PlaneShift

Fan Area => The Hydlaa Plaza => Topic started by: Induane on October 22, 2007, 06:40:14 am

Title: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on October 22, 2007, 06:40:14 am
I was so happy with the latest work Jekkar and Yill and I did on the town that I had to throw a screenshot somewhere.  Since this thread had sort of become a progress thread for us in a way I went ahead and threw it here.  If its too much digging up of an old thread, feel free to move it mods. 

Thanks to Hooloovoo and Yill for contributing some new models, and thanks to Archon for some as well (his aren't shown in these shots but he made a market for us :) )

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/tl19_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/tl19.jpg)

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/tl22_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/tl22.jpg)

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/tl15_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/tl15.jpg)

Update: Thanks for the relocate :)
Title: Induane's Project?
Post by: Parallo on October 22, 2007, 05:41:58 pm
Looks very nice! Too clean though but still excellent. Keep up the good work. I miss Jekkar.
Title: Re: Peragro Tempus
Post by: Ralleyon on October 23, 2007, 04:47:23 am
Way beyond cool! Good job Induane and gang!!!
Title: Re: Peragro Tempus
Post by: Jekkar on October 23, 2007, 11:23:11 am
I found this shot in Induane's server today and I didn't want to keep you people from missing it.

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/1849/vaalnorgardenpi6.jpg

Induane has been doing a fantastic job these past few weeks and progress is really going well.
Thank you for the support people :)
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: bilbous on October 26, 2007, 07:06:06 am
Must be a place full of tree-huggers, with that one tree in the center of the benches.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: LigH on October 26, 2007, 10:07:43 am
The terraced house estate looks nice -- reminds me on "Asterix in Britain". :D

No. Bad joke.

It is simply an average town quarter with unexpensive flats. That gives good reasons to roleplay not only the sunny life of rich people.  :thumbup:

I just hope that the citizen will decide to paint their house front sides a little, at the moment the houses are a bit too gray-in-gray for my taste.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on October 26, 2007, 05:11:18 pm
Several updates to the map now including the beginnings of the new aqueduct system, water towers, and various other odds and ends including a new arena from Yill. 

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/vaalnor14_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/vaalnor14.jpg)

Quote

It is simply an average town quarter with inexpensive flats. That gives good reasons to roleplay not only the sunny life of rich people.  :thumbup:

Yep, what isn't evident in the shots is an area that isn't finished yet. The city is essentially divided into 4 levels. The level most prevalent in the screenshots is the 3rd level where the more common housing is as you said :) The 2nd level is where the various large manor houses of the great Noble Houses will rest as well as the market place.  The upper level contains the city armory, and various other government buildings nestled against the cliff.  In the lower level there are gardens, a grand library, an amphitheater and other things but that area needs fleshed out more as well.  As it is the housing district is nearly complete with small things to add like lightposts, clotheslines, and various other trinkets that will make it feel less like a ghost town.

Quote
I just hope that the citizen will decide to paint their house front sides a little, at the moment the houses are a bit too gray-in-gray for my taste.

For the most part this is done intentionally due to the nature of the governing class and building codes, as well as style.  Keeping that a bit more monotone allows us to draw attention to certain things with splashes of bright color here and there to attract the eye.

Quote
Must be a place full of tree-huggers, with that one tree in the center of the benches.

That tree is a Qeion tree, a very special tree to the Vaalorians.  The trees are colonial sharing a common root system.  When the town was built that grove was preserved.  In actuality that tree isn't the correct size, it needs to be a good deal bigger.  The trees can grow to a height of 90 meters and that tree surely is one of the ancient ones. 

Next up will be to finish the aqueduct system, add some bath houses, and then work on some of the lower gardens near the library.    After that, the noble houses need finished up.  Hopefully we'll keep going at this pace.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Parallo on October 26, 2007, 05:14:20 pm
Beautiful. The building with the awning looks great. I hereby claim it.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Jekkar on October 26, 2007, 06:07:20 pm
As far as I know all those building will be getting interior, including the houses. Which opens a new feature like buying and selling houses as well, not completely sure about that yet though.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Parallo on October 26, 2007, 06:11:31 pm
It looks great and the settings look great too but the two separate times thing puts me off slightly. I should wait till I know more about it though.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Earl_Listbard on October 26, 2007, 07:04:01 pm
Simply amazing, you guys built all of this... that is impressive, truly.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on November 05, 2007, 03:01:23 am
And more shots to come, hopefully from ingame soon.


Speaking of ingame, these aren't from Vaalnor but they do show our new very alpha water shader.


