Blender Map Collaboration

[mrwonko]

Hey,

 

I've briefly talked about this in the JKHUB Pass-Me-Around planning thread, but it should really be its own thing, hence me opening this thread.

 

Basically, I'd like to create a whole map in Blender. And I'd like you to join me.

 

One of the nice things about Blender is that collaboration is easy. You can link objects from other .blend files and they'll even be updated when the original is changed, allowing for parallel work. So this wouldn't even necessarily have to be a sequential thing, we could all work on it in parallel.

 

Who would be interested in joining me? Some experience with Blender would obviously be appreciated, but you might be able to contribute even if you're just starting out. Pretty much every imaginable environment has some simple objects in it, after all. I'm not too good myself - I know the technical side, so if you need to do a certain operation I can probably tell you, but I'm not very good at using those operations to come up with a cool model.

 

And what could we do? We should probably keep it small, duel map sized, so we have a better chance of finishing it. And gameplay is pretty hard to get wrong in a duel map, so that's another thing we wouldn''t have to worry about too much.

 

As for the theme, I'd like something that highlights the strengths of modelling, something that would be hard to do with brushes. (Yes, there's hardly anything you can't do with brushes, but square rooms are inherently easier.) Terrain or something organic would be obvious choices. Talking about organic - it could even be animated, since we can use md3 models, which support animations. (They get huge though, since it's per-vertex animation.) Or something highly destructible, akin to Fearis Incident - .rof files allow for some nice rigid body animations and combining that with Blender's physics baking capabilities leads to interesting possibilities.

 

But I get ahead of myself - first we should see who's interested and think about the kind of map we'd like to make.

 

So, who's with me?

 

So long,

mrwonko

[mrwonko]

I'd be interested so long as there are clear ground rules regarding final environment scale, and everyone involved can handle some criticism without blowing up.

Yes, that's obviously important in any collaborative project. Be aware that others may change your work. It's usually for the better, though if you disagree try to find a solution by discussion instead of changing it back and forth.

 

Also, you kind of lose the rights to your work as in you can't later decide "nah, you mustn't use what I created." (You can of course still use it for personal projects, but what's contributed becomes ours, not just yours.)

 

As for the scale, at least that's easy to change when modelling since you don't have to adhere to some grid.

[mrwonko]

Sounds delightful. You can count me in.

Then welcome aboard!

I'm not sure who else around here uses Blender that heavily to design environments besides Pande.

If someone just uses it lightly (chairs and other smaller objects) s/he's welcome as well, we'll need some objects as well, after all. Also, ping @@Pande.

[redsaurus]

I might be interested

[mrwonko]

I might be interested

Feel free to stick around. I'm thinking about making this fairly open anyway, with some shared storage (via dropbox, github or whatnot) where everybody can contribute. Some preliminary planning/style previs would probably be good, but once that's out of the way anybody should be able to contribute.

[Pande]

Yeah, if theres no rush and whatnot I'm in. 

I would suggest a purely aesthetic / art creation in the form of a duel map, simply showing off all the things we can done with models and some smart Radiant work to go along with it. 

 

My suggestion is a clearing in some mossy rocks with lots of trees, vines, and other goodies. easily 200k tri duel map. 

[mrwonko]

Yeah, if theres no rush and whatnot I'm in.

If there ever was any rush, the release of the source code changed that. I'll be busy poking the code now, but that doesn't mean we can't do this as well.

[Delta_135]

i'm pretty new to blender so not sure how much i can contribute to the project

but i'd like to join in anyway if that's possible 

at the vary least i can probably make a small plant or something

and who knows i might learn a thing or two along the way

[mrwonko]

Yeah, so since the Jedi Academy source got released, we can go nuts with high detail now. Provided this project takes long enough we'll have normalmaps, parallax occlusion mapping, dynamic lighting and higher possible polygon counts. Maybe even tesselation. So it would be fairly cool to create a reference level of what is technically possible.

 

And if that does not happen in time, we can just bake a full render - lightmaps & mega textures, Blender style!

[Pande]

Yeah, so since the Jedi Academy source got released, we can go nuts with high detail now. Provided this project takes long enough we'll have normalmaps, parallax occlusion mapping, dynamic lighting and higher possible polygon counts. Maybe even tesselation. So it would be fairly cool to create a reference level of what is technically possible.

