Re-done PIEs

Improving the artwork in Warzone2100 - not for mod discussions
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Computerboy319
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Re-done PIEs

Post by Computerboy319 »

Well, finally got my ass on PIE Slicer. Haven't yet figured out how to get these new PIEs into warzone.wz (can't figure out how to re-zip it the right way) or into warzone.wdg (can't figure out where to get makewdg.exe) but I can at least take pleasure in them in PIE Slicer. As far as textures go, they're either not assigned or I'm using default ones, but cegrocks is working on finding a texturer at school. Just wanted to show some pictures, see what you guys thought:
Image
This is the new viper. More polygons, longer, headlights, bubble canopy.
Image
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.  >:(
Image
New light mg turret and muzzle. Asymmetry is fun!
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New twin mg turret and muzzle. Aww, back to symmetry. :(
Image
New LIGHT left vtol wing. No good textures. Oh, well. Also did the FX for it, but it's not worth taking a picture of.

Well, just tell me what you think. I'm working on the heavy MG as we speak. It's good to be modding...and if you can tell me how to get it into the campaign, that would be nice.
Computerboy319
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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I basically keep getting a message telling me that the application has requested to be terminated in an unusual way. So, you know, if that helps.

EDIT: stderr.txt says: "error:      iV_ProcessIMD: file corrupt -F (TEXTURE)
error:      IMD load failed - trlmg1.pie"
Last edited by Computerboy319 on 31 Mar 2007, 07:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Watermelon
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Re: Re-done PIEs

Post by Watermelon »

you dont need to rezip them into warzone.zip or mp.zip,to get them into sp,just extract the components folder inside warzone.wz to your warzone folder and put/override pies in those extracted folders,e.g:
C:\warzone\components\bodies\ <-body pies
C:\warzone\components\weapons\ <-weapon pies
C:\warzone\components\prop\ <-propulsion pies

replacing multiplayer pie's is similar just appends new folder called 'mp' to warzone folder:
C:\warzone\mp\components\bodies\
etc etc

warzone textures are ok when running in low resolution like 640x480,but it will look very crappy when the texture is 'stretched' in higher resolution 1024x768+,maybe it's because the old textures are not designed for high resolution and warzone's superzoom aggravates the problem.

the second problem is probably because the texture you are using is not 512x512...
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
Computerboy319
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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But that's the thing, I'm using the default texpages that came with PIE Slicer. I haven't created any new ones or anything.
EDIT: Perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that my PIE Slicer can't open the pie files in warzone.wz? I've been modifying the files from Vanilla Warzone.wdg and using those.
Last edited by Computerboy319 on 31 Mar 2007, 07:58, edited 1 time in total.
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Watermelon
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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Computerboy319 wrote: But that's the thing, I'm using the default texpages that came with PIE Slicer. I haven't created any new ones or anything.
EDIT: Perhaps this might have something to do with the fact that my PIE Slicer can't open the pie files in warzone.wz? I've been modifying the files from Vanilla Warzone.wdg and using those.
the 2.0.x only supports png texture,so you have to edit the .pie file header with text editor(open it with any text editor,it's just plain text) after you create them with pie slicer,because the pie slicer always saves the texture info as pcx:

the old texture info created by pie slicer should look like this:
TEXTURE 0 page-25.pcx 256 256

you just need to change it to:
TEXTURE 0 page-25.png 256 256

and save,then put them into corresponding folders.

to use old pcx textures you will need to convert them into png with tool.
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
Computerboy319
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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Well, that got them working and in-game. They're just fine, but unfortunately, the turrets are kind of small to see and the anti-aliasing just makes it worse. Here's an in-game shot (I didn't finish assigning textures to the right wheels,) I'm off to bed and tomorrow I'm going to make bigger turrets.
Image
If there's a particular favorite weapon someone wants re-modelled, I can take a special request while I work my way through the order you find stuff in the campaign...I've currently got flamers, heavy MGs, and sensors qued up. I might take a break sometime to do buildings, but I really haven't made any drawings of what I think they should look like.
Last edited by Computerboy319 on 01 Apr 2007, 05:24, edited 1 time in total.
Giel
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Re: Re-done PIEs

