Artists

Oh Yeah, if your doing it in 3dsmax you can do it lots of ways.

Let me know if you are and Ill help you.

maya also has quite a few was of doing it. easiest is to make the tracks a character set and then save the animation as a clip. then you just tell it to repeat.

yeah in 3ds max.
i havent really used the track view much, but i can kinda see how it might be done in there.

thanx for any help :)

hi, i'm sorry for digging out this old post, but i'm using 3ds max 7 and i just need the information =)

i have that little character animation with a biped guy doing limbo, he does one step with each foot (freeform) and the center of mass goes with it. i just want to repeat the walking animation while still keeping him moving forward

thx in advance for your help, i guess it's not that difficult, i just can't find it

chris

I guess you could just do a drag select over the key frames. hold SHIFT and drag it past the old set. this will make a copy of the key frames further down the time line.

Works with normal things, it might be different with bi-ped.
Give it a go at least.
Save first :)

For the character, there's a number of ways, but most easiest would be to save it off as a .bip and use mixer to loop it or selectively blend clips to form your whole.

And for prosperity sake, here's some info to your first tank related question: The merge animation (under the file menu) will allow you to clone animation from one tank to another. You could always use a character group with the same method, and just save the .anm

Its just a rectangle that senses the position and pressure of a ?pen?. So it looks like and acts like an artists drawing pad, but the lines etc come up on the screen so it can take a bit to get used to. A lot of artist use them as they are more natural (to an artist)and allow a greater freedom of stroke style then a mouse does.

Pantmonger

ok...kool thanks

..............and i dont have one. :(

Same here[xx(]. Oh well, it's my birthday soon and I'll probably get some crapy part time job 'till the end of the year. So it's really only a matter of time before I get one.

Ive never used one either!! anyone who has,.. is it really a "cant do without" type tool or do you think its more of a "if your good with a mouse dont bother" type tool ?

quote:Originally posted by HazarD

Ive never used one either!! anyone who has,.. is it really a "cant do without" type tool or do you think its more of a "if your good with a mouse dont bother" type tool ?

You can live without one, but once you have gotten use to one you wont want to. They increase your speed and allow you to use a natural action in your brush strokes that is hard to replicate with a mouse. Plus pressure sensitive.

Pantmonger

As Pantmonger said, the stylus pressure is a really nice thing to have, but the main reason why i use mine so much is due to the speed and comfort issues. Whenever i use a mouse for 2+ hours straight (i think that we all clock up far more than that ;) ), my wrist and... er... the pad of my hand start to become swollen and sore due to the constant rubbing against my desk. I do not have this problem with my wacom as my hand always floats an inch above my desk.

Once you go tablet...you'll never go back......

[:o)]

i've never seen a pressure sensitive mouse.. so yay wacom

I have to admit that i havent seen the Graphire3, so i cant speak on that.

The major differences between the Intuos and the Graphire have always been trivial. Up until the Graphire3, Grapires were only 4x5, if you wanted larger you had to go for an Intuos. Intuos also hav better stylus recognition. They had greater pressure sensitivity (more sensor levels) and better angle support (i dont think my Graphire1 has it full stop). Plus Intuos has more pens available for it, like the Airbrush pen that can supposidly mimic a real life airbrush really well (haven't tried it). So that's the technical differences between the two. I have used both and they are almost the same, but with the new version of Photoshop coming out soon, the extra pressure levels may come in good use.

The best way i can describe the size difference is that it is like your mouse sensitivity. I have used a 4x5 Graphire1 (my tablet), a 6x8 Intuos1 and a 12x12 Intuos1. Having a smaller tablet means that you can move the cursor from one side of the screen to the other with barely moving your hand. The larger ones mean that you have to move your whole arm to reach across. I personally like the 4x5 and 6x8, anything over that is just too much. Remember that you can always zoom in to get that extra fine detail with a smaller board.

Don't touch other brand tablets. they are $50 for a reason. The only competitors that i know of are sony with their LCD tablet (wacom also have them). Last i knew though, Sony only released theirs in Japan.

Hope that helps you out a fair bit. Although i use a 4x5 Graphire1, i am thinking of upgrading to a 6x8 Intuos2.

I think the intuos are better for more high end art stuff, eg working on super huge canvas sizes.. If you're working on game textures, the graphire is all you need.

For me the only difference between using a large or small tablet is line art.
If you are going to draw line art direct using your tablet then I find the larger tablets art useful as they give a better understanding of the space you are using, but for doing all the texture stuff, colouring scanned line art and the like I find a small one has no issues.

Pantmonger
Who uses a 4 x 5 at home and an A3 monster at work.

I have a monster one hehe.
Glutony is my sin of choice.

