Environment: Zakros Palace (WIP)

[alexyork]

Terribly sorry!

Something crazy went on with my browser and this ended up in the 2D forum.

Could an OP please move this to the 3D WIP forum.

Massive sorry again!

*blush*

[alexyork]

thanks for moving this, OPs!

[alexyork]

mhm no replies yet... worked on it quite a bit today but then got distracted by my new digital camera ;] been taking photos all day instead of working on this map - doh.

updates very soon.

[Bredro1]

Hi Mother machine

Well 15,000 poly`s isin`t much to work with...but I think you`ve done a great job so far.
I know what it`s like to be polygon restricted.I had to make a Abrams Tank for a now defunkd xbox game...and was restricted to 5000 poly`s...lol.
Anyway...textures will bring it alive I`m sure.It will be hard to position a camera for a final render as the model is so vast...but Ii`m looking forward to seeing a finished project render.

take care

Bredro1

[boboroshi]

Lookin pretty good. I'm not familiar with the original project, but was it on a hill?

Looking forward to textures.

[alexyork]

Bredro1 & boboroshi : thanks guys, appreciate the encouragement. it really is vast! although it's actually a little smaller than it might be, since there is one small area to the north east that I won't be modeling. 15,000 polys is pretty low, sure, but game standard really - and will set be in good stead to understand the games industry more. It's quite a good challenge having to limit yourself and find better ways to get detail in, perhaps through texturing rather than geometry.

Textures and a proper lighting rig will definitely bring this alive I hope. For now, I just have to finish modeling everything and then I can begin the welding process = nightmare!

By the way I've been welding as I have progressed, but there are some areas I cannot weld yet. Loads of work ahead! Plenty of time left though.

boboroshi: im not entirely sure if it's on a hill or not - basically we are allowed to take any map we want and use it as a foundation to create our own, unique and original city - we dont have to stick to the map 100% - so i'm keeping everything flat, just at different levels. Much easier to weld!

Thanks again for the encouragement.

Updates soon.

[andyspence]

Good stuff MotherM. Thought you'd be well on your way by now!

Lets see some close up POV renders. :-D

-Quad

[alexyork]

Cheers m8 ;] It's in no shape to be submitted to POV closeups, believe me! I'm working on it right now, so I'll post some more images either tonight or in the next couple days. I wanna get the modeling side finished 1st really... HOPEFULLY that will be done by the end of next week. seems to long away doesn't it ;/ but so far there are only walls - no details or anything like that. that's gonna be the next huge step. Plus Big_Tom (on t3df) just enlightened me that the polycount for an editable poly is WAY less than for an editable mesh... so i might have polycount problems.

how's yours coming along man? post some WIPs in another thread or on t3df or something. I bet urs kicks ass. Your Berg was top notch.

[baaah888]

im baaah888 here by the way Mothermachine

... Tom

[alexyork]

aaah! hey mate ;]

havnt tested out that polycount issue yet. willdo in a second.

[alexyork]

editable mesh count = 7539
editable poly count = 3367

!

Thanks for letting me know about this before it was too late! really appreciate it!

[alexyork]

btw - i may have just doubled my polycount - but ill look at it a better way - I've just completed half the project in 3 days ;] lol.

*optimist*

[andyspence]

Originally posted by mothermachine
how's yours coming along man? post some WIPs in another thread or on t3df or something. I bet urs kicks ass. Your Berg was top notch.

<Continuous laughter>

I have just this minute finished my plans. :-D So I'm a little behind..... I'm not posting any of my stuff on here, but I may link it from t3df over the weekend mate! Watch 'that' space...

PS-Where did you see my Berg model?

-Quad.

[alexyork]

think on the GSS board or t3df. not sure man. but ive seen you working in the labs a couple times too last semester. im one of those annoying gits that lurks over people's shoulders checking out their work lol.

btw your not behind man. not by a LONG shot. a couple of my m8s havnt even started thinking about a place to model yet.. and they gotta hand the plans in 2morrow...

[alexyork]

Hi all.

Ok I basically spent the last 2 hours completely remodelling half of the map. I deleted the whole of the south west sector because I had originally modeled it with splines extruded, which didn't leave me with much freedom to change the height of the buildings in that area. I remodeled the whole shebang with polys like I did with the north east sector and now it's all one, single, solid mesh. everything (except the temple in the middle) is welded.

Poly count: 9796 (! not long to go!)

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-16.jpg

As you can see I didn't replace any of the roofs in this area that were there before. this was a consious decision because 1st I want to model the interiors (add little pots, rocks/rubble and basically destroy everythng 1st, then I will add the roofs to a few of the buildings.

In the previous WIP shots, the whole thing is "as new". From now on, I'm going to systematically destroy everything I spent so much time modeling! Great fun lol.

Next steps:

1) Detail objects (pots, busts, paintings and murals)
2) Roofs (only on a few buildings, the rest will be completely open)
3) Destory everything! (cut corners off walls, remove some walls, topple pillars, add piles of rocks and rubble in corners)

I'll post some more WIP when I have finished step 3.

