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1
3D Model Places / Georefferenced model locations in Global Mapper.
« on: February 09, 2014, 07:42:27 pm »
 I've sorted out a workflow to create the high res location ref maps overlays in Global Mapper. It's a bit convoluted because GM is unforgiving of non georeffed imagery coming in - you can't simply drag and drop it onto the topo! I should really upgrade and ask the dev if he'd implement something like that. It would be so much easier.
Global Mapper is where all of our data is stored and everything starts out from there.

There are two quads, the larger is for modelling the surrounding area @ 2m/px. The smaller is for 1m/px. The scale shows up as half that in GM but that's because we work at half res in GM. I always have to export at what should be double the res to get to scale. For eg, data exported @100m is 20K.  To get a 40K map I export @50m, and so on.



Zooming right down into the site map...you can see the segments length I measured in yellow, you'll see 115m bottom left of image. The segment is measuring the scale printed on the map = 200 ft. So 115/2 = 60 or so m = approx 200 ft.
 To place sites in the WM world I can simply export tiled mask sets- that's accurate but pretty wasteful of space. Ideally what we want is a way of importing the site map into WM at the exact location without all of the surrounding masked out tiles. I'm sure we can work something out.
 So the cross hatched areas  are vector quads which can be used to crop exports, and all kinds of other operations.



With this we could build/import/export placeholder 3D vector site right here in Global Mapper using a 3D vector format- not sure which ones it supports yet...we can extrude vectors creating them from the map directly in GM or we can import vectors and extrude them. we can even build underground structures and view them with terrain transparency, etc.



monks


2
General Discussion / Using Unity for modelling the sites?
« on: February 04, 2014, 04:14:43 pm »
I've just dug out the terrain again from storage and I'm getting things ready for the next terrain release. The problem of the terrain being generally way too high will be fixed. Fixing this means that we'l be able to approach the biome and texture creation using more or less real world figures for how/where to place stuff.
 The next release the terrain will be much more ready to take 3D models.
Having used Unity for a short while I think it would be the ideal choice to refine the terrain at the site locations. It would also be great for creating quick mock ups of the places. It's free as well. World Machine is great for a lot of things but it has no paint tools.
 There's just one problem and that's Unity only supports the .raw terrain format. Our main project data is in hfz format. I've tried the workflow between World Machine and Unity using.raw and there's a slight discrepancy between how they both read/write (not sure which) the elevation values in the file. I don't think there's an easy way to resolve that. So we need another format.  Unity doesn't support anythin else but .raw but I use a 3rd party plugin for Unity called Terrain Composer. I've asked the dev if it would be possible to implement hfz suport. If he does, that would mean that if you also wanted to model some terrain for the sites you'd have to buy a copy of Terrain Composer to use the same workflow as me. There's always the option of people using other workflows between say Crytek or Unreal. All the terrain would be imported back into the main World Machine project so it would have to be tested to make sure there were no discrepancies between how elevation is read/written.
 The other option is for folks to use a 3D package like Blender or Max. World Machine does have obj support. The downside of that is, you don't really have the terrain/veg paint functionality that Unity has nor the procedural vegetation/object placement that Terrain Composer does.
 The discrepancy isn't a big deal necessarily IF we avoided copying over data from the tile edges. We could do that with a combine mask in WM easily enough. Where it really matters though is if you start creating meshes such as river surfaces. Any differences in the terrain at any point will undo all your hard work.

monks

3
Miscellaneous 3D Models / Procedural Rock
« on: May 28, 2013, 11:42:15 am »
I've followed a tut to make procedural rocks in Max. A much better way of doing things than by hand though I'm sure there are occasions where hand modelling might be more flexible. I hit the max vertices count in Outerra- which is 65K. So anything more complex would have to be modelled in two parts. Not really worth doing for a rock. The rock starts to look really nice around 300k polys but you have to be careful with the subdivision in Max as you can get locked out of the file because Max can't load it again. @1200K polys.

https://drive.google.com/#folders/0BzHv3ffqAOUJaEoxSmNyNGlQcmc

In Outerra <65K

https://drive.google.com/#folders/0BzHv3ffqAOUJaEoxSmNyNGlQcmc



 This went through Mudbox where the seamless texture was painted on as a stencil. Mudbox seems a lot easier to use than ZBrush- much clearer interface though I still prefer ZBrush I think. The white lines on the rock were supposed to be highlights on convex ridges but I overdid them a bit.
 I think it would be really useful to learn some more image manipulation for normal map creation. That way you could superimpose small bumps on larger bumps, rather than just all small bumps. I used a blur on the texture with some contrast to get the larger scale bumps, then added the higher detail to it. Prob a bit too rough though. Maybe get it smoother and then add some specularity for smooth surface. No spec on this. I think a bit of graffiti "Sauron woz ere" in red paint lol

monks



4
General Discussion / First 3D models in Outerra
« on: May 10, 2013, 03:58:16 pm »
I'm tooling around with getting some models into Outerra and trying to establish a 3D modelling workflow. Very basic stuff at the moment. I'm writing some documentation as I do it. I'll post that when it's half decent- it might help  :) I'm using Max 2013.

First pic is two textured spheres. One using normal mapping.
Second is a tower about 70 feet high. No texturing as yet. There's a feature to flatten the ground first but not used that here.

monks


5
General Discussion / Road map
« on: March 17, 2013, 02:16:47 pm »
Thought I'd continue over the main thread from the previous boards- it was called Next Steps over there. This is where the next steps and general progress will be posted. A roadmap I guess.

monks

6
3D Model Places / Modelling Sources and References
« on: February 23, 2013, 10:16:54 pm »
You'll find here a list of sources and references for modelling. This is a wip so feel free to add to it.

The books:
 LoTR
 Silmarillion
 The Hobbit
 Unfinished Tales
 Book of Lost Tales I & II
 12 volume History of Middle-Earth series
J.R.R Tolkien Artist & Illustrator. Hammond & Scull
 Pictures by J.R.R Tolkien. Houghton Mifflin
---------------------------
 Atlas of Middle Earth: Karen Wynn Fonstad
 Journeys of Frodo: Barbara Strachey
 Pictorial Artwork from the various Tolkien artists. J.Howe, A.Lee, etc.
 Middle Earth Role-Playing (MERP) books by Iron Crown Enterprises (I have a complete hard copy and most of them in pdf form)
 Films and extended DVDS of Peter Jackson

monks

7
General Discussion / Introduce Yourself!
« on: February 23, 2013, 10:10:50 pm »
Come say hello! We'd love to hear from you, whether you're just stopping by to see what we're up to, are working on a similar project, or want to contribute to ME-DEM itself.  :)

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