(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water1_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water1.jpg)

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water2_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water2.jpg)

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water3_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water3.jpg)

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water4_thumb.jpg) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/water4.jpg)

We'll be using something similar in the town of Vaalnor as well for the river that the mill sits along.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Jekkar on January 03, 2008, 06:45:23 pm
I guess it's time to give you guys a heads up again about progress on Peragro Tempus and Vaalnor in particular. Vaalnor has made it in-game and is playable in the latest client. Here are some in-game screenshots:

http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/5034/screen1or8.jpg
http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/8697/screen2ix6.jpg
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/9779/screen3ii8.jpg
http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/5599/screen4uo0.jpg
http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8199/screen5we1.jpg
http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/2540/screen6bx1.jpg
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/8315/screen7le8.jpg
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7655/screen8oo6.jpg
http://img225.imageshack.us/img225/5112/screen9yd1.jpg

We are working on getting the tavern interior and the library interior in-game, which should be done in the coming weeks.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Baldur on January 03, 2008, 07:58:01 pm
This is heaven on Cyber :)

I honestly didn't think this 3D-environment would look so good. I was wrong. Some objects, like the tree textures, even supercede Planeshift-standards :D I'll have to congratulate you, you've done a wonderful job so far :]
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Phinehas on January 05, 2008, 12:30:20 am
Some objects, like the tree textures, even supercede Planeshift-standards :D
*coughofcoursecough*
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Bastiq on January 09, 2008, 03:30:22 am
OMG THIS IS AMAZING! We want more! Give us more nooow!
 :love:
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: LigH on January 09, 2008, 11:57:44 am
Be careful if you seriously plan to offer it to the PlaneShift game: For my taste it contains a remarkable, possibly too high amount of earth-typical elements. The Pisa tower is only the most obvious of them... might require some more originality.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Proglin on January 09, 2008, 12:28:03 pm
Be careful if you seriously plan to offer it to the PlaneShift game: For my taste it contains a remarkable, possibly too high amount of earth-typical elements. The Pisa tower is only the most obvious of them... might require some more originality.

In that case we don't have to be careful :)
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Jekkar on January 09, 2008, 01:01:08 pm
Be careful if you seriously plan to offer it to the PlaneShift game: For my taste it contains a remarkable, possibly too high amount of earth-typical elements. The Pisa tower is only the most obvious of them... might require some more originality.

I remember that the dev that modelled that Pisa tower recieved some criticism about it and it had to be changed, why it is still there is a mystery to me as well but sometimes it takes a while to get those things redone and put back in. We're a game in development and there's often more important things to focus on, like performance and texturing for example.

And to straighten some things out: When Vaalnor was still in early development we planned on contributing it to Planeshift, it got firmly rejected if I remember correctly. Some of the Vaalnor guys then moved over to a game called Peragro Tempus, an "evolving multiplayer online role playing game" as we like to call it, which has been going like a speed-train in terms of development.

I do wonder why you're criticizing on "earth-typical" elements, Planeshift is packed with those. Read up on our settings on the wiki page. We try to be as original as possible and it's easy to contribute to Peragro Tempus, so sometimes a "Pisa tower" gets in-game because we like the model. You should see it more like a place-holder.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: LigH on January 09, 2008, 01:30:53 pm
It is not that much a criticism; rather a reminder because I remember well how much PS development sounds proud of originality. ;)
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Bastiq on January 09, 2008, 03:23:53 pm
It is not that much a criticism; rather a reminder because I remember well how much PS development sounds proud of originality. ;)

I don't think there's even a slight chance anyone here will offer anything to PS. They are free to use it though.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Sangwa on January 09, 2008, 07:01:06 pm
Someone steal this town. The Empire needs it.

Great job Induane and team. You rock.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Velh Krome on January 09, 2008, 07:36:52 pm
Someone steal this town. The Empire needs it.
Yeah, give them a new hideout! ;)

Seriously, great work there.. if only PS had water surfaces close to the ones on these screenshots!
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: peeg on January 09, 2008, 07:39:31 pm
Quote
.. if only PS had water surfaces close to the ones on these screenshots!

Patience - I'm pretty sure that shaders are in the pipeline for .21  :detective:

Great work so far guys. Keep it up!
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: LigH on January 09, 2008, 10:01:29 pm
Induane ... would you be so kind as to revive the webserver too?

vaalnor.mine.nu was down today. So the KS university had to close too.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on January 09, 2008, 10:16:16 pm
I forgot to pay my bill unfortunately.  I'll be able to pay it on the 15th so should be up in a week.

Just for fun

http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/9717/newstoresai4.jpg (http://img185.imageshack.us/img185/9717/newstoresai4.jpg)

I modeled those all last night in preparation for another district in the city.