Cheers

btw - i havnt removed the underside polys yet, so im counting on reduction of around 500 polys when I finish, which I will put towards detailing. So prolly looking at a polycount of around 9200 right now. Not too bad I think, considering the majority of detailing will be done with textures. Also, I didnt remodel any of the doors in this WIP. This will come next.

[andyspence]

Looking good mate. Don't forget to do the ground!! It will take a lot of polys with the maze of walls you've got there.

I take it your going for the large area, little detail?

-Quad.

[alexyork]

ok so i got stuck in again and went zooming ahead as usual lol.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-17.jpg

polycount - somewhere in the 10,000 mark.

added roofs (i think this is a good balance of roofed/not-roofed buildings, making the structure look half in ruin, half not.

altered the height of some buildings for a more interesting look

started destroying stuff (couldn't hold back any longer lol) - like pillars are now fallen against walls and one pillar has fallen into the cistern near the bottom left of this image, a couple of pillar tops have fallen off and landed near the pillar etc etc. tonnes more destroying to come!

next update this weekend.

SO tired now

PS. quadro - thanks m8. - i havnt forgotten the ground. gonna do that soon, since i still need the map in full view for now and the ground plane would block it unless i played with opacity and stuff like that. its not a large area - its actually pretty small and I am gonna add a lot of detail to it - there actually is tonnes of detail in there now, just you cant see it in these lores renders lol. when im ready to start texturing ill post some closeups and you'll see what i mean. i plan on adding murals, paintings, rocks, boulders, rubble and more stuff to make it more "ruined". should have enough polys left for all that and more. i can always delete some interiors if i run out of polys, as there are a bazillion little rooms i probably wont need to make playable. just building EVERYTHING on the map for now so i can start pulling stuff apart later.

[Klaymen]

I think this is really going somewhere... got really disappointed when i saw the thread ended here.. i wanted to see more pics.. but ill watch this thread for further posts! ... I suffer with you on the 15000 polycount limit.. :(

[alexyork]

Klaymen: thanks so much! I really appreciate the kind comments. I will be rendering in multiple angles when I get onto texturing this place. Probably next week or maybe a little after. Sorry it's such a long wait, but the project isn't due until May 12th and I have 4 other assignments (including animations) to finish by then as well! Updates soon. Thanks again!

PS. 15,000 polys is sure limiting, but I kind of enjoy the challenge and having to learn when to use geometry and when to use textures, for detailing. But yes, 10000000 polys would have been nicer ;]

[Klaymen]

10000000 polys would have killed my machine... my FATHERmachine :P.. ill be clingin to this thread.. really like it!

[alexyork]

Cheers Klaymen.

By the way, anyone got any crits on this so far? I'll keep working on it of course, but maybe I missed something obvious that needs sorting.

Today's progress: been texture-huntin'! found quite a few ancient Greek mosaics which will adorn the floors of the palace in various places, some full, some broken into pieces.

Think I have finished the buildings - next step adding detail models and then texturing.

[Klaymen]

I think it is somewhat strange that the walls are thicker than the corridors in many places.. and also i think you need to shitft elevation even more to make even more interesting

[alexyork]

Yes that's true - the walls are a little thick in places. I'm following the map underneath pretty much 100%, so it's hard to understand why some corridoors are so narrow - but they just are. I'll vary them anyway. Also yeh the building heights will be changed a little more later on once I have added some detail models inside them.

Cheers

Expect some more renders by the end of today (sunday)

[alexyork]

Ok here is a VERY rough 1st test with a couple of textures in use. Nothing proper yet - just placeholders really. The lighting is still in the very early stages too.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-18.jpg

I'm gonna get back to modeling some fine detail models like pots and rubble now.

[alexyork]

thought you might like to see a view without the map underneath - just a basic flat plane - not welded to the buildings yet.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-19.jpg

[andyspence]

Good progress, mate!

However (i don't know what everyone else thinks), but I honestly think you should cut down on how much of this complex you are modelling. Something like this:

http://www.andyspence.com/alexzakroswip.jpg

That way you can get all that detail in that appears to be in the courtyard. Have ledges, break up the walls loads, because it looks to much like a stone maze atm with out rooves.

I'm looking forward to seeing you develope this!

-Quad.

[magic6435]

dude that pawns ! im showing this thread to my Cad teacher in highschool all we do is use autocad :( i hope he will let us do stuff like what you doing

[alexyork]

yo quadro : thx for the suggestion m8. what Im doing at the mo is building everything complete, all the walls and details, basically everything that can possibly go into the map. Then, later, I'm gonna go and destroy it all - so I'm gonna break walls open, block some areas out completely from access and then start adding fine details like wall painting, murals, frescos, freazes and mosacs etc. I know exactly what you mean though - at the mo its's just a huge maze (something like the minotaur maze lol) - but after I mess everything up it will all start to make sense. I wish I could post some close-ups cos there is some detail in this model you cant really make out in these renders. I've started adding little details like pots and things - i'll post some renders when they're done. Thanks a lot for the help man - appreciate it. by the way - if it turns out that half of the map isn't worth keeping i'll start minimising it down to something like you have shown here.

magic6435: thanks! but trust me, this is not work that should be shown to other tutors! yet anyway ;] give me a couple more months and it will be presentable! thanks again.

