The Art Pipeline and me
by Kimmy Gorden · 09/03/2006 (9:27 pm) · 7 comments
Little about me:
I got a big idea for a game- like most of you- I know I won't be able to do it all by myself but I'm gonna start working on things 'till I can get the help I need to get where I'm going.
I decided to start with building some models and learning a bit about the pipeline.
My first venture and obstacle- POLYCOUNT.
I built some ships and textured them long before I bought the engine- They are at about 3200-3600 polys I THINK. It's been awhile and I have to redisign them anyway because there's just a waste of polys-
Here is one of them- half textured:
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter.jpg
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter2.jpg
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter3.jpg
and here is a police vehicle:
www.kimmygorden.com/GFED_sig.jpg
Now that I realize I have to keep the polys down around 2000-2500 I definetly have to revisit the whole situation- which isn't always a bad thing.
I started building a robot tonight but soon realized I was going overboard when I checked the face count on ONE of it's legs (1440).
UGH.
TEXTURES are going to be my friend- I THINK. I've been reading that while you CAN have multi-textured .DTS files- that don't mean they gonna play nice with the engine and my FPS rates.
sigh...
I guess no one said it would be easy.
Edit Sawheeeet! Thanks Stephan!
I got a big idea for a game- like most of you- I know I won't be able to do it all by myself but I'm gonna start working on things 'till I can get the help I need to get where I'm going.
I decided to start with building some models and learning a bit about the pipeline.
My first venture and obstacle- POLYCOUNT.
I built some ships and textured them long before I bought the engine- They are at about 3200-3600 polys I THINK. It's been awhile and I have to redisign them anyway because there's just a waste of polys-
Here is one of them- half textured:
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter.jpg
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter2.jpg
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter3.jpg
and here is a police vehicle:
www.kimmygorden.com/GFED_sig.jpg
Now that I realize I have to keep the polys down around 2000-2500 I definetly have to revisit the whole situation- which isn't always a bad thing.
I started building a robot tonight but soon realized I was going overboard when I checked the face count on ONE of it's legs (1440).
UGH.
TEXTURES are going to be my friend- I THINK. I've been reading that while you CAN have multi-textured .DTS files- that don't mean they gonna play nice with the engine and my FPS rates.
sigh...
I guess no one said it would be easy.
Edit Sawheeeet! Thanks Stephan!
#2
I can't seem to find a edit button...Man, am I in trouble with this game design or what!?
09/04/2006 (8:04 am)
thanks Stephan!I can't seem to find a edit button...Man, am I in trouble with this game design or what!?
#3
09/04/2006 (8:59 am)
Cool ships!! Go Kimmy go!!! ... I don't think you are in trouble.. I think you are learning stuff like a lot of others have before us...
#5
I chose to build a Robot that the player would be able to chose as a character.
I built him in pieces so that the player can exchange parts- like the head with other parts (that I am in the process of building as well).
Here is the model- which weighs in at 2527 faces. I was shooting for 2000 but I am a poly hog.
The limited polys will force me to rely HEAVILY on textures- which at this point- I don't even know how bad sub-layers and multitextures will hound me.
Well I guess you gotta dive in anyway.
You can see the shots on my blog here:
kimmygorden.blogspot.com
09/05/2006 (10:16 pm)
Continuing on with this. I decided to build a character that I can import. I chose to build a Robot that the player would be able to chose as a character.
I built him in pieces so that the player can exchange parts- like the head with other parts (that I am in the process of building as well).
Here is the model- which weighs in at 2527 faces. I was shooting for 2000 but I am a poly hog.
The limited polys will force me to rely HEAVILY on textures- which at this point- I don't even know how bad sub-layers and multitextures will hound me.
Well I guess you gotta dive in anyway.
You can see the shots on my blog here:
kimmygorden.blogspot.com
#6
09/06/2006 (6:25 pm)
The differences between 2500 polys and 3500 polys is not that big. It's sort of a big discussion as to why, but if you are seeing a difference, then you probably need to work with a programmer who can fix the issue. It's more important that the whole model is mapped to one texture. Changing textures is a bigger performance problem than poly counts (up to a limit ofcourse.) BTW, you may notice more of a poly count issue on TGE than in TSE.
