Dox'as Showcase

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Doxas
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Dox'as Showcase

Post by Doxas »

Hello,

Good to know, that Tamriel Rebuilt project is still alive :) Recently I got more of spare time and wanted to improve my 3d modeling skills. So I ask if is here any clutter, architecture or any other objects that need to be modelled? Of course I can make something I come up with, but I think doing whats needed would be a bit more usefull.

So, could I get any information, or concepts or anything that would tell me what must to be done and/or how it looks like.

p.s. hope it wasnt hard to understand me, it was a while I havent written in english.

p.p.s. can anyone tell me what is max possible polycount per item in oblivion?
Harke the Apostle
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Post by Harke the Apostle »

Hi Doxas! And welcome back...

We have lots and lots of things that have to be modeled for Oblivion. Just check out our Design and Concept Art threads.

You should also get an inkling of the acceptable polycount there. (I don't know that by heart).
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

hmm I find concept art threads a bit confusing. Most of them look like discussions about how one or another item should look like without getting to final concept of it. Is there any specific thread with list of items, buildings etc. that have to be done? Or I just pick random picture from concept threads?

Sorry for such questions, but I just dont want accidentaly work on model, that later you wont find "fitting" :)
Harke the Apostle
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Post by Harke the Apostle »

Can you see this thread? (Access for members is different from access for modders).

http://tamriel-rebuilt.org/old_forum/viewtopic.php?t=16587

Read it...there's bound to be something there.
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

Looks like I can't see whats in there. I get this message:

The topic or post you requested does not exist
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aro101
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Post by aro101 »

New modeller! Sorry for not replying to you earlier, somehow I missed your showcase. Well, arch or clutter, lemme see....

How about a lighthouse?
http://img325.imageshack.us/img325/6489/rihadlghthousepersp5tw.jpg
If you want to try something easier or more simple, just ask :)

or maybe a watermill?
http://img129.imageshack.us/my.php?image=watermill1st1.jpg
Try making that big wheel, because I think the rest can be a LC house variation/modification.

What software do you use?

Oh, and you shouldn't really care about numbers like polycounts. You should rather get the right feel from making meshes and looking at the vanilla ones :)
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

I am picking lighthouse then. If polycount isnt a big matter, of course Ill try to stick too as few as possible, then its great :) Just out of curiosity how many polies have houses in Oblivion?

And at the moment I have Autodesk 3ds Max 7.0, I hope there is good mesh exporter for Oblivion.
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aro101
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Post by aro101 »

Max 7.0, great. You could even don't care about exporters and just hand me over the maxscenes and let me do the exporting job :) Check out this page:

http://niftools.sourceforge.net/

It has exporters for max and the nifskope tool which is quite handy. Especially if you would like to take a look at the oblivion meshes. Don't worry about the polies atm, when you will post samples of your work(.3ds, maxscenes or nif files), I can guide you to catch the right feel for it. IMHO, polies are just numbers. What really matters is making the right use of polies.
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

Ok, Ill keep in mind sending max files to you for exporting to niff format :)
And thanks for sharing link, when Ill have free minute Ill check whats in there.


Ok now about that progress. Some ideas or critisism would be most welcome. This is how lighthouse is looking so far. Anything that should be added? When Ill texture, it will be looking much better. But still it doesnt feel "right" to me.

http://i9.tinypic.com/6oe98xu.jpg

http://i9.tinypic.com/8bonj3l.jpg

http://i13.tinypic.com/872krqq.jpg

http://i3.tinypic.com/8f9qetc.jpg
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aro101
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Post by aro101 »

Dude, honestly, I think you rock. Keep it up! It seems like you made the shape and what is left for the mesh is adding some details through textures :) Your promotion is very near, I feel it. If you want some modelling specific suggestions, please upload the mesh in .3ds or the maxscene using TRs attachment panel here while replying or PM it to me, whatever you wish :)
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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Morden
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Post by Morden »