[alexyork]

btw quadro - i would LOVE to add things like ledges and stuff like that - but this palace is meant to be in ruins. the photos I have of it are incredible. the actual tallest height of any one wall/building is HALF the height of a man! I have some photos with a guy standing in the middle of this place and he towers above everything - i mean the whole place is totally levelled! I decided to build half of it as if it were in good condition and half as if in ruins - almost like it was JUST in the process of being "lost" lol. So I can't really add ledges and things like that. Sucks but that's the way this palace looks. Also i dont have any elevation maps/plans for this palace, so I have to totally guess the heights of all the walls/buildings/features - making it very difficult to get the scale right, especially as I will need to get some close-ups soon. I might pass this onto my uncle who is an architect and get him to guesstimate some elevations. He ows me a birthday present anyway ;]

[alexyork]

Check it out:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/zakros-ruins3.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/zakros-aerial-photo2.jpg

Totally levelled!

[Klaymen]

I was in italy a couple of years ago, and i went to pompei, you know that town that was buruied by a volcano eruption like 2000 years ago.. An there almost every building was whole! about half of them even had roofs.. Then we went to another town (which name i do not remember) and there everything was completely destroyed, like the one you're moddeling.. just imagine what 10000 tons of ash can do to preserve a city :D

(They even found prints of people who died 2000 years ago.. fantastic :D)

[alexyork]

that's really cool. an interesting way to look at this project... i eventually have to decide just how this city became "lost" anyway - a volcanic erruption is a good idea.

cheers for the idea man.

[andyspence]

Heah heah. Those photos wouldn't make for a very interesting level! Well, lets see those close ups.
I just started modelling. Cambodian temples are insane to model low poly.

-Quad.

[alexyork]

lol, no they wouldn't m8 ;] the players would be able to see over all the walls - it'd just turn into a headshot sniper game lol.

cambodian temples eh? Let's have a look at your WIP m8. Feel free to shove it in this thread is you want but you'd probably get more replies in your own thread. Whatever u wanna do I want to see.

Closeups by the end of this week (this Friday, it's now Monday morning, 8am uch coffee and a cig needed gotta attend character animation lecture in an hr...)

[alexyork]

Hey all.

Nice sunny day here today - and lectures cancelled, so I spent a little time making some pots for my map. They're very very very low-poly (talking 200 or less per pot) and the texturing isn't too hot right now - just a quick attempt to see what I could do with some simple UVs and a lathe mod. For the little pot I used a photo of the pot as reference and then used that as the actual diffuse texture map, hence it doesnt look too good. All the rest I painted myself in Photoshop mixing various textures and photos and a little work with my Wacom. Nothing major though - I will work on these in detail soon. Just tests for now.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-20.jpg

Looking ok I think. Gonna model a whole tonne of these things - including some shrines ( a bull's head, a Greek goddess and some very strange little sticks - lol. you'll find out soon!)

Cheers all!

BTW - no bump maps on these. Not allowed to use them.

[baaah888]

200 per pot.

hmmm. you have a 15000 tri limit. not good man, why dont you make a few alphachanneled pot textures, that you can apply to planes and just have 1 plane(2 tri's) per pot then you tell doc they are set to face camera. or will be replaced with instance's in game.

other than the poly count not looking too bad man. your building it up nicely.

[alexyork]

good idea man. very good idea. I'll definitely do that. I'm only gonna use a few of these pots, maybe 2 of each, scattered acorss the map, some buried (so ill delete the intersecting area) and some in the corners of rooms. So not too harsh on the poly count. I also did a quick test and deleting the undersides of everything touching the ground reduces the polycount by around 1500. So that's a few more details to play with. Cheers

[andyspence]

I'm liking those 'pots'!

Shrines use a lot of polygons. A LOT. :-D

I've barely done anything mate, but when I have, I'll post it somewhere.

-Quad.

[Klaymen]

I'd like to see a pic of the city in the state you have t right now, and also let me know the polycount for the time.. I think those pot textures looked fine.. better than i could ever do anyway :)

[alexyork]

i cant get the exact polycount or do any new renders for today, since im running my antivirus on my entire system. taking rather a long time.... but the polycount is somewhere around the 9000 mark. not too bad. i expect it to get nearer 20,000 soon, and then I'm ready to cut everything back down to 15,000. lots of walls to demolish, rubble to add etc. I'm going for a near as I possibly can to 15,000 without going over.

btw - those pot textures suck - did them in a big rush to test it. going to redo them completely nearer the end. just got tired of modeling the same damn city over and over yesterday so took a break and did the pots. thanks anyway ;] actually... looking at that render again, the pots themselves suck as well lol.

2 months left of the project still, and only 1 week into it, so I'm all set unless I encounter a huge problem. I will ask my tutor tomorrow in my tutorial how to best weld the buildings to the ground plane. Once that's complete it's destruction time ;]

[JesterRace]

I love this kind of work, looks really good, a friend of mine did the forum trajani reconstruction.
This looks really good. I will keep an eye on this thread.

