Minas Tirith Project || Part 2

#2101

Wow, just wandered over again, and saw these beauties. Thanks for the thoughtfull display coverage and hirez. Incredible work! :buttrock:

#2102

The viewer release v12 will not really be a christmas release due to…christmas, holidays, and stuff like that. We’ll make it a newyears-release, somewhere around the 1st of January, depending on the hangover after the 31st :beer:

@LikuidSnake: We’ve become a bit more restrained with taking new people on the team, but if you’ve got good skills and some time on your hands, you’re welcome. Have you got a portfolio online somewhere?

@David: Looks great :thumbsup: Yet another building to go into v12.

@Wushumufu: Indeed, as 3DEffects noted, I think you’re somewhat confused here, but I think there are enough stairs though… :wink:

@softdistortion: Thanks mate, glad you like it.

#2103

this project is still getting better every time i check it out, nice work on the textures so far, good luck with the project!

#2104

Happy New Year for every friends!!:bounce:
And i wish,we’ll finishing this project in 2007!!:smiley:
Good Luck!

#2105

I completed the exterior of the 5th Gate:



This gate is the last serious point of defense in the city before you can reach the Citadel, so I thought it’d be nice to give it some extra strength. So I added machicolations at the front and in the ceiling of the gateway and I also added a portcullis at the back.
With the altered way leading to the gate (due to the enormous elevation I decided to make the ramp in a couple of turns) added to that, it would be a though gate to breach, should the enemy ever get there.

#2106

Hello I was wondering If I could get involved because this is a very interesting project and I hope to see it completed soon.

My only problem is I lack any skill in CG modeling, however, I am a semi-skilled artist and I could render most of the buildings for you all to use as references. I have a mini-model of the city, a map, and many other sources to complete the pictures.

Keep up the great work, it’s an amazing project.

#2107

New models by David, added instances and updated previz models in the 4-rf section:

#2108

hey Pjanssen, I sent you a pm with some of my work. Just wanted to know if you could see it. cheers.

#2109

…a fast preview of the fouth floor

#2110

Really impressive project. I have been following this one from the beginning. Keep up the good work

#2111

I did a lot of optimisation, cleaning up and reorganisation on the city today. I’m trying to cut as many polies as I can, without removing any detail. One of the more noticable buildings in term of polycount has been the Great Hall. Over the course of say a year, the polycount has gone down from a rough 600.000 (!) to 200.000 tri’s, and even down to 80.000 if you don’t count instances.

Anyway, optimisations don’t really result in extremely interesting renders, but I did do a test with some rather nice results. I played around a bit with optimising existing statue models for the use in highly detailed doors:

@JonnyLightning & LikuidSnake: I’ll reply to you as soon as possible.
@Tarscher: Thanks! :slight_smile:

#2112

Once again, can’t wait to see this project finished. All looking perfectly. Kope, that section looks really nice and makes me want to walk through it, but what I really like is the lighting and the sky. Will that be the look in a future viewer? Only because it looks like the mood of a battle is about to break out. Can’t wait to see viewer 12, keep up to good work.

#2113

I optimized the outer wall battlements yesterday. It took quite a lot of time, but it was worth it: They look better now, and have less than half of the polies than the previous ones (from 93000 to 45000).

I thought it might be interesting to tell you a bit about the scene organisation for this project, so here goes:
The city is split up into sections, each section being one part of a level. So for example the left side of the first level is one section. Sections with a destinctive ‘front’ and ‘back’ are also split. The models for each section are put into one scene.
The models of these scenes are already positionend correctly with respect to each other. There are also other scenefiles of course, with models like the main walls, gates, very large buildings etcetera.

All these scenes are then xref’ed into the root scene. This means that there’s only a reference to each file in the scene, not the actual models themselves (else it would become a very heavy scene)

I made layers per level and selection sets per scene for faster selection (very useful when replacing a section).

Added to this is the scene with all the instances. This scene has only xrefs of objects that will be instances in the viewer (so copies of other buildings, on different positions, saving memory). This scene is only used to export their coordinates, and for renders.

The props work in pretty much the same way as the instances. There is one scene with the models, and one scene with all the instances of those models. These get exported seperately.

Some statistics for those interested:
Total scenes: 45
Total objects Minas Tirith scene : 333
Total objects Great Hall interior scene : 22
Total objects Props scene : 199
Total Instances : 118

Polycount (triangles) Minas Tirith scene : 3.692.672
Polycount (triangles) Great Hall interior scene : 292.031
Polycount (triangles) Props scene : 170.554
Total polycount (triangles) : 4.155.257

Polycount (triangles) Instances : 1.426.900

#2114

WOW…glad I dropped in to have a look at the work you guys have been doing lately.

Beautiful work and a massive amount of stuff to keep track of it would seem.

Pjanssen, you must have a brain RAM augment or database to sort and organize it all…I start sweating when we get a handful of assets and associated files to keep under control :smiley:

Enjoyed the extra details behind it all and the pics too…Thanks for posting that. :bounce:

#2115

Thanks softdistortion! Unfortunately, I don’t have any added brain stuff, so things tend to get chaotic quickly :wink:
I found a downside to the way the models are organised now today by the way. I can’t render overview pictures of the whole city anymore… 3dsmax just crashes giving me the nice ‘out of memory’ error…

I sent the files for v12 to Flavien today, but due to the delay with that, it’s unlikely that the release will be finished this weekend. So it will probably come a week later.

Next to preparing for the release, I’ve been doing a bit of work on the 4-rf section too. Part of it is loosly based on a sketch that David (Kope) did, and using some models from other sections. It’s not fully finished yet, but getting close.

#2116

Hi. first off, this is an incredible project. I was wanting to ask. I know there is a modeling guide to this project. Is there going to be a texturing guide?

#2117

I think that the chances of a texturing guide for this project ever being made are small. The modeling guide was written because there are many people working on the models. The guide helped to establish a more consistent quality of the models.
There will be much less people working on the textures, simply because we can’t find any people who want to do it and have the required qualities. So it will probably come down to a couple of people within the current team to do it. And thus there isn’t much need for a texturing guide.

#2118

so, Pjanssen what are the techniques you should have to become MT Projects texture artist ?
Maybe this could be a thing I could do for the Project. Just tell me which kind of texture you use (I think diffuse & normal). Of course only if you’re interested in my help.

Greetings Elemakil

#2119

We’re always interested in people helping of course :slight_smile:
Do you have some kind of portfolio (website) online? Or some pieces of work that show your texturing skills?

Textures will indeed consist of a diffuse and normal map, and possibly specular.

#2120

hmmm, actually I made only textures for items (armors, sword etc.). So I’ll have a look and try to make some textures for walls und floors and so. If they’re good I’ll post some otherwise I would say I’m not the guy you need. But I think textures for Buildings shouldn’t be too hard.

Greetings elemakil