WIP: stuff you are working on!

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I'm in agreement with my team mate; simply normal mapping tools on the back would look gash. I can't very well tell SoldierIsNotHistory to square-up the edge of the tyres either since it was me who moaned at Messiah about his Landie tyre-walls being flat.

They're important details to include in the mesh, you just need to be mindful of how many faces they really deserve to have lavished on them. Normals maps are fine for nuts, bolts, handles, hinges and general small fixtures that don't stick out more than a couple of inches but in ArmA, BFO pieces of gear strapped to the side should modelled and included in the shadow LODs so that you get nice detailed lighting on the vehicle.

That said, I'd probably have a look at those hoisting-rings that panda flagged up on the turret, and possibly the hole though the middle of the ones at the extreme front and rear of the vehicle. They look like they may contain a few polies that could be spent elsewhere.

How many sides do the cylinders used to create the smoke launchers have? They look a bit rounder than they really need to be, but if the total polycount for the vehicle's fairly reasonable; leave them as-is (speaking of which; care to share the total face-count?).

Anyway, the VBCI's a very nice vehicle. I sort of preferred it to the Piranha IV/Vs finally went for with FRES.

[Panda-PL- 0]

BFO pieces of gear strapped to the side should modelled and included in the shadow LODs so that you get nice detailed lighting on the vehicle.

Small details will not cast self-shadow.

There is a tresshold to how much shadow lod must be above surface to cast shadow.

The self-shadow from normal map is in those cases the only option.

If the shovel really has to be 3D you can still make it a flat polygon and use normal or make it a flat quad and use normal+alpha channel (I'd personally go with flat poly option, alpha channel wouldn't look good on edges).

You could leave the hatches actually since it's just few polies.

[SoldierIsNotHistory 0]

To add some informations

7560 vertices

7422 faces

[Panda-PL- 0]

7422 faces

Pretty decent if the mesh is finished and the number won't grow anymore.

It's a little of offtop but I'll play devil's advocate:

"as soon as you look the wheel at an acute enough angle"

http://img92.imageshack.us/img92/7587/knobhd1.jpg

http://img512.imageshack.us/img512/1596/knobyg7.jpg

I agree beyond that point it looks fishy.

It's not a tire but ACOG adjustment knob, but same concept. I don't think anyone would notice.

By the time you reach that, allmost flat, angle the tire is allready covered by other parts of vehicle (whatever they are called).

So actually making it a cylinder could work well.

[da12thMonkey 1943]

@ July 23 2008,22:27)]

BFO pieces of gear strapped to the side should modelled and included in the shadow LODs so that you get nice detailed lighting on the vehicle.

Small details will not cast self-shadow.

There is a tresshold to how much shadow lod must be above surface to cast shadow.

The self-shadow from normal map is in those cases the only option.

If the shovel really has to be 3D you can still make it a flat polygon and use normal or make it a flat quad and use normal+alpha channel (I'd personally go with flat poly option, alpha channel wouldn't look good on edges).

You could leave the hatches actually since it's just few polies.

I'm fairly sure the shovel and pick handle on this model are sufficiently large enough, and far enough from the hull to cast shadows. The ones we've put on a number of UKF models and my own work, manage it well enough and they're mounted exactly the same as this one.

@SoldierIsNotHistory, the face count's very good mate; pretty much what I'd expect of an AFV, and you've managed to get a nice amount of detail out of that (a surprising amount, given my initial though that of stuff might be too round).

[nephilim 0]

some things to remember:

if the surface IS NOT shape defining, eg rivets, and you cant see a very obvious change in shape when looking forn various angles, you leave it to the normal maps.

if theres alot of geometrical change going on, eg on the edge of the tires, you also have to add more segments to that, so the illusion of actual roundness is not destroyed.

the actuall surface might appear round from a perpendicular view but the low poly edge will disguise it.

its a case to case situation also being dependant on the poly budget and functionality.

@pandaPL

actually thought about that the door at the back might have a funtion and actually swing open?

@SoldierIsNotHistory

please post a wireframe shot from oxygen so we can help you better.

and ingame screenshot doesnt really help...

[Curious 0]

I slowly working a mini project for some Iraqi and Iranian war units................................

Any model donation are appreciated espically air units....

