Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

I've made a start. I've started making the geometry more regular (it was surprisingly asymmetrical). I've decided that it might be good as a nice big spaceship with a couple of floors worth of windows and guns.

I started with this.
Image

After a few hours work I've got this.
Image

I'll try and keep this Blend file updated too.
http://starbrightillustrations.com/franklin_wip2.blend

Don't hesitate to warn me if I'm going off on the wrong tangent everyone. :D
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Starbright, I think that's looking way too big, now.
With a whole floor full of little windows, that's starting to look more like a corvette than like a fighter.
Well, it's neither; rather something in-between; but so is the Llama, 40 meters long, and look how
a pilot looks in it:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/forum ... 39#p113939

Let's see, Franklin:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/Vessel:Franklin
No length given; 40.63 tons

Llama:
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/wiki/Vessel:Llama
No length; no mass; ... hmm.
Well, in-game, in MyFleet, my Llama's stats say 366 tons; so even if the Franklin is 200 tons, but with a thinner body, it would be about the same length as the Llama. So, I think the original cockpit was roughly about the right size --for one pilot, single seat, that is.
Now, since it's a diplomatic ship, what about passengers?
I'd say that passengers would probably NOT be all lined up behind the pilot. Probably they'd go a floor below and have passenger-like windows on the side of the hull, or something like that.

Note that if you make the ship much larger than it already is, maneuverability would suffer so much as to make all forward guns useless. Since this ship has a lot of forward gun mounts; this implies that it is fairly maneuverable (so you can steer the ship to aim), and therefore rather smallish. Heavier ships would only have a forward mount if it was a heavy mount, i.e.: for a large weapon, such as to attack slow-moving capital ships with; but otherwise would rely more on turrets than on forward guns.

Besides; you're jumping too soon to adding detail, IMO; unless you really like the overall shape of this thing (I think it's ugly as sin). Adding details increases the polygon count, and makes working with the general shape all the more difficult. So, the first things to tackle are the large elements and over-all shape. And before doing that, we need to think about what this thing IS, and what it's made out of. I think that a ship sold as a diplomatic transport should look rather luxurious, or at least expensive.
More importantly, we need to ask whether it has atmospheic flying capabilities. If so, aerodynamics are important, and it should be less boxy, more round, and the body should taper, rather than flare, towards the back; or else the wings should be swept forward, not back. If not, then we can work with the current shape; but do something to make it clear that the "wings" are NOT wings, but something else.
Either way, the "wings" need to be welded to the fuselage earlier, rather than later. Effecting a welding after there's a lot of subdivision is rather hard.
Either way also, we need to add engines somewhere; I mean thrusters: back, forward, maybe lateral...
Ultimately, there's no reason the Franklin even needs to resemble the shape it has now. What it has to do is convey the idea that it's a diplomatic shuttle, meaning nice-looking; with a lot of forward guns, therefore pretty maneuverable; big enough for a diplomatic contingent, yet small enough that people buy them as personal transports. We also know it is made by the Andolians, and therefore should look high tech.
That's the general framework. If we can, additionally to this framework, make it somewhat evocative of the original (current) Franklin, so much the better in terms of nostalgia factor.

To make it look "luxurious" or "expensive", I think we could use some glass shapes, and visible inner structures. Still one cockpit dome; but maybe some small parts of the fuselage behind the cockpit could be glass, and show inner areas with seats behind the glass.
To make it look maneuverable, it should be not so long as it is now, and have four bi-directional thrusters, two above, and two below the "wings".
To make it look like it can carry a diplomatic delegation, like I said, some glass, and side-hatches for passenger boarding, with small windows perhaps.
To make it have so many forward weapons, we probably need an additional pair of "wings" near the front for four smaller weapons, and two larger ones could mount on the rear wings, farther apart.
To make it look Hi-Tech, but not overly complicated, what we could do is make it obvious that it is made of many parts, like armor-covered areas revealing hull underneath; and the armor could be made to look like it has been custom-shaped, as opposed to using stock, rectangular plates, say.
The rear gun is presumably turret-mounted, so the back of the fuselage could taper down to a circular back-end, where a turret mounts.
The back "wings" could be shaped in such a way as to make it obvious that they are not aerodynamic, e.g. by having transversal ribs; and the vertical "shields" at the ends of them could attach via flimsier tubular structures, be made bigger, and turned into heat radiators.
The thrusters could also be made to look like they are covered with protective plates, but revealing detail underneath, between plates.
Just ideas to inspire you.

