Arerano's CS art

[Arerano]

I don't know if this is the right place for showing what I've done since those things aren't necessarily PS-related, yet the target (of my "trying aroung") is CS, the underlying engine PS uses.

Some books which share a single 512x512 texture. I know, the texture is far from being perfect. Those books are meant to have high detail, thus they have an enormous count of 84 triangles each, however I should be able to remove 20 more without a visible quality loss. I'm not yet contented with the texture tho. When I have some more books, I'm going to build a filled bookshelf - for that, of course I will use many "stripped down books" for places which can't be seen very well anyeay (like the topmost and bottom row of books)
It's a blender render here, but they look quite the same in CS walktest.


This is some alpha-mapped terrain made in blender, exported with blender2crystal (svn trunk, since the support has been added very recently)
I'm not really contented with the skybox.. this seems to be a really hard thing to do if you want to use some photo as a base.
The shot is taken from Crystalspace walktest:


This is a Crystalspace walktest screenshot of a hammock which uses transparency in the texture. (the background is a not yet finished wooden cottage, and in the foreground a wooden chair can be seen)


This shows the last frame of my "How to make Alpha Mapped Terrains in Blender for Crystalspace" flash-video tutorial. It will soon be available on the blender2crystalspace wiki.
If you just can't wait to see the first version of this tutorial (It's my very first video tutorial) I can provide a download link.



Edit: fixed the "img"-tags. Reuploaded images, updated URLs

[neko kyouran]

I don't know if this is the right place for showing what I've done since those things aren't necessarily PS-related, yet the target (of my "trying aroung") is CS, the underlying engine PS uses.

here's fine. 

looks like you got a real knack for it.  keep up the good work. 

[Nikodemus]

Hey, why wont you join a city cpontest team for the 3d phase? For instance Adraax team
I had very big problems to master the arts of creating landscapes in CS and i know we gonna need it ;>
You have quite a good skills.

[Arerano]

Well, for those who can't wait till the tutorial is available on the blender2crystal wiki, here's the download link for it:
http://www.file-upload.net/download-764036/alphaMappedTerrain-tutorial-colpalette-Arerano.rar.html
It's a "flash tutorial", I've heard that there's a linux player which can play it but doesn't play it that well (too fast and you won't see the text-bubbles)
However it should work to simply open the html file in your browser (firefox for example, or internet explorer on windows)
Update: The flash video tutorial is now directly accessible here: http://leapingcat.org/blender2crystal/vtut/alphaMappedTerrainPalette.htm
however, it's not yet integrated into the wiki but it might be way more comfortable to access it directly.

Here's the sample .blend file (which is made during the tutorial)
http://www.file-upload.net/download-764773/AlphaMappedTerrain-tutorial01-Packed.blend.html
Now also available here: http://leapingcat.org/blender2crystal/vtut/AlphaMappedTerrain-tutorial01-Packed.blend
Don't forget that you will need blender2crystal SVN trunk for this type of terrain to work!


[update: direct link for tutorial. Updated the link again.]

[Entevir]

Hey thats pretty good.Makes me wonder about how long you have been at it ?

[Arerano]

Not really long.. I mean, time is relative. Years ago I played around with 3D Studio Max, but that was really only "playing around", nothing to show. The "real start", with blender, happened about two months ago. Of course with the "Blender Noob to Pro" guide.

The things I made are rather simple, even the "terrain map" if you know how - basically modified boxes or grids. I also often notice that lack of "know how" when creating something new, then I feel like doing the most complicated steps to accomplish the simplest thing , but I'm sure that this comes with experience over time.

