Team Echidna City Challenge Thread

[Jeraphon]

This team's going slow but sure. You may want to consider making some map drafts: things like the positioning of the buildings in Outer Delving, and the configuration of Dark Delving. Architecture's great, it's got a time and place, but you may want to start big and work your way in.

[neko kyouran]

"Rome wasn't built in a day."

 

[Anumesa]

Soraile would like it to be known that she thinks Induane's tavern model "Rocks HARDCORE!"

We have a map and things....we just havent posted them so cool your jets general populous we will post them soon




[edit[ just kidding here is a picture. For the record, the front gates has a larger version being worked on, the house and the dwarf are just superflous ideas that were scrapped...ok well the dwarf is just a dwarf



[edit edit] Ok more pictures for your enjoyment

1) Side view of the different levels of Dark Delving
2) An Outer Delving house
3) Our Map so far
4) Vigesimi Courthouse
5) The furnace place (im too lazy atm to look up the official name)
Im not sure what the last sketch is



Close-up on the map, i wish i could make it clearer but honestly, photo editing programs confuse me.....Ill edit this in a bit and say what the numbers stand for because i forget 

Ok here is what the numbers correspond to on the map:
1) Storehouse
2) Smokestacks
3) Courthouse
4) Tavern
5) Fancy entrance to Dark Delving 

The buildings around the tavern circle are all businesses and most of the other ones are houses. The houses around the courthouse are all the big fancy houses belonging to the wealthy

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

Very nice please pass my compliments to soralie 

[Anumesa]

Ok heres one i drew

The description talked about fancy pillars leading down the road in Dark Delving so heres my take on that....the large basin (wrong word...but im drawing a blank) in the middle to light the way it just there as an idea. I think it actually should be much fancier but wanted to do a different drawing for that.



[edit] is anyone else having issues with photobucket?

* Anumesa explodes

[Ver]

the large basin (wrong word...but im drawing a blank)

Censor and/or brazier.

[Anumesa]

Another attempt at the tunnel down to dark delving. Please forgive my lack of drawing skills 

[Anumesa]

Ok, so i had this idea for raised platforms near the front gate...not really platforms, but rather raised courtyards where one can look out of the city at the surrounding areas.
Here is where it would be on the map, and ill try to draw a picture of the actual courtyards and add that later. [edit] I added them


Ok this is -sort- of what it would look like, though the shape would be larger and different, more like the shape on the map.


I drew this awhile ago, but it sort of captures my idea, number 1 being what it would look like from the courtyard, number 2 being the trees lining the path to the courtyard and number 3 just being an overview of Delving

[Arerano]

I gave it a try - my first "house" in blender

don't expect too much, I'm a blender newbie - or actually a 3d-modelling newbie.
It's not really symetrical.. and the walls aren't equally thick. The stairs aren't "perfect" either, but I think that they look more natural that way ( hehe )
and before anyone who has a better knowledge of blender than I, tries to optimise this one, I'm sure that the quicker way would be a redo.

There are many unneccessary faces right now (the stairs are only extruded - moved down, extruded - moved forward, etc)
A more poligon-saving way would be to remove the "invisible" stairs (below the ground) and the sides of the stairs and do a low poly side wall which could also serve as a hand rail maybe.

anyway.. here the files:
(Time spent: about 1 hour - maybe even 1 and a half.)


http://www.file-upload.net/download-688584/house3.blend.html

[Anumesa]

Heres some stuff Raoni did, ill try to get more pictures so you can see the rest of the smokestacks and the building (that im assuming is) attached to it. He also modified Arerano's courtyard (which by the way is AWESOME).

[Arerano]

House 5.

Sorry, I'm too lazy to continue it..
two main problems:
1.) I mirrored it only once (mirroring it two times would have been way easier to make it)
2.) I was unable to find any easy way to create those cones. (thus there are only two till now instead of 16)

Rendering:


Screenshot of the "fitting":


Blender file:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-690462/house4_vigesimi_courthouse_4.blend.html

edit: not 8, but 16 cones

[Under the moon]

Remember that all final models must be in triangles. No quads allowed. Make sure you get your 2D map in tip top shape before you make a ton of models, though.

[Xillix Queen of Fools]

http://www.autorealm.org/ for all teams something to help you get off the notebook paper for a good overhead concept map, Inkscape can also be good and has a tracing paper feature.

[Arerano]

Remember that all final models must be in triangles. No quads allowed.

Depends on what mesh type the final building should have.
if it's going to be a "thing"-mesh, quads are preferred. However, converting quads to triangles is one button click (the converter even does it, if I am not wrong)
Yet it's hard to convert triangles to quads. (though I have to try what happens to uvw-maps when you convert to triangles in the last stage.)

One important note when using ‘thing’ meshes: it is very important to try to use quads instead of triangles. This is because lightmaps are rectangular. If you have a wall made out of two triangles then you will have two full square lightmaps (one for every triangle) which is a waste given that half of these lightmaps will be unused. If you use a single quad polygon for the wall then only one lightmap will be used. Lightmaps can be big so this really can make a huge difference on performance.

source: http://www.crystalspace3d.org/docs/online/manual/Map-Creation.html (near the bottom)

[edit:fixed typo]

[Karyuu]

I keep noticing people creating models during Phase 1 of this project. Make sure you're only doing this for concept art, and not as a final asset. Unless you have a green flag to begin working in 3D, you may still be asked to rework certain concepts by Xillix and the team. Worrying over triangles and quads at this stage is unnecessary. I'd even forget polycounts entirely and model something elaborate just to show how it could work "in theory."