Check out Wing Commader's Venture corvette:
http://wcpedia.com/dw/doku.php/wc_info/ ... te/venture
But that's a lot bigger; it's a corvette; and it's Wing Commander; not Vegastrike; just for a hint of what could be done.

If we decide it should be an atmospheric flyer, then perhaps this nasa plane would be a better inpiration source:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost ... ostcount=1
But apparently the Andolians don't make atmo flying ships, according to the art-style guide...

From the art-style guide for Andolians:
Primary distinguishing color ranges: Slate gray (see Hawking)

Common accent colors: Electric blue (see Hawking)

Frequently visible: Andolian products generally project an aura of refined efficiency. Not as utilitarian as some of the Unadorned designs, Andolian designs have clearly functional origins, but are highly polished (figuratively, not literally) in their construction. There is little extravagance, and less flash, but Andolian ships are not exercises in simplicity - they are exercises in restraint. Andolian ships, aside from fin-mounted radiators, are fairly solid in the construction of their main bodies and betray little resemblance to their aerospace forebears, being entirely unsuited to atmospheric flight. Ordinance, however, is readily mounted in unenclosed spaces where more efficient. Cockpits or other crew quarters are usually located centrally, and beneath the heaviest sections of armor - the Andolian economic machine can produce replacement parts faster than it can produce new pilots, although their stocks of both are formidable. Andolians make heavy use of automation, and their larger craft tend to require much smaller crews than that of other groups. With the exception of the Tesla, which in many ways is merely a gun emplacement masquerading as a ship, the Andolians prefer using larger numbers of turreted mounts to spinal mounts on anything larger than a corvette, even on craft heavily geared toward energy weapon combat. Admittedly, the Andolians prefer missile engagements to energy-range combat in the first place, and equip their capital ships with numerous point defense arrays.

Rarely visible: Cockpit-like windowed areas will never be seen on Andolian MILITARY vessels (although they do appear on civilian vessels). All Andolians already experience augmented reality and see no benefit to seeing real photons over having the image constructed entirely artificially, especially when it means they can put more armor between the pilot and the outside world, or place the pilot in a more central position for less severe maneuvering stress.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

Thanks for the notes and input.
These ideas sound good to me, and I think you're right about the sze.
Perhaps a bubble for the pilot, and a larger four person bubble slung underneath the body a little further back and armoured underneath for the VIPs.

I very much like the idea of extra wings.

OK, I'll revert to an earlier version and see what i can do. :D

EDIT---------

Image

These are moment-by-moment snapshots, so there is still an awful lot to do.

But it's a lot smaller than it was, It has started to change shape very gradually, and a pair of wings for more guns has started to sprout towards the front.

I've also updated the blend file.
http://starbrightillustrations.com/franklin_wip2.blend

The wings are welded on to the mesh, but the bubbles and guns are not. (I'm not sure about them yet)
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by Deus Siddis »

Just a thought; since it's an Andolian civlian craft, perhaps the cockpit/bridge could be internal and invisible, but then have observation section(s) with portholes, for the passengers to visit.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by Boaal »

Heh, Unity works for everything, Mac PC ,iPhone, wii - I'm not sure about Linux, but possibly I can't remember. So I figure that triangulation is necessary for their art pipeline.

