Apartment Building WIP

[J. Schmidt 10]

I've decided to start this thread because there are many questions that I have which may help many others including myself with enhancing my skills and knowledge when developing buildings. For the past week I've been trying to find and have been looking through tutorials on texturing, all very well put together but unfortunately haven't answered a few questions of mine. I won't be able to post pictures of all the buildings I'm working on since I've signed a NDA for them, I can however show off an apartment building that I'm working on as well as an elevator and possibly a firehouse. (I'll have to ask about the firehouse since I did release a video showing it off already.) Some of the community members may have already seen some of my work on the elevator and other buildings/models I've worked on but have either postponed or lost the files to.) I'm a major proponent when it comes to detail and trying to find loops in the ArmA engine that may and can be used to do something that normally isn't possible. Since I've started modeling for the ArmA series I've always used Oxygen 2, I do however have a student version 3DS Max & Blender but I'm not familiar with them at all, I'm currently trying to transition to the ArmA 3 Tools but they are giving me lots of trouble. Specifically buldozer doesn't seem to want to load no matter what I do, and that the ArmA 3 Tools don't seem to be in a final finished state.

To get back on track I hope that the community will help this thread progress very smoothly and provide key information which will help me along the way that I can use for other buildings I work on. Specifically Texturing and Lighting mechanics portion of model building (Work arounds that may block lighting going through walls, any out of the universe ideas are welcomed.)

I'll start off with the stages I go through before I start a new project; Stage 1: Initial Planning, Stage 2: Design, Stage 3: Modeling, Stage 4: Texturing, Stage 5: Testing. Now I'm not saying I follow these stages exactly but I try to stick to them. However there are times when I skip the second stage all together and go straight into the third stage.

Stage 1: The Initial Planning stage consist of deciding what type of building I want to design, as well as searching for images using Google of buildings and styles I would like to use/incorporate.

Stage 2: The Design stage is when I start getting the building and/or floor plan(s) on paper, or in society today I use AutoCad, Revit, SketchUp to design the floor plan(s).

Stage 3: The Modeling stage consists of me taking what I've designed and start laying it out in Oxygen 2 usually in cubes, and the tedious work of converting Imperial to Metric system. After I layout the cubes I then start converting them into actual walls/rooms. Once that's done I start putting in the details and lod work. After that I create a very simple config.cpp and model.cfg just to get the building in-game for scaling and an overall feel.

Stage 4: The Texturing stage is when I start looking for pictures and create textures to use for the building. (This is also one of the stages I need the most help with, which I'll go more in detail later.)

Stage 5: The Testing stage consists of me adding in any extra thoughts/details I come up with as well as the overall testing of the building in-game and fixing any errors that exists.

[x3kj 1247]

Stage 3: The Modeling stage consists of me taking what I've designed and start laying it out in Oxygen 2 usually in cubes, and the tedious work of converting Imperial to Metric system. After I layout the cubes I then start converting them into actual walls/rooms. Once that's done I start putting in the details and lod work. After that I create a very simple config.cpp and model.cfg just to get the building in-game for scaling and an overall feel.

i can tell you already that if you where to take the time to learn how to use your student version of max, you would be x times faster.

1) you dont have to convert imperial to metric [you can set the display unit as inch or feet or whatever and file unit as meter; that way you automatically export files in correct size for O2]

2) you can merge stage 2 and 3 as you can easily design the floor plan in max as well. Or alternatively you can use AutoCad Files to extract meshes in max.

3) once you designed the floor plan you just have to "pull it up" automatically generating your walls. All you have to do then is connecting multiple floors and cutting windows/doing details

4) UV tools are more powerfull and sophisticated, particulary with simple buildings you can just rely on automatic unwrapping methods.

Dont waste your time with O2 modelling.

The Youtube Autodesk Learning Channel contains many high quality tutorials, many also concerning architectural modelling.

;

;

. It even has

, like wall tool, doors, windows, stairs etc.

Notice that you should optimize the model if you use AEC tools before putting it into arma

And with 3dsmax you have the ability to bake maps, which can make your building look alot nicer (see here for an example)

Edited July 22, 2014 by Fennek

[J. Schmidt 10]

@Fennek thanks for the links will definitely check them out.

[J. Schmidt 10]

During stage one I spent about 6 hours browsing through several pictures of modern architecture apartment buildings, there were about 4 pictures that I liked and finally picked a 3 story single bedroom apartment building. I wanted to start out with a modern architecture styled building that was small and simple. (I'm a fan of modern architecture style buildings.) Because the building I selected fit these specifications I decided that I would use it and that many players would enjoy living in it for some sort of role playing game mode. Since the apartment building already had a floor plan and several views I was able to skip stage 2 and continue to stage 3. Here are a few pictures of the apartment building I selected:

[Rich_R 1087]

Looking forward to seeing this!

[J. Schmidt 10]

07-28-14 Apartment Building WIP: It's been awhile since my last update, but I've been working on the textures for the past week, by all means it's not a professional job, but I hope to that one day I'll be able to texture like a professional. I still have to size the UV Map in the UV Editor a bit to completely match up with the textures, which'll prevent the few black lines/spots when the texture is applied to the model. Now I'll be continuing on with the lighting mechanics, and probably will continue to improve the texture work while I'm at it. Anyhow here's a link to a slideshow of the texture work I've been busy with, (Keep in mind it's not a professional job.)

http://s1138.photobucket.com/user/JSF_82nd_Reaper/slideshow/Project%2002%20City%20Life/07-28-14%20WIP%20Update

The texture files that I created are (Not sure if I created them correctly):

_AS - ambient shadow texture

_CO - color (diffuse map)

_MC - macro texture

_NOHQ - normal map high quality

_SMDI - optimized specular map for better bit depth

Edited July 28, 2014 by JSF 82nd Reaper

[warlord554 2065]

I like it. Something different. Could eventually expand and create a whole new map with new buildings. Keep up the good work, and don't stress your tex maps, the more you do the better you'll get ;)

[x3kj 1247]

your normal map looks really really weird. Without seeing the Lowpoly and Highpoly model its not possible to give any worthfull comment

[warlord554 2065]

Are you baking normals from the high poly or from the tex map picture?

[PuFu 4591]

as previously said, it would be nice to show the mesh when showing the textures, in some sort of 3d environment (could be the 3d viewport of your 3d software, or marmoset or alike). Showing just the textures is a bit...well. I do agree, they do look a bit weird, including the diffuse ones.

[J. Schmidt 10]

@WarLord554 I'm creating normals from the tex map pictures, @PuFu & @Fennek I'm going to upload some pictures of the model shortly...

[warlord554 2065]

No problems :) workflows are just different is the only reason I ask. Many different ways to do it that yield many different results