Achernar wrote:

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@Odedge
1.Well I don't think it needs to be a big issue, the bottleneck is the rust texture with is only 1024 in length so I guess thats it. Traditionally I would aim for larger to keep it for later, in the event I ever want to use it again when screen resolution has doubled...

Not a big issue, but I like to be on the same page.  I created a 1024 for the diffuse.  While doing the rust, I started to clean up the original by cloning parts of it... then I remembered!  Not allowed.

2.I don't think it matters - just use wood. I know the picture does have a metallic finish but its hard to tell.

I used wood and tried to make a little rust border for the metail ring.

Ofc, touch up you maps however you see fit.

I have to say I am learning too much to error and trail for my liking. Too many new techniques at once. Oh well at least I learnt something.

I am kind of in the same boat.  I may have a bit too much info inside my head.  I tried 2 different ways for the HP mesh.  Baking my normal maps was "fun" as was the diffues texture as I haven't touched GIMP in a long time.

How completed are you?  I would say I am halfway done, if not a bit more.  I think it's better that we don't take too long trying to be "perfect" and show our results in a reasonable amount of time.  This we way can ask each other questions and maybe go back and see if we can improve on our first attempt.

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In other blender news...

Random Question Time.

1. When adding an edge loop, Blender defaults to putting itn at a percentage of the mesh.  Is there a way to move based on actual blender units (besides manually adjuting it in the transform properties)?
2. When exporting a UV layout, is there any way to change the color of the UV "lines"?
3. How do you allow blender to zoom through a mesh.  I saw it once in a video.

Building a layout in Blender vs the Editor

I am trying to find a good way to build a layout so I can the model pieces in Blender to fit (I will use some modual sizes).

1. Model intirely in Blender (first attempt worked well enough, see pic below).  In Blender, this is one mesh and I just added "sub-object meshes".  I assign the floor, the catwalk floors, and the rest of the catwalk their own material and color to give the mesh some depth.  This method would be good to get me to make Blender second nature.

Since Blender doesn't allow you to set an absolute scale size, I created a 1024 x 1024 plane mesh and duplicated it around (the floor in the mesh).

2. Create in Editor (I exported an entire BSP level (additive and subtractive brushes) and it didn't crash the editor!).  Subtractive brushes have to be kept to a minimum as the editor will export all brushes as if they are additive.  If the level is made entirely of additive, then it should work fine.

This is DM-DeReZ when I bring it into Blender (I am still surprised it didn't creash either program).  It's just a proof of concept that an decent size level can be exported then imported.

I still have a way to go. Made the LP and the HP but struggling to get a good UV layout for the HP. I had read initially that it wasn't necessary for backing normals. So haven't achieved the normal map or the diffuse yet.

answers:
1.The short answer is no.
2.Well I guess once you have the uv layout you can colourise the lines in Gimp.  I use it as a layer and fip back and forward in gimp so I know I'm texturing between the lines.  I also backen (mask out) the outer margins of the UV layout so its a smaller file and looks cleaner.
3.Well I guess its not always possible, sort of depends on the angle as you pan around the trackball. But I think you can use blenders camera Numpad 0 then Shift F and the middle mouse button to zoom in and out.

Wow I'm amazed you can export of DeReZ. I reckon if you start having trouble with sculpting a level from scratch you could always try retopologising the bsp with bsurface addon. Its very ambitious to build a layout in blender.  Need to be very organised to get all the texturing done nicely.

Achernar wrote:

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I still have a way to go. Made the LP and the HP but struggling to get a good UV layout for the HP. I had read initially that it wasn't necessary for backing normals. So haven't achieved the normal map or the diffuse yet.

You don't need to make a UV layout for the HP as you are only using it's normals to create a normal or ambient occlusion map onto the LP.  So only the LP needs a UV layout.

answers:
1.The short answer is no.
2.Well I guess once you have the uv layout you can colourise the lines in Gimp.  I use it as a layer and fip back and forward in gimp so I know I'm texturing between the lines.  I also backen (mask out) the outer margins of the UV layout so its a smaller file and looks cleaner.

I did finally colourise the UV layout in GIMP.  I guess this can be done in Blender as well (assign different materials to each section you would add color to in GIMP.  I am not understanding the "I also backen (mask out)" part, when you get time, maybe upload the image.

