Model UGLY's Vines
- Thread starter UGLYdumpling
- Start date
@DaBeatz : "I am really liking that! Some more variation in height and/or thickness would've been nice though"
Do you mean on the model or the texture? Cuz this texture is only the proxy. Boylee will be painting the textures for this model.
@Draco18s : The leaves sticking out, the "strays" as I've called them are to add interesting variation to the ivy from the side. Otherwise it's a big rectangular lump of leaves. This *may* change if you read on ...
@Acumen : Yeah dude, I can see your point.
I decided to create a single plane for two reasons. The first is to conserve on the number of textures attached to the staticmesh. The secondary, and most important for me was variation. I didn't want the ivy to look copy-pasted which is the risk if I had multiple planes ... however ...
Now that I've achieved a look i'm happy with.
Looking forward to the 4 other models for this ivy.
One that supports horizontal tiling, and three smaller variations for adding ivy features in tiny areas of the map ...
As I consider these, I'm coming to realize that your approach of 'patches' would really make adding foliage to these smaller vine meshes a lot easier.
Otherwise, Boylee will have to paint four custom foliage textures for each variation.
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- Jun 11, 2009
- 704
- 628
http://www.andyzibits.com/tut_maya_low_poly.html
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1020341#post1020341
kinda works the same for every foliage, i guess.
I'm by no mean an expert for foliage stuff, i just noticed, that if you want to make it kinda dense, the planes really help to create volume quickly with 3-4 different planes set up. and if it's rather loose n30n's approach is fine as well and it doesn't blow up the polycount too much.
I mean in the end your background plane adds up to the textures. if you had one 512² with 4-5 leaf (big, small, long, short) variations on it, you wouldn't have any visual repetition but could really spice it up volume wise. I mean let's say you had 4 leaf plane variations. Each can be rotated multiple times and mirrored and even scaled a bit. There won't be too much repetition on this, i think
It's just, and i noticed that on my iys. If you're a lazy cat like me and just randomly rotate and move these things around it can look repetetive. But if you kinda watch out for obvious spots, most of the time it's just another mirror or small rotate operation and you're good to go.
But i can feel your pain. I hated the ivy's after every little change i had to make I hate to learn new stuff anyways, cause I'm a lazy bitch !
So gogogo, finish and move on
http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1020341#post1020341
kinda works the same for every foliage, i guess.
I'm by no mean an expert for foliage stuff, i just noticed, that if you want to make it kinda dense, the planes really help to create volume quickly with 3-4 different planes set up. and if it's rather loose n30n's approach is fine as well and it doesn't blow up the polycount too much.
I mean in the end your background plane adds up to the textures. if you had one 512² with 4-5 leaf (big, small, long, short) variations on it, you wouldn't have any visual repetition but could really spice it up volume wise. I mean let's say you had 4 leaf plane variations. Each can be rotated multiple times and mirrored and even scaled a bit. There won't be too much repetition on this, i think
It's just, and i noticed that on my iys. If you're a lazy cat like me and just randomly rotate and move these things around it can look repetetive. But if you kinda watch out for obvious spots, most of the time it's just another mirror or small rotate operation and you're good to go.
But i can feel your pain. I hated the ivy's after every little change i had to make
I hate to learn new stuff anyways, cause I'm a lazy bitch !So gogogo, finish and move on
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@Acumen : Thanks for the linkilage man! Some really good infoz in dare. 8-P
I'm experimenting as I go, so I'm allowing myself to make mistakes - i don't mind admitting that.
Kind of a pseudo-blog approach going on in my modeling threads so I hope folks can be patient with me. I'm not posting finished/polished work cuz I'm a noob gunning for critique. I also want my final assets to stand the test of time.
I'm gonna go for more volume on the ivy and see what happens.
I'll finish this Acumen, not to worry.
I'm offering GOOD and CHEAP service atm.
I'm experimenting as I go, so I'm allowing myself to make mistakes - i don't mind admitting that.
Kind of a pseudo-blog approach going on in my modeling threads so I hope folks can be patient with me. I'm not posting finished/polished work cuz I'm a noob gunning for critique. I also want my final assets to stand the test of time.
