The Longest Snow Day - Treehouse Turret

[TRyanD]

Looking good :)

For the iceicles you could just make one or two seperate iceicle models and then rotate and scale them along the places you want them in the maps. I did something similar with xmas lights in a map and i had them all over with no real performance loss, plus you can prolly make those with tons less tris than i had heheheh.

AFAIK and from what ive done in the past, as long as you turn the collisions off (under static meshes) then go into the properties and make the collision radius 0 and false for all the collisions you can spam meshes all over a map with no real problem (like i did with my lights).

[Lee3dee]

TRyanD: thx for the ideas :D

I did some experiments today, and came up with some textures that look kinda like iceicles, let me know what u guys think.

Render without alpha map
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/house_wip1a.jpg

Beginning texture for house
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/house_wip1.jpg

[Multimediaman]

I'd suggest using the icicles as different material ID's as I'm not sure that having an entire texture use an opacity map for that thing would display as quick as it could... least I know that kinda stuff slows down 3dsmax viewports some...

plus from my experience, the diffuse color maps that have alpha channels on them should be with the objects against the same color, otherwise like on this one you might notice areas of black around your icecicles, and partial transparency might also show black up if your diffuse color map was made so that the background is black...

[TRyanD]

Yeah i have had that problem with teh back ground color bleeding through >_<

I dont really like those iceicle textures though, seems like theres way too much there.

Maybee try using a alpha texture on a plane like you have but keep it close to the part its atached too, then use some meshes rotated around and scaled along it to try to get this effect (http://www.trengovestudios.com/images/icicles.jpg).

[Lee3dee]

Thx for the suggestions, Its a difficult to get these to look good, alot of the games that I looked at that had snow, didn't include iceicles.

The pic that u linked, TryanD, is great jpg. I'll do some playing around in photoshop, and post what i come up with. :)

[Lee3dee]

been working on some ice tests, using the image that TRyanD, showed me.

TRyanD example
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/ice_test/ice_ref.jpg

Photoshop tests
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/ice_test/ice_test1.jpg
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/ice_test/ice_test3.jpg
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/ice_test/ice_test4.jpg

Im liking the first one, thats showing a similar flow as the real ice, excpet it does look a bit cartoony. any thoughts, or ideas. atm, its 3 colors, and using the smudge tool, with plastic wrap filter.

[Pizza]

I like the last one best. Looks the most realistic i think out of them.

[BiTMAP]

i didn't want to say this before,m but i feel i need too, the treehouse differs to much from the character model in the artistic style :(...

[TRyanD]

I see what you mean a bit bitmap but its to early to tell really, need to see em together.

Hmm, the best is prolly 3, but all of them are a bit too far apart and the base is too far down (that could be ok though depending on how its applied). They all look a bit too flat so far too.

Hmm i dont really know what cartoony icicles look like :P

Keep it up.

[Lee3dee]

Originally posted by BiTMAP
i didn't want to say this before,m but i feel i need too, the treehouse differs to much from the character model in the artistic style :(...


then what suggestions would u give me :)

[TRyanD]

Heh, guess we got to focused on icicles hehe.

A few things that bother me with it. The treehouse looks like its attached funny or not at all, like its floating. The logs for the floor prolly need to be changed to planks like the concept, it looks like it would be too heavy. Tree needs more limbs.

[Neil]

well show us a render of how the icicles look now, before we continue to argue/discuss.

[Lee3dee]

Saturday evening update, we have a team meeting at 10pm, so ive been working on this all day. I changed the logs, and made them into planks of wood like in the concept. and now the iceicles are geometry, made up of 5 sided cones, that were merged. its still under under 2500 for the house.

I like the mesh iceicles better than the texture ones.


http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/house_wip2a.jpg
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/house_wip2b.jpg

[TRyanD]

That looks alot better :)

The planks are a definate improvement, as are the icicles.

The icicles still need alot of tweaking though, alot are the same and a few seem to bend real sharp which they wouldnt. It also seems to stick through the planks, which is ok if you make a bit of show piled around the edges.

The icicles need more diffrent sizes, and need to be bunched together a bit more.

[BiTMAP]

better now it needs some snow on the "deck" :)

also maybe hmm, i'd put the door back?

[Neil]

is that house supposed to be purple and blue? looks tie-dyed.

[AdamAtomic]

Originally posted by Neil
is that house supposed to be purple and blue? looks tie-dyed.

Thats the mesh outline honeybear ;) he didn't skin it yet!

PS - I've been following this project and you guys (you and silva, at least, i dunno who else is in on it) are doing an awesome job. My final project for my video games class last fall was a 2D RTS about kids having a water balloon fight, so its been very fun for me to see this project take shape! We didn't manage to get our tree forts working, unfortunately :( But its a great subject, you guys are spending a lot of time and attention to the details, which really counts for a lot - I can't wait to see how it turns out!

PPS - I agree about the icicles - they're better now but they still need some tweaking!

[Lee3dee]

yah, i didn't skin it yet. :D

Thx for your kind words everyone. yeah, its just me and silva working on it. Im doing the static meshes, since im not very skilled at organics yet, and Bryan silva is awesome at it. We are looking at a early beta for gdc, so when its ready, i'll post the link so we can get some feedback. :D

Hope to see you all at GDC this year if u can make it.

[Lee3dee]

tree texture test, 1024x1024 map
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/tree_map1.jpg

working on the tree texture today, during the lunch break. The only way to unwrap the beast was using automatic, which I hate to use. anyways, let me know what you guys think, i'll be posting another update later tonight, after I play some UT2004 which came out today:D

[Lee3dee]

crunch time update
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/tree_wip3.jpg
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/tree_wip3b.jpg

more in a few hours

[Lee3dee]

Thursday 4pm update

added and enhanced:
foot prints in the snow
snow is covering the top
desaturated the wood to seem worn and old
added some snow to the bottom of the tree
finished texturing the house, inside and out.

things to change after beta is released:
Ice needs big overhaul, many have commented on it, and i too am still not happy with it.
some other misc stuff, that other artists will see, that i don't ;)

http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/tree_wip4b.jpg
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/tree_wip4c.jpg
http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/tree_wip4d.jpg

crits are always welcome :), i appreciate the feedback everyone gives me:D

[TRyanD]

Wow thats awsome!!

Only two things i would do to it now.

The icicles under the fort part are still kinda weird looking to me, the ones on the treelimbs however are great. I would go with some that look more like those along the sides. The kids getting on it and running around would prolly break a bunch off too hehe.

Its still kinda hard to see how its being supported, if you could extend a treelimb out from under the floor from the tree, doesnt need to be real big but about medium atleast, it would look better imo.

The rest is great!

[Lee3dee]

here's a screenshot from our beta, to show you what my treehouse looks like ingame. The ladder is climbable, thx to volume ladder. The next phase of the model is to remove the house, and place a turret on the top. The gun is going to be replaced by a glove and snowball.

For the demo release in a few months, i need to make some new graphical changes. I've been collecting ideas from people in the different forums, to try out and see if i can make the iceicles look even better

we're looking to release the small beta map next week, for people to try out, and give us some feedback.:D

http://www.lee3dee.com/snowday/ingame.jpg

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.