Post by Giel »

Computerboy319 wrote: ... the turrets are kind of small to see and the anti-aliasing just makes it worse. ...
Well actually there is no anti-aliasing, so it really is the aliasing that makes it worse.
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Watermelon
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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Computerboy319 wrote: Well, that got them working and in-game. They're just fine, but unfortunately, the turrets are kind of small to see and the anti-aliasing just makes it worse. Here's an in-game shot (I didn't finish assigning textures to the right wheels,) I'm off to bed and tomorrow I'm going to make bigger turrets.
Image
If there's a particular favorite weapon someone wants re-modelled, I can take a special request while I work my way through the order you find stuff in the campaign...I've currently got flamers, heavy MGs, and sensors qued up. I might take a break sometime to do buildings, but I really haven't made any drawings of what I think they should look like.
I think the bodies and propulsion are the major things that make the whole model look crappy,and the scale of body/turret doesnt look right(small body with huge turret),most RTS games use 128x128 or 256x256 texture for each model,while 10-30 pie models share the same 256x256 or 512x512 texture in wz...I messed with the texture a bit and found out that you cant expect any miracles from the current texture 'pages',lets use viper's body texture page as example:

The viper's body texture is just a 28x70 area in a 512x512 texture 'page',it will always look crappy no matter how detailed this 28x70 area is,since 28x70 will be stretched many times when mapped into polygons in game with higher resolutions...so imo to improve the visual quality dramatically we need to find better texture and make the texture sharing between models more efficient.(the current page is wasting alot of space)
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
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kage
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Re: Re-done PIEs

Post by kage »

good work on the mg's... i'd tried for a long time to get nice looking mg's, but always failed. i agree with watermelon that it'd be nice if they were small, but i also agree with computeboy that they're probably to small to visually identify at normal zoom levels in combat. btw, since you're working on this, i've got my old high-poly propulsion mod posted somewhere on these forums: if you think any of them are useful to you, you're more than welcome to modify and use them at will (subject to terms of gpl).
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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I forgot to add:I think those wheels/tracks should be animated(either by using animation or 2D sprite like the cyborgs use,not sure how animation works in wz though),currently it looks a bit weird when everything just 'float' around...
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
Computerboy319
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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Re-did those MGs to make them a little easier to see in combat, and just to make them not look ridiculously small...re-did the muzzle flashes and tracers on the twin MG, though it's just a matter of re-locating them, real improvment will come later.
As far as textures, I do agree texturing is where the biggest improvments can be seen, but as far as I know it, PIE Slicer coding supports...I guess 99 texture pages? Who says we can't have one texture page serve, say, all the Project bodies, another do NP bodies, another do all the cannon variants, etc. That gives us much more room to have better textures. So, we might not have something with a 256x256 texture...but 100x100 is better than 10x8, isn't it? cegrocks is going to either learn how to do textures himself or find someone at school who will.
New pics:
Re-done MG in PIE Slicer
Re-done MGs in-game
Re-done Twin MG in PIE Slicer
Re-done Twin MGs in-game
So, yeah, they're bigger. Also, you can see how badly I did the textures on the wheels (I'm lazy. :P I'll do it later.)

Edit: In answer to Watermelon's question, currently, at least as I know it, WZ's animated textures run all the time, if they're there...I don't think you can choose to only animate when, say, the unit is moving. The animation for cyborgs is a little different, same thing with derricks...with those, that's actual animation, there's a separate PIE for each frame (though I can't figure out how to get just one to show in PIE Slicer...cyborgs are high up on the list of things that DESERATELY need to be re-modelled...I'm thinking something like the MAX Suits from Planetside)
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Re: Re-done PIEs

Post by Giel »

I'm not sure, but wouldn't it be possible to simply use one texturepage per model? (I know few if anything about OpenGL)
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Re: Re-done PIEs

