Revised Robin model

[Terazilla]

I'm looking to learn VS's content pipeline so figured I'd pick something on the simpler side to begin with. Since it doesn't look like anybody has the Robin assigned at the moment I started in on that. I'm a couple days in at this point and have a model I'm liking pretty well, so figured I'd throw some pictures up here.



I've got coherant texture coordinates on it as well, though haven't tackled a texture yet:

[STEVE555]

Hi Terazilla,
That ship looks really cool I would love to battle with that when you've finished it.

Regards,
STEVE555

[safemode]

compared to the old one and even on it's own, it looks good, even a little mean. But it's intensely air craft looking. If it's not a whole lot of trouble, could you generate a shot of what it would look like if the nose-cone was squared and tapered. Kind of like the nose of an X wing fighter. That might take the look of it away from being a jet in the current military, and place it firmly in space.

[bgaskey]

It does look alot like a modern jet fighter. I would maybe make the indentations in the sides look less like air intakes and more like weapon pods or something.

[Terazilla]

I've been fighting the general airplane-ness since I started the thing. I wanted to keep the basic shape the existing one had but get more contouring going on, and while it's doing better than yesterday I still totally know what you mean.

Let me try a more angular nose and see how that feels.

Do weapons in VS attach models, or do they just emit from a location? If they attach a weapon model where do I find the originals (or an obj)? I'd like to import them for size comparison.

[safemode]

also, rectangular thrusters look more space-like. Maybe put up some antennas (little less aerodynamic, since there is no air).

i know the original model was very plane-like so i'm trying not to suggest a whole lot of changes, but it's up to you. It's just leaving me wondering if this is a model for a Flight Sim and that's not a good sign.

edit: weapons: I think you get to say where they get attached and exist. I'm totally clueless as to whether we provide the model or if you build it in and just tell us where to start the "beam" or whatever .

[Terazilla]

Revising the nose made it meaner looking, also kind of bird-like. Appropriate enough I think.

My thought was to have weaponry and sensors and such emitting from the "intakes". I might actually continue that contour all the way under the nose, so the intakes are actually one wide piece. That'll look pretty non-airplane like.

[pyramid]

Great improvement to the previous Robin. I'd actually leave the lower intakes as they are and declare them missile launchers. While at the same time, the upper stabilizers give the airplany look, I'd make them antennas or some other kind of greebles. The remaining structure is nice, The tips of the "wings" would make good places to mount guns.

In VS the previous model did not have any separately model mount though there is possibility to combine models from several meshes. There should be some info on that in the wiki.

[safemode]

Oh yea, now that's looking like a mean light fighter.

[bgaskey]

Nice. I could deal with flying one of those around

[Miramor]

Looks good. IMHO the "bill" could be lowered and extended a little bit, but that is a minor complaint.

I do have to say, though, I like the angular look of the old model.

[loki1950]

Nice Terazilla the weapons can have separate models there are just not many of them ATM just some nice 2D images.

Enjoy the Choice

[Terazilla]

Killing a duplicate post. Sorry.

[Terazilla]

Yeah, I liked the generally angular look, I think it'll be drifting back in that direction some as I rework stuff for the normal map. I've started in on generating a normal map for portions of it, here's some pics.

The high-poly model components ready for rendering:


The resultant normal maps in their appropriate places. No diffuse or spec yet, obviously:


The fins suck currently, I need to work out a better plan of attack for those. Why did I put ailerons on them if it's a spaceship anyway? You can make a strong case this design can work in atmosphere, I guess. I dunno, still waffling on that one.

The directional thrusters and 'engine' housing isn't a bad start.

[safemode]

you can throw normal atmo flight characteristics out the window, unless we're only going to allow ships that can produce lift to fly in atmos' , which i doubt.


God, how many years have you been using blender to be able to create the things you're doing? I can't even properly load a ready built mesh and wrap it with it's texture ... Makes me feel like i'm learning assembly via gui.

[Terazilla]

I'm actually using 3DS Max for this, and I've been using it on and off professionally for years. Part of the reason I'm doing this is because I'd like to use Vega Strike as a working example for a game content creation class I'm teaching this fall... but before I do that, obviously I should learn the content pipeline and get something decently useable in-game as an example.

