Re-done PIEs

[Delphinio]

New left wheels. You know, I found out, it's pretty much impossible to make good-looking wheels. When I make it better, rounder, it just looks weird. I did all that math for nothing.  >:(

well not so impossible : D (NTW Mod)

[Computerboy319]

If you say so.
And, new flamer (seems a bit small, might make it bigger later:)
Flamer in PIE Slicer:

*Note: That cyborg arm texture is a placeholder until I can make a texture of hoses coming from the tanks.
Flamer in-game:

Identifiable as a flamer, at least. Hmm...you know, I have some new ideas...gonna go back and add some headlights to the wheels, go and team-color everything that needs to be team-colored. Hey, is there a color to make something partially transparent? I was thinking of seeing if I could add light to the headlights. Maybe not a light-up-the-world effect, but just a semi-transparent light beam in front of them.

[Watermelon]

If you say so.
And, new flamer (seems a bit small, might make it bigger later:)
Flamer in PIE Slicer:

*Note: That cyborg arm texture is a placeholder until I can make a texture of hoses coming from the tanks.
Flamer in-game:

Identifiable as a flamer, at least. Hmm...you know, I have some new ideas...gonna go back and add some headlights to the wheels, go and team-color everything that needs to be team-colored. Hey, is there a color to make something partially transparent? I was thinking of seeing if I could add light to the headlights. Maybe not a light-up-the-world effect, but just a semi-transparent light beam in front of them.

warzone uses unused connectors as light on landzone iirc,maybe we can use connectors within a fixed range to cast transparent 'light column' to light up the terrain/unit.

i (or any other oldschool wz modeler) can tell you all about pie animation... just tell me what you want to know.

atm, we *could* rig up a few anims for that using the existing pie anim format, assuming there are a few source changes to play the right anim at the right time, but i promise you it wouldn't be pretty. the best and cleanest way, by far, is to look into the code that makes the vtol "jet" gfx work while in flight (uses the "team colors" texture coords as the frames for the texture anim), and extend that to the ground propulsion types. since vehicles, iirc, don't move in reverse in warzone, then we really only need to replicate the code as used for the vtol jet gfx and it should work. later on, variable playback (turning) and reverse playback (going backwards) on the same anims would be nice.

the jet animation is a hack,I think warzone uses 'frame' of a pie as both teamcolor selector and framenumber,so I guess you cannot have a pie with teamcolor to display animation properly...

[kage]

warzone uses unused connectors as light on landzone iirc,maybe we can use connectors within a fixed range to cast transparent 'light column' to light up the terrain/unit.

that's definitely a wzr souce mod, then.

the jet animation is a hack,I think warzone uses 'frame' of a pie as both teamcolor selector and framenumber,so I guess you cannot have a pie with teamcolor to display animation properly...

precisely, but if you look into it, you'll find that the jet gfx are a *separate* pie file -- we'd just do the same thing for propulsion: anything that doesn't "move" is part of the base propulsion, and everything that does need to animate while moving (treads, wheels, etc) is a "gfx pie". certainly, this does prevent us from using something like teamcolor jet-flames, or teamcolor tank treads, but it allows us to use the stuff already in place, rather than creating something new (and when you look at all the stuff we want to add to the model format, you realize that if we have to change *anything* that would break format compatibility, then we might as well adopt a new format)

[Hatsjoe]

I call it:

Ugly ugly ugly pre pre pre pre pre alpha VIPER TRACKED PROPULSION

[lav_coyote25]

looks like pre ww2 christie type suspension.

http://www.btinternet.com/~ian.a.paters ... rtanks.htm

scroll down the page...

[Watermelon]

I call it:

Ugly ugly ugly pre pre pre pre pre alpha VIPER TRACKED PROPULSION

actually your alpha viper tracked propulsion is too good to be used in warzone imo...esp those sprockets inside treads which increase the polygon counts to a unacceptable level...

