I'm back, so Bengal first, spirit?

Discuss the Wing Commander Series and find the latest information on the Wing Commander Universe privateer mod as well as the standalone mod Wasteland Incident project.
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

That's it. Blender stopped working on me. Whether I open from the menu or double-click on a .blend file, it opens a black screen with a dumb titlebar and no menus. So I tried downloading the cvs version but the sources are a huge tree of folders, the instructions on how to build are rather terse, tell me that I need QuicktimeSDK, when I go to download it Apple want me to become a member of their evil club or won't let me get the darn file... I guess I'll try re-installing it from the original download...

EDIT: False alarm. I guess Windows badly needed a reboot, after probably 10 days without one. Better than it was with 9x, tho, when I perforce was in the habit of rebooting every day...
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Allright, here it is, klauss:

Recoiled...

Image

...and non-recoiled...

Image

EDIT: Better view:

Recoiled...

Image

...and non-recoiled...

Image

In any case, I would think that all 3 guns wouldn't shoot simultaneously, but rather the central one first, and the other two about 0.1 seconds later, to spread the shock to the structure mounts in time.
Last edited by chuck_starchaser on Fri Nov 10, 2006 8:15 pm, edited 1 time in total.
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Post by klauss »

Ah... I see.
Try this (would look cool): leave the pipes static, let the barrel sink into the piped structure.

Just a few pipes would have to move with the barrel, those that get into the barrel, but those that are attached with those small pillars don't have to - you can let the tubes slide through the pillars, as if the pillar was articulated.

I hope you get the meaning. If not, a mail with a blender file will let me exemplify ;-)

For that, you'll have to streamline the barrel tips.
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Ok, here it is (was close to break time anyways :))

Recoiled...

Image

...and non-recoiled...

Image

EDIT:
What I'd like to see in-game, though, is kilrathi fighters getting pulverized of one shot, whenever they make the mistake of passing over the the landing strip area.
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Image
Image

Well, I think that something better was called for than the current crop of square stick barrel turrets in WCU, but 8000 tris goes way over the top, for a feature of this size... Time to start cutting out the fat... I think the pipes are going to be first to roll off the chopping board...

EDIT:
Okay, wasn't 8000; it's 5684 tris; which is still way too much, anyhow.
Almost half of it is in the gun barrels, though, which kind of surprised me.
DualJoe
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:37 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Post by DualJoe »

Capships pounding each other with these type of guns, should make you feel like a tiny fighter.
It think it would add to the immersiveness if you feel like a little cog in the story, instead of the end all be all of the game.

You could use a highpoly-version of the guns to make a normalmap.

Btw if you want an cvs-version of Blender make your pick here
Check out sculpt-mode while you're at it. Great for damagemaps aswell. Made some great looking holes and gashes in the Hornet with it.

EDIT
What are those red wiry things at each side of the launch bay door?
loki1950
The Shepherd
Posts: 5841
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 8:37 pm
Location: Ottawa
Contact:

Post by loki1950 »

we can thank google for the devs time this summer his main project http://sharp3d.sourceforge.net/mediawik ... /Main_Page

Enjoy the Choice :)
my box::HP Envy i5-6400 @2Q70GHzx4 8 Gb ram/1 Tb(Win10 64)/3 Tb Mint 19.2/GTX745 4Gb acer S243HL K222HQL
Q8200/Asus P5QDLX/8 Gb ram/WD 2Tb 2-500 G HD/GF GT640 2Gb Mint 17.3 64 bit Win 10 32 bit acer and Lenovo ideapad 320-15ARB Win 10/Mint 19.2
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