Also, just going back to the comment on Wings 3D damaging modellers - it's a fair point. Blender has a vast amount going for it that wings doesn't however: Blender3D, for something with so much decent stuff going for it, is the most ridiculously, appallingly unintuitive piece of software you will EVER come across in your entire lives. This is the reason people stay with Wings. Even after the GUI update with 2.5 it's horrific in it's lack of intuitiveness. The new GUI makes it much nicer to work with, but there are still so many things that should be apparent that just aren't. That's why Wing3D still gets use - you can just use it from the get go, and kind of feel your way forward with a bit of help here and there until you need a tutorial for something specific. You just can't do that with Blender.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Deus Siddis wrote:Just a thought; since it's an Andolian civlian craft, perhaps the cockpit/bridge could be internal and invisible, but then have observation section(s) with portholes, for the passengers to visit.
The art guide specifically excepts civilian craft from the rule of centralized cockpit, no glass bubble for Andolians, and I'd be of a mind to have a cockpit and a visible pilot whenever possible, just for the scale appreciation value it adds.
Even if windows make no sense, I firmly believe they will be there. Why? Popular demand. Windows are not necessary in the Space Shuttle; but NASA would have to go looking for astronauts on Mars if it removed them, I bet.
Boaal wrote:Heh, Unity works for everything, Mac PC ,iPhone, wii - I'm not sure about Linux, but possibly I can't remember. So I figure that triangulation is necessary for their art pipeline.

Also, just going back to the comment on Wings 3D damaging modellers - it's a fair point. Blender has a vast amount going for it that wings doesn't however: Blender3D, for something with so much decent stuff going for it, is the most ridiculously, appallingly unintuitive piece of software you will EVER come across in your entire lives. This is the reason people stay with Wings. Even after the GUI update with 2.5 it's horrific in it's lack of intuitiveness. The new GUI makes it much nicer to work with, but there are still so many things that should be apparent that just aren't. That's why Wing3D still gets use - you can just use it from the get go, and kind of feel your way forward with a bit of help here and there until you need a tutorial for something specific. You just can't do that with Blender.
Totally agreed. I've been Blendering for like 5 years, now, and I still find it unintuitive.

@starbright: The file is the same as before; hasn't updated.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

Deus Siddis wrote:Just a thought; since it's an Andolian civlian craft, perhaps the cockpit/bridge could be internal and invisible, but then have observation section(s) with portholes, for the passengers to visit.
Hmm.. Yes, Andolian spacecraft are supposed to be windowless.
Perhaps because it is a diplomatic craft allowances have been made for the requirements of the less virtual reality based life forms that might also be passengers?

Or should there be a rethink, and I'll find some other way to show scale?
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by Deus Siddis »

What I meant was more like having passenger windows with passengers visible inside, possibly strapped into seats to explain why they aren't moving. But no actual visible cockpit area with pilots.

That way, when and if the ship is attacked by assassins, the passenger retreat to an armored safe room or escape pod area at the core of the ship, while the pilot(s) are already in an armored cockpit, also in the ship's interior. My thinking is its a heavily armed diplomatic transport, so while its role is usually civilian, it is also very defensively designed for the occasional ambush.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

Deus Siddis wrote:What I meant was more like having passenger windows with passengers visible inside, possibly strapped into seats to explain why they aren't moving. But no actual visible cockpit area with pilots.
H'm so keep the passenger compartment and lose the cockpit. Or perhaps have some kind of camera/sensor array relaying info to the pilot safely hidden away inside.

Sorry about the dodgy link. This link should work for the latest blend. http://starbrightillustrations.com/franklin_wip4.blend

EDIT------

And some renders.

Image

Image

Image

Image
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Deus Siddis wrote:What I meant was more like having passenger windows with passengers visible inside, possibly strapped into seats to explain why they aren't moving. But no actual visible cockpit area with pilots.

That way, when and if the ship is attacked by assassins, the passenger retreat to an armored safe room or escape pod area at the core of the ship, while the pilot(s) are already in an armored cockpit, also in the ship's interior. My thinking is its a heavily armed diplomatic transport, so while its role is usually civilian, it is also very defensively designed for the occasional ambush.
There's another problem with this: The number of passengers, and their faces, would always be the same, for every Frankling out there; unless we did some randomization, but that would have to be coded.

@starbright: Gotta leave now; I'll take a look in a couple of hours.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

Image

An idea for the cockpit equipped with cameras/sensors instead of glass.
The VIP bubble could also have windows like arrow slits.