Post by kage »

Watermelon wrote: I forgot to add:I think those wheels/tracks should be animated(either by using animation or 2D sprite like the cyborgs use,not sure how animation works in wz though),currently it looks a bit weird when everything just 'float' around...
that's the main reason my propulsion models (for the ground-based propulsion) looks really odd -- they look nice when a vehicle is sitting still, but the "floating" effect is *much* more pronounced when they're moving, because of the added detail. suffice it to say, if you guys add some way to cycle specific anims based on the action being performed (forward, backward, perhaps running anims for side of the prop that's on the "inside" of a turn slower than the other to give an accurate effect), then i can finally finish that mod.
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Watermelon
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Re: Re-done PIEs

Post by Watermelon »

Computerboy319 wrote: Re-did those MGs to make them a little easier to see in combat, and just to make them not look ridiculously small...re-did the muzzle flashes and tracers on the twin MG, though it's just a matter of re-locating them, real improvment will come later.
As far as textures, I do agree texturing is where the biggest improvments can be seen, but as far as I know it, PIE Slicer coding supports...I guess 99 texture pages? Who says we can't have one texture page serve, say, all the Project bodies, another do NP bodies, another do all the cannon variants, etc. That gives us much more room to have better textures. So, we might not have something with a 256x256 texture...but 100x100 is better than 10x8, isn't it? cegrocks is going to either learn how to do textures himself or find someone at school who will.
New pics:
Re-done MG in PIE Slicer
Re-done MGs in-game
Re-done Twin MG in PIE Slicer
Re-done Twin MGs in-game
So, yeah, they're bigger. Also, you can see how badly I did the textures on the wheels (I'm lazy. :P I'll do it later.)

Edit: In answer to Watermelon's question, currently, at least as I know it, WZ's animated textures run all the time, if they're there...I don't think you can choose to only animate when, say, the unit is moving. The animation for cyborgs is a little different, same thing with derricks...with those, that's actual animation, there's a separate PIE for each frame (though I can't figure out how to get just one to show in PIE Slicer...cyborgs are high up on the list of things that DESERATELY need to be re-modelled...I'm thinking something like the MAX Suits from Planetside)
It would cool if cegrocks can find someone with good texturing skills or he can do them himself,since we dont have anyone working on the textures as far as I know.The 'snake bodies' need sort of snakeskin texture to make them more unique imo.

The limits of texture page is 64 in source iirc,though you can change it to any number with very few changes in source files.The pieslicer limits require someone with extensive vb knowledge to modify the pieslicer source and recompile,but we dont have a decent vb programmer atm methinks...
that's the main reason my propulsion models (for the ground-based propulsion) looks really odd -- they look nice when a vehicle is sitting still, but the "floating" effect is *much* more pronounced when they're moving, because of the added detail. suffice it to say, if you guys add some way to cycle specific anims based on the action being performed (forward, backward, perhaps running anims for side of the prop that's on the "inside" of a turn slower than the other to give an accurate effect), then i can finally finish that mod.
using the velocity of a droid to determine whether to play 'move animation' or 'still animation' should be feasible,but I dont know how pie animation works,seems it's a multi-pie file like Computerboy said and it cannot be played/created with pie slicer it seems.
I'm not sure, but wouldn't it be possible to simply use one texturepage per model? (I know few if anything about OpenGL)
it's possible,but both wz renderer and pie format dont like it...
tasks postponed until the trunk is relatively stable again.
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Re: Re-done PIEs

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Watermelon wrote: The limits of texture page is 64 in source iirc,though you can change it to any number with very few changes in source files.The pieslicer limits require someone with extensive vb knowledge to modify the pieslicer source and recompile,but we dont have a decent vb programmer atm methinks...using the velocity of a droid to determine whether to play 'move animation' or 'still animation' should be feasible,but I dont know how pie animation works,seems it's a multi-pie file like Computerboy said and it cannot be played/created with pie slicer it seems.
it's possible,but both wz renderer and pie format dont like it...
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.
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