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Need some help
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Damfoos
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 27 Mar 2016

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 12:51 pm    Post subject:  Need some help
Subject description: lights'n'materials
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Hi!

For a long time I've been watching how people make nice new buildings and I've decided to give it a try myself. Not for use in any private mod (for now at least), just to try if I can do it or not. I've read this tutorial for general sequence and used one of the models from this topic to place the light sources. Trying to find out the optimal positions of those, however, the result doesn't blend that nicely with the rest of the game. Can you give me an advice what is wrong here? What is wrong here, light or materials (used stock 3DSMAX materials just to quickly made some example)?

Here are the SHP itself and an ingame screenshot (no animation yet).



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(the right tower belongs to second test version, hence why the details and smoothing don't match)
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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 1:15 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

looks very good
for 3dsmax you can find some templates here (see LKOFoundations.zip)
They are for TS, but RA2 isn't a lot different. Just rotate a bit the shadow casting light counterclockwise, since the shadow isn't going perfectly 45° NE in RA2, but more east

You can also try to improve your own lighting, which looks very close. I would only raise the intensity of the shadow casting light and lower the ambient light. This way increasing the contrast and make the shadows a tad darker.

The metallic rings and sphere material seems quite bright/glowing. If you used Self-Illumination, you should reduce that value, so they are better shaded, which should make the south-east and east facing side a bit darker.

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SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection:  Nod buildings

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X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
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Damfoos
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Joined: 27 Mar 2016

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 3:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Thanks, these would be very handy.

And no, I didn't use self illumination on any of these objects, this is just default 3DSMAX Chrome material. Basically, the goal was not to create a new Tesla Coil but to figure out how lighting and cameras should be set up, so more detailed (and useful) models with better materials could be created.

Now the question is: would anyone like to use this piece of... art? Very Happy I could practice in making buildups and anims etc while making it game-ready.

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DonutArnold
General


Joined: 18 Jan 2005
Location: Finland

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 3:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Absolutely! You've a great touch with this, so I bet people will be looking forward for your future work.

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Darkstorm
Commander


Joined: 20 Jan 2008
Location: Texas

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

That's a great Tesla coil. I'm not really in need of one right now, but it's there it's the one I'd probably use if I had to pick right now from publicly available ones. My only criticism is that the ball at the top seems rather big, if it were a tad smaller it'd be better and I'm not too sure on the texture.

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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Thu Jun 16, 2016 4:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Damfoos wrote:
this is just default 3DSMAX Chrome material.

i played around with similar things in the past, but found them not that well working, since the scene usually lacks the necessary environment for reflections (or gets too detailed and turns out pixelated).
In such cases it was easier to adjust/use a simple noise map. Sometimes a reflection map with slight raytrace works too, but only with about 10-20% intensity.

Damfoos wrote:
more detailed (and useful) models with better materials could be created.

when creating the tiny graphics for these games, sometimes less is more and too detailed textures just turn into a pixelated mess.
It's also often trial and error to find the right texture. A good texture for one building could be inappropriate for another, since the different shape can make things better/worse visible.

Damfoos wrote:
Now the question is: would anyone like to use this piece of... art? Very Happy I could practice in making buildups and anims etc while making it game-ready.

that tesla coil is already a very good one and i'm pretty sure there are several people who would use a finished version. Smile

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SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection:  Nod buildings

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X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
5 GDI, 5 Nod, 1 Mutant, 1 Scrin unit, 1 GDI building

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Damfoos
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 27 Mar 2016

PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 7:11 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Alright, so here's the buildup. Textures, proportions and light/shadows can be changed later, at least the animation is done. Is there a guide how to make proper idle and work animations (pallete, ususal frame amount/rate etc.) for buildings like that?

Why does the OSHP Builder's shp->gif converter reduce the quality so much (colors are different from the actual shp, as if there are twice less colors now)? Is there a way to make a buildup preview without quality loss?



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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Fri Jun 17, 2016 7:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

looks good
for a little improvement you should avoid the "raise out of the ground" style anims (you seem to use a z-scale modifier on the hose which is similar)
I prefer using a slice plane on the model to cut off parts above it and then move the slice plane upwards, so the building is build from ground up.
see this topic/post where i explained it as well

Finding good animations is mostly trial and error. It also helps to check the vanilla anims with XCC Mixer to see how many frames they have and check art.ini which Rate setting they use.
Though in general you shouldn't have more than 32 frames for any looping anim. If you want to play an anim slower, you can use the art.ini Rate key.
Try to find the right amount of frames, so the anim looks good ingame with Rate=300 (Rate=300 seems like a performance and visual aspect wise quite well setting for any anim, so try to aim for this)

For a good preview i convert the single png frames with Ulead GIF Animator 5 portable. This one keeps a good quality.

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SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection:  Nod buildings

Public SHPs
X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
5 GDI, 5 Nod, 1 Mutant, 1 Scrin unit, 1 GDI building

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Damfoos
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 27 Mar 2016

PostPosted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 2:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Now I get why LKO doesn't like to make damaged states... it is easy to compose something from primitives, but for damaged state you need to edit these primitives a lot, and this is not that easy.