Also, as to the Pisa Tower, it needs reworked to be a little different, but really other than its layered approach it isn't that similar to the Pisa Tower anyways.  For one its totally not leaning! ;)  In any case sometimes aesthetics play some of a role in what gets modeled and in this case its original intent was twofold.  In early versions of the town the aqueduct system emptied into that "Pisa" Tower which used to have an open top and act as a water reservoir.  Since I've since moved water storage into the unfinished cliff fortress the tower sort of lost its sense of purpose.  The model was a quick one anyways, it only took me about 10 minutes to model, so whenever I get some inspiration of what its purpose in the game is then I'll take the time to rework it a bit to suit its purpose better.  Since its purpose now is to "look pretty" I'm not going to put any work into improving it as thats not very in tune with settings.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: LigH on January 09, 2008, 10:21:02 pm
:( ... Collection!
/me walks around with an open tea pot: d_]

But amazing models. I am happy with small items already (cubes...).
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on January 11, 2008, 05:20:29 pm
I went ahead and textured those store buildings last night in a drunken stupor.  The window texture is already much improved thanks to Jekkar, but his new texture isn't in these shots:

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4928/store2ze8.jpg (http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4928/store2ze8.jpg)
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8208/store12aj6.jpg (http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/8208/store12aj6.jpg)
http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/3915/store11zf1.jpg (http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/3915/store11zf1.jpg)

Some of those larger wooden areas I plan to fill with patterned wood and signs for the stores, but in the meantime they are just solid wood, which I realize is a little dull.  Still though they are coming along well, They will be ingame soon.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Bastiq on January 17, 2008, 07:09:06 pm
We should build this town in the AFK life!  (bump   :woot:)
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on January 21, 2008, 11:02:52 pm
The AFK Life??

Even I don't know what that means.

Few new screenshots though. Sorry for the size, I didn't feel motivated to make them jpgs.

http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newarea1.png (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newarea1.png)
http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newarea2.png (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newarea2.png)
http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newarea3.png (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newarea3.png)

The streetlights are all wrong. They are too big and not how I want them, so I'll have to redo them soon.  And the buildings need spruced up a little bit, but otherwise they are coming along well.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Phinehas on January 21, 2008, 11:05:50 pm
Those are big...

But very nice. Except the textures... Some of them seem a little... unrealistic. I'm sure that will change eventually, however.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Bastiq on January 21, 2008, 11:34:43 pm
The AFK Life??

Even I don't know what that means.

Few new screenshots though. Sorry for the size, I didn't feel motivated to make them jpgs.

The streetlights are all wrong. They are too big and not how I want them, so I'll have to redo them soon.  And the buildings need spruced up a little bit, but otherwise they are coming along well.

Darn! You've made a lot of nice work without me. I'll be back to help you once i get some time. :)
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Jekkar on January 22, 2008, 06:55:02 pm
Those are big...

But very nice. Except the textures... Some of them seem a little... unrealistic. I'm sure that will change eventually, however.

Ugh Induane, you're ruining my reputation! Anything ugly is Induane's!
*runs off*
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Ichaas on January 22, 2008, 08:45:59 pm
This is damned impressive - well done!
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Phinehas on January 22, 2008, 10:13:37 pm
Those are big...

But very nice. Except the textures... Some of them seem a little... unrealistic. I'm sure that will change eventually, however.

Ugh Induane, you're ruining my reputation! Anything ugly is Induane's!
*runs off*
Dangit, there go my hopes of reconciliation...
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on January 23, 2008, 04:39:25 am
.... good retort there Phinehas. I don't usually see you without something to say.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Phinehas on January 23, 2008, 05:13:42 am
.... good retort there Phinehas. I don't usually see you without something to say.
My retort was there, but somehow it got placed within one of the quotes.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on February 11, 2008, 05:26:33 pm
Excuses Excuses Phinehas!!

We haven't had any major updates because we're working on polishing up some of the early buildings with better uvmaps and better textures to go with them.  These are some of the new textures we've been working on.  Hopefully we'll have them all uvmapped again soon so we can make another release of the town.

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newhousetex_thumb.png) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newhousetex.jpg)

(http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newhousetex2_thumb.png) (http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Dumps/newhousetex2.jpg)
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Under the moon on February 11, 2008, 09:50:34 pm
Hmm. Looking at your building, I noticed the door at the end of the stairs is far too small. And remember to keep to the 11/7 ratio when making stairs. For every 11 units of tread, you should have 7 units of rise. Or close to that.
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Phinehas on February 11, 2008, 10:11:09 pm
Hmm. Looking at your building, I noticed the door at the end of the stairs is far too small. And remember to keep to the 11/7 ratio when making stairs. For every 11 units of tread, you should have 7 units of rise. Or close to that.
That's the 7/11 ratio, and it has to do with convenience stores, Mooney...

What an ignoramus...
Title: Re: City of Vaalnor
Post by: Induane on February 12, 2008, 06:36:07 pm
The stair doorway is slightly too small, a characters forehead hits right around the top of it.  I've fixed that in some of the models but not all of them.  I used the 5/3 rule for the stairs and the character movement seemed fine on them so I'm not too terribly worried about that aspect. 


Also for those who want to enjoy it we have copy/paste support now!
http://vaalnor.mine.nu/Downloads/Media/Video/copypaste.avi