3.Well I guess its not always possible, sort of depends on the angle as you pan around the trackball. But I think you can use blenders camera Numpad 0 then Shift F and the middle mouse button to zoom in and out.

I "know" it's possible, just can't remember exactly where I saw it.  With a simple/small mesh, you can zoom to the interior of it easily, with a bigger mesh, it's "impossible" with out this setting?

Wow I'm amazed you can export of DeReZ. I reckon if you start having trouble with sculpting a level from scratch you could always try retopologising the bsp with bsurface addon. Its very ambitious to build a layout in blender.  Need to be very organised to get all the texturing done nicely.

I already have the bsurface addon activated, but try to keep using quads as much as possible. 

I have studied DM-Glacier a bit and he has most of the map built with "planes".  He would have a room's floors as one mesh, then the floor's trim would be another, then the walls would be another and so on.

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 Comments in blue.

Achernar wrote:

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Ok well after a bit of deliberation and a short sebactical here is my effort.

Looking very nice.  I would like to see your source files as your diffuse texture looks way better than mine.  I knnow we weren't suppose to "tweak" the textures using GIMP/PS, did you fudge this a bit?

Either way, it would be nice to see your source files (here is mine (Blend and GIMP file, individual images, as well as .ase files)

  

I think the model looks really nice in game.  My biggest constructive comment would be that the barrel looks a bit too "bulgy".  If you scaled in the center areas a bit more, I think that would really help.

where you able to create a normal map?  I don't have Malk eyes when it comes to this stuff.

 

 If you can, give me see insight into what you did to get the results you got.  Looking at your source files might help a lot as well.

Ok well after a bit of deliberation and a short sebactical here is my effort.

Odedge wrote:

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Thanks for the nice words LPS and Blitz...

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 +1

Perhaps a little bit later down the track I'm not sure my assets are ready for prime time just yet.

@Odedge

Yeah I guess I cheated a bit, I couldn't help it I'm a compulsive tweaker.  Not to mention your model has to score highly for being much truer to the design specification.  I like the extra details you added, it gives it more depth.  I have to say my knowlege in Gimp would probably fit on a napkin, I usually just adjust saturation and colour balance mostly. 

My advice for creating a perfectly curved barrel would be to make one plank then apply the array.  It is possible to adjust the spacing between the planks by adjusting "relative offset".  Then add in a bizer circle.  In the modifiers chose curve and link up the bizer to it.  In edit it will just be a flat line of planks but in object mode it will conform to a circle.  You can adjust the size by selecting the bizer and scaling it, so the planks fit perfectly.

I'm all for another challenge, however this next week I will be quite busy so I'll hold off with such a distration. 

For the next project I'll side with the liberated gimping rule.

Lord_PorkSword wrote:

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Barrels are looking good guys!

...

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 ...+1

@ Achernar

When your done with your busy week or so, just let me know as I want to push myself a lot more than I did with the first challenge. I may go back and try to make the diffuse better (I still need to look at your source files).

@ All

I am trying to be more effecient with UV mapping, so I looked at the "Stitching tools" a bit more and here are some thoughts.

• Stitching refers to placing the vertices on the UV layout in the same location as they would be in 3d spaces.  When you select a vertex in 3D space, it's usually connected to other faces.  In the UV editor, it's doesn't automatically select them all.
• I have found that stitching faces together properly will help not only with diffuse UV layouts, but also with Lightmap UVs as well as they will guarantee that the UV faces are in their proper place.

I am going to do a little demonstration that should speed up the UV layouts for more "hard surface" models.  I have the "shared vertex" in the "Sticky Selection Mode" drop down button selected for this entire process.

1. I am going to unwrap one side of a typical box with a recessed face.

2. Here is the UV layout after doing a Smart UV Project using the default values.  As you can see, everything looks proportional to each other, but where do all of the skinny rectangle pieces go?  Remember, they need to match the vertices and be "snapped" to each other as well.

3. I select the main face first.

4. Then I press the "V" key to enable the stitching mode, and press the "I" key to change the focus of which island would be snapped to.  Since each skinny rectangle pieces share vertices, they will be highlight in green.  It might be hard to tell, but around the main faces, there is a little purple edged highlight with a light yellow fill in color to show where the other faces will be moved to.  I press the mouse button to confirm this change.