Improved the buildup a bit (mainly the hose), created a damaged state. Failed to do lightnings for active anim, how do people even make them? Tried to apply Noise to Renderable self-illuminating splines, but it looks nowhere near as good as default WW anims (plus, lightnings seem to cast reflections on tesla ball in original Tesla coil, I don't know how to do it). Also, here's a draft for charge anim (how can I make the rings to cast light on the inner rod as they glow?), the bottom parts weren't meant go glow, I forgot to change their material Very Happy



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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Sun Jun 19, 2016 5:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

yeah, i haven't found an easy and fast way to produce good looking damage frames.
it also needs some work (trial and error) to get a good amount of damage done, not too much, not too few.

a few hints:
-use boolean operator to subtract a simple intersecting sphere from your model to create dents/holes
-for scorch marks, create a sphere, add a noise modifier to the sphere and deform it drastically along X and Y, flatten the sphere with scale z=1%
then apply a 5% or less transparent black texture to the flat random sphere.
now place this sphere in front of your model.
You can copy the sphere, use the noise seed to get different shapes and the scale deform X/Y to get it in different sizes.
-for a general weathered look, take your main texture, put a dent map on it and use your current texture as sub-map for the dent map. then give the dent map a dark color to crate dark random spots over your main texture.
the same works also well with a noise map and other procedural maps.

this can help you get about 75% of the damage done rather quick, though a few manual edits for cracks and broken parts are still necessary.


lightnings are quite easy
-create a straight Line Spline (from the shapes tab) with about 5 to 10 points
-select the Line, expand the Rendering rollout and set "Enable in Renderer" and "Enable in Viewport", then adjust the Radial Thickness so it has a nice diameter when rendered. Sides can be reduced to 6
-apply a nice blue/white texture
-put the lines points manually in a smooth arc from the start to the end (e.g. from one tesla ring to the next)
-then select only the inner points (not the start/end point) and apply a noise modifier to the line, so you get some random corners into the line

you can also play around with soft selection, have only the center point of the line selected, so the random noise strength has a fallout effect towards the start/end point (making the corners in the middle stronger and weaker towards the start/end)

if you now animated the noise, you get very easy an animated electric arc


to disable shadows of the spline, right click on it, select "Object Properties" and disable "Cast Shadows"

a pure self-illuminating material isn't that good, try only 50% and have the main color blue, the specular white, so some different blue white colors are visible and not only a single color. You can also try a noise map with blue/white noise.


an easy way to cast light is to place a small omni light in the center of the rod on the height of each ring. flatten the omni with scale z to about 10% height. (adjust the falloff field and size so it looks plausible and fitting for each ring)
then set under "Advanced Effects" "Ambient only" for each omni, so they can lighten up the rod even when they are placed inside it.
then simply play with intensity and other light values to make it look good.
you can animate the intensity value for each light to match the glow/timing of the rings.



For making certain parts glow, it is also easier to use an omni light, and don't have for each of the objects a different animated material/texture.
just place an omni light, set "Ambient Only", select the "Exclude" button and select "Include" in the opened window, then put only the object/mesh into this light which you want to make glow.
this way the omni affects only that single mesh and you can easily animate the glow with the omni's intensity value.

_________________
SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection:  Nod buildings

Public SHPs
X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
5 GDI, 5 Nod, 1 Mutant, 1 Scrin unit, 1 GDI building

Tools
Image Shaper______TMP Shop______C&C Executable Modifier

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Damfoos
Rocket Infantry


Joined: 27 Mar 2016

PostPosted: Sun May 28, 2017 7:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

Kinda failed to make an animation properly and gave up on it. Maybe will return to it later, as the boredom strikes again.

But hey, here's another one. Apparently renders need sharpening so they don't look too blurred. Do you use sharpening too, or just some special settings?

Still couldn't figure how to make shp builder export gifs properly.



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Lin Kuei Ominae
Seth


Joined: 16 Aug 2006
Location: Germany

PostPosted: Sun May 28, 2017 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote  Mark this post and the followings unread

press F10 and set in the Renderer tab in the Antialiasing section "Catmull-Rom" as filter and enable Filter Maps.

If you find your shadows too sharp you can also use instead of Ray Traced Shadows a Shadow Map, where you adjust in the "Shadow Map Params" rollout the Size and Sample Range to get a little bit softer shadow borders.
But usually Ray Traced Shadows is the way to go as this comes closest to the WW assets.


Damfoos wrote:
Still couldn't figure how to make shp builder export gifs properly.

no one did. this feature is broken.
export the frames as png files with xcc mixer and then use (free & portable app) Ulead Gif Animator or some other program to create the gif.

_________________
SHP Artist of Twisted Insurrection:  Nod buildings

Public SHPs
X-Mech Calendar (28 Mechs for GDI and Nod)
5 GDI, 5 Nod, 1 Mutant, 1 Scrin unit, 1 GDI building

Tools
Image Shaper______TMP Shop______C&C Executable Modifier

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