Baelkin Posted June 21, 2009 Author Share Posted June 21, 2009 Uagh! Just tried rendering the UVW template I've laid out in 2048 x 2048 pixels, and noticed that due to how much stuff is crammed onto the template some of the minor bits are pretty difficult to see. If I render the template in a larger format (ie. 4096 x 4096) the details get picked up a lot better, but it also means the texture file gets quite bloated in size, and I'm also pretty sure the game itself needs to work much harder to render such high resolution textures on the models. This kind of puts me into a dilemma between a crisp UVW template with a huge filesize associated with it, and a slightly wonky template with an acceptable file size. Alternately I can adopt a more radical approach and split the model and thus the template into two, allowing me to use two different texture files with lower resulution as I won't have to cram an entire armour's worth of polygon surface onto a single template. Hmm... Meditate on this I will and a decision take I must. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neunen Posted June 21, 2009 Share Posted June 21, 2009 if you find yourself completely torn, my 2 cents would be to go with the multiple texture files.i shied away from that for a long time, but in the end, you may be able to make more use of the space and still keep the sizes minimal...or you could always work on the texture in 4096, then resize it down to 2048 once done. i guess there are pros to each side.. either way, im excited to see how the texturing comes along. cheers,neunen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted June 21, 2009 Author Share Posted June 21, 2009 if you find yourself completely torn, my 2 cents would be to go with the multiple texture files.i shied away from that for a long time, but in the end, you may be able to make more use of the space and still keep the sizes minimal...or you could always work on the texture in 4096, then resize it down to 2048 once done. i guess there are pros to each side.. either way, im excited to see how the texturing comes along. cheers,neunen Thanks for the input. After messing around a bit with different size textures and templates, I split the model up such that multiple texture files could be used. It seems like this will make it much easier to make the textures later due to the fact that the templates become "tighter" with more template real-estate used, and the UVWs of the various sub-elements can be clustered closer together (which makes the template easier to navigate). Guess it's time to get riggin', so I can get the armour working in-game now that the texture issue is solved! :D Edit: Just got a small brainfart and decided to make a basic normal map baked from Max as it'll save me a lot of trouble later when the time comes to add detail and other small gewgaws on the texture. It requires me to model a few details on a copy of the low poly model, but I think the time spent doing this will be well worth it later. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nero1534 Posted June 21, 2009 Share Posted June 21, 2009 Hey Baelkin! Glad to see you're working on the armor again! :) I was kinda sad that you had given up, seeing as how you've come so far into the armor, to just give up like that kinda demoralized (or however the f*&! you spell it) me. Anyways, the armor looks great so far! :thumbsup: Hope to see the day the armor gets released! Don't expect to hear from me much though, as i've come down with a bad headcold Dx but i'm getting better...just a matter of time...(bum bum BUUUM) <_< Seeya on the flip-side stretch!t3h m0dz0rz w331 h331 m3, Nero. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted June 23, 2009 Author Share Posted June 23, 2009 Spent the entire day skinning, but for some reason or other my model crashes during export with the skin modifier attached to it, meaning I screwed up somewhere during the skinning process. :wallbash: Bah, guess I'll just have to keep trying. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Expresate Posted June 23, 2009 Share Posted June 23, 2009 It's like God doesn't want you to release this. Do it anyway! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted June 24, 2009 Author Share Posted June 24, 2009 It's like God doesn't want you to release this. Do it anyway! Nah, it's just due to lack of experience. I'm still very much a 3ds max and armour building novice so I have to learn and re-learn as I go along the process, making it take much longer than if I were a more practiced user - and then I make a ton of minor mistakes, which makes everything take much longer than if I had the proper technique, which you can't aquire without practice (and making a lot of mistakes). In any case, I made a basic model export test and NifSkope implementation of the armour and it looked pretty good in-game. The point was to see if I could export the model proper and get it to work, so is was just crudely rigged without joint articulation and thus looked a little comical when I moved my character around. Hopefully I the fully rigged version will be just as easy to setup in NifSkope, but with my luck I'll probably run into more problems when that time comes. :happy: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted June 24, 2009 Author Share Posted June 24, 2009 What the f#&¤...! Is it just me or is the skin modifier really pissy about what you can and cannot change while it's applied? I had to make a few cuts on the mesh to allow it to deform better around the waist, but seemingly this screwed up the skin around the model's calves and knees - so instead of bending like a leg normally would, the part of the model rigged to the calf just got pulled towards the ankle when rotating the bone. Now I have to reskin those parts all over, yet another stupid mistake getting in my way postponing my progress. :pinch: I really feel like pressing the :nuke: button right now... maybe I should load up Fallout 3 and go on a Fat Boy killing spree and vent some frustrations. :teehee: Edit: I feel like a dumbass right now. When selecting multiple bones and rotating them, 3ds max uses the average centerpoint of the selected bones as the axis and not the local axis of them, which leads me to believe that this was in fact the issue and not the skin itself - so once again I have thrown a log on my road through not knowing my way around max as well as I should. Edit: Once again, I can't stress enough that UVW's should be the last thing on your list simply due to the fact that you might have to alter the mesh during the skinning process, which in turn might require you to edit your UVW map. Especially if you find the need to add some geometry as new faces added to the mesh *will* screw up your UVW template, even with the "preserve UV" option ticked in your Edit Geometry rollout. Cutting is ok, but making new polys is not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baelkin Posted June 25, 2009 Author Share Posted June 25, 2009 Well... this is just turning out randy-dandy. Due to the fact I had to adjust and change my mesh quite a bit to get it nicely skinned, I now have to redo about 70% of the UVW map and, as if that wasn't bad enough, re-bake the specular and normal map because the UVW won't look exactly the same as the one I baked the previous maps off of. I feel like I'm going in circles at the moment, I keep returning to stages of the project that I thought I had put behind me. Guess that's just part of the process unless you are a veteran modeller/skinner/UVW artist, but it's still goddamned annoying. :pinch: Edit: Luckily pelt mapping and relax makes UVW mapping a breeze. :wub: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Expresate Posted June 25, 2009 Share Posted June 25, 2009 Well, think about it. Once you're done with this, you'll be that much better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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