DualJoe wrote:Capships pounding each other with these type of guns, should make you feel like a tiny fighter.
It think it would add to the immersiveness if you feel like a little cog in the story, instead of the end all be all of the game.
Exactly! I don't know how much the Tiger's Claw got involved in battles in WC, but if not much, I'd like to see some expanded missions in which it does. Like where your mission is to defend her from bombers and destroy inbound torpedoes, but she does all the capship fighting, and the controllers designate the targets for you. Something with a bit more modern battle flavor.
You could use a highpoly-version of the guns to make a normalmap.
Yeah, I've been shy to get started with this Normal Mapper tool, but I'd better get over and on with it.
Btw if you want an cvs-version of Blender make your pick here
Got it. Woohoo! SSE2 optimized! Feels more fluid. Rendering about twice as fast. Just something they did that slowed down merging triangles into quads, for some reason; it thinks for like a whole second... But a lot faster overall. Thanks!
Check out sculpt-mode while you're at it. Great for damagemaps aswell. Made some great looking holes and gashes in the Hornet with it.
Where the hell is it?
EDIT
What are those red wiry things at each side of the launch bay door?
Just a fixture for hanging those red lights. I think I'll take them out.

Anyways, I started the whole thing again, because it was going to be more work to try to reduce the polys than to not produce them in the first place; and it's looking better so far.
DualJoe
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:37 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Post by DualJoe »

The quads/tri-thing could be slower because they now actually work. Better still "fill" now works too. No more generating faces by hand.

Sculpt mode is in the list with edit-/objectmode, vertex-/texturepaint etc. Check the dropdown menu at the bottom of the 3dview.
You need to add multires-levels. I suggest testing it with a cube at multires 5/6. You can switch multires-level with page-up/down.
Be warned though, I found it very addictive.
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Ok, I'll check it out.
Here's the new shape taking shape. Bigger counterweight at the back. Much lower poly count. And it's clean, rather than the mess of triangles I had before, at the seam of the sphere and the counterweight.


Image
Image
Image
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

New triple-gun turret:

Unrecoiled:

Image

Full recoil:

Image

Tricount: 3444

Image
loki1950
The Shepherd
Posts: 5841
Joined: Fri May 13, 2005 8:37 pm
Location: Ottawa
Contact:

Post by loki1950 »

it has a feel of mass chuck 8) like the new shape.

Enjoy the Choice :)
my box::HP Envy i5-6400 @2Q70GHzx4 8 Gb ram/1 Tb(Win10 64)/3 Tb Mint 19.2/GTX745 4Gb acer S243HL K222HQL
Q8200/Asus P5QDLX/8 Gb ram/WD 2Tb 2-500 G HD/GF GT640 2Gb Mint 17.3 64 bit Win 10 32 bit acer and Lenovo ideapad 320-15ARB Win 10/Mint 19.2
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Post by klauss »

You know what will enhance the massiveness a great deal?
Recoil.

If that rather tiny recoil takes... say... 2 seconds to wind up, people will realize how massive this thing is. Like *pum* - slow recoil, 2 seconds after it stabilizes and starts going back to its neutral position. Ya... huge thing...

I really liked the detail in the otherone. But we'll be able to do a lot with parallax, so I'm not worried.

Chuck, you may want to start tesselating and detailing the thing, and then bake a normal/heightmap from it. I don't know... if that's how it's done. Brad never liked that way of doing things, but he didn't use the same tools, so...

And worry not chuck, I'm thinking about some form of silohuette texturing, but I'm trying to figure out how to get something like that without extra work or 3D textures. I'm thinking. I have a nice alternative, but I don't know any good algorithm for computing the silohuette texture, so...
Least I can do is compute curvature and do simple "silhouette smoothing". That should be a piece of cake, and requires no extra textures, just a precomputing stage done with, probably, mesher.
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

loki1950 wrote:it has a feel of mass chuck Cool like the new shape.
Thanks, glad to know it's not just in my eye, then ;-) We'll have to make sure that other perceptual aspects don't detract from the massiveness conveyed by the shape, such as physics and texture. The really good thing is that, if we pull this massiveness feeling right for the turrets, it's going to carry over to the ship itself.
klauss wrote:You know what will enhance the massiveness a great deal?
Recoil.