Edit---------

New colour scheme.

Image

And a new blend file - this time with added engines...

http://starbrightillustrations.com/franklin_wip6.blend
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote: There's another problem with this: The number of passengers, and their faces, would always be the same, for every Frankling out there; unless we did some randomization, but that would have to be coded.
Point taken on the number of passengers, though as far as faces, andolians wear full body environment suits whenever they are in public, obscuring they're faces. Kind of a weird bunch.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

It's looking interesting; but the thrusters need more "meat".
Having just a little piece of pipe coming out of nowhere, then flaring into a paraboloid looks cartoonish.
There's a lot more to a thruster than just the exhaust.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

chuck_starchaser wrote:It's looking interesting; but the thrusters need more "meat".
Having just a little piece of pipe coming out of nowhere, then flaring into a paraboloid looks cartoonish.
There's a lot more to a thruster than just the exhaust.
Yeah, they look like bubbles will come out of them :)
I'll beef them up a bit.

What do you think of the blind cockpit with sensors, is that a good idea?
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Personally, I EXTREMELY much prefer a traditional, classic, true to goodness, mom and pop, grass roots, no non-sense, glass cockpit, --the way God intended them. But that's just me.



EDIT:
Yesterday I started doodling with Blender, trying to come up with a concept for the Franklin, but you jumped into the work so fast I just put it aside; but since you might need inspiration for the engines, I decided to do a quick unwrap and an AO bake and show you what I was working on:

Image

Image

Image

Image

I was trying to make it look like Benjamin Franklin :); not sure if I got there; but anyhow, engines should be predominant, like that.
They should show some structure, like they are made of distinct parts, with some purpose.
These, as you can see, have front and back exhausts, so they serve dual purpose.
There'd need to be a lot of greebles on and around them, of course.

Notes:
1) I'm not suggesting to change the Franklin to this; nor not to. Not trying to compete. This could be some other ship, later. Or, else this could become the Franklin and your Franklin become some other ship. Whatever... (Actually, your ship looks very Wing Commander; I could use it in PU.)
2) the round flat plane I intended it to be mostly glass, transparent, with a thin metal rim, and hot pipes inside, looking like a heat radiator.
3) Those vertical stabilizers, (shield-looking things) at the wing-tips of the original, I intended to add them, and also make them into heat radiators of a different kind.

Here's the blend file, if you want to look at it, or work with it, or grab the engines off it:
http://wcjunction.com/temp_images/frank ... klin.blend
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Personally, I EXTREMELY much prefer a traditional, classic, true to goodness, mom and pop, grass roots, no non-sense, glass cockpit, --the way God intended them. But that's just me.
I haven't welded the sensors and lenses onto the cockpit yet, so it'll be easy to turn it back into a traditional glass cockpit.
Does the passenger area need windows too?
chuck_starchaser wrote:... engines should be predominant, like that.
They should show some structure, like they are made of distinct parts, with some purpose.

....

Here's the blend file, if you want to look at it, or work with it, or grab the engines off it:
http://wcjunction.com/temp_images/frank ... klin.blend
I've bigged up my engines a bit, do they still need more size, or just more structure?
Thanks for the blend file. Nice engines and it was good to see that you had added the EdgeSplit modifier. I had misunderstood that in the tutorials I had been reading.

I haven't marked any edges yet, just left it at the default 30 degrees it suggested.

OK here are some renders.

