Rocket Launcher remake - part 4

I didn't finish the detailing yet, after a while my hand began to hurt a bit, I was using my girlfriend's graphic tablet and I'm not used to it yet. Anyway, the details are sketched out, and I've added some gray here and there to make the metal parts look a bit like metal.

I don't like how the details look sort of organic right now, I'll have to read a bit about hard surface sculpting.

Few days ago Paul Steed passed away, he was a very talented 3D game artist mostly known for his work at Id software with the first three quakes. I picked up a book of his about modeling and animating game characters. It's a fun read and I'm learning a lot too. In the following week I'll try to model a low-poly character. Not sure about the theme yet, but I'll figure something out.

Rocket Launcher remake - part 3

After sorting out the flaws and dividing some of the polygons I came to the point where I asked myself if there's something more I can do with the model in order to make things easier in ZBrush. Since the whole model isn't a single closed mesh, but actually, 7 seperate meshes that intersect with each other, I was thinking about connecting all the meshes and unifying the model, that would mess up the textures though, but it wouldn't really matter, as I'll have to texture it again in the end.

Instead, I came up with a better idea. I detached each of the meshes from the model and exported them seperatly to .obj files.

Importing each model into ZBrush was easier than I expected, since all of them had the same pivot point, the subtools (in ZBrush models are called tools) were aligned perfectly. Having each part of the gun in different subtools has a couple of benefits:

• I don't have to worry about accidentally editing different parts of the model. (no masking needed)
• I can subdivide each part of the model seperatly and the subdivision limits are higher. (I can leave the parts where I won't be adding details with a low polygon density)
• If something goes very wrong, I can just import that submodel again and replace it instead of having to go back to a previously saved version of the whole file
• Symmetry is working fine! Last time ZBrush couldn't fnd symmetry in the model, so I had to add those details to each side seperatly. Now with symmetry enabled it will take a flash.

All in all, this way seems to be the best way, it has a lot of pros and little to non cons. I don't know why I didn't think of it earlier.

The topology of the barrel is now also fine.

Here are some renders I made after a couple of subdivisions (notice the soft edges at the end of the barrel, I couldn't do that earlier, because the meshes weren't connected, instead I would get some ugly holes) and some coloring.

Here's another one with a more metal looking material. Preparing these renders took only a couple of minutes, and I think they're already looking cool. Might be a nice wallpaper once the model is done ;)

Tomorrow I'll smooth the geometry and add details, stay tuned.

Rocket Launcher remake - part 2

Yesterday, I didn't manage to finish detailing the model as I innitally planned. I would probably make it in time if I wouldn't encounter a problem. I kept on adding details and everything was going fine, or at least that's what I thought.

When I wanted to start adding detail to the barrel, I noticed that the bad topology that I innitally neglected won't let me edit the surface as I want to. The polygons were badly skewed and my brush strokes appeared very sharp and edgy while they should be soft.

 I tried editing the topology with preserving the details I added. ZBrush has some built-in tools for easy model retopology. After a couple of tries I gave up. All the polygon edges cluttered together was a horror to work with.

Instead, I decided to go back to 3ds Max and do what I should've done in the first place - prepare the model for editing in ZBrush. The stuff that I did to the model in max before wasn't even close to being acceptable, now I know that. I guess it just shows my inexperience.

Here are the wireframes of the original model, note that the inner part of the barrel is a seperate sub-model (pink lines). The main problem is that the polygons that make the barrel are much longer than the rest of the model, adding some skewness to that creates some nasty topology.

First, I fixed the inner part by adding some vertices here and there, moving some around, etc.

Then I divided the barrel into segments, adding a lot of vertices, and connecting them together. This way I divided the long polygons into small ones, where a bit of skewness will do little to no harm to the overall topology.

The lines aren't perfectly straight, but it doesn't really matter that much. Here's the same view, but with the inner sub-model hidden.

And the other way around:

Next I decided to weld both models together. It took me quite a while to connect all the verticles together properly without creating some weird polygons or double edges. I was checking for holes and flaws for quite a long time before I found this 3ds Max option "select non-quads" which basicly selects highlights polygons that have 3 or more than 4 edges.

As you can see I still have some fixing to do. Another thing concerns me, right now, the main part of the rocket launcher has significantly larger polygons than the barrel. This might be a problem later on in ZBrush, when after subdividing the geometry a couple of times to add details to the main part, the polygons on the barrel will be very small, and thus the polycount will go up drastically.. I'll divide the polygons on the main part of the gun for good measure.
Once I'm done with preparing the model in 3ds Max, I'll try to transfer all the details I made previously in Zbrush. If that won't work, I'll just start over. Stay tuned.