5. This is what the change looks like.  The faces are positioned correctly!

6. I then position and resize the new island with the main faces and skinny rectangles so it's in a close position to the rest of the faces. 

7. Now it's time to do some quick "welding".  Since each face is in its proper location we now just select 1 vertex and each "shared" vertex will be selected, press the "W" key to bring up the Weld/Align menu, then select "Weld"

8. Repeat this for all of the remaining vertices and then enable "Island select mode", if you select any part of the visible faces and they are all selected, you know you have them perfectly stiched!

I think this can be helpful in any UV layout, but mostly in a light map UV.  This sort of arrangement is what I used in Tapinak and so far gives me the best results.

@ Achernar

I reread your "workflow" post and took a look at your source files. Here are some random thoughts for the sake of improving for the both of us.

• I like how you used the lattice as it should give you more control buldging the mesh over my method which was selecting faces and sacling them.
• For your LP, I think you could have added some loop cuts for the metail reings and extrude them along the normals a bit away from your mesh.  This would have given you less faces and no overlapping faces.
• For your HP, you did exactly what I wanted to do, but I couldn't pull it off.  I wanted to have that "beveled faces" between each plank for the normal map.  Maybe adding a subsurf modifier to the planks, but mainly for the rings might have helped?
• I can't tell you why, but your normal map has some funky artifacts.  Though it does look like it has more info than mine.
• I like your AO map much better as well. I think we interpreted the source image a little differently as I tried to make my rings flush with the wood.  But I think that limited to what my normal map and AO map would be like (which is why my AO map isn't showing any shadows!).  I think extruding the rings like you did was the smart way to go for a game model.
• Did you "multiply" the dffuse map and the AO map in GIMP (also, do you have the 2.8 version)?
• For your diffuse, it's interesting how you placed your metal rings in their own places and made them bigger.  I thought of mine too literal and didn't give them enough space as they look too "low res".
• I know you probably mentioned before, but  why did you create the "Mask" texture again?  Is this the simplier way of looking at your UV layout in GIMP?

Now that I have looked at your source files and saw a different work flow, I call this exercise a complete success as it's taught me a few things and make me look at different ways of working.

mAlkAv!An wrote:

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I like the stitching tools and I know you just want to show the workflow. But for this specific example it's faster to do a projection from view and than just scale dow the inner face.

 (Using a regular unwrap (conformal, no seams) is even faster but the edges are not perfectly ligned up with x/y axis, which is important for lightmaps.)

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 Curse you and the knowledge you have that I don't! (yes, still a compliment).

I always thought that when you did that, the "inner" faces that are perpindicular to the main faces, where actually edges stacked on top of each other.  I just tried your method and it worked great.  So thanks for lettting me know.

EDIT: I have started on a new version of the barrel, using some stuff I learned. I have what I think is a pretty cool looking HP mesh, but I am having a hard time getting what I think should be a good normal map.  Is there any tips or tutorials/videos you have seen to shed some light on this process.

One thing that perplexes me is how I can't bake the spaces between each plank onto the LP model no matter what I try.

@ Achernar

I am glad that you have my back in case we have have to fight inside of Blender one day .

Achernar wrote:

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@Malk
To be fair it was just a demo of stitching.

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Of course it is, I didn't mean to depreciate the post

Odedge wrote:

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EDIT: I have started on a new version of the barrel, using some stuff I learned. I have what I think is a pretty cool looking HP mesh, but I am having a hard time getting what I think should be a good normal map.  Is there any tips or tutorials/videos you have seen to shed some light on this process.

One thing that perplexes me is how I can't bake the spaces between each plank onto the LP model no matter what I try.

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Can you post a screen with an LP overlay? Make sure to have smooth shading for the LP model, baking across hard edges is usually causing issues.

mAlkAv!An wrote:

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Can you post a screen with an LP overlay? Make sure to have smooth shading for the LP model, baking across hard edges is usually causing issues.

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 I don't think there is need to now... I watched a 3ds max tutorial and they use a "cage" to determine what parts of the HP mesh will be baked, I guess this is similar to the "Distance" and "Bias" setting, I just like the visual aspect of the cage.  I also tried to make the LP cover up the HP.  Before, I think I was trying to put the LP in the "middl"e of the HP.

