Think of this thread as something similar to conceptships.blogspot.com for the Sins community. Basically, a way for the community to share what they have created whether it makes it into a mod or not.
At a minimum post a screen shot of your model in blender, xsi, 3d object converter, etc or in game. If you have a name for your ship or story behind it, even better.
We are looking forward to seeing what you have created!
Interested in importing your models into Sins?
Visit http://soase.weebly.com/modeling.html (thanks myfist0)The soase.weebly is a compilation of many of the hard to find topics created by many experienced soase modders and extensively added to by myfist0. Check it out, you won't be disappointed.
From the beginning of this thread IskatuMesk has wow'd us with his models and ultimately released a video of his creations in Sins of a Solar Empire. This particular model was my favorite in the beginning and still stands out.
SivCorp looking to stretch new ideas from existing models managed to create several menancing models including the fantastic Vasari version seen here: (Vasari Flagship Sonar Kal'd used in the Distant Stars Mod)
It's my thread so a few of my stuff...
About quality, you need to think "final" product... i don't know if you segment/UV/texture yourself your models but some details can be made via texture work...
by example, you have a lot of gun with numerous barrels... it is possible to make the "inside" of barrels via normal map... will spare only a few poly by barrel by since the huge amount of gun/barrels...
Or on both side, at the back of the model, you have a trench with panel... for the smallest one, it is possible to make it via texture too...
Anyway, your models are great... if they don't make it in sins due to poly limit, maybe they will make it in sins 2 !!!
Or maybe you have a early version with fewer poly... i don't know how you work but in my case, i always start with a "3D sketch" who is low poly ( 1 or 2k poly )... by example, take a look for the sharlin that i have made for the B5 mod... http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_EpX6GUNLABE/SrbZuvscp0I/AAAAAAAAAME/pnOM-Of7G8g/s1600-h/sharlin.jpg ... fight model on the left, second stage on the right... one more stage at http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_EpX6GUNLABE/StnQ4zOdABI/AAAAAAAAAV8/cdTuJlgy0hM/s1600-h/sharlin_11.5k_tri.jpg ... in game result at http://babylon5ins.blogspot.com/2010/04/b5-s0tyr-sharlintex-update.html ... as you can see the texture work from Tobi and Steiner have greatly improve the details of my model...
In short, if you have somebody who texture your models, it is a good idea to ask your texturer about what details can be made via texture work... it will allow to optimize the model without loss of quality in the final result...
Technically you can turn all of those panels into normal maps. That wouldn't save a terrific number of polies, though. The ship is fairly large, there'd be more detail if I was capable of modeling it. As-is, the model would perform fine in sins (raw polycounts don't effect engines like they used to), but the game just doesn't accept models above 50k tris and nor does the converter.
As I cannot texture or such, though, I model some details on in the knowledge that one day they could be baked into a normal map.
That model and texture are top notch, btw. Excellent work.
Thanks on behalf of SteinerX and me for the texture (though most of the work for the texture was done by SteinerX)
As a side note, remember that the more polygons you add, the more difficult it will be to layout, segment and optimise your UV, and less detail will be available for the texture (as the UV needs more space, the UV pieces become smaller) and textures above 2k x 2k seem to be too much for sins (considering ram usage).
Other than that, impressive work!
For a ship like this I would prefer to use multiple textures. There's no windows or anything like that on these, so you can overlap uvs for the most part on the main hull. The difficulty comes from the engines, the weaponry, and some parts that would have the Bloodstone Guard emblem on it. Unfortunately for sins, that would indeed be very costly due to the 2gb limit.
"The belly is a bit bare and the tier 2 upper section and engines need work but I'm almost at 50k polies already. I'll have to split this into two pieces (one a particular mesh) for sins if I wanted to put it in. The prospect of that isn't nearly as terrifying as the amount of helper copy-pasting I'd need to do for the guns."
given that the game works in a 2-d fashion, I don't think the bare belly is an issue. It looks amazing. There are quite a few models here that are just awe inspiring.
You can overlap UV's but you cannot bake Ambient Occlusion into such a map, and AO greatly increases realism. Also, Overlapping UV's make the textures more generic.
You make my point... your work is usually related to baking AO... it seem a detail but it improve greatly the visual in the game, specially with a game limited to Phong node who in theory don't allow it...
For people who don't know what AO is, simply go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambient_occlusion ... usual texture in sins will look like the "diffuse only" pic on the wikipedia page... after Tobi work, it look like the "combined ambient and diffuse"... it is, i think, a great improvement...
SteinerX is the artist for texture, you are the technician... technic who need a lot of computer resource... resource who have push you recently to buy a new powerful computer... baking the AO map don't take anymore a few days now !!!
Anyway, it show only one thing... nobody is good at everything but team work can lead to great result...
Hehe, and a good team we are! I really need to get round to implement your Vorlon models and show them off here as well.
Never knew anything about baking AO. So you can't overlap UV's for that, then?
Man, that introduces some enormous complications for my architectural modeling plans in particular...