Rocket Launcher remake (WiP)

I've decided to take the good old Rocket Launcher from Quake3/Quakelive and remake it in high detail. I don't want to make it much different from the original, I've seen a couple of those fancy complicated models  and I'm not very fond of them. Rather than that I want to add detailed geometry based on the original textures:

As you can see, the textures have some details that make the blocky, low-poly models seem to be more detailed. But it's just a poor illusion, not the real thing. Back in the day, models had to be low poly because  PCs were obviously weaker. Nowadays even though the computers are much more powerful, 3D artists and model designers still have other, more advanced "illusions" such as displacement and bump maps, which make models look even more detailed. (on a side note, in the video from my last post, the skateboard has a bump map applied that immitates the grip on the deck, hah)

 So yeah, I made some renders to show you, step by step, what I've done so far.

First I've imported the .md3 file to MilkShape3D, then exported it as an .obj file. Opened it in 3DS Max and removed inner edges of some polygons. (This will come in handy later on) Afterwards, I added the textures and made some renders:

 

Standard rocket launcher model, the same as you can see it in-game. I really like the simple design. Someone made a really good job. I'll have to look up later who's the author.

Next, I've exported it to an .obj again and imported into ZBrush. Here I've subdivided the geometry (divided each polygon of the model) and split the model into some polygroups. They're handy, because I can easily hide parts of geometry and focus on smaller regions of the model. You can see the polygroups on the image below, each polygroup is shown with a different color.

After smoothing out some shapes I added a reference plane with the side view render image from max, this way I could easily see where are the details that I want to add to the model.

Right now I have some of the details sketched out. I'll try to finish the geometry tomorrow, then I'll have to texture it.

You might wonder why would I do such a thing. Well, the main reason is that I can make use of it later on in a frag video, and I thought it would be a nice experience. Especially since I want to remake the Sarge model too.

Zbrush and murals

It's been a couple of days since my last post. But that doesn't mean I'm slacking! I've been modelling this funny, fairy tale dragon in zbrush. It's based on a short series of illustrations made by my girl friend. It isn't done yet but I must admit that I like it already. I've learned a lot about zbrush, it's a really handy tool and I really enjoy working with it. Next I want to make a HD remake of sarge (quake player model) for my next movie project. I'm really excited about it.

Anyway, changing the subject, the city I live in right now, has a lot of street art known as murals. I thought it would be pretty neat to go around the city and take pictures of each of them. Today I've taken picture of the first one. Apparently it shows a destroyed bridge and trains that are falling into water. Pretty cool I must admit. It gets a lot of attention too, because it's really close to a big shopping centre and the main railway station. Actually, the brick buildings that you can see in the background on the right are a bridge with rails. So yeah, this mural clearly relates to that.

It's signed M-City, no clue if it's the title or the author. This photograph is a begining of a seriee. Expect more of these soon. Anyway, tell me what do you think, does this mural impress you? Do you think that I should post more photos of interesting things that I see?

Settings

Right now I'm getting ready to start capturing footage from the demos I've picked. Before I start doing that, I have to know what in-game configuration (cfg), resolution and frame rate I want to use.

I already know that the video resolution will be 1280x720 (limitted by the competition rules). I'm not yet sure about the config, as I want to try out something different. As for frame rate, I want to add some motion blur to the video, but not too much. I can achive that in two ways - by using a wolfcamql command called mme_motionblurframes or by capturing the video with a higher frame rate and then lowering it in vegas.

I'm going to try different values until I'm happy with the outcome.

I was also playing around with the codecs. For the first time I made a low quality template for rendering fast previews to check if the video and audio are synchronised together properly, I don't need high quality to check that. In my previous projects I used to render short parts in max quality just to check if something is right. Such a waste of time! With the deadline closing in, I don't have time for that, so these LQ previews will work wonders. ;)  I was also looking for some real high quality settings.. and I found some but it was compressing veeery slowly (5 seconds took 10 minutes to compress), so I'll have to play around some more with different values. Such things take time but they're necessary if you want to make the movie properly. More news soon!

Retexturing "The Longest Yard"

My new project will feature only one map, just like in my mini-movie seventeen - The Longest Yard (also known as dm17), but I want to replace the original textures with something else. It'll be my first movie with so much custom content. Usually, I'm against custom skins, models and HD textures. Mostly because it's the same texture pack over and over again. This time I want to make some new custom content on my own, we'll see how it'll work out.
Yesterday, I started to browse through QL textures in order to find all those that are used on dm17. I found almost all of them, then I added a number and border to each and you can see the outcome on the attached screenshot I'm not entirely sure about the theme I'll be aiming for.. maybe something minimalistic, with solid colours, or maybe a flying machine above the clouds? :) I'm getting excited already.