I have an Intuos 4x5 (usb) thats has rarely been used,
(in fact I can show you the six pics I coloured in with it!)
I want to upgrade to Intuos 2, so i'm selling the first for $300

I use Wacom Graphire2 4 x 5 for home use which is now sitting in my desk draw at work, I having found a need to use it because they just got me one for work which is Wacom Intuos2 4 x 5 I didn't think the extras were that cool for the extra cost but by hell I know I will never buy another Graphire. I'm a big fan of the small Wacom also, I have use a big one a few time I found myself use changing it to use only about a 1/4 of the Wacom usable face.

Maybe a big one it good for line drawing like Pants said but I use spline for my line draw when I'm using the computer so this has no effect for me.

i ended up getting the G3 6x8, cos i tryed a friends 4x5 and that was too small, and then i heard that i dont realy need the extra features of the int. for texturing (even more so considering i am a long way from a texture artist), so bugger if i'm gonna pay twice the price for something i dont need. i didnt get any replyed to this thread so i just went out and got it, then a little over a week after i get it i decide to check out the forums and everyone one has replyed! at least i made the right choice it seams. i've been storming though my 2d assessment for tafe with it, something i couldn't get motiveted to do before hand.

I'm glad you are happy with it. it just goes to show that a person only needs what they want. if you have no want for the extra features, then yeah, it was a good idea that you didn't buy the intuos. spend the left over cash on something else :D

If your new to tablets, buy one that is the same aspect ratio and size as your monitor.
If you want rsi, get a smaller one. Larger ones help by forcing you to use your whole arm, rather than quick repettative motions of the wrist.

I use the Intuos II and I would say its the best Ive seen so far... the first purchase I made where I felt it was sooooooo worth it.

Aye would be nice..

They're groin hurtingly expensive though as I recall... Still would be worth it.

I would give an arm and a leg for those DVDs....since I dont have the money to buy them :(

Feng is gonna make so much $$$$$ outta this

And hes gonna loose so much $$$$ as well the poor guy [:(] its just like those gnomon DVDs being ripped or even up everywhere in warez. Those guys seriously can't win against those things [:(] But yeah im buying them when they actually drop the prices [:O] thats if they do... hehe

BWA HAHAHAHA

I have the whole analog set arriving on friday.

So who wants to come to my place for popcorn and Feng?

Me too, alot of money well spent. [:)]

How much stuff is on each dvd? May save up for them.

I mean, how many hours worth of stuff.

And how much does it cost? It's not $69(US) per DVD is it??!

We saw a video at my graphic design course where a car concept artist gave a tutorial on how he worked, using markers. Damn he was fast! He completed a piece within a few minutes. Professional quality piece of work too.

I am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO jealous of you Dave, ya lucky bastard!!
:P

Bob: There is around 1.5 hours on each CD.

Souri: Yeah $69.00 US per DVD...ouch..but its so worth it.

Especially the environment one, sweet jebus!!

Darn.. that's pretty expensive. (It would make a pretty good prize for a modeller challenge though)

Souri: ooooh yeah, $600 worth of absolute 2D goodness. Pity I already have them though, bummer.

[frickin big, red font that blinks] Wow. That is expensive. [/frickin big, red font that blinks]

quote:Originally posted by Malus

Souri: ooooh yeah, $600 worth of absolute 2D goodness. Pity I already have them though, bummer.

Hey Malus, would it be ata ll possible to throw up a quick personal review of the DVDs. If its not too much hassle. Im seriously considering getting them but dont know whether its worth all that cash. And how quickly did they ship them to you?

Feng is an absolute master, i aspire to get to a similar level as him as a concept artist. Feng zhu, doug chiang and yoji Shinikawa are my all time faves.

Very nice and concise - good job translating into lamens terms and defining terminology.

One thing I think is missing you may consider doing is explaining how to use the seperate channels to manually refine and detail areas that are overkill to model (veins, perturbed areas, etc). I love using this technique to manage low range details. Also perhaps noting about modelling concave/convex and an overview on modelling relations with the normal rules when ripping (standard normal rules such as neighbour>neighbour, nearest/furthest, etc to keep it generalised and open?)

Anyways, just a few suggestions, great job Ionized.

Thanks for this. I've been looking into having a go at using normal maps once my computer arrives. A nice, concise tutorial.

Cheers

DUDE u are a god that is absolutely kool. That puts normal mapping into an even better perspective.

Well done and thankx for great info [:)]

Saw this on CGtalk, nice tut Joel. I will be making a normal mapped model soon..ish, this should help.

Cheers, thanks guys for your comments :)

JI: Yeah, there a few other things I could have put in. I actually don't do that much with combo bump maps (I think thats what your talking about). The results I've gotten with this method from the ATI mapper arn't that great to be honest. I suppose it's something I should mess around with more. And yes, the different settings for determining ray depth are another thing that deserves some explanation. Great suggestions anyway, maybe I'll do a part 2 at some point. Thanks!

Good tut. Entertaining read.

I wonder how hard it would be to hand paint some of this stuff... I can see how this is brilliant for high -> low poly stuff, but i just find it difficult to comprehend building high poly models simply to make great looking low poly ones. (id software do that don't they?)