If you are using symmetrical models, then you can still bake the AO with overlapping UV's. Just UV map only one half of the model, bake the AO and then symmetrize the model. Your UV's will overlap 100% but the AO will also be there.
For more complex stuff you can use some tricks to avoid obvious texture seams, such as using non-overlapping connector pieces or textures with less microdetail on them.
To achieve better tangent projection, I recommend using a second, non-symmetrized tangent UV set. Such a set gives you far better control when adjusting tangents than an overlapping one.
@Mansh00terSecond that. You can optimise your UV's but you have to overlay symmetrical parts pixel-perfect to avoid artifacts. Other parts that seem not to benefit from AO can have that part of the AO erased if you bake the AO into an own image and combine it later (e.g an overlaying layer in Photoshop using multiply) So you can specify the Amount of AO (and therefore UV separation/optimisation) for your texture. Difficult and tedious but in the end worth it. The better you optimise, the more AO and the more texture space. But ultimately it's always a bit of a trade-off.
@IskatuMeskAmbient Occlusion is a mathematical approximation of Global Illumination using a perfectly round and evenly lit sky sphere.
Also one thing to note - if your model is fairly smooth, as in not having overlapping geometry, deep grooves or high protrusions, don't waste too much time on AO since it won't make that much of a difference. Like global illumination, AO works best when there's enough geometry to produce soft shadows. For example, baking AO on a smooth sphere would have absolutely no effect.
That's why baking AO works very well in tandem with baking the normal map (which is transferring high-polygon model geometrical detail onto a low-poly version in the form of a texture).
apperently in xsi you cant export a model if it is above 30k tris either is there a way around this i made a ship but it got messed up when i reduced the tris
30,000 tris??? What on earth (or outside earth rather) are you creating?
Here are some wireframe shots of the latest model I'm working on:
Around 7000 polygons, a bit higher than the norm for vanilla models, but the overall faction design alows for this (the faction this ship belongs to can have only half the normal number of ships built).
Generally speaking, if you are building a game model, absolutely avoid using extremely high polygon models. For Sins, regardless of faction design, I would avoid going above 10 000 polygons. If your model has more than that, consider building a low poly version of it, then baking high poly detail onto the low poly one via normal map.
is it actuallypossible to go above 50k tris? or is it a hardcoded limit?
Looking great ManShooter! And yes, building a high poly model and using the bake on a lower poly model is exactly how we would do it.
shit, man. I need to get my first game published so I can get the funds to hire one of you guys. These are dangerously sweet.
Polygons definitely don't effect performance that much anymore. Unless sins is a special exception for some reason I've never run into yet, I never had any issues putting high poly stuff into the game. The only thing I'd be concerned about is the extra ram usage, but come the next update and that wouldn't be an issue. I don't care about performance on low-end systems, though. I cannot stand low detail stuff, and I cannot texture, so there you go. Geometry instancing and other new fancy stuff would trivialize raw poly counts even further.
Cutting the mesh apart and spawning particle meshes for the other pieces was going to be how I was going to do it.
My next model update project will probably be the Glecterror. I posted it here a long time ago but here it is for reference.
This is amongst the most difficult of my current Xy`Kranasha designs in my head to model. I kitbashed the original back in 2002, later making no less than 3 attempts to model it from scratch in 2008. This model is a revised version of one of those remodel attempts. When I come to it next I will be removing those gun platforms (you'd have a hard time pointing something that massive at a star much less at most of the ships the other races use), and trying to detail the hull, as well as optimizing.
Minus those bottom cannons the entire ship is only 11k quads which is remarkably tiny.
I'm definitely not a professional. Any and all of my modeling methodology would make someone actually legitimately experienced in the art cringe and vomit. But I do what is necessary to move forward.
Regards.
if you rally want to now i had a ship with 80k tris hehehe looked really cool maybe post a screenshot
also if anyone wants the yamoto from star blazers i have one kinda big but cool
High poly models are only worth it if you're really using the polies for something. Proper edgeflow is really important.
^This. There is no wireframe to be sure, but it looks to me like you nailed hard surface modelling pretty well IskatuMesk! Though a lot of that surface detail can really be baked on, do explore that option.
And Craig, thanks!
Well, Thoumsins Sharlin has about 15k triangles and that seems to be no problem for a capitalship, since you can only have very few of those. I suppose even 30k is no problem if you can only ever have one or two of them.
Well, have reach 16k triangle with the Phoenix military version for the Halo mod... civilian being only 6k... and trade/transport ship only 96 triangles...
I think that the point is to have some balance... if you make a capital with a few more poly that normal, a other capital with fewer poly that normal will compensate... in fact, in case of capital, it is not really important, you cannot build a lot of them... frigate and fighter/bomber are a other case... specially the last since you can have a bunch of them on-screen...
Hope for you that 30k is not a problem... the Vorlon planet killer will be around these number... will be your coder job to make a entity file who don't allow to build a bunch of them...
Will not change a lot... both the basic mesh and the particle effect will use the same shader file ( FX file )... resource needed for show the model will be similar...
The resources will be similar, it's just a method to get past the game crashing from the limit. Supposedly, anyways, I never actually tried it.
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