Is there a problem if let’s say, i start tomorrow on that section? Do i have some things to keep in mind while working?And also…are there any sketches to follow?
PS: I aks so many questions because these are things i am used to know when working, to help me out know the best ways of doing a work, and since here is aslo some programming stuff, that means a lot of restriction to keep in mind. 
Starting tomorrow would be ok. If you add me on msn I’ll give you some more details (concept art, the existing (box)models, etc)
I have installed msn and i will add you tomorrow, hope that is k, since at this moment i am really sleepy. :wip:
I have added you, when you are available we could have a small chat (i’m at work so no time to spare ).
Hi Pjanssen, I’ve just added you to my contacts on MSN. It doesn’t matter which section to do. Btw, if you want I can send you some pictures of my work on MSN since I’m having some trouble updating my portfolio here.
Thanks alot,
3DEffects
there is also some work going on in the texture area, at the moment mostly wip textures are made here an example…
cheers
Just noticed that this is starting to get the green light again … am i right? well hope so anyway lol
hey Pjanssen, if you need any extra hands on the modeling come nudge us and ill love to help out since i love modeling building … some examples of my work are in my CG - Portfolio,
Cheers,
Marlon John
Thanks for your offer to help. You’re very much welcome to join the team!
I’ve accepted you on MSN, we’ll discuss the details there.
By the way, I just read an interesting thing in an IT-newspaper, about an ancient rome 3d project:
http://romereborn.virginia.edu/
Hello there.
This is my first day of membership in this project, so i thought as well use the beginning mood with something usefule. I did kinda of 50% of the modeling on the section ( i have to admin Pjanssen i was a bit too optimistic about thinking of getting all done by monday, but i’ll still givit a try), and also made some texturing tests, but just for me if you don’t wish to use it.
Also i hope you don’t mind i used the banners.
I have some questions that came through my head while working:
1)I see that you didn’t delete the interior polys but you don’t get to see them, mostly on the higher levels of a building. Is it k if i delete mine or there are some circumstances that you will get to see the upper interiors.
2)What is the best optimisation for the viewer size and also perfromance: detail in texturing and few polys but big textures, or details in modeling and lots of textures but small ones. This is something that should be settled soon. I used 300x200 textures (the biggest ones) but also 64x64 ones.
As you can see in my wire most of the unique details were separate polys with a texture applied. Also i have a shadow texture that i used on the planar things to give depth.
k, this was it for today. Hope this gives a push to some members!
Bye!
Ps: the texturing is not comlete on this models but this is as far as i go for today
Holy smokes you’re fast! And it looks awesome too.
Let me take this in for a minute and then reply to your questions 
Ok here goes:
First of all, it looks great, cheers for that 
I honestly thought you were joking when you told me you were planning to have the section finished by monday, but I see now that you weren’t…haha.
[ul]
[li]I really like the ivy and other plants. That really adds a great amount of detail. Perhaps it’d be a good idea to make a bunch of those for general use and spread them like the props, to save polies for instances.[/li][li]The poly-balancing looks pretty good, but I’m just curious: how many tri’s have you got so far?[/li][li]I forgot to tell you about the textures, but we’re aiming to make a set of standard (hq) textures, which can be applied to all buildings. We’d do this rather than building specific textures to save space and thus be able to put more detail into the textures. We’ll have to find out whether we can make it look just as good though. We’ve got to pick a test-section for this.[/li]Looking at your textures, I think you should have a chat with the texture guys (Softdistortion, Kope and Omniom) I’m sure you could exchange some ideas.
[li]Using the MT template thing for your WIPs is great. I’ll send you a psd for that.[/li][li]Concerning building interiors: I’d say leave in a very basic interior for rather open interiors, like the one on the right of your first WIP.[/li][/ul]Keep up the great work!
I honestly thought you were joking when you told me you were planning to have the section finished by monday, but I see now that you weren’t…haha.
As i said , when i got into the file you’ve send me it didn’t look so easy like when i looked on the top map when i chosed the section. So i hope i’ll get it done in time (i know there is no rush, but i like to keep things moving).
I really like the ivy and other plants. That really adds a great amount of detail. Perhaps it’d be a good idea to make a bunch of those for general use and spread them like the props, to save polies for instances.
-the textures on the plants are not quite finished (they need better shadow).