#7
I'm going to keep posting my progress as I learn how to even load a character into a scene and try to track the best way to model for my game as I do so- Hopefully I will get more people like yourself to pop in and help me out (and therefore everyone else who is doing this crazy game making thing).
It is my intention to build the characters (.dts files) in parts- Meaning, arms, legs, etc.- and mounting them together to form the character. This way the player can take Arm set 4 combined with Leg set 3 and Body 2 to customize a character. (I think this will work in TGE (and the MMOkit)- again- I really have NO idea.)
I'm doing it this way for three reasons:
1. Player can customize their character.
2. I think it will be less taxing on the engine if players are basically using the same mesh with different textures.
3. I want to have seperate collision boxes so that different areas of the players body will take more damage than other parts.
Okay- NOW I might be approaching this ALL WRONG- or going the long way around- but I'm gonna keep going in that direction until somebody tells me "Yo! Dude. There is a easier/faster way to get where you're going."
NOTE: People who tell me it's impossible to get there from here will be ignored.
Now. Some questions-
Let's say I built this robot with all his parts seperate but equal-
Then I took a part- let's say the Head- and broke it up into little bits Like the face, the ear, the back of the head, etc- in order to texturize the hell out of it.
Then I put all those parts together again as one mesh with all the textures assigned to it making them one texture (what's called a Multi-texture in 3D Max).
Then I made another multi-texture for that same head- but this time I "damage" it a little with some burn marks.
Now. When I load this head (along with the other parts of the body that I've given the same treatment to) is TGE going to freak out when I get shot in the head and it has to replace textures?
Is TGE going to go ape nuts when I start running around with these textures with 12 other guys and a bunch of NPCs with similar treatments for different meshes?
I'm gathering from your post Eric that the answer is YES- but I just want to make sure I'm understanding you right.
09/06/2006 (8:49 pm)
Thanks Eric. I haven't even tried to load the character into TGE yet- I was just trying to stay under 3k as a rule (because most people I've read about are doing that- If you allow me to get up to 3500 polys I WILL take them, heh heh.) I'm going to keep posting my progress as I learn how to even load a character into a scene and try to track the best way to model for my game as I do so- Hopefully I will get more people like yourself to pop in and help me out (and therefore everyone else who is doing this crazy game making thing).
It is my intention to build the characters (.dts files) in parts- Meaning, arms, legs, etc.- and mounting them together to form the character. This way the player can take Arm set 4 combined with Leg set 3 and Body 2 to customize a character. (I think this will work in TGE (and the MMOkit)- again- I really have NO idea.)
I'm doing it this way for three reasons:
1. Player can customize their character.
2. I think it will be less taxing on the engine if players are basically using the same mesh with different textures.
3. I want to have seperate collision boxes so that different areas of the players body will take more damage than other parts.
Okay- NOW I might be approaching this ALL WRONG- or going the long way around- but I'm gonna keep going in that direction until somebody tells me "Yo! Dude. There is a easier/faster way to get where you're going."
NOTE: People who tell me it's impossible to get there from here will be ignored.
Now. Some questions-
Let's say I built this robot with all his parts seperate but equal-
Then I took a part- let's say the Head- and broke it up into little bits Like the face, the ear, the back of the head, etc- in order to texturize the hell out of it.
Then I put all those parts together again as one mesh with all the textures assigned to it making them one texture (what's called a Multi-texture in 3D Max).
Then I made another multi-texture for that same head- but this time I "damage" it a little with some burn marks.
Now. When I load this head (along with the other parts of the body that I've given the same treatment to) is TGE going to freak out when I get shot in the head and it has to replace textures?
Is TGE going to go ape nuts when I start running around with these textures with 12 other guys and a bunch of NPCs with similar treatments for different meshes?
I'm gathering from your post Eric that the answer is YES- but I just want to make sure I'm understanding you right.
Torque Owner Stephan - viKKing - Bondier
Edit your blog and correct URL tags: blabla, much more convenient for readers.
Keep up the good work coming.
STef
edit:
Got them fixed for you:
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter.jpg
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter2.jpg
www.kimmygorden.com/carrisian_fighter3.jpg
www.kimmygorden.com/GFED_sig.jpg
edit:
edit icon is right of your name on top of the message.
STef