one thing that you will have to make sure of if you go that route, its to make sure than when you intersect things, make sure something like the bay opening isn't being covered up by a piece of the asteroid itself. i would also recommend to make the bay and then have a texture in the center of the part sticking out so that it would look like the interior.

neat idea too, this competition will totally be a good chance to practice your skills and to learn new ones

[Lord Ash]

it will mostly be just the two bays, the long ones, I may have a look-out or sensor array here or there...

most likely an observation deck as well...

been busy with school, not much time to work on these but I will post some ss after my next sit down. need to redo my office, it as gotten cluttered over the last winter, and I need to set up the printer I bought last fall. I have some pretty clear ideas about what I will be doing for each ship... just a lot of work...


couple of questions... about the "engine" these will be used in, hypothetical or not, for what I am wanting to do, I need to make it look good.

can I assume 800x600 target resolution ? it has to do with laying out the UV so things don't get stretched too bad,

If say I have two objects that comprise my object, like a main body and a door, or the asteroid and the bays, can the object get there texture data from separate images ? as in using a 1024 for the bays, and the 512 for the asteroid... since its so big...? I guess im asking, how complex can UV mapping be...?

well, I think alot of this stuff will be easier later, once I get closer to doing all the UV stuff...

how "real' does it need to be ?

how much time are the judges going to look at my work ? ten seconds or ten minutes...? most of what I'm doing will require someone to really look at the mesh and UV space I think, I'm planning on spending a good week or two on this, will my diligence be seen ? or is it all just the beauty shot ? if so, I have major compositing work to do...


I will have new stuff by the end of the week for sure, I need to decide on what I'm doing and get it done with the shuttle, so I can start focusing on getting the modeling done with the mothership... I know it will be a task, I did some brief experiments on cutting the bays into the blocks I have now, and getting each floor how I want it... the doors... very hard to get everything lined up how I want it.

well, I have to get to work on my Java for awhile... later