Hi,
Ah, the brave first contributors!
To LigH: Quite nice! Hmm, where have I seen this symbol... in podium walls perhaps. I'm not sure which is meant here, "polishing" or "polished". Karyuu or Xillix, you know more?
To Proglin: Interesting, I like the damage on the side there. The textures should be integrated into one image though. Each image requires one rendering pass from CS, so we should keep the number of images as low as possible.
Karyuu gave pretty good info in
the main thread how to do required things in 3Ds Max. I'll fill in how these can be done in Blender, as I think many of you don't have the more expensive cousin.
ModelingTo get an accurate poly count for models intended to be used in games in 3ds Max, for example, you must convert the model to an editable mesh before using the polygon counter. This is because the game engine will view the model in the same way, ie. with triangular faces.
In Blender you can see current face (=polygon) count in the header of the user preferences window. It's found in the top of Blender screen by default. Note that in object mode it shows the total number of faces in current scene. While in edit mode, it shows the faces of the current object (along with other info).
The three pairs of numbers are vertices, edges and faces. First value shows currently selected, and the latter shows the total number. To us the important number is total faces, which is 52 for this model.
Like Karyuu said, faces need to be in triangles, so convert them with ctrl+t in editmode. Afterwards check that triangles are oriented the way you want. If not, you can flip a pair with ctrl+f in editmode. This can have great effect in how lights are calculated on the object.
UVs and texturesYou will need to export and show a colored UV map (example here) so that we see the texture is laid out correctly. Textures themselves for these simple models shouldn’t exceed 128x128. Export your textures as a .PNG, but always keep your original working files – whether they are Photoshop’s .PSD or something else. We don’t use bump or spec or normal mapping (yet!) so all we need is the base texture alone. The texture .PNG will need to be presented with the UV.
I don't think Blender has built in script for coloured UV maps. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.) There used to be a script called UVpainter, but I couldn't find it in the new version of Blender. So, we'll have to do two layouts and join them. The normal UV layout can be created in UV/Image editor header: UVs-Scripts-Save UV Face Layout. Note that you need to be in UV Face select mode for the menu to appear.
For the colours we can use Bake Render function. Create a new image of same size as your UV map, and assign it to your model. Then select your model and "bake render normals" from User preferences header: Render - Bake Render Meshes - Normals. Save this new texture from UV/Image Editor and merge it with the UV face layout image in a paint soft.
Simple Blender UV mapping guides:
http://www.blender.org/development/release-logs/blender-242/uv-unwrapping/Inventory IconsIf you have the model and the texture, creating the icon is a piece of cake. Render your object, perhaps with some lights in the scene if the default light is not enough, then take the image into a graphic editor and to some work. If your 3D application is able to let you see an alpha channel from the render, that’s perfect. Save them both, isolate your object in GIMP or Photoshop using that alpha (get rid of the render background), then apply a soft black outer glow and you are done. The icons need to be 64x64 pixels, so make sure that glow doesn’t get cut off at the edges.
In Blender you can view the alpha by pressing a-key in the render window. Copy both the normal render and the alpha into GIMP and copy-paste the alpha image into the mask of the colour render. Use "Apply layer mask" to convert the mask into actual alpha channel. Same alpha can be used to create the black outer glow, by using Alpha to selection and Stroke Selection functions. But you can use what you feel most comfortable with.
Presentation ScreenshotsSince you’re not going to upload the models themselves for us to see, you’ll have to let screenshots do the job. Have a couple of orthographic views (top, left, front, etc.) and then one or two in a perspective. These need to show the textured object. In addition, you will need to show a screenshot of the wireframe. If working with 3ds max, you can find one tutorial on presentation-worthy wireframe rendering here, and another here. I use the second method for my own work, but the choice is yours among many. Use what works best for you, as long as it looks good. Keep the screenshots fairly small, no need to go above 500x500 pixels to show a single view.
Like you probably know, Orthographic view in Blender is accessed with numpad 5 and directions with numpad 7,1 and 3. Snap the camera to your current viewpoint with ctrl+alt+ins, and render with F12.
For the wireframe render, go into material buttons panel and click "wire" under Render and pipeline. Also click the "shadeless" button under material tab, to disable shadows and highlights on the wireframe. This will make the grid more clear and easier to fathom. Choose colour of the wireframe by clicking the box next to "col" button. I also recommend enabling "ztransp" and "full osa" for better visuals when objects overlap.
If you want to go for the jagged edge, oldschool look, find your way into Scene-Render buttons panel and disable oversampling "OSA".
*edit*
Please remember to check that you have all the needed pieces when making a commit.
Submissions must include 1) the total triangle count of the object, 2) UV map+texture, 3) ready inventory icon, 4) several screenshots of the item itself, in various views, with at least a couple of them showing the wireframe. You can’t submit an inventory icon separately, or a model separately – it doesn’t make much sense to have these broken up and consistency between the objects is likely to break if people work on them separately.
An example commit:
(I don't want to spoil your fun, so I did an item outside the list.)
Contributor(s): Cherppow
Item: Old helm
Triangle count: 300 tri
Texture size: 128 x 128 px
Inventory icon:
UV map and texture images:
Screenshots:
Ok, that's about all I can think of. Have fun.
