Modeling with Blender

[Remotehorst]

The blderick.pie does not have a base plate that is part of the model.

Ok i dont know what that means, but i will remove the plate.

PS. The rotating arms if animated will hit your base plate

I Dont think that they rotate completely.
As far as i know they only move up and down a bit.

This model is inspired by a real oil well:

[Berg]

Excellent Copy you have made.

I like your textures


Regards Berg

[Remotehorst]

Thank you

I think i got to make it again and better, because of animation and a bit to much polys.
But im not sure about the poly-count that is ok for a building.

I need to test the animation and see if it would work when animated.

I can make the textures far better. This textures took about 5 minutes in setup.
Like i said quick and dirty.

My question is: Can the new Oil well be a bit bigger than the original? Because it looks so small. A vehicle compared to the oil well is IMHO not in a correct ratio. To provide a realistic look and feeling, the ratio is very important.

[macuser]

Very interesting! Exactly this was my idea.

Looks futuristic and a bit scaring if you hear the sound too, but you cant identify it as a oilwell then.
Maybe we can find a hybrid solution.

Thanks macuser, but i think i could be better if i had a concept.

Edit: Oops.

I compared the model with the standard Oil well. And now i got the feeling that i used about ten times more verts.
Maybe i should reduce it, and my model is much to highpoly?

no don't worry about it you need a high poly anyhow. Besides, the current models use far less poly anyhow than we want - we want to use the max .

steps:

1. create highpoly (any amount will do as long as you have full details)
2. create a low poly copy
3. bake a normal map and AO map from highpoly to low poly
4. make textures based on AO map

etc

[Berg]

My question is: Can the new Oil well be a bit bigger than the original? Because it looks so small. A vehicle compared to the oil well is IMHO not in a correct ratio. To provide a realistic look and feeling, the ratio is very important.

This is also a problem I have often looked at, It has been debated on the forum before but when you get to learn more about the models you will see the restrictions please on them with code and the definitions of structures ETC.

Buildings are defined in size and character in Text Files in your warzone data/base/stats/structure.txt If you get realy involed with the models and not just replace the look you can addjust the size etc there and other places.

Regards Berg

[Remotehorst]

@ macuser

This is the common way that im familiar with.
Thanks for the info and Good night.

[Olrox]

@Remotehorst

I commend you on your efforts! Your modeling skills are more than enough to produce good quality content for WZ. A small flaw that is very commonly present on pretty much every model from new WZ artists is a certain gap of porportion between the size of the polygons in the model - the usual zoom level is rather far from most models, especially small ones, so it is important to aim for a few things as you keep focusing your skills on WZ modeling (it is a bit specific indeed): Small models like the oil derrick shouldn't have too many polygons, but since derricks aren't THAT common, you could aim for something like 100 with a hard limit of 125 tri's. I know that this is far from what the most recent-past games (2003~2007) can handle, but one of the main issues with WZ is that even if you have a decent chipset, the graphics engine will have trouble with too many polygons (AFAIK, texture page size isn't a big problem when compared to poly count).

Another important thing is that, no matter how much polygons you use, they should all be of similar proportions (disconsidering specific base structures where you'll have large flat faces), because if the players' eyes aren't able to catch all the geometry details from a medium zoom level, you're really wasting polygons, which is really bad given the limitations of the graphics engine. Put short, you must make sure that the player will be able to spot the difference between different faces, because if he can't, the performance will have an uninteresting setback, and that's specially bad in the case of the outdated graphics engine that WZ uses.

I believe that all of those points are crucial for developing quality artwork for Warzone, and that's why I'm directly exposing them to you - I don't want to look like the snotty know-it-all, but I've worked with WZ models for a fair ammount of time and I think that new artists could make good use of some direct information

I'm away from the forums right now, idk until when I'll be, and I hope that's a decent reason for me to come here and write a handful of paragraphs all of a sudden - Macuser told me that you were starting to make models and might be interested to join AR, so I wanted to come here and say that you're just fine: I can foresee that you shouldn't have trouble to adequate your craft to produce things that are coherent with WZ's limitations, and I can guarantee that it'll be an interesting experience if you're willing to work with low-poly modeling in the future. If you can make low-poly models for warzone and retain high-quality details, you can do the same for any game that I know, and that should be interesting for anyone that's into game modelling.

WZ got heart and that's what makes us love it, making its limitations seem smaller when you're into it. But if you are able to produce content that fits the game and runs well, you have my admiration as a great artist, such as the guys from the AR team already do!

Again, I'm glad to see a new good-willing artist among WZ fans! I wish you good luck, great patience and bright inspiration on your experiences with producing artwork for WZ2100. But enough of myself, for now!

Best regards to everyone,
~Olrox

[Buginator]

Here is version 01a of the oil well.
Maybe this looks as old as the original oil wells, but i didnt have the time to make a new concept that looks a bit more futuristic.