If you've got the resources i suppose. (you'd alos end up with a whole bunch of really good high poly models for promotional stuff =D)

cheers

Smeg: I have a feeling ID just build the high poly and Carmacks uber code optimses them to low poly. Correct me if I'm wrong, sounds wrong lol. [:P]

Also Doord said that Irrational paint thier maps by hand for Tribes: Vengeance.

There are quite a few ways of creating the 2 meshes though, make the low then expand on it for the high or make each seperately or even optimse the high one.

Its the new FPS craze though check out some of the games that use it, T:V, Doom 3, Halflife 2, Deus Ex 2, Farcry and Stalker.

Malus, I'm pretty sure ID built seperate low and hi-res meshes. You can tell by looking at the silhouettes. But yeah, code optimised meshes usually turn out ugly as anything.

The tribes 3 normal maps are just grey scale bump maps as well. Only working off 2 axis rather than the 3 in doom3.

The silhouettes just show that there are low poly meshes, how can you tell how they were created from them? I just meant I heard that the code generates the low poly mesh as well as the normal map not hand made.

So T:V isn't using actual per pixel lit RGB/XYZ normal maps? Doesn't that then make them bump maps not normal maps?

There's 2 methods that apply here:

hand painting emboss pass, or a normalised height pass - height/bump/emboss maps deal with the depth or height. Normal maps deal with angular differences on xyz - a normal map has a few advantages both in visual and code areas, so normalising a height map at runtime is something a few titles have used in the past - so you pretty much have decals and details like you would in an emboss but it's not a complete normals replacement for your lowpoly mesh - it's accentuating either a pp lighting or vertex lighting system.

Awesome tute. The best out there.

I think it would be next to impossible to hand paint a normal map. The human brain just doesn't work that way!

One way to convert a greyscale height map to a normal map would be to copy your low poly mesh. Add your greyscale bump map as a displacement modifier to it in your 3D app and bake that data out to a solid mesh. Then run a normal mapper process over it. Wha-la... no need to model the high poly.

I'd much prefer to model both, you'll never get as good a normal map unless you put the hard work in, but thats just my opinion.

Very nice tute Ionized. You sure know your stuff. Is the page supposed to have purple text on a grey background though? Makes it quite difficult to read.

I totally agree malus. But for those with no high poly experience it may be a place to start experimenting.

Aven... I'm seeing black on grey... hmm... check monitor?[8]

Hmmm. Checked again. I don't think that my LCD is that messed up after a year :p

[img]http://home.netspeed.com.au/mlanham/ionization_colours.jpg[/img]

Screen Cap. All your other pages have white text, and they are easy to read. The Normal Mapping tute though... All the pages of the tute have purple text as well.

Using IE 6 (w/ latest updates). How odd.

All worked fine on my screen.

The text that appears between the paragraph

tags don't have a font colour assigned to them. I think IE defaults to black if it doesn't find any, so most people will see that text as black. It's strange that yours shows up with that colour though. Anyway, Ionization can fix it up if he puts something like this on all his pages:

p {color: #000000}

There are other places where tags don't indicate a colour either, so same problem as above. Should indicate colour in the font tags, or better yet use style sheets.

I would love to check that, but unfortunately my 'View Source' tool in IE is buggered. It just does nothing. Thanks for checking that Souri. You are right, CSS is the way to go.

Thanks muchly for bringing that to my attention Aven. Damn, thats wierd. I can see now why it would be hard to read ;)

Thanks for the tag Souri. Now that I look at it, it's kind of wierd that the colour of the text on the front page is white, while the tutorial text is in black. I think I might just change all the text to white and be done with it.

Hmm, no takers? hehe

Well I have one question that I need answered desperatly!

In Max, why do all polygons have an edge running diagonaly running through them? When ever I try to move and edge around I get an ugly crease where this 'hidden' edge is.
Is there a way to take them off? Surely Max allows four sided polygons.

Pleeease help me! hehe

I can answer this one :)

Yes max does allow 4 sided polygons (and more) but when it comes to game construction only the true polygon matters and that is the triangle.
You can flip the line between the verts that this is conected to so that the "line" through the quad goes on the oposite angle, but as all polys are made from triangles, no matter the number of edges, it has to be there somewhere.

Also of note is that if you do a "poly count in max while using editable polygon you will get an incorrect number (usualy out by 1/2 give or take), as only the number of triangles (the true polygon) is importent (to get that convert to an editble mesh, do the count convert back.)

Hope that helps

Pantmonger

Thanks mate! I spent some time with it and I got my head around it.

One questioin for you though Pantmonger do you box model? and if so, do you use edit poly or edit mesh?

Peace!

I have recently been doing a bit of box (or box esk) modeling using edit poly, the model I have in the comp was done this way. Previous to this I used a combination of constraining primatives and using splines using editable mesh and editable spline. Most of that was back in the 800 to 1000 poly days.