[alexyork]

thanks a lot m8. i promise ill post some updates soon (probably the end of tomorrow (wednesday evening). Thanks again

[alexyork]

Sorry I've not updated in a few days properly. I had another tutorial session with my tutor for this project and he enlightened me on a few major things.

I learnt how to weld the bases of the buildings to the ground plane (using open edges, splines, extrusions and then welding through thresholds.

By the end of tomorrow the entire mesh *should* be completely 100% welded and ready for refinement, detailing and total destruction! You understand I want to get this part finished before I go on to detailing, that's why there havn't been any new renders/grabs of late.

Updates soon! (2-3 days at most)

[alexyork]

Here's an update! Finally...

Everything is welded. Current polycount : 10,031 (approx)

I have done a few texture tests for the ground plane - unwrapped the base plane, painted it and mapped it back on in planar. Works well I think.

As you can see I abandoned the huge temple in the center - too many open edges and polycount was huge. Replaced it with a nice, small raised platform pillar area - i might add a well on top of it too later.

Next step:

Destruction!

The mood of these renders isn't right at all yet - is it day or night?! lol.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-23.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-22.jpg

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-Blueprint.jpg
Here's a low quality blueprint of the map

Cheers all!

[alexyork]

*boink*

any c&c anyone? would really appreciate it (especially about the colour of the tops of the buildings - is it too dark? should it be some kind of pale white/grey?)

cheers

[alexyork]

I'll post another WIP image in an attempt to entice some c&c!

Here's the 1st close-up render. Not happy with it at all - the ground texture is way too low-res (even though it's 3200x2400! - I extended the ground plane WAY too far around the city edge by mistake, will fix soon).

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-24.jpg

I think the scale is pretty good in this one, which is a good sign things are coming along ok.

Ta

[alexyork]

Hi all.

Just a very quick post to plead for a little c&c if you can afford the time. I'm pretty happy with how things look at the moment and I'm keen to get onto the next stage - destruction of the complex.

If you could comment on any problems you see in the areas of...

1) scale (does it look like its a reasonably large area)
2) lighting (mood, intensity, rendering "look")
3) the texturing on the tops of the walls (especially their colour)

... I would really appreciate it.

Staring at the same scene for such long periods means you often miss mistakes and problems without realising they were there.

If you could spend 2 seconds dropping your thoughts here I'd be very greatful indeed.

Cheers all

[andyspence]

Hey dude. Looking good! I would like to see some POV renders from inside the courtyard bit!

I'm liking the lighting, but the relative proportions seem a little screwy. The raised round platform seems to small, especially the pillars in comparison to other pillars else where.

The other thing that bothers me is the proportion of the walls. I take it most of this complex would have had a flat roof? Looking at the walls, they are not a believable thickness. Some of the rooms are the size of the width of the walls. I would make the structural walls the highest, but some of them would be internal walls (not visible from the exterior when they had roofs), so bring them down.

I suspect these problems will be null once you destroy everything, which is probably why you haven't put roofs on everything... :-]

Good job mate. Keep posting!

-Quad.

[andyspence]

3200x2400???? Woah. Show us a wireframe.

-Quad.

[alexyork]

You nailed it on the head right there mate. ;]

I built everything up so I can destroy it all again lol.

About the heights of the buildings - i originally made them using a single spline (to make sure everything would be welded when I extruded and collapsed) so that meant I couldn't vary the heights. I modeled half the map with just basic polys so I could adjust the heights. You can't really see it properly in these renders but everything is pretty much cool. Indeed, some of the buildings are disproportionately thick for their height, but yeh you won't notice this when I've broken them all apart - plus, I'm going to block off a huge amount of this map to make the playable area much smaller, and I'll probably delete anything outside playability anyway.

I know 3200x2400 is insane huh! Problem is... I sat down with Doc last week and he showed me how he wants us to model the ground plane beneath the buildings. He selected all the open edges of the buildings (basically their bottoms) converted this to a spline and then created a rectangular spline around the whole complex, then attached them and extruded and then welded that to the buildings - this produced a perfect, welded base around all the buildings like a ground. The problem? Well... it's one polygon. So you can't texture certain parts of that poly - instead you have to texture the entire thing with one texture map. Crazy huh? I'm going to have another chat with him and see what he suggests, because right now I need at LEAST 3200x2400 to get decent close-up detail and even then it's pretty dodgy. Must be a better way of doing this. I'll find out how soon enough I hope cos it's taking an age to render this thing because of that.

BTW those pillars look too small/large? They are all exactly the same sizes. Perhaps the perspecitve of the render threw you off. I did a quick camera fly-through and everything looks to be a decent proportion.

I know the whole thing looks very odd right now - that's because it has yet to be demolished. That's the next step. Gonna start on it tomorrow ;]

Cheers for the comments m8.

How's yours coming along? Any WIP to post somewhere yet?

[alexyork]

Oh yeh, ill post a wire tomorrow. Everyone likes those things ;] Maybe that'll spur on some c&c.