[Hatsjoe]

I know and it was never meant to be used in warzone. This was created in 3dsmax and has a poly count of about 100.000 ? Consider it concept art :d

[kage]

that's really damned good, though. even the tread width and composition are right for a vehicle of that size, though i might point out that many tracked vehicles of that size would have probably about 2 large wheels in total, whereas a complex suspension like that would probably be found on something the size of a python tank. if warzone supported a format that was friendly with proper support for multi-poly texture wrapping, you could probably do those wheels in very nearly the same level of detail with a great reduction in the number of polys (replacing the front face of the "spoked" wheels with a texture that was transparent on all the areas with slots, thereby only needing 3 polys per "slot" (i'm not up with the terminology...).

that is damned fine work at any rate.

[Hatsjoe]

that's really damned good, though. even the tread width and composition are right for a vehicle of that size, though i might point out that many tracked vehicles of that size would have probably about 2 large wheels in total, whereas a complex suspension like that would probably be found on something the size of a python tank. if warzone supported a format that was friendly with proper support for multi-poly texture wrapping, you could probably do those wheels in very nearly the same level of detail with a great reduction in the number of polys (replacing the front face of the "spoked" wheels with a texture that was transparent on all the areas with slots, thereby only needing 3 polys per "slot" (i'm not up with the terminology...).

that is damned fine work at any rate.

To be very honest: The thing was modelled in about 45 mins and i really don't know anything about suspension systems. I just went with what i felt looked right. And YES, If done correctly the poly count could probably be reduced to around 1000 or something and still look good.

This looks cool

As you can see, all the weels have been build up out of multiple height segments. Those are not nessecairy. And the poly count on the chain thingies is also way to high.The 2 big wheels are really not the problem. By looking at the mesh you can see that i didn't really put alot of thought into it.

[kage]

To be very honest: The thing was modelled in about 45 mins and i really don't know anything about suspension systems. I just went with what i felt looked right. And YES, If done correctly the poly count could probably be reduced to around 1000 or something and still look good.

what warzone really needs is support for multiple levels-of-detail for the same model, to be displayed at different distances, so that, in this example, from a medium distance, each tread could be represented in, perhaps, 40 polys, and each wheel would be represented by maybe an octagonal prism. at long distance, each side of the propulsion could be represented by a classic warzone style pie with maybe 20 polys (though with textures that make it look like the high-poly design).

This looks cool
As you can see, all the weels have been build up out of multiple height segments. Those are not nessecairy. And the poly count on the chain thingies is also way to high.The 2 big wheels are really not the problem. By looking at the mesh you can see that i didn't really put alot of thought into it.

indeed. i have to wonder why wireframe graphics aren't more popular 

[Hatsjoe]

indeed. i have to wonder why wireframe graphics aren't more popular 

Nobody should worry about making textures either.

If you do multiple levels of detail, wouldn't the models sorta like start jumping from one level to another when you zoom in/out or scroll the view? I'm pretty sure this has been done in many other RTS games but there aren't any coming to mind . Can someone give me an example? I d like to look in to it a bit more .

[DevUrandom]

I think the usual technique is either morphing (high performance requirements) or simply by changing early enough,  so that you don't yet see the difference between texture and polys.

[Hatsjoe]

I think the usual technique is either morphing (high performance requirements) or simply by changing early enough,  so that you don't yet see the difference between texture and polys.

Morphing would be the hardest to implement i think since a standard way of morphing (used for facial animations etc.) can only be done if mesh 1 has the same amount of vertices as mesh 2. This technique would be alot of programming me thinks but morphing from low poly to high poly would be even harder :s

[Computerboy319]

Still doing concept drawings for cyborgs, but figured I might as well show off a picture I had to upload anyway. It's a pieslicer shot of the upgraded viper with both matching prototype VTOL PIEs (may be subject to change)

The wings should resemble those on the FB-22.