[orson 0]

That sun is godlike  

hehe jk

cool looking tank  

your viewer is not sized correctly , everything looks squished down.. guessing you use a widescreen monitor ?

you need to set the ratio 4:1 wide or whatever it is in Arma , this should alter bulldozer window too

look at your bulldozer settings , you can resize the window there also i think  

arma tools / bulldozer / profiles untill you find the .cfg

TexQuality=2;  is another thing you might want to try for sharper textures .. think this adjusts the mipmap

set to 2 i see textures pretty much exactly as i do in photoshop

[USSRsniper 0]

@ July 23 2008,22:49)]by using normal map to give wheel convbex/concave shape instead of using mesh for the same purpose.

I disagree - as soon as you look the wheel at an acute enough angle, the normal map will cease to 'trick' your eye into thinking the tyre has a convex shape, and it will become a flat sided tyre again. On something as prevelant and 'important' as the tyres, I'd go with the mesh every time.

Normal maps are fine for faking small bits of detail, but for something that size, it will look far worse in my opinion, and I seriously doubt you'd gain any sort of performance or efficiency increase by sacrificing those faces on the tyres in favour of normal maps.

Not only you need to look at certain angle, but also bad lighting can make model looking flat..

[thesun 14]

Especially at nigh or dawn when normal maps almost don't work.

[nephilim 0]

i guess thats only the case with the arma engine... the normal map implementation is A) screwy... and B) noone on this board that makes moddels seems to use hi-res models to derive the normal map from, but instead just uses photochop for the OVERALL normal map.

no wonder you get lightning errors all over the model...

[da12thMonkey 1943]

I think the vast majority of community members who are making addons for ArmA use O2 to model so making hi-poly models isn't feasible in the first place, given the simple nature of the program and the fact that it has a habit of going tits-up if you have too many points.

Secondly, there's no longer an export function in O2(PE), so even if most of us using O2 could make high-poly meshes, we couldn't export them to a program that would allow us to bake the normals once we've unwrapped the buggers.

It's all fine and dandy for those of us who have the funds to purchase more advanced tools and export from those to 02, but there where will still be a number of those who don't have the necessary skill with these commercial tools to be able to to create high-poly models. I can't even unwrap in 3DS; I've only ever had the pleasure of being instructed on how to do it in O2 by a friend; so I can't complete the necessary work-flow required to bake normal maps either.

[nephilim 0]

grab blender, its free.

create your models there, import into oxygen.

Quote[/b] ]will still be a number of those who don't have the necessary skills with these

i guess youre not born with these skills.

practice is the key.

not knowing how to do certain things isnt an excuse actually :P

ask around on forums, read tutorials, its all there.

personally i´d find it strange, as an artist, to settle with my current skills, not trying to push things further again and again,

but maybe thats just me..

[da12thMonkey 1943]

i guess youre not born with these skills.

practice is the key.

not knowing how to do certain things isnt an excuse actually :P

ask around on forums, read tutorials, its all there.

personally i´d find it strange, as an artist, to settle with my current skills, not trying to push things further again and again,

but maybe thats just me..

Yea, yea, I think everyone know that it takes time and effort since that's what it took to get whatever skills we currently posses and some of us probably feel pretty bad that we're lacking the passion for modelling etc to jump in and learn that sort of thing. I wasn't really making excuses for not learning it; just indicating that the way ArmA modding is for most of us, provides additional barriers to learning that particular process yet, while we want to be enjoying the things we're working on in the game we love. We all enjoy doing this, and learning new things (we wouldn't be posting in this thread if we didn't) and I reckon most of us learn new things every time we start somet new on a project.

I don't think anyone's simply settling with the skills they have, it's just that some of us don't have the necessary passion to learn and apply the things we pick up in tutorials in a way that'll show quick results to outside observers (i.e allotting the time to practice lots). The way most of us are learning and improving is probably a slow process, but allows us to produce things for other people to enjoy, quickly.

I guess the mindset of someone who's purely into modding differs somewhat from artistry and those who have a definite passion for 3D design such as yourself. I've seen it in the past with blokes I've worked on with mods for other games, and have gone on to work as professional designers for studios such as Volition Inc, Rockstar North and Remedy Entertainment; they were all truly artistic.

Like I said though, we're all learning so I dare say quite a few of the guys here will be able to do baked normal maps some day. But for some (like me probably) it'll be a long process.