I'm gonna go for more volume on the ivy and see what happens.
I'll finish this Acumen, not to worry.
I'm offering GOOD and CHEAP service atm.
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I'm offering GOOD and CHEAP service atm.
Speed, price, quality: pick any two.
@Exist : I'll keep that in mind, thanks!
ok, so you'll see the texture file I created at the bottom of this image.
It's a collection of leaf arrangements I assembled in Maya and took a screenshot of.
Then created small clusters that all fit in a square.
Took about 20mins to assemble these leaves together into a clump.
It has some promise, no? Lots of tweaking so that light hits it right tho ... meh.
ok, so you'll see the texture file I created at the bottom of this image.
It's a collection of leaf arrangements I assembled in Maya and took a screenshot of.
Then created small clusters that all fit in a square.
Took about 20mins to assemble these leaves together into a clump.
It has some promise, no? Lots of tweaking so that light hits it right tho ... meh.
couple updates and some questions.
UPDATE:
latest model ... some more work to do though.
...namely crashing some more mesh into the existing volume to suggest leaf chutes growing off the vines.
TECHNICAL ISSUES:
Having a display issue with the model ... it's occuring on ATI and vVIDIA cards in Hammer.
Valve model viewer display things as expected ... after the model is compiled it displays just as the valve model viewer predicted ... but INSIDE HAMMER it's buggy and wierd.
Anyone have a clue what the matter is?
Thanks in advance for your help!
UPDATE:
latest model ... some more work to do though.
...namely crashing some more mesh into the existing volume to suggest leaf chutes growing off the vines.
TECHNICAL ISSUES:
Having a display issue with the model ... it's occuring on ATI and vVIDIA cards in Hammer.
Valve model viewer display things as expected ... after the model is compiled it displays just as the valve model viewer predicted ... but INSIDE HAMMER it's buggy and wierd.
Anyone have a clue what the matter is?
Thanks in advance for your help!
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update:
Boylee and i chatted about my latest model. At the end we decided we weren't thrilled with it and discussed crashing meshes into the vines rather than clustering general planes with the leafy texture.
Acumen and I have also been in touch during this process ... he gave me a few links, this one was very inspiring.
Decided to rebuild the ivy again using Zibit's approach, i find it a lot more appealing and clean.
I'm not a big fan of UNnecessary noise.
Boylee and i chatted about my latest model. At the end we decided we weren't thrilled with it and discussed crashing meshes into the vines rather than clustering general planes with the leafy texture.
Acumen and I have also been in touch during this process ... he gave me a few links, this one was very inspiring.
Decided to rebuild the ivy again using Zibit's approach, i find it a lot more appealing and clean.
I'm not a big fan of UNnecessary noise.
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awlrightee then.
Ran into issues with my LOD - but many thanks to Sir Rexypants, I'm back on track.
Just did an LOD test and it passed with flying colors.
3054 hirez to 1262 polys lowrez across 3 LOD's.
one texture now instead of two
I'll be passing this to Boylee for texturing today.
Something final by next week i think.
i have three variations of this model - each progressively smaller.
They'll use the same texture as the original - so I only have to create and export the LODs.
So the hard work is over (and thank god for that)
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Pc_Madness
L4: Comfortable Member
- Aug 31, 2009
- 164
- 51
Yeah, I'm liking those more, the top part on the previous version was lacking in leaves.
ok, so here are the four primary variations.
All four sets have 2 LODs ... everything uses the same single texture file.
Looking at my planfile, there's still one set of variations missing. It allows the mapper to tile the ivy to any length and includes two 'bookend' bits that end the tiling off with a natural look rather than a straight line.
These are proxy textures. I believe there is a little normals editing i gotta do as well as I'm noticing some strange color variations in the model viewer i didn't notice in Maya or Max. hmph.
All four sets have 2 LODs ... everything uses the same single texture file.
Looking at my planfile, there's still one set of variations missing. It allows the mapper to tile the ivy to any length and includes two 'bookend' bits that end the tiling off with a natural look rather than a straight line.
These are proxy textures. I believe there is a little normals editing i gotta do as well as I'm noticing some strange color variations in the model viewer i didn't notice in Maya or Max. hmph.