The textures are just quick and dirty and not final.

The mesh got 428 verticies, but it can be reduced a bit, if i remove the bottom faces and some of the faces that are clipping inside other parts of the mesh. (maybe about 80 verts could be removed)

Edit:
I also got the idea to make a kind of Pipeline that goes around the well.
After all the oil gots to flow somewhere. But this would cost about another hundred verts.
I think it would look much better then.

Hey, pretty good!
Are you up for a challenge ?
I was looking for a new model for the Super Transport, currently, it is using the same one from the Campaign game.
Let's see what you can come up with.
This time, I am not giving design directions, since the last time I did that, well... People have no taste.

[Jorzi]

Hello and welcome to the wz community
macuser already told you about our project, art revolution. Our goal is currently to remake all the models from the alpha campaign.
You talked about being interested in a post-apocalyptic patched-together style. I think that style would fit the scavengers pretty well. Would you be interested in remaking them?

By the way, if you want to import the original models for reference, there are some pretty good import scripts for blender 2.49 available here: http://developer.wz2100.net/browser/svn ... ls/blender
To import .pie models you need the pie.py, pie_common.py and pie_import.py files. Just dump them in the scripts folder and it should work.
You can get the models by going to your warzone install directory and extracting the base.wz file using winrar/7zip/whatever

[Remotehorst]

Thank you all for the nice welcome!

Im sure that i can handle the limitations of WZ and make the best out of it, since you all provided good informations for me.

Are you up for a challenge ?
I was looking for a new model for the Super Transport, currently, it is using the same one from the Campaign game.
Let's see what you can come up with.

Sure! I like challenges.

You talked about being interested in a post-apocalyptic patched-together style. I think that style would fit the scavengers pretty well. Would you be interested in remaking them?

For Sure. I think thats a real big challenge.
I need some time to get inspired and make some concepts.
Very hard to use less polys and get that style with a good look.

Here is my latest model: The Powerplant.

It still needs some adjustments because the texture doesnt look so nice like it does in blender.
I want to give the chopper a more realistic look, and the Concrete will get some design elements like playercolor and
maybe some random number or stuff like that.

The textures will also get some wires to connect the coils.
These wires will be drawn on the model and the new baseplate.
The wire-idea is inspired by berg! Thanks again for that.

The Powerrings need to be aligned a bit better. I got some problems with finding the right position.
Also it would be cool if these Rings could be rotated 45 degrees.

I think the Rings are better in this constellation because the player can cleary see how much power the plant generates.
But if the rotation is not possible or its too much coding, i will make them like they where before. This decision is up to the community i guess.

[Remotehorst]

Sorry for doubleposting, but i want to show you the Plant wit a bit more detailed textures and i also made it bigger.

There will be some changes to the texture, maybe in the next few days. The model itself will stay the same.
Please forgive me that i didnt align the power rings.

There are some issues with the shadow dropped onto the backside of the building.
Maybe this can be removed, but i dont know how. Only way that i can think of, is rotating it as it was before.
But then it would be much smaller than now.

But now i want to try my skills on the transporter.

[JDW]

Here is my latest model: The Powerplant.

Now that's a really cool concept. I like the direction in which it is going. You should probably start your own independent project like Berg has.

[Remotehorst]

Thank you

But i think the following:
The lot is more than the sum of its parts.

So i ask myself why there would be a reason to make a own project, when there are already existing projects?
Im Supporting any WZ project. Because it doesnt matter to me, who i help. It matters THAT i do it.

Its not only the goal to make WZ better. Its also the goal to make myself better. So the way is the goal.

Im modelling very often, and learn from the big designers by only using my eyes and my brain.
The technique is learned with tutorials. But the ability is learned to copy the best designers of the world.
To do this, you only need a clear view.

I dont want to be a "know-it-all", i only want to encourage the community to reach higher goals.
Best way to do this, is by giving anybody my experience.
One of my favourite quotation is:

"The only thing wich you can share and it gets more by sharing it, is knowledge!"

To me it is a shame to keep knowledge private.
If you are modeling, you should ask yourself. Why has it this shape? Why this color?
Is there something that i didnt notice? How did he make this effect? etc..

And most of the time its the little things that you dont notice conscious, that make a model outstanding.
I think the key to mastering perfect models is to use the golden ratio for any model.
But that would be too much for a game.

I for myself are contented with my models, but that means that i still want to get better than now.
So i am still glad if someone makes a suggestion or gives me criticism.

Now you got a clear view about my mental attitude.
I hope that i spelled everything correctly, because im from germany and use a translator for some of the words.


Greetings

Remotehorst

[lav_coyote25]

your message is clear. thankyou. excellent words and work.

[JDW]

Yes, excellent words indeed