Great work on the tower so far. You're definitely doing well with Nyren's original concept. My only suggestion would be to keep the poly counts similar throughout your model. The blue base of the tower has a very high poly count, but the main shaft is considerably less. You may wish to find a middle ground between the two, or increase the poly count on the main shaft to match the base.
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Nomadic1
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Post by Nomadic1 »

I'm probably alone in saying this, but I've never liked the extreme height of the Rihad lighthouse. I've always found it too white-gold tower-esque.
<insert witty signature here. i might spend time trying to come up with something, but its not like anybody reads these anyway>
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Jedak
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Post by Jedak »

Same, but as long as its not on top of a hill thats great.
(I always felt that way but thought no-one else would. It must be us Aussies)

Aro, you forgot to reccomend him!
Macar: At last, I have a coleague to work with.

Lady N: Jedak-of-all-trades
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

Yeah, it reminds me a bit of Imperial city tower or one of many Lord f the rings towers, but I am just doing whats the concept shows :)

Moving forward. I've checked vanilla Oblivion meshes. Lighthouse was most interesting. I made comparison of sizes of mine lighthouse and anvil's:
http://i10.tinypic.com/6jzj974.jpg

Isnt mine too big? The reason why I did it so tall, is because of the top part (in pic I draw around those parts). I comapared it to Avil's and made so that player would still got some space to stand on the top. But it is still a bit smaller than Anvil Lighthouse's. If it is that that tower is ment to be that tall in concept, then its ok.
And about polies, Oblvion's lighthouse has 13k, mine just 5k, so looks like Ill have lots of freedom in detailing it before texturing.

to Macar> yes I am aware of keeping it in same detail and shade. Thing is, in those screens bottom has lowest number of polygons :) I just forgot to uncheck smooth modifier in that part before making screenshots :/

One more thing, as I understand Hammerfell, you are making, is inspired by middle east architecture. So for the doors and stuff that cant be seen in concept drawing I should make fancy looking doorways inspired by temples in Middle east, or lighthouse is more like simple building without too many expensive looking details? Besides is it deserted or fully functionaling one of the main details of town, or something in between - like it is being used, but none cares too much about how it looks like, just it is good as long it is standing there and doing what it is supposed to do?
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Post by aro101 »

Well, in this case we must not follow exactly the concept. Such a lighthouse would be just too big, for sure. Scale down the whole mesh by something about 1/5 and try lowering that blue part here and there, and make sure there is enough place at the top for a fireplace and a man that has to light it up.

Upload your mesh for a standart check and you will get my recommendation for promotion :) Are you familliar with the DDS format? And I would like you to look at what textures we already have for Hammerfell...

Yeh, the goldmoor region is under the influence of middle eastern architecture, but that is not what determines it. For the doors make something solid looking and functional. This lighthouse will be the main detail for the city. It is a unique mesh used only here, so it's still has to be bigger than the Anvil lighthouse. As for the textures, I think the concept is good in this case. The bottom part should be made out of solid stones/bricks that are a bit worn down because of the sand and the sea(and smoothed out as well). While the higher part (blue in you maxscene), should look rich, but a bit damaged by the passed time.
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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Morden
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Post by Morden »

The model scale is correct. It is meant to be very large. It was designed as the Rihad Beacon, not the Rihad lighthouse... a huge monument seen from out on the ocean, that could guide a ship to the city's ports. It is not meant to match the scale of OB lighthouses. Here is a concept of the city of Rihad:

[img]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/1128/41769yx7.jpg[/img]

The lighthouse design grew out of a number of Nyren's drawings, and some of our Weekly Sketch Group threads in which we fleshed out some defining features of the city.
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aro101
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Post by aro101 »

Oh my... I totally forgot about this concept, and I remember how much I was impressed when I first saw it. Sorry for that. And on the concept the walls smoothly turn into the lighthouse, and it would be great, if we would go this way...
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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Post by blackbird »