Ta

[Deformer]

If there's a base properly welded to all those walls, it can't possibly be "one polygon". Try viewing all edges (tick box under the display tab), then unhide some of them. Also, you can always tile the ground texture using the UVW Unwrap modifier. 3200x2400 really isn't necessary.

[alexyork]

Thanks for responding Deformer.

I checked the ground and it's definitely 1 poly. It has hundreds of faces (all scattered around, will clean them up using the refine tool on the spline) but it's definitely 1 single poly. Weird huh.

About tiling the ground texture - I can't do this, because like I said there's a grass area, a mosaic area, a dirt area etc etc. nothing can be repeated or I will have to have 1 texture over the entire area, which wouldn't look good at all.

3200x2400 is ridiculous yes, but I have reduced this down to 1024x768. Still way too large though, for a game engine.

I'll talk to my tutor and get an alternative method.

Thanks for the input.

Updates soon.

[baaah888]

select the ground plane using select poly, then click hide unselected, the button is is in edit geometry sub-catagory and just below make planar button,

now you should have just the base, change it to edit mesh, select all of it in edge mode, Scroll down to the bottom till you find editmesh-surface properties. There you should be able to make all the edges visible or invisible. you want to make them visible. then you can convert back to editpoly and you should have all the lines vissible,

now is the fun part of deleting areas and replacing them with more structures pieces of geometry.and cutting away etc till you have your areas of ground in apropriate textureable chunks.

hope that helps

[alexyork]

Cheers tom - I'll give it a go tonight and let you know how it goes.

[alexyork]

Wouldn't you know.... It worked! There are hundreds of polys.. all in a giant mess - that's the new problem. Doc told me I should use the Refine tool to redistribute the faces/polys. Seems to work, sort of. Still in a huge mess. Just a process of hiding, turning, deleting etc I guess.

Cheers for your help tom - onto the next stage.

[alexyork]

This "automatic" way of making the ground plane just isn't working at all:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-faceerrors.jpg

Wayy to many faces/polys to have to clean up - it's chaos.

I also tried the old manual method of extruding the edges inside the city walls to make a ground and then welding everything, but this is taking farr to long.

There must be a better way of making a ground plane that fits inside the walls of the city and is welded to the buildings.

If anyone knows a good solution to this I would be eternally indebted to you.

Thanks!

[baaah888]

well there is but its time consuming, just create bits yourself. for the inside of the buildings. And then you'll have a neat mesh for the most part. Its alot better this way. but more time consuming.

Im affraid their isnt a neat mesh quick fix.

[alexyork]

I saw your post on t3df tom - cheers I think we got it nailed.

[alexyork]

OK big update:

I spent the best part of 5 hours this afternoon just constantly creating polys and welding - no more automatic crap - this is mesh is 100% welded, clean and STL perfect! Only open edges are the ones at the corner of the map.

Thank god for that.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-25.jpg

Unfortunately I ended up deleting all the pillars in the map to make welding easier - I'm gonna remodel them later.

This is a barebones mesh now - no frills - just 100% pure welded sexyness!

Next step : recreating all the pillars, adding a LOT of detail and destroying everything (finally!).

Current polycount: 8020 (hell yeh!)

[DC256]

Hey, looking good there mothermachine, interesting appraoch.....modelling it clean then destroying parts of it? Sounds time consuming

Im doing same module as you at the mo, here's my very wip, so no laughing ;) (http://www.dc256.co.uk/images/mfg/mfg_wip.jpg)

Oh yeah, and i couldnt help but notice ur post about blending on 3d foundation......i asked gab, who in turn asked doc about using blend textures etc, and he says it fine, so go crazy with it! didnt reply there though, cant remember my pass ;p

ps, one question, how'd you get that blur effect in your renders? depth of field or something? looks cool

hhhmmm, i wonder if tommorrow's lecture will be cancelled.......'again'

[alexyork]

That's freakin insane man! Great map. Looks like it would be really fun to play in-game. Mine's a little "uniform" at the mo - kinda dull. The fun starts soon tho ;]

Cheers for the comments m8. Great news about the blending - thanks for asking for me, ill pass it on in t3df.

In all the renders so far, that blur effect is just some blurring done in photoshop - these are test renders and I didnt feel like waiting an extra 2 hours for DOF to calculate! I'm gonna use DOF in the final renders though, for sure.

Cheers again m8.

BTW. what's ur name? Have I seen you before?

[DC256]

Originally posted by mothermachine

BTW. what's ur name? Have I seen you before?

Um, dont think so. I just recognise your name from T3D, but i cant post on there,cos i forgot my pass and it wont send me another via email, lol :p

I did pester doc a week ago for a bigger poly budget btw, but he quickly said no.

Looks like it would be really fun to play in-game. Mine's a little "uniform" at the mo - kinda dull. The fun starts soon tho ;]

yeah, i think there was so much confusion at the start of the ica, that everyone's kinda gone in a different direction. Some are doing game levels, others are re-creating ancient cities whilst some people i've seen are simply doing 1 room set piece's.......but obvioulsy highly detailed. Im still not really sure what doc wants tbh, but im not starting again, so this'll have to do ;)

[alexyork]

I'll register you on there again if you want? PM me if you want to (or I can get Doc to reg you or something).

