I tried to create my own tool shelf section, but copy and pasting a previous one isn't enough to make it stay. So I just edited the 3D view section (I copied and pasted it to a notepad for a backup).

 

I was planning on doing this later for some practice, but I joined Blender Cookie as a "citizen" (paid member) and am going to follow their "Create a Low Poly Fire Hydrant" tutorial.

It should cover the same basic procedure as you did with the wood planks.  I will post updates by next weekend.

I've just checked the blender downloads and 2.65 RC2 is already available. http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.65/

Finally, the bevel tool has been greatly improved. It works now as expected plus you can subdivide beveled edges to get a roundish result

 

There also more nice features like improvements for the decimate modifier and the integration of an addon for baking textures into vertex colors :)

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.65

Really worth checking this one out.

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Friday 7th of December 2012 11:53:16 AM

Good start odedge. Might need some more supporting edges, otherwise it's looking good for your first try.

 

 

My latest models. The workflow for table, stool, bucket was very similar to what I've done for the planks and bench.

 

Quick blender renders (no cycles) of the table and bucket:

http://www.abload.de/img/woodprops_002klp54.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/woodprops_003mmr3x.png

 

 

 

 

Odedge wrote:

---

I know I have asked you this before, but is there a way to save your layout settings.  I have tweaked enough stuff in the past few weeks, I really don't want to tweak the UI again.  I would guess you could save a 2.64 blend file, open it up in 2.65 and then save user settings?

---

I don't know. Saving that blend file work well for the layout but probably not for additional settings, like addons, system, interface etc.

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Saturday 8th of December 2012 09:34:54 PM

Odedge wrote:

---

After the first video, here is my current progress.  I am building the high poly version and it suppose to look like a fire hydrant.

If you compare it to the one he built, they don't look that similar, but such is my modeling skills.  Next video I will complete the other parts to the high poly version.

---

 very impressive ...really....

@Malk: thx for the new release infos

mAlkAv!An wrote:

---

Good start odedge. Might need some more supporting edges, otherwise it's looking good for your first try.

 

 

My latest models. The workflow for table, stool, bucket was very similar to what I've done for the planks and bench.

 

Quick blender renders (no cycles) of the table and bucket:

http://www.abload.de/img/woodprops_002klp54.jpg

http://www.abload.de/img/woodprops_003mmr3x.png

 

 

 

 

---

 very nice m8

Yes very nice guys!!
It's always a treat to see what's happening in this thread!

mAlkAv!An wrote:

---

Good start odedge. Might need some more supporting edges, otherwise it's looking good for your first try.

Thanks.  I really am not concerned about how good it looks... I am more intereseted in the process.  This object is a bit above my pay grade in the Blender world.

 

My latest models. The workflow for table, stool, bucket was very similar to what I've done for the planks and bench.

I continue to dig your stuff.  I like this old world/western era/look.  Everything is looking very nice and the only "critc" I can make from this scene (assuming your looking for one) is everything blends together too much.  But it blends together very nicely.

---

 

Thank goodness video 2 is done and I can post my funky looking fire hydrant!  The one to the right is after the first video and the left one is my finished high poly version. 

I got really frustrated at times with how fast he can work vs me, but then again, he is an expert/pro at Blender.  I need a feature that can automatically rewind the video to the point I got lost, but have it controlled by my brain!!!

I haven't eaten all day, which doesn't help my mood... but there was a part in which he used an array modifier for the bolts so they would be duplicated using an empty as the pivot point.  No matter what I did, I couldn't duplicate what he did (though it seemed very simple in the video).  My bolts would start at the empty's location, the spiral down and they would get smaller and smaller.  WTH?!?!?

I ended up just duplicating them (forgot to Alt+D, so they are "linked") and then I had to flare out the bottom of the bolts so when the normals are baked, they show some more definition to them.  So I had to scale them out 1 at a time.  What a way to learn....

Next step is creating the low poly version, which should be simple compared to the high poly.  Once I go through this series, I may attempt a cool looking wood board like you just made and see what I can come up with.

Blend on...