If i would make Rihad, I should use your pic as a reference.
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Post by Lady Nerevar »

afaik that pic is the official CA for rihad, so im ofcourse all for it. i think having the walls merge into the lighthouse base makes it all the more sexyrific. personaly, i think it would be best to model the lighthouse sepparate of the base and wait to model the base untill the ext is claimed and the exact needed scale is known.
In hoc signo vinces

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-PoHa!
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

Nice pic of town. So what should I do with lighthouse base? At the moment mine looks like in a first concept drawing. Should I make something looking more like in a second picture? Although it wont be hard to remove base from my model, they are going to be different objects anyway.

And can anyone help me with Nifftskope? I want to try model in game, but I just cant run that program. There is something wrong with Visual C++ libraries or whatever dll it needs. When installing it, I get warning that I am missing them, then I am directed to microsoft download webpage.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=32BC1BEE-A3F9-4C13-9C99-220B62A191EE&displaylang=en

I downloaded what is in that link, installed it and still nothing happens, as I havent downloaded and installed them at all. Maybe someone else had this problem? Any suggestions?
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aro101
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Post by aro101 »

Well, I think your mesh is good. You can just leave the bottom part for later and start texturing (or first giving some more detail) to the top part.

I didn't experience such difficulties ;/ You're running on XP os, right? No idea if you do not, the only one thing I can advice you is to install nifskope 1.00, not the one that were released after it, because 1.02 was buggy.
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

Yep, I installed 1.00 version and everything with Nifskope seems to be working good now.

Just wanted to let everyone know, that I didnt dropped on doing model. I just cant get collision working in game. Actually it works (I can walk on it), but as I move close to the model, game starts lagging as hell, so model is unplayable. I think it is too high polly. Now I am studying vanilla models, Ill try to come up with something or redo it.
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aro101
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Post by aro101 »

The best thing you can do, when you get stuck, is to upload your WIP, and let other people see what can be improved. Basically, that's how we work here :)

I'm happy to hear that you're still here, and nifskope works fine with you. The collision meshes should be as much schematic as they can be. While making them, think about the physics. A good example for collision meshes are weapons. They often have almost nothing to do with the visible mesh, they just are made so, that the mesh acts naturally ingame.
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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Post by Haplo »

Since I don't think you plan on leaving, and your models are of good quality, and your attitude is good, I'll promote you. (Also so that you can have access to more resources which should make everything much easier for you)

Member Promoted for modeling
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Morden
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Post by Morden »

Welcome aboard Dox'as :)
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Post by Jelle »

congrats on your promotion :) Great to have another modeller around.
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Post by Jedak »

Ahoy there! Well met and congrats! :)
Macar: At last, I have a coleague to work with.

Lady N: Jedak-of-all-trades
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Doxas
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Post by Doxas »

Thanks for promotion!
And sorry for dissapearing for so long. Havent got much time to get here. Anyway, work wasnt abandoned (I redid some parts of tower, implemented collision, but visually it looks the same), so mostly what I need now is to make the texture.
Can anyone tell me something about textures Oblivion models are using. Ive noticed that buildings are not UV mapped (or I may be wrong) and that they are using many different material textures. Should I texture tower in same manner?
Or can I go with UV mapping some parts, and placing titled textures in other? Are there any limits that I should know about how many textures can be per object and so on?

Hmm as always I come with many questions :)
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aro101
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Post by aro101 »

Woo, nice to see you back. And btw, thanks for replying to my email. I'll answer your questions in the claim forum in few minutes.
PoHa: how can we best this trio of trouble? who will save us from this menace of sub-par models? what will we do?
PoHa: I know! we'll shoot an Aro at them
Aro: you have only one Aro missile!
PoHa: yes, but its heat seeking and quite possibly indestructible

How to do not become a modeller - by Stryker:
[00:13:]Stryker: no tutorial, no no no
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