 

And if that does not happen in time, we can just bake a full render - lightmaps & mega textures, Blender style!

 

I suggest then someone sets up and SVN for this blender project, so we can collaboratively work on it with small updates.

[mrwonko]

I suggest we get a better idea of what we're trying to achieve first.

 

I'll be out of town for most of next week starting wednesday, by the way.

[mrwonko]

Are you and everyone involved set on duel as the gametype? That is the basis for several questions.

At least I think anything bigger could easily be too much work. Feel free to challenge that, but I'd rather stick to duel.

If so, I'd reach agreement on theme. You said organic. Expand on that. Alien organic? Sci-fi strange organic? Traditional landscape organic?

I didn't have anything particular in mind when I proposed it, except lots of curves since that's traditionally hard to do with brushes (and even patchmeshes). And it could even be animated. So maybe the inside of some huge creature, like the Leviathan in Devil May Cry 3. Having a beating heart in there would be cool.

Collect reference images to demonstrate your point.

 

Setup a centralized location for reference images. That way different people can contribute references, and we will all be on the same page.

Yeah, we should do that. I'll look into it later, don't have enough time today.

Establish how much of this will be original work. Are we making our own textures, taking advantage of free to use texture packs, collecting sources from cgtextures, etc...?

I'd love it if all the details were actually modelled in high detail and then baked onto a lowpoly mesh, but that might be too much work?

A layout should be established. I'd suggest working together with radiant initially to white box and play test a layout. I can provide a server we can test on at the same time if required. I like duel maps with ups and downs.

Agreed on whiteboxing, agreed on verticality. But it can easily be done using Blender and spawnflags 2 as well.

[The One and Only]

I'd be interested, only I've never made a map in blender before, so you'll have to lay down some ground rules for me.

[mrwonko]

I'd be interested, only I've never made a map in blender before, so you'll have to lay down some ground rules for me.

For the most parts it's just like any other kind of modelling in Blender. What experience do you have?

[The One and Only]

Well I can model is Blender and I can map in Radiant, I just want to know things like do you have to use convex objects, and whether you texture by UV mapping etc.

[mrwonko]

Okay, I've set up a DropBox, what's everybody's name?

[Pande]

Well I can model is Blender and I can map in Radiant, I just want to know things like do you have to use convex objects, and whether you texture by UV mapping etc.

Any shapes are fine. Texturing is done by uvmapping individual faces over an existing texture, and maybe creating a few textures for specific objects. 

 

Later, the map is put into radiant and structural brushes would be made, though not important as we're not going to have any interior areas I imagine. It would be unwise to, considering the way models are loaded. An open 1-room duel map is best.

[mrwonko]

We had an idea in IRC: Why not remake Hoth Wasteland CTF? That has the benefit of giving us a clear guideline and the result being usable in a free Jedi Academy asset replacement set.

 

Personally, I'd be down. I'd still like to have some gruesome pulsing flesh some day, but until then a Hoth remake is fine. Very high-poly, preferably, so it could showcase dynamic lighting well.

 

As I said, I have a DropBox account now and could just set up a shared folder. I just need to friend you on DropBox.

[mrwonko]

So, Hoth then? Keeping the original layout but improving visuals?

 

Some specific planning may be advisable - looking what we need (e.g. an X-wing), gathering references and so on. I'll get started on that after uni unless anybody has objections to Hoth...

[Delta_135]

I'll get started on that after uni unless anybody has objections to Hoth...

 

none here i've always had thing for snow levels

[mrwonko]

Okay, I've taken a 100MB of Screenshots of the Echo Base in Episode 5, that should do nicely. Take a look.

 

One thing I noticed: The movie features neither elevators nor stairs. ctf2 has both. Still, a good reference.

 

SO how closely will we stick to the original layout? I suppose the heights should match closely enough that anything accessible via level 2/3 force jump should still be in the remake?

[Pande]

Stick absolutely original layout and it could be used in jkopenassets. Also i'm in, I'll sign up with dropbox when i'm back from work. Seriously suggest SVN though, dropbox doesn't alert you to changes.