Seems to be even more easier. When you open 2.65 on the start screen there is a button called "Copy Settings From Previous Version" ^^

Video 3 is done and so is my low poly version (572 polys vs 11,720 polys for HP).

This stage was a lot more fun than the last one.  He stated there are 2 ways of making the low-poly... create one from scratch or slowly "destroy" your high-poly (we destroyed ours).  I did learn some cool little tricks and got more comfortable with edge loops.

That said, my high poly mesh is messed up!  I would delete an edge loops and then some of the faces that should be flat, were a bit lopsided.  I also had extra edges and vertices.  One mistake I made was.. he was deleting edge loops, I was dissolving them until I noticed what I was doing wrong.  That gave me a lot of "floating" vertices.  They are in my low-poly model, so I don't know if that will cause an issue when exporting.

Random question: Is there a way to change the size of a vertice in 3d editing mode?

Not-so-Random thought: The new "Copy my previous settings" function is awesome!

Not-so-Random question: When creating the LP version, I would delete a lot of edge loops, then I would bridge two edge loops (on the special menu, "W" key).  Some times it would bridge them, but they would look like this.

It looks like I rotate my edges at one time and it's trying to bridge the original locations?  *Odedge be confused*

Next video on the fire hydrant is unwrapping the low-poly version!  How fun!

mAlkAv!An wrote:

---

You can either use "Bridge two edge loops" or the "Bridge" tool which will give you some additional options (twist factor) to fix this. I know this issue and it seems to be a problem of the tool, not the model.

The Bridge two edge loops I think will work normally, but since I disolved a lot of stuff instead of deleting edge loops, that's what is casuing the problems.  I have looked at the "Loop Tools" section of the Tool Shelf yet.

To change the vertex display size go to User Prefernces -> Themes -> 3D View -> Vertex Size.
To find floating vertices you can use Select -> Non Manifold. Or just select whole elements of your model (L / CTRL+L) and then invert selection.

Thanks for the reminder on the Vertex Size, as I did it once a long time ago.  I tried the Non Manifold, but it didn't seem to work.  I think Edges are being created in Bmesh, but it's sort of faking it.  I had a bunch of vertices in an "edge loop" formation that were rounding out one section (as if there were edges connecting them), but when I disolved the vertices, the "curved face" became flat. 

I think unwrapping this lp model is really fun! But I can tell you from the pic that some areas will cause probs if baking the normal map.
There also seems to be a smoothing issue at the top of your high poly model?

I think unwrapping will be fine and maybe fun.  I still thing the process is a bit too "vague and messy".  That said, there are some issue with my smoothing on top of the high poly.  Not in the first one, but some how in the second/completed one.  I will need to look into this.

Do you know if the internal Blender shading have any effect on baking a high poly to a low poly mesh?

---

 One other question, I know the high poly mesh doesn't need to be one continous mesh, you can even have the pieces floating in the "air".  But for LP models, can you have floating piecs that intersect other parts of the mesh with out it affecting performance?

damn! you guys are mastering the tool, looks better at each try

Bl!tz wrote:

---

damn! you guys are mastering the tool, looks better at each try

---

 Not to imply anything negative towards Achernar... but what do you mean "you guys".   If Malk is doing jumping jacks in Blender, I am crawling, then quickly falling on my big ole baby tummy.

@ Malk

Thanks for answer the questiong about intersecting piecs on a LP mesh.  I have always wondered about this as to get a continous mesh would require a lot more faces.

Regarding your rock/cliff/decimate:

• How did you start that mesh (with a cube or a plane?).
• How many polys did you have on the HP vs LP.
• I presume you will bake the normals and if so, does the LP have them applied (in Blender).
• Rock is looking very nice.  Are you going to be able to walk don the side of it? 
• I presume it's an open mesh.  I presume a mesh can be kept open and still occlude... as long as the player can't see "inside" the mesh?
• I will put this on my mental "to check out" list.

