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View Full Version : Texture/UVMap: Passenger Zepplin

smurfbizkit2
12-23-2005, 09:08 PM
My friend passed me this model a few weeks ago and asked me to texture it for his mod (http://www.irongrip.net/). The basic concept is a mixture of a steamship and an airship.

I personally think both the design and model are crap. I have argued with him at length, many times regarding the designs of airships/vehicles in his mod which always boil down to me hating seeing such great potential wasted and him saying "well my friends say its good, and pc gamer/etc/etc. likes it". My issues with this particular design is the steam exaust's placement...it should be at the back if anywhere (and in that case, shouldn't the ramp be in the front? not near the engines?). Also I have serious issues with the bulky metal sections, mainly as to why they are needed at all.

Anyway, he needs it done for his mod so I sucked it up and did my best to work with what I had. I had to reuvmap it since the original used 9 400x800 textures (yea, it was that bad). I opted to just use two 512x512 maps, one for the canvas and one for the metal sections.

The texture gave me issues with getting the metal to look right, and trying to figure out just how to detail it. The only easy parts, which I ended up being completely happy with was the steam exaust and canvas. Overall I am maybe 75% happy with it. I have absolutely no intention of going back and tweaking it, however it would be nice to have things pointed out for future reference.

http://www.derelictstudios.net/users/smurf/ig/civzep_final1_s.jpg (http://www.derelictstudios.net/users/smurf/ig/civzep_final1.jpg)

canvas flat (http://www.derelictstudios.net/users/smurf/ig/canvas_uv.jpg)
metal flat (http://www.derelictstudios.net/users/smurf/ig/framework_uv.jpg)
ChimpanG
12-23-2005, 10:25 PM
i like it, your colour scheme has really captured that sort of industrial futuristic yet old fashioned look.
top texturing :)
JoeGonzalez
12-24-2005, 01:06 AM
Given what you were to work with, I want to say you're on the right track. But something about these models strikes me as odd, after going to the mod site and seeing them placed in the HL2 environments. For instance...looking at the models alone as you have shown them work well in the RTS portion of gameply, where deformed proportions are pretty normal to see. But seeing them from the FPS side of the mod's gameplay, they just aren't working due to scale. So one thing you must work on is to make the textures really help bring about that sense of immense scale so that these things don't look as cartoony when you see them floating above a city. You might want to try beefing up the amount of detail in the textures. Make those passenger sections stand out, so that people can get a better sense of how big the machine really is by having a point of comparison that's recognizable, like seeing window ports on the side of an airplane. Take the Airbus A-380, for example. The tiny size of the cabin windows and the cockpit contrast with the size of the airframe itself to convey a huge sense of scale. Pay attention to cues like that, and the model may benefit.

Another thing is those engines. Having such huge engines and propellers doesn't make those models look very big. Looking to past examples of huge aircraft such as the Zeppelins, XB-35, and even the largest aircraft to date, the Mriya, they don't have a small number of large engines, they have a large number of small engines.

One thing with the textures of the canvas portion, is that given the way the modellers chose to make the balloon section of the airships, combined with the textures, it doesn't speak "airship" to me so much as it does "wooden barrel."

Anyway, that's about my two cents. Interesting mod concept, hopefully it'll come to fruition.
smurfbizkit2
12-24-2005, 06:09 PM
thanks, some good insights there

I was thinking about it, just how exactly would I get rid of the wooden barrel feel? All I can come up with right now is either drastically changing the canvas's color, or having the metal parts match the canvas color.
JoeGonzalez
12-24-2005, 06:39 PM
Definitely try removing those metal belt portions. I think that'd really help- look at this barrel, you'll see the similarity.

http://xenia.media.mit.edu/~gan/Gan/Education/MIT/MediaLab/Theses/MS/c4table/c4table01.gif (http://xenia.media.mit.edu/%7Egan/Gan/Education/MIT/MediaLab/Theses/MS/c4table/c4table01.gif)
smurfbizkit2
12-25-2005, 01:39 AM
Yea, as soon as you pointed it out I went "oh crap". I really hadn't intented on going back in and tweaking it, but this'll have to be the exception. Thx again!
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