Model showcase thread

How to create models in XSI and other 3D applications and make them work in Battlefront 1 & 2. Post models, tips for application usage and share anything XSI, 3DMax, SketchUp, etc.

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maxloef
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Post by maxloef »

Naboo Comunications Dish

Image

and on Qdins request

a wireframe shot ;)

Image
DarkLuke14
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Post by DarkLuke14 »

These are the first two models i've ever made

the first one is called Jelly doughnut (still working on it!!!)
the second is called The J star (still working on it)

1st: Image

2nd: Image
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Post by Qdin »

I like the 2nd one :P Pretty dreamish :D

I think it looks like bones there to the right..? Why do you have so many chains? :?

What kind of light did you use? And did you do anything particular to get the "color-scheme" on the outer light-ring? I've never really noticed if it's working per auto, or if you have to define the colors yourself 100%..? :?
Lord-Bandu

Post by Lord-Bandu »

Maxloaf , nice work. Hopefully you can use them to make a decent Naboo map ...something Pandemic didnt quite manage (esp. in the sequel)

A couple of tips (which you probably already know)

Image

http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/2040 ... opyfb2.jpg

If vertices arnt adding to the shape of the model , then its just adding to the poly count/lag for no reason.

The red circle indicates redundant vertices . Delete the the edge at the top . The blue line indicates a nice place to put your edge .

The while circles indicates some more wasted polies, however , your using them for a reason . This is ok because your not creating your own texture to fit the model..instead your creating the model to fit the (swbf)texture. Ideally , youd create a whole new texture from an unwrap of your model .. in which case the white circled polies would be redundant. Im pretty sure you know this . Im mainly using your model as a guinea pig for those that dont know :)
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Post by Qdin »

aww - a guinea pig :P

Bandu has some extremely strong points, there.

however, sometimes the edge in the red circle is there for making the UV's match the texture right.

It's really not our decision, but yours :wink:
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minilogoguy18
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Post by minilogoguy18 »

you dont need those extra edges for better UVs, you just gotta know how to UV map right so that everything is in proportion, UVs arent supposed to match a texture, a texture is painted for the UVs.
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Post by t551 »

Yes, mini, but to cut down on work, maxloef is utilizing the shipped Naboo textures.
Lord-Bandu

Post by Lord-Bandu »

Qdin wrote:aww - a guinea pig :P

Bandu has some extremely strong points, there.

however, sometimes the edge in the red circle is there for making the UV's match the texture right.

It's really not our decision, but yours :wink:
Thats my point. the red circled edge isnt helping the texture line up to the UV's ....the white circled parts are.

Unwrapping is easy , its the creating of the texture that takes time. However, since i presume Maxloaf doesnt want to spend time on a new texture , the way he's gone about fixing the texture to the UV's(in the white circled area) is fine (it doesnt add too many polies and probably outways the time that would be spent creating a new texture)

In the end, its better to cut up your model than to have loads of different textures on 1 model. A good tip is to create 1 massive pallet with all your map textures on , so that the engine is only looking for 1 (2 + the lowrez) throughout your map. However , that is difficult for swbf/2 because all textures have to be squared. A decent pallet for other games would be something like 512 x 2048 or higher(makes the tiling more economical). Basically lots of textures slows the map down more than a few extra polies.
DooFi

Post by DooFi »

Lord-Bandu wrote:A good tip is to create 1 massive pallet with all your map textures on , so that the engine is only looking for 1 (2 + the lowrez) throughout your map. However , that is difficult for swbf/2 because all textures have to be squared. A decent pallet for other games would be something like 512 x 2048 or higher(makes the tiling more economical). Basically lots of textures slows the map down more than a few extra polies.
Nope, that depends on the engine. Some engines like several small textures better, afaik. And some engines want textures to be squared.
I'd always make uvs and texes for each model and for big buildings it's okay to waste some polys on dividing polys for better UV mirror and overlaying. Many people forget that not only too many polys are bad for the performance, but also textures need lots of time to load into the graphics RAM


And guys, would you mind not to post 1280-screengrabs, especially when most of the picture shows the GUI of XSI -.-
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Post by minilogoguy18 »

i usually just do a render region of the maximized user view with the right settings its like taking a screen shot of the view, cause an actual render does NOT show game result, i dont even know why some people even take renders when it makes everything dark and just throws you off from what the texture is gonna look like in game. i try not to add edge loops for mirroring since you cant have any real uniqie detail without both sides being similar but thats just me, but max does have wasted polies, looks like a legoed primitives at their default subdivision settings, i hate it when people dont optimize.
RC-1290

Post by RC-1290 »

It's all going to be triangulated anyways.....
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minilogoguy18
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Post by minilogoguy18 »

that doesnt matter since triangulation DOES NOT add polygons, just edges, he has wasted polygons.
RC-1290

Post by RC-1290 »

ehm you might have more experience mini, but I'd say, when you divide a quad in two, you have two triangles....two poly gon s...
DooFi

Post by DooFi »

A mesh can have polygons with n vertices. So called N-Gons. Gon from old greek for vertex, I seem to remember. N for Number.
Since no engine and no renderer can render N-Gons (quads included) everything gets triangulated before it can be displayed. If you put a "non-trianglulated" model into an engine, it'll either triangulate on it's own, or just crash.
A quad with 4 vertices for example has a polycount of 1. Evidently. The engine does not care for this polycount, as it is only interested in the tri-count, which would be 2.
The more polygons or N-gons (which is pretty much the same, since poly means something like many), the more tris. Thats pretty self explanatory. So if you waste polys, you waste tris automatically.
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minilogoguy18
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Post by minilogoguy18 »

the JA compiler just calls you a dummy if you try to compile a quadrangulated model, with humanoid models its sometimes better to triangulate it yourself before export so areas like the shoulder are triangulated in the right direction so that the once quad 'folds' the way you want it to. after reading RCs post.. thats incorrect, XSI counts tris not polies as does the game engine since theres no accuarate way to count a polygon since it is anything thats 3 or more sided, 10th grade geometry will teach you this. you guys just need to set your primitive presets so that you dont create cylinders with 2 cap segments and 2 height segments since you usually dont need them since i see alot of people wasting mostly from using cylinders at that preset. right now i could take maxs models and make them myself and use less polies and probably squeeze more detail in while doing it and if your modeling the same as him RC i could do it to your models as well.

enough about all that though, if max is completing his models then it should be split into its own thread and this one locked since its a bunch of random off-topicness, if you look back on the first pages youll see me saying that it would eventually get this way...
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Post by t551 »

A great deal of this topic's bulk seems to come from your criticisms of others' work, Mini.
RC-1290

Post by RC-1290 »

He got you there :lol:

---
minilogoguy18 wrote:After reading RCs post.. thats incorrect, XSI counts tris not polies...
I see now I missinterpreted what you said, mini, sorry.
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Post by Qdin »

That's okay, RC' - we can forgive you :P

now, since all the questions more or less have been 'answered' for now, can we then move on?
Kyross

Post by Kyross »

Image
Few things out of weapon pack for JKA, Uruk Hai scimitar, sheild(being worked on), and my falchion.
Image
Quick starfighter of mine, Kassus class.
Image
A jellyfish. Don't ask. Don't think of asking. Walk away now.
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Post by Qdin »

Ky' you DO know I want to see it in Wireframe :roll:

I love the jellyfish :lol:
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