March 2011 Custom Content Challenge: Statuary Garden

[Legacy_Rubies]

               I'm hopefully going to be doing a series of nature-based spell VFX. '>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_gutwrench66kg]

               Rubies:  ooooh!!! yes please!!!! Rangers, Druids, and Fey rejoice!
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jenna WSI]

               I hate you Rubies. Now I'm going to have to learn how to add vfx to haks too.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

olivier leroux wrote...
Hm, statues it is then? Well, how about these? '>

What do you think of this?  Don't forget to click play on the new page to see the slideshow.  (It's a conversion/remodel/retexture.  More info about it in my blog, link below)
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               Wow, that's pretty cool! Any chance to additionally get a brand new, golden version of it? And maybe pure marble without bricks in the socket? And a third version without the socket, just the lion? In any case, yeah, that's what I was looking for, awesome. '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par olivier leroux, 02 mars 2011 - 06:27 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

olivier leroux wrote...
Any chance to additionally get a brand new, golden version of it? And maybe pure marble without bricks in the socket? And a third version without the socket, just the lion?

New Gold: New Gold w/Pure Marble:

Just mounting plate: Just lion:

Wasn't sure how far down you wanted to strip it so the last two are really a question about if you wanted just the lion with no base whatsoever or not.  What do you think?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 02 mars 2011 - 07:07 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               Yeah, both version are fine and could prove useful, with mounting plate or without. Not so sure about the gold yet, it's a bit plain, gaudy and yellowish; doesn't look too realistic. Would look cooler with a texture similar in color and surface to the one in the photography I provided, something making it look like gold and not just gold colored, if you know what I mean. But I have no idea how hard it is to find or create such a relaistic texture...
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

olivier leroux wrote...
Yeah, both version are fine and could prove useful, with mounting plate or without. Not so sure about the gold yet, it's a bit plain, gaudy and yellowish; doesn't look too realistic. Would look cooler with a texture similar in color and surface to the one in the photography I provided, something making it look like gold and not just gold colored, if you know what I mean. But I have no idea how hard it is to find or create such a relaistic texture...

Gotcha.  I sampled that picture you provided at what I thought was a good median tone but it came out brownish.  Any chance you can help clarify that color with a sample (RGB value if you can!) because it doesn't look gold to me so much as weathered bronze or something like that.  This is what I wound up with in Max, because the only way I can think of to repdroduce that extra something is with an environment map.  You can see the color a bit better in the NWN toolset here, but please ignore the lighter legs which are not intentional.  I'd be bringing the shinyness down quite a bit as I continue, I imagine.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 03 mars 2011 - 12:27 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               Yes, that looks much better than the yellowish version already, never mind if it actually looks like gold or not. I guess what I mean by realistic look also has to do with the .... pattern? ... texture - for lack of a better word? The stone lion with the verdigris or green spots on it was perfect for what it is it because the texture wasn't plain but spotty, individual (I'm hitting the brick wall here concerning my articulateness in the English language, heh). It fits better with the rest of NWN while the unicolored plain texture sticks out in comparison to your average tileset and CC. Have you tried experimenting with textures like these, just as an example? Something a bit more irregular and grainy? Not sure if it would look good but maybe worth a try ...
               
               

               

                     Modifié par olivier leroux, 03 mars 2011 - 12:01 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               I've had no time at all for custom content the past two month, but I may have a little time by the end of March to make a chinese tea house as an addition to the TNO tileset.

@OldTimeRadio: The lion looks great, but I think the texture still needs some work. Maybe try to work with the texture Olivier suggested, though especially metal textures look good when you first look at them, but when applied to an object they often don't look as good as you'd expected.
The texture Olivier found looks quite good, but you got to see it on the lion first to see if it is the right one for the statue.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               Yay, even more Chinese content! That will certainly console me for Planescaping losing the poll. '>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par olivier leroux, 03 mars 2011 - 03:53 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               Thanks for the texture, I was looking for that kind of thing too but couldn't find something I liked.  I made it seamless, tiled it, took one of the channels converted it into grayscale and slapped that in the alpha channel- so, hopefully, it wouldn't be so evenly shiny.  I'm not sure I succeeded in that part as much as I'd hoped but I haven't experimented with it enough to know what's possible.  I've got another movie here, this one from in-game and with the gold texture and all that.  Thoughts?

@Zwerkules Agreed.  I'd like to know what you think after seeing the video I link to.  It's not close up but the point is to give an overall view of what it looks like, especially how reflective it is.  Have you ever done an alpha channel which has some pattern in it?  Does it affect the reflectance accordingly?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 03 mars 2011 - 03:58 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Zwerkules]

               The lion and its texture both look very good now.
I once tried to make a statue made of ice which was supposed to be transparent and have reflections, but it ended up as just being transparent. I read somewhere that you can only have either an env-map or transparency. Can someone confirm this?
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

If I understand what you're saying then the above video would seem to indicate it is possible to have both transparency and envmap.  You won't be able to see players or creatures through this, but you will be able to see placeables.  The DLA Glass Tutorial will help but NWMax doesn't have the same rollout parameters anymore.  For this demo, on the Aurora Trimesh modifier, I set the Transparency to 1 and Alpha to .6.  That's the main thing.  And then just copy placeables.2da line 846 to line 847, and change Label, StrRef (****), and ModelName and I think you're good to go.  You can of course change the Reflection to something other than dlag__ref01 if you have a custom one.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 03 mars 2011 - 05:20 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_olivier leroux]

               

OldTimeRadio wrote...
I've got another movie here, this one from in-game and with the gold texture and all that.  Thoughts?

Very nice! Now could you make it a monster model with animation, please?
.. Nah, just kidding. '>

Looks great, I think we have a winner! '>