Pantmonger

edit mesh should get you through all your woes,
and don't worry about that little line running through your polys, max recognises tri's as true polys, the poly count will testify to that,
btw you use the TURN tool to redirect it.
Happy Max'ing,
sorry you can't be using Maya, it's the beeezneeez as I'm sure you'll agree.

Edit poly or bust.

In Edit poly selecting edit triangulation allows for edge turning.

The one problem that has seemed to surface with the lean toward quad modelling is that everyone seems to have lost the knowledge that all 3D game objects are constructed using 3 points in world space to form a 'triangle', not a 'square'.

It makes sense after all as a triangle uses the least number of edges to form a plane, any less and its a line any more and its 2 triangles.

Ive always used Edit mesh, until you showed me edit poly at Qantm Dean,... damnit i thort edit mesh was the business,.. but edit poly rocks,.. i dunno,.. heaps more control i found.

My models are coming out a bit better now too,... say goodbye to all those DODECAHEDRONS!!

And all the little extra tools like quickslice , ring, loop and connect,.. make adding detail a breeze.

I do all my modelling in Edit Poly. When its time to get it in the engine I convert it to edit mesh and start flipping any triangles there... turn edges is much easier to use than the edit poly equivalent.[^]

A few tips for getting down to fast modelling in 3dsmax.

1. Set your viewport to faceted.
2. Set your viewport prefs to default 1 light.
3. Set your materials specular value so you can clearly see the triangles.

Doing this will aid you in seeing the triangles that edit poly is creating without cluttering your view with edges. You may also want to change your default mesh selected color to black, not white in prefs. This makes your eye more relaxed when viewing.

About your inner triangle problem, check in your prefferences, viewport settings and you can diable the always show all triangles (i forget what its called... just poke around youll get it). You can then toggle edges only mode on and off in the right click preffs.

email me at dave.king@discreet if you want to know anything more about modelling in max. Once you have it down its waaaaaaaay faster than modelling polys in maya in my opinion.

Just a note, OP does not matter for most uni fine art courses. Its usualy folio and interview.

Pantmonger

QCA's usually where it's at, so I'm told. Next in line would be QUT. Yeah... @:-P

Hey wow. 200th post. Lookit me!! @;-D

Last year I didn't even get asked if I wanted an interview or not.
I don't know but they are like tells us....you need OP8 or better or we're not even going to look at your stuff.

a decent cpu. 512+ram and a 64mb video card i guess.

i have dual 2.2ghz, 512ram (was 1024 but half of it died) and an old geforce3 and i have no problems at all. i think i have an 80gb 7200rpm harddrive.
wouldnt need that much if your doing game models. most of my work is rather hipoly. (and i dont plan to upgrade for a while:))

my old computer was 1.4ghz/256ram and a geforce2ti with a 40gb hardrive and it had no probs on lowpoly work.

At the moment I'm running on an Athlon 900 with 384mb ram and a GeForce 2 MX. Low poly work is fine, however the only problem is that I can barely play the newer games I want to model for! :P

Should be upgrading soon to a Athlon 2400 with 512mb ram and an ATI 9800. That should keep me going for a little while.

Wings 3D http://www.wings3d.com/
POV-Ray http://www.povray.org/download/
Terragen (free for personal, non-commercial use) http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/download.shtml
Blender (free open source GPL) http://www.blender.org/
Art Of Illusion (open source, Java-based modeler and renderer) http://www.artofillusion.org/
Milkshape 3D http://www.polygods.com/
Anim8tor http://www.anim8or.com/

got that from here:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=b0d6f21b7d3d65a2f1507668538b13c0…

3d freeware guide thread:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?threadid=18902

search for 3d tools:
http://www2.asro.kuleuven.ac.be/asro/English/HOME/SBs/3dcad/search.asp

and there are free trials of the main aps..

You can get demo copies for 3D Max, Maya, Softimage etc and Gmax is free and it has mostly everything that you will need for game dev.

Go to the Sumea Links programme box in the [url="http://www.sumea.com.au/section.asp?class=Modeller&modeller=-1&type=2"]modeller section[/url] to find the links to those demo versions..

I have been thinking of starting to create games and some of the programs that I have from you guys are excellent. Thanks Yall[:D]

I think if you have transparency where the alpha channel would be (i.e. you can see those little checker patterns) it should save fine, Ive never had a problem but that may be it?!

I dont know whats going on with your TGA files. Whan I save as TGA in photoshop a little window opens and asks if I want to save as 36 bit (ie alpha included). As for other formats, (Cut paste comming)

quote:PNG format supports RGB, indexed-color, grayscale, and Bitmap-mode images without alpha channels. PNG preserves transparency in grayscale and RGB images.

So I dont think it will do what you want it to.
If this is just for an alpha map for the comp you can just pump out a seperate grey scale map. (it what I do all the time anyway)

Pantmonger

"All three PNG image types--truecolor, grayscale and palette--can have alpha information, but it's most commonly used with truecolor images."