If that rather tiny recoil takes... say... 2 seconds to wind up, people will realize how massive this thing is. Like *pum* - slow recoil, 2 seconds after it stabilizes and starts going back to its neutral position. Ya... huge thing...
Right! Slow return. Good idea. Parabolic on the way back, then linearly going forward. Like, from the moment of firing, and if the total recoil distance forward is 1.000, then, say:
1.00 - 1.00
0.81 - 1.00
0.64 - 1.00
0.49 - 1.00
0.36 - 1.00
0.25 - 1.00
0.16 - 1.00
0.09 - 1.00
0.04 - 1.00
0.01 - 1.00
0.00 - 1.00
0.01 - 1.00
0.02 - 1.00
0.03 - 1.00
0.04 - 1.00
............
0.98 - 1.00
0.99 - 1.00
1.00 - 1.00

Another thing is rotational acceleration. It doesn't need to be too low, since we could imagine the size of the motors that move the turret..., BUT, there should be no violations of acceleration limits. This implies the need to compute when the turret needs to begin deccelerating in order not to hit the limits of rotation.
Also, a tiny bit of recoil in the whole structure would help. Maybe a quarter as much as on the barrels, but not nothing. But the function should lag the gun barrel recoil. When the barrels reach the maximum recoil position, structure recoil should reach maximum velocity, and so on. But its return shouldn't be slower. More like a dampened resonant system, with a frequency of resonance significantly lower than 1.0/(the time of barrel recoil).

So, if I were to write it like a position table...

0.000
-0.00 * 0.25 * 1.00
-0.01 * 0.25 * 0.95
-0.03 * 0.25 * 0.90
-0.06 * 0.25 * 0.85
-0.10 * 0.25 * 0.80
-0.15 * 0.25 * 0.76
-0.21 * 0.25 * 0.72
-0.28 * 0.25 * 0.68
-0.36 * 0.25 * 0.64
-0.45 * 0.25 * 0.60 (end of barrel recoil)
-0.54 * 0.25 * 0.56
-0.62 * 0.25 * 0.52
-0.69 * 0.25 * 0.48
-0.75 * 0.25 * 0.44
-0.80 * 0.25 * 0.41 (around here it...
-0.84 * 0.25 * 0.38 ...starts to move fwd)
-0.87 * 0.25 * 0.35
-0.89 * 0.25 * 0.32
-0.90 * 0.25 * 0.30
-0.90 * 0.25 * 0.28
-0.89 * 0.25 * 0.26
....

In other words, a sine wave multiplied by an exponential decay. The 0.25 is for the 1/4 ratio to the barrel recoil distance.
I really liked the detail in the otherone. But we'll be able to do a lot with parallax, so I'm not worried.

Chuck, you may want to start tesselating and detailing the thing, and then bake a normal/heightmap from it. I don't know... if that's how it's done. Brad never liked that way of doing things, but he didn't use the same tools, so...
Okay, I'll get on it, then. Thing is, I have to do the UV-unwrapS first (one for texturing, with overlaps; one for GI without overlaps), just so that, once I split into the high and low detail branches, the uv-coords stay in synch. And why have uv-coords for both? Because I'm thinking, might as well use the high detail version for PRT baking as well. That way we get paralax AND self occlusion for the small features.
Okay, so, first I'm going to simplify the gun barrels quite a bit, just make it more of a cylinder, since those two narrower necks should have coils around them, anyways. Then I'll make the unwrappings; then the high poly version, For which I'm going to model the gun barrels with a goodly amount of detail, plus I'll add doors and hatches and pipes in the main structure.
And worry not chuck, I'm thinking about some form of silohuette texturing, but I'm trying to figure out how to get something like that without extra work or 3D textures. I'm thinking. I have a nice alternative, but I don't know any good algorithm for computing the silohuette texture, so...
Least I can do is compute curvature and do simple "silhouette smoothing". That should be a piece of cake, and requires no extra textures, just a precomputing stage done with, probably, mesher.
That'd be sweet. That paper I mentioned, I think it has a lot of merit; but I don't understand the need for a 3D texture. Most of the information is already there, like the normal, the tangent and the heigth (bumpmap); all it needs, as far as I can think, rather intuitively, is how wide or narrow the cone of visibility is, from a given texel; not a whole visibility blob... But you're the math wiz.

