Hi, just to those on texture (or design) work. If you are looking for any ideas then try look at photos of Carcassonne in southern France. It is a real, well preserved, functional, fortified medieval city complete with ramparts, towers, cobble-stoned streets. Another place to check out would be Mont Saint-Michel, which is almost like a minature Minas Tirith except with out the diving rock, in Normandy, France. Hope that helps 
Mont Saint-Michel
Carcassonne
Pjanssen- You guys are doing a ton of work. and it all looks very good.
sadroneru- Speaking from the texture side, that is a very nice looking castle ā¦anyone in here from the area with a good digicam that could grab some shots for the texture work we have yet to do?
Kope already did some nice ones, but always can use more. 
Yeah, closeups for textures are always requested. Iāve done some photos, I can do more but I think that Iāve already shot what was nice enought to take photo of in my area. So nothing new from me- if required I can provide higher quality pics but the subject will be the sameā¦
I remember that there was a rich zone of marvelous castles in France near Tours and Le Mans (but closer to Loire river)ā¦ And another one in northern Italy not far from Austria.
Added an update on the cobblestone detail variation we were talking about> FORUM
Non-teammembers canāt reach that part of the forum sd. Iāll include the pictures in the oncoming weekly update if you want
Thanks PJanssen -
Wasnāt sure if it was ok to put it all here.
since it is, hereās a bit more detail added to the stone elements. The idea was to allow creation of a more varigated surface height for the stones in the normalmaps.
Screen grab without channel maps
Iāll probably redo it now that I know this method will work.
Some areas ended up a bit soft so they need a redo I think.
[b]Update week 17
[size=2]Viewer v12:
[/b]The viewer is as good as done! Hereās an email I got from Flavien about the status:
[/size]I have again found some materials that were not coherent, for example a diffuse assigned to the ānormal mapā chunk. Instead of getting back to you ( we could continue like that forever ), I prefered to review the engine code to detect those problems and assign ādefaultā textures when the existing ones are not complete or coherent.
Everything is pretty much done now. The instances are fine, the textures and the bump mapping are thereā¦ there are only two remaining things to do:
- Add some parameters for shadowing in the setup dialog.
- Re-export the whole model. Thatās basically the reason why it takes so longā¦ at the moment, I donāt have 3 hours straight where I can monopolize my computer just to export everything again. Itās getting tricky too, because it takes too much memory at export time with a single .ASE file, so I have to split the whole model in 2 so that my 2GB of RAM are not exceeded.
Optionally, Iād also like to review the level of detail. I noticed some strange behavior on the props, with missing triangles even when youāre still close.
Last week, I fixed the physics problems. The random crashes were caused by some geometry that had degenerated triangles. Previously, I had a check to filter out those wrong triangles ( thatās really an art problem ), but in some cases, this filter didnāt work well enough. I reviewed the filtering code to gain precision in the calculations, and so far I havenāt been able to make it crash again.
I limited the velocity of objects ( character capsule and launched balls ) to avoid the ātunnelingā effectā¦ you know, when you did the Denethor jump for example, you often ended up inside the rocks / under the ground.
Finally, I investigated the slowdown problems due to physics, and I came to the conclusion that many of the physical objects were not correctly placed in the initial state. The catapults, for example. The problem is, all physical objects are simulated by their bounding boxes, so although the catapult geometry doesnāt touch the walls, the bounding box penetrates inside those walls, and in turns it generates thousands of collisions contacts per frame. With tens of catapults, it gets bad quickly. I had no solution other than disabling catapults as physics objects.
The 2 statues at the first level, just in front of the rock ( behind the horse statue ) are not stable, because theyāre dropped on a base that isnāt flat, if you see what I mean. Iām not sure if itāll keep them as physics objects or not.
I came to realize that last time I exported the city, I accidentely checked the āgenerate tangentsā check-box in ASEToBin. Tangents are generated from normals and are necessary for bump/normal mapping. Where it went wrong is that I anyway generate those tangents at load time - so it doesnāt matter if those tangents are exported or not. However, they do waste memory ( since 99% of the buildings are not normal mapped, and donāt need tangents ), and they do waste hard drive space. Roughly 25% of the whole dataset can be saved by NOT exporting the normals. Thatās purely a v12 issue though, because as far as I remember, v11 didnāt have tangents exported.
Even better, I discovered a new way to generate normals at load time, without loosing quality or performance. Normals are still needed to perform lighting ( so they have to be in RAM - no gain in that area ), but they donāt have to be stored on the hard drive by the exporter. So I can save again 25% of the whole dataset. Hence another reason why I need to re-export the whole city.
I estimate that the .bin file on disk will be half smaller than in v11, despite the additional geometry from v12.
