[WIP] The Highwind

[Salk]

I'd like to ask why the poly reduction? What is the benefit?

[Timber]

I'd like to ask why the poly reduction? What is the benefit?

Less strain on your graphics card.

[Timu Sumisu]

are you missing some propellors?

[BloodShot]

Yeah, but don't worry about it - that's the Jet version later in the game, I replaced that because I didn't have a save to test the earlier propeller version. I have the new propellers on the other model.

[FeliX Leonhart]

Will be the propellers animated?

[BloodShot]

The top ones yes, but unfortunately the model contains no bones for the bottom ones so they will probably be either static or I will remove them. I kind of like them there so maybe I will keep them on though.

[Timu Sumisu]

keep em. even if they dont animate right, i'd rather have em.

[BloodShot]

Sooo....any good info or tuts on how to UV map?

[yarLson]

I'm pretty sure that Timu and/or Millenia have a few, dunno where though...

[Jaadoo]

Less strain on your graphics card.

But does that really matter? I mean, since the game is so old, shouldn't 'modern' pcs easily handle the extra strain?

[Timu Sumisu]

I don't have a UV tutorial, and i dont think i've ever seen a /good/ one, as its a very arbitrary topic. in blender, generate a testgrid, and mess with yer uvs until the grid looks fairly even and all the squares stay squares on the mesh.

[yarLson]

But does that really matter? I mean, since the game is so old, shouldn't 'modern' pcs easily handle the extra strain?

yes it does, these models are not as old as the game, and furthermore the graphics driver is not perfect. If you have ever played an emulator then you know that sometimes a machine that is perfectly capable of running a certain game can sometimes be held back by the software running it, making it unplayable.

For an example I can't run PS2 games with PCSX2 on my PC because even though my cpu and graphics hardware are much faster than a PS2's by far, the software was not originally designed to run on them, thus there are so many bugs and slow downs, I can't really run any PS2 at an acceptable level. Through the further development of PCSX2 however this is subject to change.

Trying to get new tech to run with old games is a tedious process, and until Aali's driver is perfectly refined or until QGears project is complete, the game will not actually run "as well" as your computer could potentially handle it. So if this model were running in a game designed for PC in the last couple years, then your right it wouldn't really be necessary. But for this particular game and the software running it, it can cause some major slowdowns, unless you own a decently beastly (expensive) machine, which not everyone does.

Not to mention I am sure the model was designed at a much bigger scale than it appears in game. More so than just as a courtesy to those of us with less than the most modern machines, it is usually held as a professional standard to make things as performance friendly as possible. It doesn't really matter if he left the polys or not, you won't be able to tell at such a small size. What you will notice however are the slow downs.

[Timu Sumisu]

long and short of it, its also a good 3d art practice. the world map high wind is very small (in terms of on screen pixels). You wont be able to see all the polygons, so you trim away all the unecessary ones while maintaining all the detail. it also makes it a lot easier to edit further down the road.

[DLPB_]

You guys are doing a very good job with the graphics

[BloodShot]

Ok question - should I mark seams and unwrap each piece and texture them individually, or should I combine the mesh into one thing and do the UVs that way?

[BloodShot]

After fiddling around with the UVs and marking seams, I think i kind of get it now:



I'm going to do it in pieces, what do you guys think, is that a good setup for the UV? I can rearrange it too to reduce the space between the parts.

[Timu Sumisu]

unwrap the diff objects, but ultimately they should all be on the same texture block. you seem to have the basic idea down, just try to avoid the "pinchy" parts, where numerous vertices bunch up.

[BloodShot]

Got a bit of a problem here, everything I mirrored on the model renders inside out in game, or when viewing the model externally through biturn or Pcreator. Is there any way to fix this rather than unmirroring and modifying the piece to look right?

[Timu Sumisu]

If the polies are backwards (polygons face one way, so if you look at them from behind, you see through them), you can switch that by selecting the affected polies and clicking ctrl+F, and select the first option (i forget what it says, something like flip faces). if you're not sure which ones are like that in blender, you can go into shaded mode (the little dropdown menu that you toggle through solid, wireframe, bounding box, textured  or shaded). and you'll see through the backsides of polies. alternatively i think the hotkey for that is shift or ctrl Z

[BloodShot]

Would it be flip normals? It seems to fix it on textured models in blender but I've yet to test ingame or in kimera at least.

EDIT: Just did the UVs for the main body, hows this?



Also, how would I combine all the UV's onto one image once I finish unwrapping each object?

[Timu Sumisu]

not a bad start, in the uv image editor subwindow, one of the menus (image i think) you select new - and pick uv test grid, make one, 1024x1024 is good, and show what it looks like with that. what you strive for is for all teh squares to still look like squares in the 3d view.