36 bit TGA is 9 bits per channel?

(PNG supports up to 48bit)

Anyway, I prefer my final assets as .PNG, but I guess it depends on what you are using them with (ie. for a DirectX engine, DXTn might be the best format).

Dean, Michael, & redwyre thank u heaps for the info but i still got the tga problem, i guess ill stik to PNG for now since its only for renders not in game yet.

Thankx u once again..

chris...[:)]

the alpha channels in TGA's for PS7 don't "exist". I read somewhere that after research, Adobe decided TGA's weren't 'meant' to have an alpha channel.

Theres a dll u have to get from PS6 to overwrite the restriction... do a google search, it's availbe as a singel file as well to overwrite the PS7 one.

is ther such thing as a 36bit tga? and why? 8r 8g 8b 8alpha... where's the other 4 come in?

/me suspects a typo accounts for the other 4 bits as TGA spec doesn't allow for 36 bit depth :)

not meant to have an alpha?? Why would they remove a perfectly good component of the files structure, there alphas work great.

I haven't seen anything about this but its seems unlikely.

yeah exactly what i thought dean !!! im still confused about it but oh wells stuck with PNG's [:)]

TGA spec definately says alpha is supported, that sounds really bizzare that PS7
would drop support for it.

PNG file loading is easily supported with libPNG - this is a really nicely done
library - very easy to use, so think you'd be right with most game engines,
Ninja.

[url="http://www.lowrestv.com/lowres/tutorials/tutorial_01.asp?tut_id=t6"]Here's a good page[/url] on saving TGA's with transparencies with Photoshop 7.. I think the usual way to save transparencies was to make a new channel and define the transparent areas and non transparent areas with black and white.. the link above says you just make a layer mask, save as TGA, and make sure you do it as 32 bits/pixel.
btw, I found that link when searching google for "photoshop 7" +tga +alpha .. guess what showed up as the first result? [:)]

Ok, just did some more searching and there seems to be a problem with Photoshop 7 and TGA transparencies.. you'll have to download a patch and upgrade to 7.01, or replace the targa plugin to do it. [url="http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/2c21a.htm?code=TA"]All the details here[/url].

i use photoshop 7 and Ive never had a problem saving tga alphas. Wierdness.

thankx souri & combatwombat for that info [:)] will update PS and give that a try.... [:)]

lol @ souri's google search :) We're famous... erm ok maybe not :)

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22…

This is a 'BUG' in photoshop 7.0. It throws away your alpha channel.
Theres two ways to fix it. One, download the patch from the adobe website. two, find an older version of photoshop and copy paste the tga format plugin over 7's. Both fix the problem.

Needless to say I am very, very annoyed by the amount of work that was lost before we found out about this 'improvement' to photoshop.

hehe yeah i lost a lot of work on this as well. i had to update my photoshop as well. [:)]

Oh yeah congrats at getting the job at discreet David.[:)]

ive always been a big fan of your stuff!!!.

chris.. [:)]

You would think that if a graffiti artist's work is painted onto public property then it too would become public property, anyway how could such a person be contacted for licencing of his/her work for use in a game?... this person is dreaming.

I know Bizarre have to notify/licence the use of every shopfront for Project Gotham Racing 2 (which is an enormous task in itself), and there'll be 12 cities featured in the game.

Red 5: I think you may be right that if he did the graf on a public space then he has no case but as for not being able to contact him well then they just shouldn't use it.

And most of the famous pieces being used have been public works for a while, you'll notice alot of the same ones popping up in games, the same reason you see countless bad prints on peoples living room walls.

" I wonder if you can sue game developers for duplicating famous architectural designs and landmarks (Sydney Opera House etc"
I believe you can if you don't have permission, not positive though.

The person still owns the rights to the design, even if it is done illegaly. One breach of law does not invalidate the other.

Example: Cars (in Queensland road law) must give way to pedestrians.
A pedestrian who crosses the road at the wrong location or on a red light is J-walking and breaking the law. But the car still has to give way.

Sure the person could not be contacted to secure the rights but that does not make their work open slather. It can be destroyed, if it is done on property belonging to someone else, but the idea, the design fall under intellectual copyright. The guy has a case.

Pantmonger

Yeah your right Pants, forgot about that little loophole.
Still, what a waste of taxpayers money, if I were the judge I'd award him $1 in payments and fine him a sh#tload for the grafitti.

Just reading the source of that information, it refers to the graffiti artist in question having an international reputation and that his work has been reproduced in books, magazines and film... It sounds to me as though Rockstar may have scanned some of his work straight out of a book which would be a big mistake without his prior permission.

Well if thats the case, then fair enough, but if it was some crap taken off a brick wall behind a factory, then it would be a rediculous case.
If I was him I'd want some credit, but thats it, I'd love to see my artwork appear in a professional game.