Odedge wrote:

---

Bl!tz wrote:

---

Odedge wrote:

---

Bl!tz wrote:

---

damn! you guys are mastering the tool, looks better at each try

---

 Not to imply anything negative towards Achernar... but what do you mean "you guys".   If Malk is doing

---

 ROFL....i hope u ll not imply anything negative towards Achernar ....i m lost here again ...or u simply not mastering the quote author research
....but it s so late....should be time for my pills

---

 Basically Malk is our local Blender expert and compared to him, I know very little.  I presume Achernar knows about the same as me, which implies he's not that good at Blender (compared to Malk).  So I didn't want to put Achernar down in my statement.  But I was trying to be funny and I got a ROFL from you, so my goal was acheived!

---

 ohhh kk ....and as he didnt write a single line in this thread since 6 days to improve himself u punished him!.....sorry cant resist to a second vawe: ROFL !

@Malk: i already told ya, but i repeat myself: nice job

mAlkAv!An wrote:

---

 Here's another shot of the wip mesh in the static mesh editor:

 

---

 Coolio... that grass is very green, almost like a golf course!  I think an open mesh should be able to occlude as long as the player can't see inside of it, other wise, why build cliffs with open faces (like many Epic meshes).

Heres my efforts on a small box

I'd really like to render the Ambient Occulsion with Blender but I'm not sure how given that many of my UV's overlap. Seem very inefficient to have to have UV's that are lightmap packed so to speak. 

Never the less - minus AO

 

 

  

I may not be as good as malk, but I haven't given up developing in blender.

-- Edited by Achernar on Wednesday 19th of December 2012 01:12:31 AM

@Odedge

Well that was my best guess too.  Impossible.  Texture size is standard (2^10) 1024

Yeah I completly agree.  Material was just a knew jerk assembly, corrected now.

That's what I like to hear.  If the 3 of us ever get stuck in Blender, we can be on the same team and we may have a fighting chance against Malk!

Hehe, well sounds like two people on take down and one on distraction... 

I like your suggestion about a 'lil contest, I hope its opened ended, I have a limited set of tution and tools at my disposal but I'm excited to give it a go.

@Malk

Thanks for the confirmation.  Your suggestion of baking to vertex colours had me intrigued, novel idea I hadn't heard before, thanks for mentioning.  Never the less this mesh is very simple so that method may be hampered - but it really needs an experiment to decide.

As requested:

Lighting Only                                                                                                                  Lightmap UV's (2nd UV)

   

By the looks of things the lightmap are causing some bleeding edges (confusing at first coz they coincide with making on the diffuse). The 'lighting only' helps isolate that artifact.

Well still getting my head around marking sharp edges.  I heard there is a modifier that can automate the process or provides an overview of the function over various angles but I'm still yet to experiment. Seems like a good next step.

Thanks for taking the time to review.

-- Edited by Achernar on Thursday 20th of December 2012 07:32:59 PM

Yes, you'll just need some more space between UV islands to get rid of bleeding artifacts. Depending on what's your lightmap resolution you can use blenders UV grid texture as a help. Lets say it's 64x64px, use a 1024²px UV grid texture in blender. This one has 32x32 squares, so you should keep one square for spacing between all UV islands. (If I remember correctly 2 texels (=64/32) is a save spacing distance, but I guess 1 texel/half a square will also work well).


Baking AO maps into vertex alpha color is an 'old' trick from Crysis. They did it for all the tree/foliage models e.g. There is a blender script that has been integrated in blender 2.6x to bake maps into vertex colors. Here's some information: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php?title=Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/UV/Bake_Texture_to_Vertex_Colors
But I do agree that it's not necessary for this box model.

 

Smoothing is in fact an issue. You have 3 choices to fix it.

1. use hard edges. This will increase the vertex count.

2. use additional edge loops (supporting edges) to fix the smoothing. This will increase triangles and vertex count but looks better than hard egdes.

3. Keep your model and smoothing groups as they are right now but use a normal map to correct the smoothing. To bake that normal map you'll need a model with proper smoothing like described in No. 2 above. You will save additional vertices/tris this way but the normal map has some large gradients and due to texture compression smoothing might be not 100% correctly at small lighting angles.

