September Challenge - Concepts Posted! - Page 5

# 61 06-09-2003 , 04:12 AM

The Maya Mountain
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Feel free to do what you want. Really, the point of this challenge is to give all of you REAL requirements that a job in game development would give you. It's important to remember that as an employee, you wouldn't necessarily be doing stuff that really interests you personally, but it'd be important to do a good job.

Feel free to use this challenge's guidelines for your own personal projects. For consideration as a "winner" though, we are judging based on:

1)Following rules.
2)Matching look and feel of provided concepts.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 62 06-09-2003 , 04:28 AM

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darn... ok well i follow concepts and listen to an art director already as part of my job so ill pass on this one ^_^

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# 63 06-09-2003 , 05:14 AM

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yeah, if you already have a job in the industry, this challenge might be kinda redundant. It's mostly to give those looking to get in a small taste of the kind of stuff they can look forward to.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 64 06-09-2003 , 05:25 AM

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I wanna try but...

I wanna try but have no idea about textures and that I just see the challenge I wanna I been working a few minutes in the CONCEPT #1 and i think I have something to show BUT it looks quite ugly all gray
Im looking for some, fog tutos and lights so i can start so plz if u konw where I can find a GREAT and easy to follow plz answer

Question: exterior? like mountains and all that? HAVE no idea

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# 65 06-09-2003 , 03:28 PM

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With the exterior, you are only required to model the exterior of the building. The terrain, as Mike stated previously in this thread (I think), will be generated by some other program or designed by another person I believe, so there is no need to model that.

www.Darkware3D.com

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# 66 06-09-2003 , 03:30 PM

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yep, as an artist in a game studio, you are making art assets. Not entire levels/scenes.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 67 07-09-2003 , 02:51 AM

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Thanks for answering my last question Mike. I have another, but I'm not sure if I can explain it well.

You've seen my hallway segments I'm sure. Say I have three in a row. Would it be better to leave all three segments as seperate objects or combine all three? Here are the assets to each proposition:

Leaving them as seperate objects:
-You are left with 24 polygons. 8 polygons per segment.
-One swatch in hypershade with the file texture can be used for each segment.
-You clog you scene up by having many objects since there are so many hallways.

Combining them together:
-Since you combine all 3, you can merge vertices and be left with 8 polygons, which greatly lowers your poly count.
-Must create a seperate swatch in hypershade and repeat the U or V in the 2Dtextureplacement file 3 times to ensure that the hallway texture covers the entire hallway correctly. (because you cannot map the UVs manually over the texture file to do this.)
-You prevent your scene from being clogged because you don't have as many objects. (having 50 faces - each face being an object of its own - does take more computer power than having a single object with 50 faces)

EDIT* - Nevermind. I just realized that I wouldn't have to create an extra swatch and edit the UV repeat value because I can just extend the actual uv's manually to cover the file texture 3 times. For some reason, I have it in my head that you have to stay inside the zero to one range. Oh well. Problem solved.

www.Darkware3D.com

Last edited by Darkware; 07-09-2003 at 03:38 AM.

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# 68 07-09-2003 , 04:14 AM

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Don't forget to detail your hallways, and not just leave them cylinder shapes. user added image

Think of them as a room, just as the main rooms have computer consoles and stuff all over, the corridors should have somthing, like big pipes, cables, paneling, etc.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 69 07-09-2003 , 04:25 AM

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I know. That will come later though. I want to do the basic layout first, then go back and do the little detail later. I know it would be a lot eaier to go ahead and do the pipes now and have them duplicate with the hallways all as one piece, but I'll choose the hard way for this particilar section. I can feel the death grip of the poly limit begin to tighten around my throat too as I calculate the projected poly count for the future. Ugh.

www.Darkware3D.com

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# 70 07-09-2003 , 04:42 AM

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Well, don't forget, any time you duplicate an object, you only count the first one. The game will load it once, and then each duplicate is an instance of the first. user added image

Only the original objects are factored into the max polycount.

Also, for the challenge, remember, you AREN'T creating any kind of scene. You are purely creating art assets. So you do not have to display the hallway system all put together for your final. You CAN show an example, demonstrating how they work, and, like I mentioned way back when, if you want to make a scene for yourself, that's fine. Scenes won't be a part of the final challenge entry, though.

You finals are pretty much just beauty shots of each object/room or each character you make.

Once you make a house, for example, your job is done. You do not place it ON the game map where it would be IN THE GAME. You DON'T do this. It's NOT your job! You simply hand over the completed house, all by its lonesome, and the level designer takes it from there.

I know it's kind of a weird concept for those used to making EVERYTHING for themselves. user added image

[PS> Not necessarily talking to you, Dark. Just another in-general rule recap. user added image

]

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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# 71 07-09-2003 , 09:10 AM

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Really? Wow, I didn't know that.
Makes much more sense now.
This challenge has opened my eyes and my mind more to the daily troubles of game art.

Cool idea Mike!

Tho I'm not able to enter, I'm learnin a LOT! user added image

Israel "Izzy" Long
Motion and Title Design for Broadcast-Film-DS
izzylong.com

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# 72 07-09-2003 , 12:29 PM

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Wow are you serious? I didn't think games did instancing. I bet that really helps with poly counts. I suppose I am overdoing it by trying to do the level layout as well as model everything else. I'll try to hold back and only model. It's just so fun to stick them together though!

www.Darkware3D.com

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# 73 07-09-2003 , 03:25 PM

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The unreal engine is the one Im most familiar with. It loads a mesh into video memory, and then each time its displayed it just uses it from memory, without the need to load it from disk again.

Once the mesh is in memory, it can can be displayed in any configuration, scaled up, down, rotated in any direction etc. Yet it still just instances of the single mesh.

Of course you still need to display the polygons that make up them all though, so the polygons displayed is still double, but the memory the mesh uses is only for one mesh.

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# 74 07-09-2003 , 03:53 PM

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This art asset thing is really very interesting. In a sense it's like everyone making different bits of a machine that other people then assemble. I didn't know it worked like that; thanks Mike for the explanation.

As you say it's a lot different from modelling a whole finished thing. It must be jolly to look in the finished scene and think 'that's my house' when the level is running though.

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# 75 07-09-2003 , 04:06 PM

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Yeah, it's funny when I tell people that I'm looking forward to playing the game I'm working on. They think it's just so I can have an ego-fest, but the fact is, I have literally nothing to do almost with gameplay, how the level is designed and all that, so it would be a new experience for me, just as it would for anyone else who bought it.

The only difference would be that I would recognize the models. user added image

And as Icarus mentioned, the polycounts displayed on the screen are still counting each successive piece placed in the scene, but for the challenge's approximate 50k poly limit, that's only figured by adding up the polys of each unique piece, and not it's many copies.

It would be up to the level designers to make sure that they aren't overdoing the polys-per-screen as they are the ones placing things around.

If it were to come to a point where they really need a certain piece lowered, you still have the original model file. You would modify it, and simply replace the old one. When next time the game is loaded, it pulls the new geometry from the list.

-Mike
The Maya Toolbelt

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