I know what you mean about this module man. At the mo I'm concentrating on making an exact replica of what Zakros Palace would look like just after destruction for some reason. I'm also making sure it's playable too though.

I've seen some abosolutely shi*te work for this module and some awesome stuff too - my map is so basic compared to some others, but that's the style I'm going for - detail will come in the form of frescos and wall hangings, pots etc.

Better post an update then...

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-26.jpg

Current Polycount: 7056 (it's going down even though I'm adding more stuff lol, can't be bad!)

Basically I rebuilt the pillars that got deleted yesterday - still no textures on them or the walls though - probably will finish that by the end of this coming week.

Getting close to a render style too - dusty, misty, dry and unsaturated - just like a Greek desert palace ;]

Ta

[alexyork]

Still no c&c for a while, but I'll update anyway.

Current polycount: 7095(ish) of 15,000 budget.

Added some trees today - simple texture planes with 2 polys.

Played with a different mood (overcast, about to storm - might add rain later). Going for a very dark, moody, heavy atmosphere now.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-27.jpg

Let me know what you think. I really would like some c&c - im sure there are areas I can improve on.

Next stage - adding way more foliage.

Ta

[Guybrush]

hello, i dont know what kind of architecture style ur going, but i think your walls are very simple on its color, perhaps creat textures of bricks, but that depends on the kind of civilization ur creating

[alexyork]

I havn't textured the walls yet ;] Probably... a few days' time I expect them to be finished. I still have to add a LOT of detail to the model (namely wall hangs and frescos). Don't want to start texturing them until that's finished. Agreed it doesn't look right without textures!

It's Ancient Greek Doric-order architecture. Reference photos and a full description are somewhere earlier in the thread (lost in the ether!).

Cheers for the reply.

[alexyork]

So I textured it ;]

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-28.jpg

Just tests at the moment, though - nothing finalised.

The big difference is that I added around 6 wall-paintings to the map as well as little paintings in divots in the walls. I also got rid of the ground plane texture and mapped each section seperately, so I could tile the grass and dirt to get much more detail in there. Looks a lot better I think.

Current Polycount: 8071

Ta

[alexyork]

OK I plan on finishing this piece by this Sunday, perhaps even this Friday - 2 months ahead of the deadline (need to get this module out of the way so I can work on my animations).

So I'm after some harsh, serious crit - anything, however small, that doesn't work for you or needs to be added/changed.

Here's a list of the things I will be working on in the next week to complete it:

1) adding rubble/boulders/rocks
2) destroying a few walls
3) adding lots more paintings, pots, freezes
4) blocking off areas of the map I don't want to be playable
5) deleting the useless sectors outside the 3 areas of interest

I'm sure there are other things you think should be added/removed/changed.

Please feel free to get harsh and leave some crit for me. With one week (less) to go, I need all the suggestions you can muster.

Thanks in advance.

PS. Please bear in mind that this is low-poly, ancient-Greek-Doric Order period architecture for a game level.

[tomra]

Hi.

Been silently following this WIP since the start, not much to crit, it is a fairly "styled" piece after all. I have to say i find it very inspiring, very cool renderstyle and i´m impressed by the detail considering the low polycount!

Looking forward to the finished plate, keep it up!

[alexyork]

Thanks a lot tomra! Appreciate the comments and encouragement.

I really really hope I can squeeze this one out by this Friday - I'm working pretty much solidly on it this week so it might just make it, latest Sunday.

Cheers.

[DC256]

2 months ahead of the deadline ?? :s

Looking good anyway, nice tree effects, but we do have a big enough budget to actually model some trees y'know(or are you doing that?)

About the welding rule. On this module we are being taught to weld absolutly everything, but is this really the case in the games industry? I mean, surely with hi-poly levels, welding such things as terrain to a building manually for example, vertex by vertex would be a nightmare? I heard one case where the engine did all the welding itself ;p can anyone who knows about this shed some light on the subject of welding for game levels? cos i get the impression our tutor doesnt want to give us the answers we wanna here ;)

[alexyork]

I'll post a wire soon, but for now here are a few very low-quality renders of various parts of the map:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-29.jpg
Bird's-Eye-View of the main platform feature in the central garden

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-30.jpg
A really shitty render of the East Cistern

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-31.jpg
Another shitty render, this time of those pots

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-32.jpg
A shot of the Alexander Painting in the King's Hall

That's it for now folks.

Updates soon:

1) With rocks and rubble
2) With more trees

[alexyork]

Hey DC. Yup two months early. I started very early on because I knew I would get in a mess with my CAT/Char animations if I didnt. I have like 6 weeks or less to finish those two full short animations and the 5 mini-animations.

The effect of those texture-mapped trees is pretty cool I think - good enough not to have to use geometry anyway, freeing up some polys for detailing elsewhere. No point wasting polys on things that don't need detail - and they would look crap modeled anyway at such low poly. Texmapped trees seems to be a good solution at the mo.