Couple quick questions:

I'd really like to get the source files for this checked in at some point, even if it's not ready for in-game usage yet having the source models backed up somewhere would be nice. What's the procedure there?

What's the typical number of textures used on a VS ship? Currently I've got this one UVed for two (engines/fins and main body), which I'd probably make a 1024 and 2048 respectively? Is 512/1024 safer?

[safemode]

2048 would be reserved for large ships, or parts of bases. You can keep your source images that big, but they would get scaled down for actual DDS compression because we can't have units using that much memory. that being said, i think there are like 5 or 6 textures per unit now that techniques is in.


Currently i dont think there is a a way to backup things. We really dont want to just give svn write access to everyone, because i dont think svn allows a way to only give a single repository write access to a certain user/group, write access allows write access everywhere. But if we were to do that, you'd create your own branch (new directory) and upload there.

Alternatively, you could email your work to jacks or hellcat or such and they may be able to stick it somewhere on the site.

If we had an ideal setup it would have some means of logging you in to an ftp to a space accessible by the webserver so you can backup your data and we can have the wiki link to it on the model page and such.

If it becomes an issue for modellers and artists to get their work hosted by a stable free source, i'm sure the higher ups will figure out a good solution.

[pyramid]

@Terazilla,

Just mail the models + textures zipped to me whenever you're ready and i'll put them into svn.

There's a wiki page describing briefly the requirements for new shaders, though the new pipeline is in workings: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... oToShaders

[safemode]

a good tree to put pending models in VS would be like /branches/pending_models something like that. each model would be a directory and contain the model and any textures provided. Then if they're usable in-game we can copy it over to trunk's masters and /data with the appropriate dds conversions and such.

[Terazilla]

Okay, cool. I was hoping for a bit more res than that but 512/1024's very workable. Might need to mirror a few more objects but that's largely non-scary.

[safemode]

we have about a hundred different units as it is now. We have 10,000 units in the game. Add planets and backgrounds and effects. Now think about how much vram your texture of 1024x2048 is going to take and multiply it by 6 textures per unit (assuming you have only 1 per unit) and then by the number of units that would theoretically be active in a given system at the same time (or if you want to get even more ideal, how many in the near space around you) then add in the background and any nearby planets, bases.


You quickly saturate the vram. Even with the smaller dimensions we're having vram saturation issues. Keep in mind that not everyone has 512MB of dedicated texture storage on their video card. Though, that would be nice.

[chuck_starchaser]

@Terazilla,

Just mail the models + textures zipped to me whenever you're ready and i'll put them into svn.

Isn't your masters repository open to artists? In PU, what we did was set up separate repos for 2D and 3D art, and we give our artists access to them. Those repos ARE our "masters" repos, as well; they serve both functions: development and masters (the latter in an "output" folder under each model/whatever folder); but while we don't give artists access to trunk, we don't necessarily give programmers access to the art repos, either; --not that we have that many programmers; but, you get what I mean? It would save you a lot of emailing and whatnot. When Nate is working on a model he commits once or twice a day, so I can grab his mesh WIP and check it, maybe fix a few things and commit. Really helps collaboration.

There's a wiki page describing briefly the requirements for new shaders, though the new pipeline is in workings: http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/ ... oToShaders

Yeah, that's totally obsolete by now...
Terazilla, for now, work on texture *layers*, like the metal layer, the bumpmap, the paint layer, rusts, scratches, lights, whatever. We might have a final texture packing and tools to go with it in as little as 3 or 4 weeks. The layers will be good and useful no matter what; the time you put into those won't be wasted; but producing final textures now... you'll probably want to take advantage of the new shaders, which will require many things, like ambient occlusion in the glow map's alpha channel, etceteras. We'll have tools to do the mixing and blending and channel swizzlings. Very soon.

[pyramid]

@Terazilla,
How's the progress with textures so far? Are there any news on that front?

@jackS
The approval of the presented model versus the current design is appreciated.

[pyramid]

Via email, jackS was so friendly as to comment on the here presented concept. I want to share this authoritative guidance. Authoritative in this context means according to the UTCS (Upon the Coldest Sea) cannon and aligned with manufacturing styles of the faction by which the vessel in question was manufactured.

Looks great - profound improvement on the existing version. Don't forget to leave/add/otherwise-allocate some fin space for radiators. Run with it