Image

Image

Image

Image

And the blend file

http://starbrightillustrations.com/franklin_wip8.blend :)
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Much better; starting to look good. You can keep going adding greebles to the engines; then after that you can add armor covering the greebles --partially, of course; so it looks like there's a lot of complexity, yet as if the intent were to hide it...
(Then the mind assumes more complexity than it actually sees ;-))
And you can add extra (smaller) thrusters above and below the wings, near the fuselage, later, and make them bi-directional; that way this thing has a way to decelerate... :roll:

EDIT:
Ah, you have retro thrusters at the end of the wings; sorry.
That's good, but you need stronger retro thrusters nearer the fuselage, as otherwise the positions at the end of the wings are the worst for strong deceleration, in terms of structural strength. You can leave them there, but think of them as maneuvering thrusters.
By the same token, the main thrusters could use a dozen support beams or so each, spread in a circle around, --and roughly parallel to-- the axis of the thruster, coming from the fuselage and ending at the exhaust bell. Plus some pipes, boxes, cables... Then partially cover it all with curvey plates; so you can see the greebles but only from gaps around the plates. We can later bake colored lighting inside that space, so the greebles are not too dark to see.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by starbright »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Much better; starting to look good.
Thanks :D
You can keep going adding greebles to the engines; then after that you can add armor covering the greebles --partially, of course; so it looks like there's a lot of complexity, yet as if the intent were to hide it...
(Then the mind assumes more complexity than it actually sees ;-))
I've started, and the armour is in place, but I have feeling the engine needs even more greebles.. as does the rest of the spaceship. Even the armour could do with bumps, readouts, hatches, refuel ports etc - am I right?
you need stronger retro thrusters nearer the fuselage, as otherwise the positions at the end of the wings are the worst for strong deceleration, in terms of structural strength. You can leave them there, but think of them as maneuvering thrusters.
I'll add them, it'll be nice extra detail for the hull.


I've also got eight forward facing weapons and one rear facing weapon in a turret, which I think is what the ship description called for. The two spikes coming backward from the wings are sensors, and I'll be doing some work to differentiate them more.

Here are some renders to show the state of play.

Image

It's looking smooth, and not in a good way, needs more greebles.

Image

This angle I like better. The flattened sphere amidships is intended to represent the passenger area. I'm thinking af adding windows, even though the game description indicates otherwise. They could be dark "data windows" or sensor panels.

Image

There's that turret I was talking about.

Everything is welded together into one mesh now, and here is the blend file.

http://www.starbrightillustrations.com/ ... ip10.blend
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

GOOD JOB WELDING! :D

Two settings I notice are giving you trouble and you don't even know it, in the Mesh panel (second panel in F9), see the top left button that says Auto Smooth? Don't touch it, leave it off, but UNDER it says Degr: 30... Click and move mouse to the right; max it out to 80. If you don't, even if Auto Smooth is off, renders will show >30 deg edges as sharp, that you might intend to shade smoothly. Stupid idiosyncrasy of Blender.

Then, further down, there's a button Double Sided, which is on by default. Should be off; as you could have flipped normals and not know it. In fact, you do: on the plates you added over the engines, for instance. Toggling the Double Sided button continuously is a nifty trick I use during visual inspections, to make polygons with inverted normals flash light and dark. In-game, polygons with inverted normals appear to be missing; --look like holes in the mesh.
These two setting changes (degr: 80 and Double Sided OFF) need to be done for each object, and you can do them right away whenever you start a new object or new project.
starbright wrote:I've started, and the armour is in place, but I have feeling the engine needs even more greebles.. as does the rest of the spaceship. Even the armor could do with bumps, readouts, hatches, refuel ports etc - am I right?
Exactly right; BUT, you'd better have a perfect mesh, perfect tesselation, perfect subsurf-friendliness, etceteras, first. It will be much more difficult to clean up shading artifacts and stuff once you put in a lot of detail. I would pause the detailing campaign for now, take a breather, and start a consolidation phase. For starters, you CANNOT use automatic sharpening "by angle". That's causing shading artifacts. You need to remove the From Angle setting, in Edge Split, and manually mark edges sharp that should be sharp.
Sharp edge loops cannot end un-terminated: They must either end at another sharp edge loop, like a T or Y, or they must close a loop like an O. When you use the By Angle setting, you often get un-terminated, open loops, which look like crap.
When I mark edges sharp, by the way, I also place a seam AND crease the edges, all at once; because ALL edges marked sharp need to be creased fully; and many of them, if not all, need to have seams.
So, I highlight a bunch of edges I want to sharpen, then I go,

Code: Select all

Ctrl-E -> Mark Sharp
Ctrl-E -> Mark Seam
Shift-E -> 2 [Enter]
Once you're done, you can add the Subsurf attribute.