Been working a bit on the inside, trying to trim any unnecessary polys, and reducing the depth of the slots to the bare minimum, to minimize overdraw. I put lights of different colors to make the shapes more visible, tho I'm not sure whether it helps or hinders, but here it is: Renders from the bottom side, for 0 degrees and 77 degrees azimuth...

Image

Image

Uhh.. This should make it clearer what's going on:

Image

Image

Here's a rather surreal view from the inside...

Image

And, since I was at it, made a normal render from outside, with the guns at 77 degree azimuth:

Image

That's the max; can't go to 90 degrees without showing the underware; but then again, 90 degrees is a useless angle, as the turret cannot track a moving target when it's too close to 90 degrees azimuth.

EDIT:
Klauss, here's a big question: If we're gonna be using normal map differencing as the way of life, don't we need to address the LOD problem? Namely, the same normal map, --or their mipmaps thereof, rather-- don't apply to lower LOD's. Perhaps we should bake normal maps for the LOD's, reduce them in size, and make the normal map's mipmaps precomputed.
But this incurrs another problem: How to synchronize mipmapping with LOD switching...

EDIT2:
NM the last problem; I just saw your post in Dual's Hornet thread about LOD's having their own texture. Allright, then, so we just have to bake separate normal maps for each LOD.

EDIT3:
Question... Would normal normalmappers take smooth normal interpolation into account for both meshes? Like, should I be able to get rid of those extra cuts I put whenever a curved surface has to turn flat? I guess it depends on the tool, but I'm asking you in case you know there's a standard all normalmapping tools must adhere to. (And if there isn't, we'll probably have to come up with our own tool; maybe make it part of mesher, donno.)

EDIT4:
Damn! Another problem: Baking normal maps probably implies no overlapping... If so, would it be a problem for the shaders to pull textures from one UV mapping and the normal map from another (same as PRT's)?
Damn^2: It will be hell to align features between normal map and texture...
Nah, well, sqrt(Damn): We can apply the non-overlapped texture baking, and bake an overlapped texture from it, to use as guide... maybe...

Update:
Here's the low poly version, about to be unwrapped:

Image
DualJoe
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:37 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Post by DualJoe »

You realize of course, that you don't have to bake/normalmap the entire model in one go. You're only interested in the final texture. You can for example split the problematic parts, bake them separately and later merge them in the gimp.

Normalmapping doesn´t handle extreme angles very well, but stuff like bevels, curves etc are no problem and that's where the tris are.
I suggest testing the procedure on some simpler objects to see how and if it works.
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Ehmm.. No, I didn't realize. Well, I haven't done any bumpmapping or normal mapping yet. You're way ahead of me now. So, what you're saying, then, is that if I have areas A, B, C and D on the model, which all map to area X in the texture, I can save a temporary model in which I delete areas B, C and D, greeble up area A, bake a normal map, save it, then do the rest of the ship, bake a normal map, and finally overwrite that region with the previous save. Yeah, sounds like a plan; thanks. So, in fact, I only need to greeble up one of any set of areas that share the same uv's... Nice!
klauss
Elite
Elite
Posts: 7243
Joined: Mon Apr 18, 2005 2:40 pm
Location: LS87, Buenos Aires, República Argentina

Post by klauss »

chuck_starchaser wrote:EDIT3:
Question... Would normal normalmappers take smooth normal interpolation into account for both meshes? Like, should I be able to get rid of those extra cuts I put whenever a curved surface has to turn flat? I guess it depends on the tool, but I'm asking you in case you know there's a standard all normalmapping tools must adhere to. (And if there isn't, we'll probably have to come up with our own tool; maybe make it part of mesher, donno.)
I would think they do (take interpolation into account), as otherwise there would be a mismatch between what they computed and what the shader computes (the shader always interpolates).
Of course, it does depend on the tool. Furthermore, some cases without the extra cuts may end up being difficult to handle for the tool (though theoretically possible from a tool-oblivious pov).
Clarifying: I bet they do take interpolation into account, but in some places the cuts may make the tool's job a lot easier (probably resulting in increased quality). Some cuts, though, you might be able to get rid of.