Website:
Emiel and I started working on the technical part of the new website. Due to some communication problems, Tim hasnāt started yet (we hadnāt sent him some required documents yet), but heāll be able to start very soon.
Emiel has been working on the basis of the core, and made a very nice sort of debugger/variable dump:
This way of error display can be toggled on/off easily, so itās very useful for the development phase, and it doesnāt require any modification once everything is set up.
And hereās a nice flowchart Emiel did for the theme engine, to illustrate how much everything is planned out:
So this is why the pre-production took rather long. But itās definitely going to help us in the production.
In the meantime, Iāve been working on an XML parser for the website, which reads an xml file and stores the data (including the structure) in an object. And the other way around too, so writing an xml file from an object. And Iāve also begun on scraping ācommonā functions like changing dates, time, array and string functions together. And Iāve also begun with the first components (a component is a āpredefinedā part of code, like for example an swf object)
[color=DarkOrange]Building models progress:
[color=#fffffe]Hereās an updated map with the progress coloured in:
Green : Completed
Yellow : Work in Progress
Red : Not started yet
Itās time to get working more on the models againā¦
[/color][/color]
@softdistortion: That is looking very nice! Would it perhaps be a good idea to start with the idea weāve had for some time now, to make a small section of the city with textures, props and all?
We could pick it now and for the moment use it as a testing ground so to say.
@sadroneru: Thanks for your input! Both places are indeed very nice (and MT-like) and both are high on my āwanting to visitā list, especially Carcasonne. Iāve seen Mont Saint Michel from the coast once, and even from a distance it was impressive.
Definitely, it would be good to do a section.
It will give us a chance to see what the engine can do and what adjustments are needed on the texture maps.
Hereās a nother WIP with diffuse map added. No spec.
Hey guys,
I contacted you off your website, you did not get back to me as of yet.
I thought that i had better post here to beg off you to let me join the team at this late hour, i have quite a good range of enviroment skills using MAYA, and LotR is basically the bible to me so i really think that i have a lot of inspiration and skill to add to your team at this late stage.
My E-Mail is slickbcfc@btinternet.com if you would like to see any of my current LotR work please drop me a mail and i will send some over to you.
Again thanks for even conceiving to do something this huge and amazing and hopefully i will look forward to working with you on it. :}{
Thanks
Karl
Hey guys!
I just registered now to talk about the Project. I am not going to lie like other new members and say that I have been following this project since its beginning but I have been following since more than a year. I donāt know if you could accept me as critique cause I cannot do anything more useful.
Anyway, whether you say yes or no, I want to say that the tower of ecthelion is not supposed to look like that. If you have the extended edition of rotk, go into the appendices and check out the photos of the tower. It is not pointed at the top and kinda round but not semi-sphere.
Thanks.
Hey Tyson,
thanks for your comments!
I must say that Iāve had some doubts myself about the tower design too. Actually not just the top, but the whole top-half. I agree that it somehow just doesnāt look MT-ish enough and a bit off.
Iāll have another look at the pictures on the DVD, and perhaps do a bit of reworking there.
Ive been looking at the thread.
Just a comment Pjanssen:
Grrrrā¦ is one of the best and fastest modellers so why dont you accept his help?
Just a thing.
Donāt you think that you should have as many buildings as this?
Another picture . You can see the Tower from here. I might paste the closeup from the DVD later:
Im sure that youve seen these pictures just Google images but they are indeed helpful in my opinion. Also if you look closely youāll see that part of the wall on the right side of the jutting rock is kinda bent.
This is a building:
And another one:
Side of Minas Tirith Bigature:
There are three statues at the bottom of the pinnacle or rock not two:
http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=My_eGallery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=22437&orderby=
This is apparently where we saw Gandalf sitting and waiting:
http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=My_eGallery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=16716&orderby=
A strange place in Minas Tirith. Look at those huge metal things full of wood:
http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=My_eGallery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=22442&orderby=
Detailed pic of several buildings:
http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=My_eGallery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=15785&orderby=
Sorry for double post because I was not allowed to continue posting pics.
Third level:
http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=My_eGallery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=21440&orderby=
Look at those āindentsā with small āpillarsā on the side of the gate:
http://www.councilofelrond.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=My_eGallery&file=index&do=showpic&pid=22511&orderby=
This picture is really interesting for a number of reasons. First near at the main gate where there is these two jutting walls, there is some kind of raised platform. You can also see several buildings that usually are hard to see. If you look back at the main gate where there is the two jutting walls, the big towers behind them have perfect domes and the entrances to them are different to each side. Some buildings that you made are missing important parts. There is much more to notice too:
The bridge at the back of Minas Tirith that takes you to the Hallows is kind of bent:
Another pic:
Ill get the pictures from the DVD later. Goodbye for today.
