Custom Content Challenge: October 2014: Weird Science

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Modelling and basic texturing for the microscope are done. its 497 triangles. So not super light by NWN standards but for a complex object I think I did ok. I'm just not the modelling master who can texture 100 triangles to look like a work of art. My goal was to have a slide clipped to the tray but I ran out of triangles (I set 500 as my max). Also I don't understand how you animate for NWN and I wanted to have the slide in place when the microscope is activated, and hidden in the base when its deactivated. If anyone wants to collaborate I'll gladly give you the FBX to pull this off. Having a real texture artist help would be good too. Not happy with the textures on this one.

 

Its about 30 centimeters tall so I think in game the scale should work well.

 

Not having a great time getting my microscope from cheetah to blender to NWN. I tried an export and the file was broken on the NWN side. I'll futz around to get it in game and test a render there.

 

I'll play with NWN's "shaders" when I get it there. I want the glass elements and the metals to have some shininess. This is what I have now rendered in Cheetah with minimal lighting and the single texture I'll be using in NWN. 

 

and the texture

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mecheon]

               I've got some horrible mad scientist created critters coming along. Y'know, Owlbear kind of stuff, normal creatures infected with horrific fungi, turning them into abberations of unknown cause, mighty beasts exposed to forces beyond their control. Y'know, normal stuff
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mecheon]

               BEHOLD THE TERROR! SCREAM AT THE HORROR!

When the mysterious elven mage Aeon Mekkanos opened a portal to the Plane of Ash, he expected a clean getaway from the authorities breaking into his lab. Instead, he opened a doorway for creatures tainted by the essence of that dead place to come back to our world!



oh hey its an Ember Hulk. Technically there's already one of these on the Vault, but I was never a fan of it because the original description of it (over here!) described them as more intelligent, and shorter than their original Umber Hulk origin, while the Vault one was a reskin of the Umber Hulk that was a bit more firey than ember-y.

Still a work in progress, its currently using the Project Q Iron Golem envmap which is going to change for sure, and I think the upper legs need to be shorter. I do like the look it gives with those massive clobberarms. though. And yeah, its hooked up to a_ba. Clips like anything else though

We'll hear more about Aeon's horrible experiments and run ins with the law when I get more things sorted. And as these were created by a mage it clearly fits in and is not me pushing my elemental planes agenda
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

I finally got my blender pipeline unclogged and the microscope made it through to NWN land. Once I saw the thing in game and how big a 512x512 tga was (1 MB) with an alpha layer I adjusted the texture down to 256x256. I lost a lot of the detail I spent time on, but this is a small object so it turns out you can't normally get close enough to see the detail anyway...

 

This is my first placeable built from scratch in NWN.

First shot for scale

 

Followed by some closeups (showing lack of detail, but i did get the reflection as I wanted)

 

Now that I've seen how this stuff looks in game... next time I'll focus my efforts in a different direction. I'm not happy with the look of this thing. I should have increased the size of the portion of the texture for the wood platform, and minimized other features. In retrospect I would have added stains and stuff to the base since that seems to be the most looked at part of the model when it is in game.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Mecheon]

               Mad? Of course I'm not mad. I'm just fulfilling what someone asked me to do: Aeon, on why he thought this was a good idea


Oh hey, its the Bearbug. Its the opposite of the Bugbear! And its where certain things for a failed insect project of mine in a previous CCC may have ended up...

I have a few more ideas coming, but I have to ask if anyone's got some decent cloud textures lurking around? Trying to make a cloud-sheep. Yep.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

playing with a metal table. texture is a placeholder. will likely do black and aged like i did earlier on the gem stand thing (which I am too lazy to bring into nwn so far)  I was unhappy with the microscope, so am trying to do a better texture on a simple model. (244 triangles before i tweak the model. this will be kept below 500)

 

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_rjshae]

               

Now that I've seen how this stuff looks in game... next time I'll focus my efforts in a different direction. I'm not happy with the look of this thing. I should have increased the size of the portion of the texture for the wood platform, and minimized other features. In retrospect I would have added stains and stuff to the base since that seems to be the most looked at part of the model when it is in game.

 

I think it looks good. Note that if you darken the wooden base, it would draw the eye less and should provide more "focus" on the other elements, so to speak. Just a thought... '>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               

I think it looks good. Note that if you darken the wooden base, it would draw the eye less and should provide more "focus" on the other elements, so to speak. Just a thought... '>

 

yes, some partial texture darkening will go a long way in simulation vertex colors and/or SSAO.

 

also you might think about a noise filter added to the textures. the textures from bioware have a sort of grainy look, and adding some noise to a texture will help to blend the object with its surrounding. it also helps to fake a bit of detail that is otherwise lost due to the lack of normal mapping in NWN.

 

i'm thinking of something like this:

http://docs.gimp.org...-hsv-noise.html

the example shown in the link is bad, but the ground in the image shows the strength of such a filter. you might want to give it a try.

 

if you are concerned about texture size, dds compression will reduce it by a factor of roughly 4 iirc (so a dds compressed 512^2 texture has a comparable file size to a 256^2 tga)

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Thanks for the advice. I'll look at using a DDS since I am concerned about texture size.

 

Meanwhile... working on the table.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               

i tried myself in an alternative texture for your microscope. i used your 512 pixel texture, downscaled it to 256 and run an HSV filter over it twice.

 

 

haven't tried it in-game, but you can give it a try if you want. it might give a better blend with the vanilla look

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

Gruftlord, I appreciate you going the extra mile there, and if you wish to reskin the microscope, have at it. I can get around to uploading the model if anyone wants to give it a try. At present I'd like to work on the table.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Gruftlord]

               

oh yes please, i'd like to give it a try. textures are pretty much all i can do, so i appreciate being given the offer to contribute something to ccc. thank you!

i'm not really good with the CK, so i guess it'd cost me half the time i got tomorrow evening to fiddle with the texture, just to get the model to show up in game. if you could upload the module with the placed microscope as well, that would be really decent.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

No problem, it'll take me a day to get that uploaded. The model I have in my dropbox is not the most recent so what I'll do is when I am done with real life stuff today I will create a copy for reskinning, and upload it to dropbox with my textures for it. I might include a PDF of the UV Map too, so it can be paint by numbers if you want.

 

This is what the CCC is about. So I say have at it.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_henesua]

               

I have put together a microscope modding kit and posted on dropbox for anyone to download. This is the alternate microscope (ccc_scope_alt) to the one I will be contributing to the challenge.

 

Included is a hak, module, several textures, a blender model, and a PDF of the UV map. All textures are at 512x512. The alpha layer in the texture in the HAK is currently crappy, and so you might want to redo the thing. Its focus is to make the glass elements and some of the metal reflective.

 

Anyway, have at it and enjoy.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

As requested: Craniometer