Graffiti art isn't neccessarily illegal just because it's graffiti art. I know of a couple places in melbourne who have gotten artists to do "graffiti" on the walls of their shops etc.
It's better to have good looking artistic graffiti on your wall than a bunch of lame tags. And since theirs that graffers "code" of not graffiting over someone elses graffiti it can keep those evil taggers away.
Also, there are often competitions etc. where people do graffiti on huge canvases etc. rather than walls. You often see these at skate competitions, music festivals and such like.
CYer, Blitz

If it was a legal graf then Rockstar should pay out bigtime but if its on some brickwall like fluffy said then the guys a fool.

Yeah graffiti is much better than tags, any lame 8 yr old can tag but graffiti needs alot of skill.
I still don't believe either should be painted on someone elses property, get a canvas for your art if you want to show it.

quote:Originally posted by Red 5

Just reading the source of that information, it refers to the graffiti artist in question having an international reputation and that his work has been reproduced in books, magazines and film... It sounds to me as though Rockstar may have scanned some of his work straight out of a book which would be a big mistake without his prior permission.

I wonder if you would need permission if you were filming a scene in a movie which happened to have some graffiti/artwork (think museum) in the background.. in a sense, is that really much different from it appearing in a game? Where the artwork isn't a big factor or main focus in the movie/game, but merely background..

Well, this place is as good a start as any..
There are a number of places where you can learn to do this stuff..

the AIE in canberra(one in melbourne soon too), and QANTM in Brisbane are probably the most well known.. There are links to them through this site (sorry, too lazy to grab them)..

Those are the places to check for courses. In terms of study you do on your own.. Do art courses in school.. Paint/draw lots of stuff. Solid 2d skills are a must.

Check out the works of Craig Mullins, Frank Frazetta, Brom (www.bromart.com), Feng Zhu (www.fengart.com), hawkprey (www.hawkprey.com).. These guys are great with 2d stuff.. For in game texturing, look no further than quake3.. Look through the baseq3 folder, pak.pk3.. (winzip will open it).. Kenneth Scott is the texture monkey behind the player maps.. I learnt a lot from just looking at his work..
hope this helps.

as for "best software"
just read this:
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?s=cd7d0331af6a34540d07e012b968293e…

courses...yeah those two places Sbob said.
i cant comment on either of them. i did another course but pretty much ended up teaching myself. for me i just stuffed around in the program trying out everything browsed galleries over the internet and just looked at how other people did their work.

use this forum to ask any question- people are willing to help.

good luck

Hi bullet21, Good idea to start off with an inexpensive but intuitive program such as Truespace. I began 3D with the first Windows version of Truespace 10-11 years ago and although taking a somewhat different approach than most other 3D apps, it's always been very inovative, light on system resources and easy to learn. I personally prefer to have a book or printed material in front of me if I'm going through a tutorial rather than alt/tab'ing from tutorials off the net... there is some very good Truespace books about if you decide to go that route.

Chances are you'll begin to explore other 3D apps as time goes by, but try to stick with one program as much as possible while you're in the early stages of learning.

Good luck :)

Well it all depends on which angle you want to come from in the industry, there are different skills for different jobs, heres my take on it, not gospel but what I've noticed.

Character modelling:
Get a good grounding in anatomy, the flow and structure of muscle groups etc. This will help in the models creation stage and in the deformation stage, it also helps you rig correctly. It is good to know a variety of packages but learn on just one until your comfortable.

Props/vehicle modelling:
Not really my area but I guess the same as anything, study the subject thoroughly, how do vehicle work etc.

Concept artist:
I think this is the hardest of them all, you either have it or you don't, great skill matched with a freakishly intune imagination and speed, speed!!

Level design:
Use a variety of packages to make maps not just UT2003 etc, also study architecture/engineering of various cultures.

Texture artists:
2D is a must.
Also try using more than one medium when creating art, it helps to expand your ability quicker than sticking to say just sketching with a pencil 24/7, like Red 5 said check out how other people do it, painting on the flat is a bit tricky at first.
Paint more than just humans too try looking at everything, fur, skin, metal, dirt, leaves, how light affects objects bla bla etc.

Animators:
Timing, timing, timng and a good understanding of how humans/creatures move, also study the emotion of people this lends to how they physically react to things, a sad person walks differently to a happy person.

The best place to observe this is in real life but there are good schools that teach the basics of translating it into 3D, also try 2D animation too it helps.

One more thing I've noticed for animation in the games industry, you need a great imagination, my friend is an animator has a tonne of models and they all have idles, different idles?! Try doing that if you have no imagination.

I guess the biggest thing is to keep at it, you will be competing with people who have alot of skill, also I've found that its not just the most skilled that get work, its a competetive industry and the people who get in generally do so because they are persistant, very persistant, think stalker persistant [:P], so you can't slack off or they'll take your job.

Another thing, be honest with yourself, is this what you really want to do? Could you spend 8 -12 hrs a day in front of a computer modelling etc on a title like Elmos Super Happy Funhouse? Not all companies make Doom 3 for every title.
If you could then go for it, just remember this industry isn't just about playing games, in fact I haven't played a game at work since I started.

