AshuraDX

@@mrwonko calling the blender master in

First of all I did not mean to offend anybody , if that was misunderstood , I'm sorry. BUT when I got started with modeling for this game , I created terribly inefficient meshes and recieved harsh critic and I mean really harsh but after a while instead of just crieing and raging on them about that I actually tought : hey these people have been working with this game for a much longer time than myself so probably they are RIGHT and I am indeed the one who is WRONG here . Thanks to these critics back then I reached my current skill level and i'm really gratefull for that . Fact is that this game's engine is quite old and does not really like rendering many complex models  at once.

so now onto the case here :

 

CaptainCrazy completely missed the purpose of any suggestions and valid points mini and I made, instead claiming that being restricted to fewer vertices on a mesh would

    A: make it look not as elegant

    B: you wouldn't be able to tell who's lightsaber hilt it was anymore by stripping more detail from it

These claims lead me to start a personal challenge , which I at first did not intend to showcase here but only to see for myself if one could build a mesh with an similiar amount of detail without using 1.2k vertices on the mesh , before all hard edges and UV seams are split , which will duplicate the vertex count along these splits  and thereby increase the vertex count by a lot not to say a shitload. Crazys response :

 

Make a low poly version if you like but my opinion on the matter will not be swayed.

 

I've worked on a lot of games mods so if I think that this is good then it's good and egotistical views of others will not change my views.

 

I swear sometimes you guys are really nice people to talk to and other times you're just opinions are just mean.  Yes I can take criticism but I'm not going to keep shaving polygons off the thing when it's for a Machinima.  It will look like total crap close-up and I'm not going to have people think that I couldn't even be bothered to make anything other than a box with a few rectangles glued on top.

 

 

So as you can see I highlighted a few things in there , the first 2 highlighted parts just seemed kinda off to me - judging others as being egotastical and exclaiming THAT in the same sentence ?

 

the second part is actually where it started to get ridiculous to me  WHY should anybody think he could not do any better ? The best content anyone can create for an old game engine like this is something that looks good and at the same time performs as good as possible so you dont want to use more geometry than you actually need - meaning you should scrap everything that could easily be textured on and it will still look convincing enough to be not considered "a box with a few rectangles glued on top"

 

after this reply by CaptainCrazy Omicron made a valid point - that it is okay to have a higher poly saber hilt for a machinima, some people will want to use it in gameplay situations aswell though, as this is a game after all, so I still think one has to find the right compromise between modeled and textured detail so that both groups of players can appreciate it to the fullest

 

Following that Crazy started completely ridiculing efficiently built models , and I have to admit I got a good laugh of his tinfoil-box comparison, but somehow that was also the moment I thought - hey you know what ? let me show you my "tinfoil-box" , if you want to see it. That's why I put that post in a spoiler tag, and warned anyone to make sure they really want to see the content as it COULD be offensive to some if you click that spoiler , look at it and ARE offended by the content then it's their own fault - they've been warned and still clicked it. I just wanted to show that theres actually no need to use an "excessive" amount of vertices to make a model look good which is something I learned in the past years . Now let me quote @ here

Or find ways to push the boundaries of what has been possible so far. (*hint-hint*)

that's exactly what you wan't to do - push the boundaries without smashing them with a (vertex) heavy club until they break and errors start showing up

 

The only thing I tried to accomplish was to prove that you can get a smooth shape and maintain the exact same defining silhouette all while keeping the vertex count quite low

I did not do this to boost my ego , I'd have done that in a much more rude & respectless way , I also did not mean to challenge him into any kind of competition or even run him off the forum

I just wanted to teach him a bit of respect for efficient modeling and as that was widely missunderstood I'd like to apologise , right here right now if he's still around by now @@CaptainCrazy , contact me via pm if you wish to talk about what happened here I'd be really grateful for that. To me Videogame art was never about competition - it's allways been my goal to get better , more accurate to the concept and teach my knowdledge to other those in this community who have known me for a while or maybe even since I started modding Jedi academy will probably agree on that.