The books took some hours, most of the time spent for preparing the texture and later for the UV-mapping.
The hammock is nothing more but a plane with moved vertices and a hand-drawn "threads" texture with transparent background. Probably some few hours.
The terrain with skybox, some days, most of the time spent for collecting and preparing textures (this was actually more trying around and see what I can get), but it's not finished.. I just can't get a nice skybox working.. it's easy to show the "nice part" of the skybox in a screenshot but moving reveals all its flaws
For the tutorial terrain I had the textures prepared already. So, without skybox or any objects - a freeform-terrain (without a plan to follow) probably less than an hour. Well, at least for that I got some kind of "good workflow".

@Nikodemus: I pondered about helping one of the teams indeed, but at the moment I've quite some stress here and there, thus prefer to not load another duty onto my shoulders. And being in such a team, you better take it serious like a job to get things done. I'd probably only delay

[Nikodemus]

@Nikodemus: I pondered about helping one of the teams indeed, but at the moment I've quite some stress here and there, thus prefer to not load another duty onto my shoulders. And being in such a team, you better take it serious like a job to get things done. I'd probably only delay

It would be more like:
"So you have barely any time at all... Ok, make that crate box and report when you are done ;P Or, we need a well with 1m radius, a cart"
The phase will take 4 months, so if you dont have time now, maybe you have it in 2 months. The thing is that i dont know f you have to decide within a week or so, before the phase start or at the very begining.

[Leama]

Arerano,

Your work is great!!. I love the details on the books.

[zorbels]

It would be awesome to have a hammock like that to lag errr.. I mean drag around in the wilds of Yliakum. Love the colors. The books are pretty neat too. I like the detail on the covers. Hope you post more of your work. 

[Arerano]

A new item is born!
The rusty key.

When making this key I kept following things in mind: If it is used in a game, the item will be rather small. (smaller than a book)
Thus I kept the texture and the poligons at a very low level.
render = 256x256 (but doesn't look that bad with 128x128 either), 168 polygons triangles (however I could remove ~ 22 without any visible difference)


(sorry for the bad shadows in the render)

[edit: meant triangles instead of polygons]

[Nikodemus]

You need to count triangles, not polygons (which include quads and other)
along guidelines texure should be 128x128 max.
and in my opinion, because people will look at he key rom such a distance, that 99,9% of the time they won't see it bigger than on the imageshack thumb, and if you used 70 triangles you woul reach the same objective.

But yeah, it is nice looking key.

[Arerano]

Oh, sorry for being unclear. I counted indeed the triangles just called them wrongly "polygons".
And yes, when people won't see it larger than the thumb, I could probably remove some more.

[zorbels]

I like your key. I wish I had skills like that. It looks very realistic. 

[Anumesa]

Wow Arerano you keep getting better and better Keep it up 

[Arerano]

Remade of the Key
From left to right:
106 Triangles, 128x128 Texture; 122 Triangles, 128x128 Texture; (and as reference the previous key with 168 Triangles, 256x256 texture)
Comments and suggestions are welcome. It's hard to get the triangles count lower without having it look crappy.




And my newest model, a fishing spear: 64 Triangles, 256x256 Texture. (I think the monotone background makes it look bad.. or is it something else? any suggestions?)



A (hopefully) improved version (proportion-wise) of the key in the middle: 122 Triangles, 128x128 Texture




And my newest newesst creation: A cane (walking stick) Those are things which grow on trees.. and should require little effort to obtain. Walk through the woods and you'll find one. simply cut off the boughs and there you go. Perfectly for elder people or longer journeys.. or those who have some pain in their legs or maybe have another reason which makes life - for them - easier if they have one.
Edit: uses the same texture as the fishing spear, 256x256 and has a low count of 40 triangles.



And:
Thanks to ImageShack for Free Image Hosting

Any comments or suggestions?


And my "wannabe-tent" .. or maybe "will be a tent one day"-thingy 
Take it with you and build it up wherever you want. (of course not inside "cities"). Needless to mention that THIS one isn't Ulbernauts-proof.

Code: [Select]

/build tent
>You failed building up your tent.
/build tent
>You successfully built your tent.
>You've gained some practice points in Building Tents. You've also Ranked up!