Contest: Retexture the Star Fortress

Post by **hellcatv** » Fri May 28, 2004 8:19 am

The star fortress is a potentially nice looking model but it is A) cursed with a repetitive, dark texture that just does not suit one of the finest military installations west of Sol, and B) has no LODs, so C) the top level model is insufficiently detailed.

I hereby present to you the 2004 Star Fortress retexturing contest:
the rules are as follows:
1) the obj can be found at
http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users/hellcatv/sf.obj http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/users/hellcatv/sf.mtl

2) you may use up to 5 layers of textures:
A) normal diffuse maps B) specular maps C) light maps D) detail textures
the fifth layer is a bonus layer: the damage layer. This layer will fade in when the star fortress gets hurt

3) You probably want to remap the u,v because it's digusting as it is now.

4) The geometry of the star fortress is a bit primitive... Go ahead enhance it in any way you choose--change it from ground up if you like; bevel edges and make the star fortress look prettier as well if you like--but it would be nice to also have a texture for a low poly version as well (2k or so): that way you can go up to 10k polys without difficulty (and still have a low rez version).

5) each sub-faction of the confederation may have its own textures... if you wish to, you can go ahead and make textures for the purists, the andolians, etc... ask us if you're interested... in fact even if you don't get first prize we may select your texture as one of the subfactions' textures

so lets get into prizes:
the submission of a star fortress with the best overall appearance will earn the artist a new surprise rank in the forum, appearence in the credits of Vega Strike 0.5.0, and a star fortress named after the artist appearing in one of the sectors in game (we'll give you a map to get there) and access to the Vega Strike CD iso to download (wingmen and some other enhancements are present in this one-of-a-kind release of 0.4.1).
The submission of a star fortress with the most creative damage map (you should take a screenshot with the damage map at about 50% transparency) will get a new rank in the forum and, if usable with the winning mapping, name on the credits of VS0.5.0 (all artists submitting art that's used in VS will get credit..b.ut if you're worried I'll forget don't hesitate to remind me when the time comes near)

so, have at it...and feel free to post queries here.
People entering the contest should reply to this post so we can know how many people are into this
contest submissions should be sent to danielhorn at mindspring d0t com

Contest ends June 16

Post by **hurleybird** » Fri May 28, 2004 1:40 pm

sounds interesting. I suck at texturing models, but I might try to give this a go.

Post by **hellcatv** » Fri May 28, 2004 5:33 pm

cool

please give it a shot... I'm really hoping to involve users who don't normally get involved with certain aspects of artwork

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Fri May 28, 2004 6:48 pm

If anyone is afraid to take a stab at this because they've never done a texture before... just think about this: Whatever you do, it will be better than the simple tiled metal texture that the starfortress has now!

I'd be willing to help anyone who has any questions on the actual texture making process. Like, where to start, the basics of how to do it, etc. Just send me a PM.

Post by **hellcatv** » Fri May 28, 2004 8:00 pm

petey's also currently engaged doing different models, so if you're afraid of competing with the likes of him, don't worry

Post by **zaydana** » Sat May 29, 2004 3:26 am

if I can get a decent image editing program before the end of the weekend i'll give it a shot, or if i can figure out gimp 2

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Sat May 29, 2004 3:55 am

Is it legal to spit the fortress model into several smaller models to show multiple LOD's simultaneously? i.e. split the "donut" section into 4 quadrants so when you're really close to it the quadrant near you is at insane detail while the one on the far side of the station is at a lower LOD to help preserve framerate?

I'm thinking about doing that, but I'm afraid it might be a little too radical for this contest.

-pincushionman

Post by **hellcatv** » Sat May 29, 2004 5:46 am

go ahead, the engine supports it

Post by **jackS** » Sat May 29, 2004 5:56 am

pincushionman wrote:Is it legal to spit the fortress model into several smaller models to show multiple LOD's simultaneously? i.e. split the "donut" section into 4 quadrants so when you're really close to it the quadrant near you is at insane detail while the one on the far side of the station is at a lower LOD to help preserve framerate?

I'm thinking about doing that, but I'm afraid it might be a little too radical for this contest.

-pincushionman

sounds reasonable to me. Splitting a giant mesh into parts that can more reasonably model "closeness" just seems like a practical solution.

From my perspective, radical would be more like: carve little minor chunks of the station off in various places, make those not only separate meshes, but separate subunits, and then make the damage effects look pretty when they get blown off - that's what I'd think of as interestingly radical.

Anax (Guest) · Post by **Anax (Guest)** » Sat May 29, 2004 2:08 pm

Can somebody post an image of this thing as it looks now? it sounds like an interesting 'thing', but i can't see what it looks like as i'm still away from home and computer in a different hemisphere until july...

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Sat May 29, 2004 6:07 pm

http://vegastrike.sourceforge.net/galle ... ots/Image9

Thar she blows. The texture does, anyways.

Would it help anyone if I made a UV map and made the blank textured available, so all people would have to do is draw over that?

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 7:01 am

I'm on, what's the max texture size? why don't you want detail textures layer?

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 7:08 am

oh! detail texture layer is allowed! good point
I'll modify the rules

max texture size: lets say 1024x1024
cards choke on more than that these days

though with texture compression you could make it 2048x2048

we can always shrink it... make it look good

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 8:23 am

ok next question so

If the damage map as some transparent areas, will it draw some holes in the mesh?

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 8:30 am

no... the damage map adds

without the model having reasonable interiors having it makes holes in the model is silly
clearly you could say "why don't we add interiors"

noted... but I think this will have to wait a while
we have too many models with poor exteriors to begin to worry about filling them with innards appropriate to be exposed in the event of a catastrophic hit

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 8:39 am

I was thinking about a structure like a submarine, where you see another underlying structure when you destray the main one, but I will make another idea of damage maps, so

Post by **jackS** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 8:55 am

etheral walker wrote:I was thinking about a structure like a submarine, where you see another underlying structure when you destray the main one, but I will make another idea of damage maps, so

yes. Unfortunately, the only way to model interior damage as you desire, given present functionality, is to build the underlying damaged model as your base model+texture and then fill in the holes and missing pieces with additional distinct meshes. Damage maps would remain desirable/useful, but only for modeling damaged areas that were not in fact entirely destroyed/penetrated. This is a less general approach than what you seemed to be hoping for.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 9:55 am

not really useable, there will be too many unseen polys. another question, can we replace LODS by animations?

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 9:56 am

sure

if you want to animate go ahead

we'll accept that
in the future VS will support both lods and ani (I hope)

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 10:41 am

ok ok

so lets state for max 5000 polys with animated parts? For the color sheme we are free as far as we don't make a christmas tree?

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 11:44 am

well try to keep in line with Howie's example--of course feel free to embellish for some of confed's subfactions

and also don't scare off other participants with all your animation stuff

anyone can win this thing

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 12:19 pm

ok, last question, what's the size of the station? Should be usefull to scale drawings and nurnies

Post by **hellcatv** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 12:20 pm

jacks'll have to answer that one for you

a couple of kilometers at least

Post by **jackS** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 1:49 pm

etheral walker wrote:ok, last question, what's the size of the station? Should be usefull to scale drawings and nurnies

Internal volume should be in the neighborhood of 200 - 250 billion cubic meters. The particular dimensions I leave for the artists to decide, although given that it's a star fortress, there's something to be said for a design that doesn't go out of its way to interfere with firing arcs

.

charlieg · Post by **charlieg** » Wed Jun 02, 2004 4:00 pm

Hmm the 10th June deadline is looking exceedingly optimistic.