Why sub-surf?
Well, you will need a high poly version of the mesh (around 1 million polygons) for the bakes (ambient occlusion, corrective normal map, other vector bakes I'll tell you about later, and PRT's); so the mesh HAS to be sub-surf-friendly; i.e. it has to "look good" with subsurf on, which is not trivial.
First of all, you need a lot of creases: All sharp edges have to be creased, for starters, but some other edges too, as you'll find out soon enough, --you'll see like cob-webs in some places; I'll tell you how to fix them once you get there. Secondly, you'll need the minimum number of triangles possible. Triangles are problematic with sub-surf. Ideally, a mesh should be entirely made of quads, the really good modelers actually find ways to make everything with only quads. Thirdly, you'll probably need a more even tessselation: Sub-surf doesn't have an option to only break up polygons bigger than some given size; it subdivides them all; so, to get enough tesselation at places where the polygons are big, your level of subdivision will produce too many polygons where they are small already.
Anyways, you'll learn, anyhow.

And the other thing you need to get done is the seams and UV layout, though, at this point, it would be tentative work, and you'd have to reserve space for the greebles and things yet to come; but, on the other hand, you'd probably want to do an ambient occlusion bake, pretty soon, and you need to have a UV unwrap to bake it to.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote: Why sub-surf?
Well, you will need a high poly version of the mesh (around 1 million polygons) for the bakes (ambient occlusion, corrective normal map, other vector bakes I'll tell you about later, and PRT's); so the mesh HAS to be sub-surf-friendly; i.e. it has to "look good" with subsurf on, which is not trivial.
First of all, you need a lot of creases: All sharp edges have to be creased, for starters, but some other edges too, as you'll find out soon enough, --you'll see like cob-webs in some places; I'll tell you how to fix them once you get there.
You probably already know about this, but there's a second method for controlling edges on subsurf models. That is to bevel the hard edges, then apply a simple subsurf modifier (set to 1 level) above a catmull-clark subsurf modifier. I find that works really well as long as there are no circular sections, since the simple subsurf will bring out the facetedness of cylinders and cones and such.

If there is circular 3D geometry, you have to simple subdivide the mesh manually, leaving out the faces of these round areas.