I'm not too savvy on the Games Industry, so someone else should answer your question about atutomatic welding by the engine. One thing is foshizzle tho - we gotta weld every single last vertex in this module - we ARE allowed to anchor things (such as those toppled pillars) where the one vertex meeting the ground is welded to the surrounding polys.

Believe me... welding everything IS a nightmare. I absolutely hate low-poly modeling. But it's good experience and I'm learning a hell of a lot doing this module. If I end up in games in the future then at least I will be able to work with the old fashioned techniques, as against any new-fangled automatic methods.

Btw. I'm all for new technology, but I'm a firm believer in learning the old techniques. Once you understand those, then you can go have fun with the new toys ;] So I'm with Doc on this one. I trust the bugger even if he makes our knuckles bleed in the process.

Cheers for responding.

PS. I discovered backface culling today thanks to elementol (another CGTalk member and uni m8) - thanks man! Saved me some major heartache.

[alexyork]

A new render (of the central garden features):

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-33.jpg
Very low GI samples on this one

... and a wire:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-34.jpg

Current Polycount: somewhere near 9595

Cheers and beers

[Guybrush]

looking good dude...i would just work a bit the ground texture

[alexyork]

Thanks Guybrush. You mean the grass or the dirt texture? Both are 512x512 tiled. How do you think they could be improved?

Thanks

[alexyork]

Played with blend mats tonight. Decent results I think, at least compared to the renders without a blend mat used.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-35.jpg

[alexyork]

The entire map is blend masked. I painted a gradient blend mask as one texture and applied it to all areas of the mesh where grass meets dirt and then blended between the two materials using the blend mask.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-36.jpg

Looks a hell of a lot better than without blend mats I think!

Anyone know how to enable realtime blend materials in MAX's viewports? I have to render to see the results, which is a bit inefficient. Any ideas?

[alexyork]

Not a huge update but an update nevertheless...

I started to wreck the map tonight & added some more detail to various areas.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-37.jpg

Should be finished by this Sunday. Still 5000 polys left to play with, so a lot more work ahead.

[tomra]

Very nice and also interesting to see the wireframe on a lowpoly scene like this. I assume the rendertime is different depending on the angle of the camera but roughly, how long does it take to render one of those large overhead views?

[alexyork]

Thanks tomra.

Rendertimes are pretty low on all the renders I have posted so far, since I am using medium AA samples and low GI samples. We're talking roughly 2 mins per render at the moment. The final renders will be huge and, obviously, maximum quality so they will take a lot longer. All these renders so far are low quality test renders.

Interestingly, it actually takes less time to render a large open scene than a cloes-up - presumably because the bump maps require less calculation from a distance.

FYI im using a P4 2.0ghz, 1GB DDR333, GF4Ti4600 128mb

[alexyork]

Getting very close to finishing now.

I added some rubble and broken fragments of walls and pillars into the scene - polycount has just risen to 10742 of 15000.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-38.jpg

I'm running out of ideas for new things to add to the map.
I have around 3000 polys left to make this map even better.

Any suggestions would really be very appreciated.

Thanks

[iainbanks]

hey mothermachine


Those renders look amazing!. To use up the rest of your polygons you could create some sort of under ground tunnels etc. I have done this in parts to enable the character to get around my level.

The only other thing i could recommend is to add more rubble and mash the walls up a bit more.

[alexyork]

Thanks m8. Underground tunnels eh.... nice idea. Real nice.

Trouble is I'm kinda getting attached to this map and I can't seem to let go and turn it from an accurate representation of what the Palace actually would look like into a game level.

I really don't want to let this change into a silly but fun map.

It's a difficult one.

I'll definitely be adding way more rubble and mess (I'll post a screenie soon - the whole place is littered with crap!). The walls need mashing up that's for sure yeh. But too clean at the mo.

Thanks again man.

PS. Where's your WIP thread again? I don't seem to get e-mail notifications of it any more for some reason.

[alexyork]

In order to see which areas needed detailing I made a quick clay/wire comp to see which areas were lacking.

Not a lot left to add to this now except some more rubble and more of those little water springs (ill post a render of these soon).

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-39.jpg

Ta for now

[andyspence]

Hey,

I think you should vary the ground level in some of the buildings, just for a bit of variation. Should look great once its been leveled...

-Quad.

[tomra]

I would say use the rest of the poly´s for more details, like rubbel, imo the wall assembly looks great as is. Underground tunnels would be really neat but i assume it´s a lot of work to implement at this point.

Would love to see a wide rendered view slightly above the wall height to get a better impression of the differences in elevation of the walls.

Looking good!!

[alexyork]

Great ideas guys. Thanks.

I hope, with any luck, this should be finished by the end of tomorrow - I can then spend the following day rendering or maybe even Sunday evening if all goes to plan.

Here's hoping...

[alexyork]

That's it folks - the mesh is complete - all the modeling is done and is STL clean. Polycount is 14,999 of 15,000 budget (I tried to squeeze in that extra poly but I couldn't!).