Ok as for where to get info on techniques, well here of course and places like:

[url]www.cgtalk.com[/url]
[url]www.polycount.com[/url]
[url]www.cgchannel.com[/url]
[url]www.cgchat.com[/url]

All good sites I check out, there forums are a great place to pick up hints and they have lots of links to tutorials, they also keep you informed as to how the industry is evolving.

Books are a good source of info as well, I don't know many but if you are an animator you can't go past Richard Williams, Animator Survival guide.

Hope that huge post helps. [:P]

Well, Bullet would be 23 by now. I wonder how he went.

- Can you set the sensitivity of the nib in photoshop?
Not that I know of. But in Painter you can.

- I have to press like 100/520 b4 it starts making a line.
You probably need to set the pressure sensitivety in the tablets config software, I did with my Wacom.

As for any techniques for using it, its just a matter of using it regulary, soon you won't even look at the pad and it will feel perfectly natural.

Also maybe try sitting it on your lap if your having trouble with it on your desk.

Thanks mal. Yeh i guess it is a matter of intuition. Tried it on my lap...its different but not sure if better or worse....hehe. So far the best use i am getting is ussing the lassoo tool-its less jumpy than the mouse and alot more receptive. havnt quite got the knack of sketching with it yet, but it IS better than mouse!! prob is i hav a reaaaly good mouse....which discourages me from pen use. But im sure ill get used to it thx.

When I first got my tablet, I kept going back to the mouse. But soon I got used to the pen I didnt need the mouse. Nowdays, I cant even imagine using the mouse over a tablet!! :)

it feels so good to know no one cares [xx(]

i care, i just don't have time, think it is time for you to get some grid paper and paln out what you want, and model it in code
(vertex [10,20,30]...)

I dont think its a case of no one caring.
Your lack of responce would mainly come from the requirments list and that fact that most 3D artists dont like giving away their models for little reward.

Pantmonger

kez: unfortunately it's apparent you're not getting anywhere with this request - maybe check free model resource lists such as 3dcafe, gamasutra exchange, etc etc?

If nothing else, you could resort to place holder cubes and spheres generated in code. I know, I know... not what you wanted to hear :)

Yup, picked a bad time to ask..

anyone who is looking for a project to do, is probably working on the challenge.

Its ok, i whipped together a few things... had to hand it in yesterday

Sorry to hear you never got your request met Kez - how'd it go?

models were ok, my programmer art is above average,
unfortunatley there was a late bug in the code that produced interesting results... so i'm not sure about the mark

Curves in your scanning software, and decent scanner and paper that doesn't have to much texture all help.

Also try sketching using blue/red chromakey pencils and inking the final art before scanning.

Scan at higher resolutions too.

i would scan at 300 dpi if you want to print your work out.

Now if you want the lines ONLY on a layer this is how i do it.

1. Outline your image with a felt tip pen and erase the pencil marks.
2. scan your image.
3. once scanned, bump the brightness and contrast up. that will eliminate the any pencil marks / smudge.
4. go to channels section and press the button load channel selection. this will highlight all the white areas.
5.press delete. that will erase the white areas leaving you with the outline only on that layer.
6. Start painting [:)]

hope that helps [:)]

Thanks dudes. Im now a fully competant scanner!! My school has a kickass scanner it can do like 3000 dpi its so mad! i dunno thats prolly shit and i sound like a terd but hey i like it!. anyways thx again for da help.

If you can afford it Adobe Streamline is great for getting good line art.

Anyone is always welcome to hit me up for some help or info, if I can give it - you're welcome to use me as long as I've the time free, goes for everyone :)

A lot of people that I know who made it into these fields did BA animation at QCA. Graphic Design is most focused on things like logos and the like, not a real good "creative" course. I do not know much about the visual comunication course so I can't comment on that.

As for what you should have in your folio, almost all Uni submission folios have to be to specific requirments. When you decide on the course you want to do, contact the uni that offers it and ask them what the folio requirments are.

Pantmonger

Hi Immortal,

I studied Interactive multimedia and graphics design and to tell you now graphics design does not get you in to film/game conceptual art, it could get you in to novel illustration but i dunno that area.

If you really want to get into those careers i beleive do a games course or a film/animation courses.

Also to tell you now that both graphics design and multimedia is a slow industry to be at unless you are doing contract work which is hard too.

if you got any questions i can help you with what to put in to your portfolio.

Chris... [:)]

Thanks heaps guys. more questions arise!!
So is that industry moving forward, like are there new positions always opening in the gaming conceptual art side of things, or should i b a slacker n go do advertising stuff hehe!
Also, i can't go out of NSW for my study and im assuming QCA is QLD based so :.
As for my portfolio.....argh.....i just dunno how much sketches etc and how much finished like the ratio of unfinished stuff to show off my concepts compared to finished stuff to show off my technique. bit of both i guess. Thanks again for ur help guys.