The simple subdivision keeps edges looking sharper and the surfaces less bulgy or bloated when you subsurf the bevels, which is what you want when you are modeling most things besides inflatable furniture and modern american automobiles. :)
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Deus Siddis wrote:You probably already know about this, but there's a second method for controlling edges on subsurf models. That is to bevel the hard edges, then apply a simple subsurf modifier (set to 1 level) above a catmull-clark subsurf modifier. I find that works really well as long as there are no circular sections, since the simple subsurf will bring out the facetedness of cylinders and cones and such.
Wait; why would you do that? That's more work, and it's incorrect. Let's consider the whole spectrum of edge hardness, from completely smooth to completely sharp, through values in-between, like small radius curvature. You can sort of control this using values between 0 and 1 for the creasing. Using simple subdivision is equivalent to highlighting ALL edges and creasing to max; then using Catmul Clark. Is that what you want? I certainly don't; I want to pick and choose which edges have a small radius of curvature, and which have continuous curvature.
Morover, unless you're talking about using subsurf as as a technique for subdivision for the top LOD... I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about a separate, high quality, million polygon mesh that you use off-line, for bakes only. AND, I don't want to rely on the corrective normalmap for bevels; I want my top mesh to look nicely beveled even without the corrective normalmap. (Why? Two reasons: 1) Corrective normalmap is not a perfect technique; you still have to contend with texel size. 2) I want to control the width of my bevels, but subdivision size is proportional to underlying polygon size.) In other words, I want my top LOD mesh to shade as perfectly as it can, within the limitations of linear normal interpolation; and then use corrective normal bake to compensate for the linear interpolations; nothing more. Which means that my bevels are going to be good, solid bevels (triple or quad line) at the top LOD; and then Catmul Clarke will work very well with my solid bevels without even a need for creasing them; --let alone using simple subdivision.
In any case, hard edges don't need bevels at all; just full creasing and mark sharp.
If there is circular 3D geometry, you have to simple subdivide the mesh manually, leaving out the faces of these round areas.
But that's crazy, Deus. Why?
The simple subdivision keeps edges looking sharper and the surfaces less bulgy or bloated when you subsurf the bevels, which is what you want when you are modeling most things besides inflatable furniture and modern american automobiles. :)
I'm not sure I understand; but I think you are talking about using subsurf with creasing as a way of creating the bevels. That doesn't work very well, because of what I mentioned above: Subdivision size varies according to base mesh polygon size; but you want your bevels to have constant width, most of the time.
It's the bevels you want to do manually; not the rest. Do your bevels manually; make them look good; then use Catmul Clarke, and the only things that will need creasing for the most part are just the sharp edges.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote: Wait; why would you do that? That's more work, and it's incorrect. Let's consider the whole spectrum of edge hardness, from completely smooth to completely sharp, through values in-between, like small radius curvature. You can sort of control this using values between 0 and 1 for the creasing.
I find the issue with creasing is that it tends to want to end in a pointed edge, so values between 1 and 0 are not always going to create smoothly shading results. And if you are going to mark that edge hard anyway (or split it manually) then there isn't much point in using anything less than full crease.
Using simple subdivision is equivalent to highlighting ALL edges and creasing to max; then using Catmul Clark. Is that what you want? I certainly don't; I want to pick and choose which edges have a small radius of curvature, and which have continuous curvature.
Note quite equivalent, the effect on the geometry is a little different up close, as described above.
Morover, unless you're talking about using subsurf as as a technique for subdivision for the top LOD... I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about a separate, high quality, million polygon mesh that you use off-line, for bakes only.
The beveled mesh is used as a top LoD, the simple + catmull subsurfed mesh is used for the bakes, is what I meant.
AND, I don't want to rely on the corrective normalmap for bevels; I want my top mesh to look nicely beveled even without the corrective normalmap. (Why? Two reasons: 1) Corrective normalmap is not a perfect technique; you still have to contend with texel size. 2) I want to control the width of my bevels, but subdivision size is proportional to underlying polygon size.) In other words, I want my top LOD mesh to shade as perfectly as it can, within the limitations of linear normal interpolation; and then use corrective normal bake to compensate for the linear interpolations; nothing more.
Corrective normal maps for bevels might not be as important as they used to be. To illustrate, if you run blender on a machine with a good card, with "Blender GLSL Materials" enabled, such artifacts aren't really visible, without any normal map. At least that's what I'm finding.
Which means that my bevels are going to be good, solid bevels (triple or quad line) at the top LOD; and then Catmul Clarke will work very well with my solid bevels without even a need for creasing them; --let alone using simple subdivision.
Certainly, but that costs quite a lot more.
In any case, hard edges don't need bevels at all; just full creasing and mark sharp.
That's a different effect. Hard edges are infinitely hard, plus because the mesh is split you can see stair-stepping there, even when that edge isn't silhouetted. A single face bevel can help take care of those issues at a reasonable cost, albeit with some downsides, like anything else.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Deus Siddis wrote:
chuck_starchaser wrote: Wait; why would you do that? That's more work, and it's incorrect. Let's consider the whole spectrum of edge hardness, from completely smooth to completely sharp, through values in-between, like small radius curvature. You can sort of control this using values between 0 and 1 for the creasing.
I find the issue with creasing is that it tends to want to end in a pointed edge, so values between 1 and 0 are not always going to create smoothly shading results. And if you are going to mark that edge hard anyway (or split it manually) then there isn't much point in using anything less than full crease.
In fact, I rarely use anything but full creasing.
The beveled mesh is used as a top LoD, the simple + catmull subsurfed mesh is used for the bakes, is what I meant.
Okay, but then I don't know what you do for surfaces that should look smooth and round. And I don't see what you gain vis a vis bevels from applying simple subdivision.
Corrective normal maps for bevels might not be as important as they used to be. To illustrate, if you run blender on a machine with a good card, with "Blender GLSL Materials" enabled, such artifacts aren't really visible, without any normal map. At least that's what I'm finding.
What the hell is "blender glsl materials"? Where do you enable them?, and what the hell are they?
Which means that my bevels are going to be good, solid bevels (triple or quad line) at the top LOD; and then Catmul Clarke will work very well with my solid bevels without even a need for creasing them; --let alone using simple subdivision.
Certainly, but that costs quite a lot more.
Costs more what?
In any case, hard edges don't need bevels at all; just full creasing and mark sharp.
Exactly.