For instance, I bet on this particular case it would be possible to avoid the cuts:

Code: Select all

... _____
         \
          \______ ...
Oíd mortales, el grito sagrado...
Call me "Menes, lord of Cats"
Wing Commander Universe
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Yeah, well, that particular case takes 5 cuts for it to look half decent. The flat to the left needs an extra cut to look flat. The flat to the right, same thing. And the section inbetween needs a cut in the middle, otherwise the normals at the two original cuts have the exact same orientation, so they interpolate flat and you only see half the slant on it. But then again, your example case might need exactly zero cuts, with normal mapping... Unless it's spun around a cylinder, in which case it would not produce the right outline. I guess this will need experimentation...
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

I got this baby unwrapped for GI (non-overlap)...

Image

...but whenever I try to bake a texture, it tells me that "active object is not a mesh or has no UV coordinates" ... :-/

Here's the file:
http://deeplayer.com/dan_w/WCUweap/trip ... ooUV.blend

Didn't have that problem before; and I can't seem to figure it out.
Meanwhile, having fun with materials...

Image
DualJoe
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:37 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Post by DualJoe »

What do you mean by bake a texture?
Do you want the uv-unwrap with the wireframe, a radiosity calculation, a raybaked solution or do you want to bake a vertexpainted version?
With the vertexbased baking I get your psychedelic colors, where did you hide those lamps?
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Yeah, thanks for answering my question...
The UV unwrap with the wireframe I did already; that's the pic before the last one. I guess you didn't notice it...
No radiosity yet.
I don't know what "raybaked" means.
Vertexpainted?
Well, I just want the materials to show up in a texture.
With the vertexbased baking I get your psychedelic colors, where did you hide those lamps?
Do I need to ask again, how you did it? All you tell me is that you know how to do it, but not how you did it, eh? Thanks for nothing, pal... Now I have to waste more time, waiting for the next post...
The lamps are in layer 1. See how one answers a question?
NM; I'll ask at Elysiun.
DualJoe
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:37 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Post by DualJoe »

chuck_starchaser wrote: Do I need to ask again, how you did it? It keeps giving me the error I mentioned. Now I have to waste more time, waiting for the next post... Thanks for nothing.
WTF?!
Are you trying to piss me off here?
YOU weren't clear on what you wanted. Who's wasting whos time here?

There are countless possibilities for baking and evey single one of them uses a different technique. There are now 10 python scripts that I know of that can do "baking", I don't even know which one you used.

Not to waste anymore of your time. There's a toggle to transfer the material color to the vertex. Set the object to shadeless and enable the vertexcolors. Now you can turn of all the lights and it will still show up in the render. Use one of the texturebaker-scripts to bake.
chuck_starchaser
Elite
Elite
Posts: 8014
Joined: Fri Sep 05, 2003 4:03 am
Location: Montreal
Contact:

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Well, maybe my explanations were poor. There's only one texture baking
script that comes with Blender, that I know of. tho: Texture Baker....

Image
DualJoe
ISO Party Member
ISO Party Member
Posts: 387
Joined: Tue Mar 21, 2006 2:37 pm
Location: Netherlands
Contact:

Post by DualJoe »

Odd, I don't get that error. However texturebaker doesn't render the materialcolors either.

Easy fix, started a new file, appended your object and now texturebaker worked without problems.

Image
Post Reply