Hi folks,
Just to show that I've started to work on mds5_w. I actually got a "new" computer, in fact I tried to repurpose a PC that was being disused in my work... unfortunately, it turned out that I have only a chipset acting as a graphic card, which is terrible. It has a bit more CPU and RAM than my laptop, but the GPU is so poor that it creates aliasing problems on the renders.
Anyway, back on the mds5_w scene (weapon shop in the slums, set up inside the what remains of a bus): I only have "dummy" textures at the moment, I didn't fiddle with that very much. I made some very basic lighting. I will have to look into that when I work with the "cycles" rendering engine - except that I don't think it's an option with my current GPU. Even though I think I started fine, there are a few issues on that scene that I'd like to discuss... so first, here's my current scene:
The original picture can be viewed at:
http://mirror.ff7data.com.ar/ff7/data/field/flevel.lgp/mds5_w.png.
So... there are mostly 2 things that have been bothering me in that scene. First is the seat on the left hand side, near the back wall of the bus, where one of the shop clerk sits. This particular seat is actually considerably smaller that all the other seats on the scene. I thought of resizing it so that it matches the others, but it looks like the walkmesh in that area corresponds to the small height of the seat. So...
a/ I can carry on with a seat whose size matches the other, but we'll have to test how that'd look in game
b/ I keep the seat tiny, and we'll have to assume that a kid's seat is being used in that place.
The other part that concerns me is much worse: the bus driver seat, dashboard, etc. In the original picture, it's actually a complete nonsense. The seat is misaligned with the cabin, the height of the seat and its position would make it impossible to see the road when driving, it's a mess really. I made some corrections already in my version (the seat is closer to the dashboard, higher, and the steering wheel is more vertical, like in an actual bus), but if that's fine with you, I'd like to redesign that part quite a bit. I think the original picture from the outside of the bus (
http://mirror.ff7data.com.ar/ff7/data/field/flevel.lgp/mds5_1.png) could be used as some reference (in addition to some photos of real buses). A redesign of this section would not be a problem as far as the walkmesh is concerned.
Well, actually there's a third thing that may need to be corrected. There's some sort of metallic handrail+grid between the bus driver seat and a passenger seat behind it. In the original picture, this handrail/grid is in the middle of the walkmesh
I'm of a mind to put it on the edge of the walkmesh (moving it towards the front of the bus), especially since redesigning the bus driver seat section will move this part more towards the front of the bus, as well.
So... that's about it for the moment, some feedback would be appreciated.