Practice modelling map

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Sun Nov 23, 2008 7:01 pm

This is the first time that I have actually tried out modeling a Halo CE map. This is after one day (a couple hours actually) of work. Should I continue? Once I finish, help putting it ingame would be appreciated.

metkillerjoe · Post by **metkillerjoe** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:14 am

Tessellation is a bad practice. Use editable poly and the tools provided there (cut, bevel, extrude, hinge from edge, etc).

Andrew_b · Post by **Andrew_b** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 10:11 am

This is one of the better tessellated maps.

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 11:47 am

I didn't use tessellation at all here. I used the paint deformation tools in edit poly to do the organics and then I extruded the outer polygons to create the wall. I used edit poly for everything so far...
I will post some newer renders in a couple of hours if I have time. Still need to do a bit more modelling and then start texturing

metkillerjoe · Post by **metkillerjoe** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 12:47 pm

Even if that is true, Blam cannot handle that many polies in one scene without portaling; you'd be clipping things in your FOV.

It looks organic, I'll give you that, but you'd be better off using other methods for Halo and porting this to an engine that can handle it.

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 2:19 pm

As of now, it is roughly 9,000 polies, but I haven't done any optimization work at all. Are there any other good quality alternatives to the Blam engine that are roughly the same?

T1xAnton · Post by **T1xAnton** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 8:07 pm

That's well within CE's range of polies.

In max units, how big is it?

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Wed Nov 26, 2008 9:00 pm

I thought the accepted max poly count for maps was somewhere around 15,000 so yes, that would put it within range. I haven't scaled it to fit the Halo reference models yet so a size measurement would be fairly inaccurate at this time...
EDIT:
here is a new render with wireframe. As you can see, absolutely no optimization has been done whatsoever, and yet still at 9,000 polies. If I continue to put it in game, it will be cleaned up however.

conscars · Post by **conscars** » Mon Dec 08, 2008 5:31 pm

It's poor practice to make terrain like that. You'd be better off learning how to model it properly. Your maps will come out a lot more halo-like and will be friendlier for people's framerates. It's also better to model low poly, then add detail, and not create high poly objects and optimize later.

L0d3x · Post by **L0d3x** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 3:17 am

Could you explain what is the best way to create terrain?

metkillerjoe · Post by **metkillerjoe** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 6:21 am

Using the tools found within editable poly that do not include tesselation.

Go to modacity (when it goes up) and search for the cliff tutorial. There are a couple good tutorials which will show you good organic model creation.

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 3:13 pm

Thanks for the advice!

I finally got this in game and I am very pleased with it so far. However, I still have not finished texturing, namely the ground texture. I will put some more pictures up as I finish texturing and such.

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:13 pm

Ok, I am having a serious problem in Sapien regarding radiosity at the moment...
Whenever I apply a ground material to the polygons that make up the organic part of the map, I get an error in sapien that says there is either a degenerate triangle or a bad UV on the map and it can't run the solution. However, this only occurs if I try to apply a ground shader to those polygons. For example, if the material name ends with "ground" such as "infinity ground" it gives this error, but if I apply any other material, such as "dangercanyon_metal_panels" I get no errors at all and can put the map in game. Leaving that material slot blank also doesn't create any errors. Any help at all would be appreciated.

CptnNsan0 · Post by **CptnNsan0** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:17 pm

probably have no idea what I'm talking about, but corrupted bitmaps?

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 1:24 pm

I doubt it. All the other textures from the HEK are fine and normal. It doesn't seem likely to me that specifically ground shaders would be messed up out of the entire pack.
Is there a specific way to set up the ground material? Right now I just have the ground bitmap under diffuse and the name of the material set the same as that bitmap