Same here , probably after I'm done with school next year

@@Ruxith That's exactly what I did mate , the alignment is correct now though , probably modview was just acting up , after resaving & reloading the textures everything matched up again

 

Also : a suggestion for Teamskins , could aswell give you these if you wish , default added for comparison

 

have not checked ingame yet but that looks "kinda" off O.o might want to look into that

Also : did you take your normal map , grayscaled it and overlayed that along with the AO bake over your textures?

Kinda looks like that. I'd suggest replacing the normal map with a curvature map in that case

 

EDIT : Strangely the horn misplacement appears to have fixed itself after I resaved the ehad texture O.o did oyu probably save your PNG as interlaced ?

@@AshuraDX That's interesting, I didn't know that was the cause, I'll look into that with one of my files.

png is not going to be compressed on saving , so it MIGHT work but I cant make any promises here

It might be the crappy JPG format bringing out the bluey-purple color I have there. In the PSD's, it's only hinted.

try png

I think it might just be the root pose, it makes it look like he has peg legs.

not from the side shot

something about the shape of his boots throws me off..... I dont know exactly what it is though

Looks great otherwise !

get QEffects , it's pretty much ENB for OpenGL games as far as I know

@@eezstreet knows more about that

It seems like all the geometry normals were inverted on Boothands screenshot... O.o

 

could definatly be improved in the allready mentioned areas , the feet are also very blocky

As Quixel just released it's quixel suit (which is in Open beta now btw)

they made the old version of their amazing texturing utility dDo free to use

 

I've been toying around wit hit in the last 2 days and I must say : I love it

here's a sketchfab link to the displayed mesh there

Skyrim Jewelry Smelter - dDo by ashuradx on Sketchfab

 

I'd recommend this tool for the more advanced modelers here as it seriously speeds and simplifies up your texturing process

but requires a proper normal map to work correctly

 

If you wan't to try it , you can get it here http://quixel.se/dev/ddo

at the bottom of the page you'll find the get Legacy version dDo Link

 

I might release a dDo textured version of my skiff vehicle for comparison

 

moar Paganmetal !

 

For whatever reason, this song makes me want to play Night of the Raven again.

then imagine what this will do to you https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJx-tLgMBXY

*Nostalgia incoming*

just let me know when you need something - I'll see if I can get it done for ya

I could probably supply you with a couple test meshes if you wish , just let me know what you'd like to have

 

I could probably convert these for JA quickly if you wish

 

so what did you find when using my model ?

I'm holding off on the extras for now while I get weather working.

 

What I need for the PBR stuff is some assets a simple model with a diffuse, specular, roughness and normal map. I suppose I could make something simple myself now I think about it.

how about you go a few pages back and take my skiff & the additional normal maps which I posted there

the lips look a little flat , but aside of this it'S perfect

get some surface detail done there !

But your glow effect appears to be uniform across the entire lava texture, no? There needs to be something in the Shader that only allows the cracks to glow... IMO.

that's because the default JA lava shader is just a single stage shader that's set to glow , if you made it a 2 stage shader you could easily fix that ,but altering game assets is not the goal of OpenJK

indeed , it'S looking fantastic but the neck looks too short

I guess I was lucky to catch him during one of his active periods. That's an insight.

he will return I just don't know when that will be

My guess is that he hasn't had any internet set up in his new house yet. I'll email him and see if he replies.

chalk likes to disappear for a few months from time to time but usually he returns some time later , he has been gone for allmost a year not too long ago and then he showed up here just from out of nowhere

@@AshuraDX was it a hot day when you made that thing? :blink:  A subliminal message perhaps?

 

that was done at the very beginning of my modding career , dont ask me why or when I made it I think it was just a test

which one of both ? or both ?

 

I actually made a rainbow saber a few years ago... it basically utilised a couple of saberblades that had different lengths assigned to them to create this effect :

https://imagizer.imageshack.us/v2/813x650q90/839/shot0153.jpg

 

just remembered that I once did it like that which won't look odd in MP asweel

 

but it's also horribly overpowered without changes to the damagescales

 

okay - jokes aside now

I have an idea how to accomplish this in SP , it'll just look dumb in mp , or the effect will effect all sabers which would be an easy trick to perform