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-40.jpg

Those 38 STL errors are the open edges of the ground plane which can't be welded, so those errors were inevitable.

I took all your advice and changed the ground levels around the map, added tonnes more rubble and fragmented stones, water pools, fountains, lots of detailing on the walls and roofs, added second levels inside a couple of buildings.

The next step is to texture it from the start - so unfortunately it won't be finished by the end of today I doubt. Probably tomorrow evening I can start rendering.

Thanks for all your c&c so far everyone. I imagine I'll stick a few more WIP shots in this thread, but the next main update will be the final renders and (if I can bare the rendertimes) a flythrough animation of the whole palace complex.

Cheers all!

[Klaymen]

I say wow!!! cant wait for the final renders... hope you shift some of the elevation before that though, looks a little bit dull as it is right now.. but cheers man!

[alexyork]

I might be temped to change the elevations even more later on yeh if I get time - I really gotta get on with my other modules now! Thanks for the encouragement.

OK here is a lo-res wire/clay of the finished mesh as of today:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-41-lores.jpg

For an ultra hi-res super mega 1600 260kb version click here (http://homepage.ntlworld.com/alex.york/images/Zakros-wip-41-hires.jpg)

Thanks :D

[andyspence]

Looking good mate. I think you should sacrifice the detail you have put on the top of the walls on the corners, for more immediately viewable detail on the ground.

I have started completely from scratch for this, as I found I was seeing what looked good rendered from above, rather than in level on the ground POV.

Are you not having any trees?

-Quad.

[andyspence]

How you going to texture the ground with a texture limit of 512?

-Quad.

[alexyork]

Cheers Quad. The detailing on the tops of the walls is pretty minimal really - not a large polywaste there. You can just about see them from ground level POV too so I'll be keeping them. Plus they make for some great bird's eye shots ;] There's quite a bit of ground detail there - not too visible in this shot.

I'll be texturing the ground the same way I did with the previous test renders - just tiling.

I will have trees, but they will just be image planes 1x1 poly.

[shadowkeeper]

You started this in a strange way but now.... WOW!!!
Excellent! I'll be watching for the final version.

[baaah888]

looking good one of my main concerns is the lack of damage to the walls at the moment, i mean theres a few pilars knacked over here and there, but all the walls have perfect rightangled corners and are neat looking, why dont you put a few holes in walls and knock the end of a few others. just so your not always running round complete looking entrances.

[alexyork]

el_shadow: thanks a lot! I'm looking forward to the final version too lol.

tom: holes in the walls and knocked down ends is something I would really love to do, but I just don't have the time now. I really gotta finish this by the end of this week, final renders and all, report - the lot. If I somehow get an extra day or two near submission I'll try to. It's the only thing lacking from this map at the moment I think. There's a point at which I just gotta say enough is enough! Frankly this map is doing my nut in too. Need a break.

Cheers for comments guys.

[alexyork]

Had a complete nightmare today. Came back to MAX after my lunch and somehow all the MatIDs on the mesh got reset to 1. Had to spend a good 3 hours just reassigning them. Utter nightmare. But it's all done now, as is the texturing (I hope).

I'm gonna refine some more things for tonight, but pretty much everything is set for the final renders!

[alexyork]

Just to let you know that I and this project are still alive and going strong. Just making a few more final renders and I'll be ready to upload to the Finished forum. Trying to make your low-poly scene look like hi-poly is a bit of a task...

[alexyork]

Sorry about the delay.

I've gotten stuck into my animation modules and this project has taken a back seat.

I plan to polish up my existing final renders and push out some new ones nearer the deadline.

So you can expect all the final renders sometime around the beginning of May.

Really sorry for those very few who might have been waiting to see them! I really have to get on with my animation modules now and I don't want to rush the end product of this Palace project as a result.

Thanks for your patience.

Until May!

[Klaymen]

OK i understand.. i've subscribed to this thread so i'll see them when they come, a bit dissapointed though.. havent you got anything to post..? couldnt you render a 640x480 or 800x600 or something just to show what it looks like with textures and all..?

[alexyork]

I've got about 10 final renders to post, but I'm not happy with any of them, so I'll be re-doing them for the May deadline. Sorry you're disappointed but you gotta understand I don't want to rush the final renders. Till May.

[alexyork]

Emrah - thanks a lot I appreciate it. Good suggestion about the roofs... not a bad idea at all - i'll consider using an orangy colour for the final renders, definitely, since there is still time to change things. I cant change any of the model now, but I can certainly change the texturing, if not in MAX then in post. Thanks again.

[BorisBarowski]

nice work!

if you post this on finished, please post a link to it here, because i subscribed to this one :)

really nice work in a tight poly budget
you aim is pretty good, only 1 short to hit the 15000 mark :)

waiting for you animations too :p

B.

[alexyork]

Cheers BorisBarowski ;] I'll be sure to leave a link to the finished thread here. I'm waiting for my animations as well! I strongly doubt I'll be posting those up on CGT tho the way they are looking right now! Ta

[alexyork]

Final renders are UP!

Take a look here! (http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=135607)

:D

Thanks for your help everyone! I appreciate it a lot.

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