That's a different effect. Hard edges are infinitely hard, plus because the mesh is split you can see stair-stepping there, even when that edge isn't silhouetted. A single face bevel can help take care of those issues at a reasonable cost, albeit with some downsides, like anything else.[/quote]
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by Deus Siddis »

chuck_starchaser wrote:Okay, but then I don't know what you do for surfaces that should look smooth and round. And I don't see what you gain vis a vis bevels from applying simple subdivision.
Applying simple sub makes the catmull "stiffer", following the beveled edges more closely. For smoother rounder surfaces don't apply any simple subdivision.
What the hell is "blender glsl materials"? Where do you enable them?, and what the hell are they?
They are a collection of realtime rendering features that are useful for testing meshes and textures you are going to use in a modern game engine. So if you wanted to test normal mapping, how a mesh renders, etc. in realtime without exporting it to another game engine (like VS) you can turn these on. They were added to support the blender open game "Yo Frankie".

You enable them on the user preferences panel, at the top of the default blender interface, under the "game" menu (you'll see "Blender GLSL Materials", select it). Then you switch to 'Textured' viewport shading.

You'll need to have a light in the scene to to be able to see anything of course.

http://www.blender.org/development/rele ... materials/
Costs more what?
Costs more polys. If you are doing a fair amount of beveling, this can be a consideration.
In any case, hard edges don't need bevels at all; just full creasing and mark sharp.
Exactly.
Woops, I think you responded to my quote of what you said; I responded with--

That's a different effect. Hard edges are infinitely hard, plus because the mesh is split you can see stair-stepping there, even when that edge isn't silhouetted. A single face bevel can help take care of those issues at a reasonable cost, albeit with some downsides, like anything else.
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Re: Duelist Heavy Fighter, Hunter's Guild (I'm having a go!)

Post by chuck_starchaser »

Deus Siddis wrote:
Costs more what?
Costs more polys. If you are doing a fair amount of beveling, this can be a consideration.
I was afraid this is what you meant. A solid bevel is only three lines, versus two for a dumb bevel; not a huge expense. I only use quad-line bevels (manual, 3-line solid bevel, plus, then, standard beveling applied to the center line) for bevels that are very exposed and need to look perfect.
What you are doing, I gather, is using a standard (dumb) two-line bevel, and relying on normalmap correction to make it look good. IMO, that's putting too much stress on the corrective normalmap, and it's not warranted, in addition to the problem that...
Applying simple sub makes the catmull "stiffer", following the beveled edges more closely. For smoother rounder surfaces don't apply any simple subdivision.
And how would you apply simple subdivision in one place but not another? Are you proposing separating meshes that use bevels from meshes that don't? And what about meshes like a car wheel that need bevels in one direction but not in another? NO; you cannot do manual subdivision. Well, in the case of a car wheel yes, because it is an exactly circular geometry; but you got tons of cases where you need smooth curves in one direction, with tight bevels running in another direction, but neither are circular.
But even perfectly circular things there are gazillions: pipes, engines, round hatches, weapons... And they may also need bevels; you can't separate them.
What you are proposing is also a "hack", in the sense that you cannot define the process; the criteria are full of if's and else-if's and whatnot's; --when to apply; when NOT to apply... The methodology I use and advocate is straightforward: Bevel your bevels properly, make the mesh look good without sub-surf; and then apply Catmul Clark. Should look good if previous steps are done correctly.
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