So I reworked the LP to surround the HP completely, which gave good results.  I also remembered to smooth out the LP (which isn't really intuitive), but that helped a lot on the metal rings sections as they were very angular on the baked normal (even though they are very smooth on the HP because of setting them to be smooth and adding a subsurf modifier).  I did make the top and bottoms shaded flat though as there shouldn't be any normal information from the HP (plus the bake gave me a weird color, almost like it was raised/lowered a bit in the center).

I also forgot to keep the UVs in unique places, so I was duplicating normal information.   Question: If you have a mesh that would greatly benefit from overlapping the UVs for the diffuse map, but ambient occlusion and normal maps require unique UV locations (as well as a Lightmap UVs), you could just create one UV layout for these types of map.  You said that you can tell the editor to use a different UV layout in the material editor?

You can see the LP on the left displayed in Texture mode and it basically covers the entire HP mesh.  The pic on the right shows the LP in wire frame mode.

 Here is a picture of one of my best bakes.  I am happy with most of it.  The parts I don't like are the very top parts of the barrel.  Now that I think of it, I I could just "paint" over them with the standard "flat" normal color and they would appear flat, which is what I want.

This is basically the same, but I made all of the rings shaded smooth.  It's a more gradual normal, which is good, but I don't know how well it will translate.  I still think the first picture is better.

This is my first pic, slightly modified.  I touched up some funky pixels along some of the metal bands and filled in the standard default color to cover the black (which I presume you should always do?).

@ Achernar

All good suggestions, but when I was trying to remake the plank, I discovered that part had the render icon in the out liner turned off.  As soon as I changed it... Boom! planks.  I had to tweak them a bit to fill in some gaps, but that was easy.

I also realized that since the tops and bottom both have recessed areas, no need to try and bake that info, so I made the "walls" perpendicular instead of the flaring them out a bit.  I read that if you are going to have sections that are at a 90 degree angle and have some depth to them, to move the "walls' out a bit so that info can be baked.

Thanks to the both of you for your help.  I am very pleased with the progress I made in the last two days as they actually look like normal maps.  I don't know how much better I can get them for this model though.

Here's my quick approach on a barrel for my UDK project:

@ Malk

Good tip on creating a base texture for baking your normals and ambient occlusion (which I still need to do for this project).

Very nice looking barrel... that diffuse texture looks very nice! Did you create a normal or ambient occlusion map for it as well? Also, that second pic, I presume the bottom right is the "UV layout"?

I was going to continue working on my barrel, so nice timing giving me a little extra motivation.

Odedge wrote:

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1. If a mesh has a scale value of something besides 1.0, can it drastically effect baking textures?

2. Any way to get GIMP to always export a 24bit BMP file?

3. What's the best blending mode to combine 2 normal maps?

4. In UDK, when creating a Lightmap UV, you don't need to place any padding between your UV islands and the edge of the postive UV spaces.  Does this apply to the UT 3 editor?

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1. No idea but you can just apply the scale (CTRL+A, object mode) so it shouldn't matter?

3. This is a difficult question. Overlay is quick and most common. I use overlay but set the blue channel level range from 0-255 to 0-128 for all additional layers except the base one. This helps to not blech out the blue channel and lose depth. As a final step you need to normalize your map.
For further information have a read here: http://wiki.polycount.com/NormalMap/#Blending_Normal_Maps_Together

4. Not sure but even for UDK I always keep some space to the bounds, something like 1 texel of a 64²px map works well most times.

Odedge wrote:

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Thanks for posting the screenshot with your PS setup. Would you mind uploading that so I can take a look at it more closely..

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http://www.mediafire.com/?419c84as6z55952

Working on a set of 'urban props'. Still lots of things to do - when it's done I'll provide a package for free download.

All models are ready for UE3, including custom collision meshes, LoD models and lightmap UVs.

Digging into blender renders. I've been always impressed by photorealistic renders that some peaople pull off so I had to give it a try by myself.

The pic is still somewhat noisy at the glossy areas, although this render was done with 750 samples... (takes ages without nvidia gfx cards btw)

Thanks
Here's a new try. I was able to eliminate the artifacts by using a different light setup. Unfortunately there is still some noise, even with 2000 samples.