-the house from the wire (the one i added since the one on the bottom was already in the file) has 4600 tris. So checking some houses already present in the file (like the house from the wire which has 27k --wow–) i am pretty good i say :);i tryed not to add to many useless polys especially on details that can be added easely with textures.
-i made the textures more to sunset like, since the viewer has a light like that. i’ll talk with the texture artists when they will be available.
-of course i’ll leave interior details like on the 1st wip, but what about polys on the tower. To avoid people seeing through windows that polys are missing we could mask the windows with a black texture to fake the interior darkness.So one poly agains a lot. Also it should be made more clear where the user is allowed to enter and were hi’s not (dores closed ).
Glad you liked it so far.
Hehe yeah I guess that the 27K one should be sort of…optimised
4600 tri’s is indeed a nice polycount though.
-of course i’ll leave interior details like on the 1st wip, but what about polys on the tower. To avoid people seeing through windows that polys are missing we could mask the windows with a black texture to fake the interior darkness.So one poly agains a lot. Also it should be made more clear where the user is allowed to enter and were hi’s not (dores closed ).
Using dark planes was indeed an idea we had too. I also think that this would be the best solution for the ‘missing’ interiors.
About light (final mood). Here are some tests (of course easyer to made in max than in the viewer, but still). For final thing there should be made some test to see how the textures look in the viewer, and make a color table for the textures to follow.
I will not comment on each one, i need to know what you guys think.
Hi and welcome Kriket-Guy
Good work really nice modell there
My understanding is that we want to have a white/greyish city so I like the last one in your series best.
All in all the texture department is at the very beginning
Unfortunately we dont have yet a colour table for textures defined. There are also no master /reference textures defined yet.
Today I started with some big wall textures in grey/white colours for test purposes. There are also some other textures around.
I hope when Kope/softdistortion are back or have more time that we can progress in this matters.
Till then I create wip textures so we have a small collection to choose from.
Since you provided already textures to your modell you are also invited to register at the intern forum and post in the texture wiki thread (if you like) there we show off our ongoing texture work.
cheers
Kriket-Guy- Just dropped in an see your nice work!
Omniom is steering you in the right direction on the color (very nice you to give the variations). The last one is closest to the MT refs.
A texture WIKI is coming in future …for now I have started compiling info in the team forum.
We have started some work on tiling textures for the streets etc, but there is no final word on what it should look like.
So, for now the plan was to use the existing pictures we have (See team forum texture section) to create tiling textures that Pjanssen and the other heads can choose from. Once they make the choices wec an color correcti where needed and also add normal maps for the cobblestone surfaces etc.
Once the streets are done (hopefully the texture team has more members by then ) we start the buildings.
Hello everybody!
True that the last image is MT style, but also (as Pjanssen also agreed) it will become boring to the eye to see all that black and white so the user will not feel the urgent need to walk through the city again very soon.
About textures, i understand you are aiming for high rez, and i’m not sure how good is that.In my opinnion the textures should be handled like this:
-unique textures (max 1024x1024): city walls, special buildings,rocks,some part of the road,statues
-tilllable textures (max 256x256): for the main bodyes of the buildings, streets,
-detail textures (max 256x256): for everything (this is the most impoartant, because the small detail makes the differance)
I’ll have a look on the forum.
My personal opinion is that textures should be high resolution (much higher than games) for the following reasons:
-Textures can always be scaled down if current hardware doesn’t handle them.
-The city is very high detailed (as far as polycount goes), so textures should be at the same level.
-Textures will be done only once: I don’t think you would like to discover that at the time of the completion of the city textures are by far under the standard resoulution used in games.
I can imagine that if we will wait a couple of years for the city to be completed, then high resolution textures wont be rare on 2Gb Graphic boards
That just my personal opinion though…
Well i don’t think you should compare what payed companies are putting in their games with what we have here.
Textures can always be scaled down if current hardware doesn’t handle them.
When we will have houndred of textures it will not be so piece of cake, and even so, why not go for the secure path from the beginning?
-The city is very high detailed (as far as polycount goes), so textures should be at the same level.
Well in my opinnion it is a mistake that the model is so high detail. Beside the fact that there is a lot of memory used with the polycount you think it’s wise to also add big textures. And with what will we compensate?
Also, bigger textures doesn’t also mean better result.
I think that the standards should be lowered a bit, to have a chance to ever finish something.A small bug here and there, i doubt anyone will mind ;).