Personally I stopped using hard edges because it looks more low poly and I'd like my model to look 'up to date'.

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Wednesday 19th of December 2012 01:58:06 PM

Looks very nice Malk!

@ Achernar
The Blender Build Off can be anything that we are both interested into building (environmental assets?). I think having the same 'resources/requirements" might make it more educational as we can share what we did with the same stuff.

For example, we may need to make a wood crate with 1 texture sample, but we can custom make the texture from the sample. We would need to create a diffuse and lightmap UV and bake normals and ambient occlusion. We would have a poly limit, that's with in reason.

Maybe Malk would be kind enough to be our moderator. Basically to give us the parameters and be like our teacher... which he is anyways.

From what I can tell in your UV layout for the lightmap, it seems like it's organized well, but as Malk stated, maybe not enough space between the islands. I can see how some of Malks suggestion would help if you are baking from a high poly to low poly... is that what you are doing?

@ Malk

Nice looking axe.   Is this going to be impaled into some wood or a creature's body?  I like that you post both the untextured and textured model, but if you can also post a UV layout with textures, that would be cool too!

I want to get back to my fire hydrant, but the holidays are sucking up my time.

@Malk
Thanks for the pointers on the light map packing density. I'll let ya know how it pans out.

Thanks for the directing me to the script, I was a little worried that I'd have to use a commercial solution or a cavernous series of work arounds. So glad to see an active development community supporting these functions.

Seeing how the box is very low poly anyway some extra loop cuts may be my best bet.

Very nice effort on the axe! I assume you modeled it in two pieces - the handle and the head? I do admire the texturing on the head. Are you going to add the little cross as seen in drachenhort inspiration.

@Odedge
That sounds cool. Really I'm open, however what I meant by resources was that you have some professional training under your belt. Over all it shouldn't be too limited imho, just a bit of friendly provocation to learn something new. Well that's my first thoughts anyway. If were pooling effort perhaps later it may scale to a collective UOF map...

Currently the box is just a single build mesh. No high to low poly. My efforts and ambitions are too simple atm. Thanks for the feed back I'm slowly getting there.

Achernar wrote:

---

@Odedge
That sounds cool. Really I'm open, however what I meant by resources was that you have some professional training under your belt. Over all it shouldn't be too limited imho, just a bit of friendly provocation to learn something new. Well that's my first thoughts anyway. If were pooling effort perhaps later it may scale to a collective UOF map...

---

 I may know a tiny amount more than you, but not really.  My fire hydrant exercise hasn't taught me much yet as I have only gotten past the modeling part and most of it was adding loop cuts!!! What ever it is, I think we need to build something that will look "the same".  If one person sees something the other person did, it's best that we can apply directly to our model.  If I made a tree and you made a wheel, we can't really do this.

The entire intent is to learn and help each other out, but a bit more directly.  As for "pooling efforst", I am all for this to help each other learn, but I have enough plans to build assets for my own map.  If I actually acheive this, it will be a small miracle (given my past history), so I want to keep things focused.

@ Malk

Thanks for showing the diffuse image.  I think creating a texture like this is really the hardest part of the whole process. 

Just a question mAlkAv!An:
you created your UV mapping inside Blender like the staticmesh. But your final texture for the staticmesh ? in Blender or another soft like Paint.net or Photoshop or anyelse.

If he use Blender to paint his mesh, i need a leason to extract the final texture of the mesh (to export for UnrealED).
Each time, i am trying looking for a tuto about that, all of them use GIMP/PS.

 

EDIT : in fact, i found. (at 13 h 40).

I coul improve my staticmesh, now. Mainly for the optimisation.

 

-- Edited by Heimdallr on Friday 28th of December 2012 01:24:44 PM

It may be more useful for certain stuff like creatures/characters. I haven't found much use for it, except for maybe some touching up.

Side question: I saw a video that baked the normals using the "multires" modifier (there was an option in the baking section) instead of having a high poly and a low poly. I presume this would work better for more organic shapes. Anyone have any experience with this?