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Before you ask; Yes, the shading will look like that in-game

I went with vertex color occlusion because I didn't want to sacrifice texture quality. I also didn't want to have a ton of unique rock textures that would've just boosted the amount of space the map took up. You get a very similar look (if you have enough geo to play with) and it takes up less space and memory to boot!

I am using this technique and more in my up-coming map. It looks pretty good if I might say so myself It's still a long ways out though.

EDIT: I forgot to mention; They are rocks BTW haha

Looks good.

The Nasal Abyss wrote:EDIT: I forgot to mention; They are rocks BTW haha

I thought it was some arm of somthing
But it's a great rock wall!

cool rockwall, vertexocclusion looks great!
but should there be also some occlusion from below caused by the ground on which the rocks rest?

awesome rocks

DarthD.U.C.K. wrote:cool rockwall, vertexocclusion looks great!
but should there be also some occlusion from below caused by the ground on which the rocks rest?

There will be, but I didn't have it for this particular build. This was a test, more or less. It'll be there for the final model, because this particular mesh will be a one-off in the map.

Though, for my other rocks and stuff (that will be using the same technique) I probably won't have the occlusion from the ground that so they can be totally modular.

Edit; Also, I was meaning to ask if there was any way to just render something with diffuse and vertex colors. Any time I try to render my vertex colored stuff the default xsi light messes it up.

How exactly do you want to render the vertex colors with the diffuse? If you want to overlay/multiply/darken the diffuse, this might be the way to go(dunno if theres a faster/better way, Im not that familiar with all the rendering stuff):
Its not that easy to see, but the grey texture is colored in the render output. The Mix_2_Colors output is connected to the Phong diffuse input. In case youre not familiar with the material tree, abc and Image are texture(abc) and the Image node(Image), which then lets you output the texture into other nodes such as Phong or Lambert. They get auto created if you choose Nodes>Texture>Image.
It of course is possible to connect the Color_Map_Lookup output to the ambient or spec or any spot in the Phong Node, too.

I just wanted to render it as if the color map was the lighting. No other lighting, just the color map "multiplying" the diffuse. That shader setup will probably work fine. I'll try it out and get back to you.

I was just curious. I won't use this other than previewing my meshes and seeing how it will possibly look in-game to cut down on unnecessary exports and the like. This isn't terribly important.

EDIT: With further experimenting, I could have found this out myself. Sorry for wasting your time Ande.

EDIT 2: I'm side-stepping this by just screen-capturing the "constant" shaded and "textured decal" views identically and composting in photoshop. Not the best way to do this I'm sure, but it gives me exactly what I want

Just thought I would say this for anyone that was curious about viewing their vertex colored models like how they will be in-game.

@The Nasal Abyss
That looks awesome. I can't wait for your next map. Your last map stayed in my addon for months.

My simple model. And yes it will hurt a lot ingame.

Simple but nice .

I hate doing UV's. It's been 3 hours and I'm only like 1/3 the way done with this wall



This also has the ambient occlusion vertex colors applied to it.

that looks really good!
if you dont like UVing, you should try out roadkill, i tcan automaticlal unwrap models so that they wont have any uneven stretching.

I may have to check that out. My patience is running thin.

EDIT: Darth Duck, you are the man. What would've been a days work was done in ~6 minutes and looks better than what XSI's UV tools would've let me do. Thanks dude. Results below.....
For reference, this is what the mesh looks like without the vertex occlusion:
The vertex occlusion really adds depth and a nice effect to the model. I'll probably be doing this to every one of my meshes from here on out!

nice wall! looks really good

The occlusion looks great, I really like what I see.

This now may be a bit off topic, but the link for the Roadkill download in the XSI FAQ leads me to a page where you can download it by clicking on a link, but that one delivers me to a "not found" site.
Has anyone got a working link for me?

Excellent (i have never understood roadkill ).

Nice stones . A pinch of color on the stone(moss/colored stone)would make it a bit more interesting.
I would not rely too much on roadkill though(maybe because I never used it...). It speeds things up, yes, but being able to decently UV your models will always be useful. I like to create my textures by hand, too, without using photos(depends on the situation, but usually is slower and doesnt look as real). The best way would be to mix both of it, I suppose...

The better you get at something, the less you "hate" it, too. I noticed that with math in school. If I didnt understand it/didnt practice enough I "hated" it, although when I did understand it I liked it rather well. Its the same with UVs(and weighting), when I began doing it, I "hated" it. Now, its more like a break from the "artistic" stuff(texturing,sculpting/modeling,[animation]). ;D Good work reading all this!

ANDEWEGET wrote:;D Good work reading all this!

It was interesting to read it .

The Nasal Abyss wrote:I may have to check that out. My patience is running thin.

EDIT: Darth Duck, you are the man. What would've been a days work was done in ~6 minutes and looks better than what XSI's UV tools would've let me do. Thanks dude. Results below.....

Hidden/Spoiler:

For reference, this is what the mesh looks like without the vertex occlusion:

Hidden/Spoiler:

The vertex occlusion really adds depth and a nice effect to the model. I'll probably be doing this to every one of my meshes from here on out!

Very nice!

woah, this is awesome, i love it, great work