[thesun 14]

Secondly, there's no longer an export function in O2(PE), so even if most of us using O2 could make high-poly meshes, we couldn't export them to a program that would allow us to bake the normals once we've unwrapped the buggers.

And that's the reason why i kepp the first O2PE release version just for export/import functions which wokr quite well .

[abs 2]

I'm not sure if it caused any issues, but I installed the latest o2, and then replaced the executable with the previous one and it still had the export function. Again, I don't know if that removes anything important that they've fixed, but it's far more important to me to be able to get the models into 3ds max.

Abs

[da12thMonkey 1943]

Secondly, there's no longer an export function in O2(PE), so even if most of us using O2 could make high-poly meshes, we couldn't export them to a program that would allow us to bake the normals once we've unwrapped the buggers.

And that's the reason why i kepp the first  O2PE release version just for export/import functions which wokr quite well   .

I did that for a long while for that exact reason too, but experienced funny behaviour a couple of times after patching ArmA. Figured it was best to go with the new toolset.

I'll see about Abs' suggestion.

[Curious 0]

That sun is godlike  

hehe jk

cool looking tank  

your viewer is not sized correctly , everything looks squished down.. guessing you use a widescreen monitor ?

you need to set the ratio 4:1 wide or whatever it is in Arma , this should alter bulldozer window too

look at your bulldozer settings , you can resize the window there also i think  

arma tools / bulldozer / profiles untill you find the .cfg

TexQuality=2;  is another thing you might want to try for sharper textures .. think this adjusts the mipmap

set to 2 i see textures pretty much exactly as i do in photoshop

Strange my Arma settings are not set at 1440 x 900 but the buldozer is  

Also wasnt sure the texture quality settings are, had a search but couldnt find them....

I Also have a problem with finding the texture for the dshkm_co.tga It doesnt seem to exist.

[Messiah 2]

P:\ca\weapons\Data

its dshkm_co.paa - if you want it as a TGA you'll need to convert it into one.

A quick question, are you simply changing the stock T72 texture in photoshop using the adjust colour/hue settings?

[Curious 0]

Thanks.

No am not changing the hue settings at all. I desaturated the 2d mini map (whatever you call it) and and add a few layer for some scratches and a main color and then played around with the contrast and brightest on the mini map. Also am planning to different camos not just one...and adding reactive Armour.

[Messiah 2]

ah, ok, thats exactly how I'd do it if I was going to use the original 2d texture as a base layer, so no drama - Was mainly curious. Keep us updated.

[thesun 14]

I'm not sure if it caused any issues, but I installed the latest o2, and then replaced the executable with the previous one and it still had the export function. Again, I don't know if that removes anything important that they've fixed, but it's far more important to me to be able to get the models into 3ds max.

Abs

Well, i have two installations, one for import/export purposes only and the other newer version for editing and saving the final "products". Didn't notice any problem so far.

[orson 0]

That sun is godlike  

hehe jk

cool looking tank  

your viewer is not sized correctly , everything looks squished down.. guessing you use a widescreen monitor ?

you need to set the ratio 4:1 wide or whatever it is in Arma , this should alter bulldozer window too

look at your bulldozer settings , you can resize the window there also i think  

arma tools / bulldozer / profiles untill you find the .cfg

TexQuality=2;  is another thing you might want to try for sharper textures .. think this adjusts the mipmap

set to 2 i see textures pretty much exactly as i do in photoshop

Strange my Arma settings are not set at 1440 x 900 but the buldozer is  

Also wasnt sure the texture quality settings are, had a search but couldnt find them....

I Also have a problem with finding the texture for the dshkm_co.tga It doesnt seem to exist.

http://c.imagehost.org/0425/t72.png

Looks a whole lot better now

about the viewer i have a similar problem , i ended up having to use it windowed and resize it manualy

[Panda-PL- 0]

about the viewer i have a similar problem , i ended up having to use it windowed...

That's how you should use it in the first place.

As for modelling ANY modeller is better than O2, some are even EASIER (subdivision modeller>verticle based approach) and all are faster.

We loose a lot of modelling workhours because people fail to switch to freeware alternatives, perhabs that's why modding goes so slow...

[clawhammer 10]

Hello guys

Here are two pictures from my first Oxygen 2 try

at the moment i have the problem how to tell the weapon

how to shot. If someone can say me a good tutorial it would be great