I think malus or J.I can answer that [:)]

I never went ot Uni or trained in art so I can't really comment. Pants has been through the prosess so his comment would be more accurate.

As for the industry well I'm only new to it and far from an expert, maybe some of the others on sumea who have been in it longer are more qualified to answer.

Saying that I don't know if there is that much work for soley being a concept artist, most companies probably only have one or 2 and won't be looking for more unless your work is really good, I mean really good.

Like the others said, don't do graphic design if you're interested in film/game concept art.

At the moment I am doing Digital Media at University of New South Wales. Basically it lets you get a taste of all types of media. I suppose if you are completely set on illustration you might find it a bit boring, but I also think that experimenting with other media forms (sound, video, photo, composite work, 3d model and animation etc) gives you a more well rounded experience and set of skills.

Vis Comm at UTS is similar to digital media I think, but it's more focused on design and is much more vocational I think. Which is usually a good thing.

It's not really until you're half way through digital media that things start to become more towards to videogames/film stream. But in the first half you can just have a good time, meet people, do interesting subjects you thought you'd never do and work on drawing in your own time (if you're motivated enough).

As for portfolio, I haven't ever made one but one piece of advice i've heard is, only put your best work in there. Your portfolio is only as good as it's worst piece.

I wouldnt rule out Graphic Desing completly, espeically if your a concept art. Graphic Design can teach alot about techniques and information that can be used in the world of film/games.
However with that said, there ARE better courses that are suited to the film/game career.

As for your folio, I wouldnt include unfinished material. Try to include as many (as well as your best) finished works in there. In some cases they are also interested to see some sketchbook stuff as well, so they can get a feel of your work process and thoughts.

A few Concept Designers recommend Industrial Design (including Feng Zhu), with a major in illustration and a few life drawing short courses on the side. The American Industrial Design Courses might be a little different, you'll probably have to find that out. A few links to help you out:
UTS Website, were you can find their ID course - http://www.dab.uts.edu.au/
Concept Design Forum. A few Pro's on here willing to give advice - http://www.conceptdesignforum.com/board/index.php
Conceptart.org. Simular to above but a little more popular these days - http://www.conceptart.org/

Hope that helped.

Thanks happy, and thanks all. thats great! i have loads of info now....my main options atm are UTS ID, UTS VisComm, Billy Blue Graphic Design or UNSW..i think animation. Dunno dunno dunoo....UAI dependant i guess. Now to figure out my portfolio... yeah i asked a bunch of ppl about Industrial Design and they said its stuff like interior architecture, furniature design etc...which seems a bit odd..but i guess a lot of conceptual stuff is to do with set designs etc.......so maybe thats an option. Feng Zhu rocks hehe but....i dunno i think the US ID courses MUST b different....

There's also Automotive Industrial Design.

I'm not sure about ID, i only looked into it because i was considering it myself. It might be dependant on the electives, I think it is possible to avoid the interior architecture and furniture if you choose wisely. What your meant to get out of it as a concept designer is good Technical Drawing skills, by the end of the course you should be able to do set design (environment design in the case of games), Vehicle design and Prop Design. You also get to hand build models and stuff like that. A few students final concepts were done in 3D so i assume there is 3D somewhere in the course.

If you do ID, I think it's better if you do the architecture type subjects. Feng has such a good grasp of drawing interiors because his drawing foundation is very much from a perspective/construction basis. Francis Tsai (www.teamgt.com) is a great illustrator and his construction and perspective work is strong because he had an architectural background.

I think that a lot of the ID artists started out doing ID and got all their drawing skills from doing the boring subjects (like furniture design) and when they get out of school, they applied all those skills (marker rendering, perspective etc) to more interesting things from their imagination.

I suppose in general, the three basic things concept artists need to learn are: Perspective, anatomy and colour.

Thanks jason. I had a look at the industrial design course at UTS and its very technology based - things like designing new fire hydrants, lockers, watches etc..not too much interior or architecture. i think visual communication has more of that....i want to find a course that has a bit of architecture but i dun wanna do architecture itself :| maybe ill take a look at COFA...

Yeah Graphic Design is not really a good choice for learning concept art. I am speaking from experience as I am 2 weeks shy of finishing my diploma. Granted, this course had a life drawing component plus heavy dose of illustration it is mainly geared towards the design field. Think printed media.

I feel I have a broad skill set which I think is important when presenting a folio. Plenty of variety and a passion for what you do is the key. I mean at the end of the day it's having a kick-arse folio which will land you the job.

I don't mean to be a pest but have you taken a look at Digital Media at UNSW as well, i have a friend doing it and i've heard a few ppl talk about it on this forum. I don't know whats involved but i think there is some illustration, but it also gives you some other skills. Another option perhaps.

As for the 'folio the only advice i've been given about it is to mix in as many different media types as you can as long as they're good. If your any good with makers, achrylics, oils, water colour throw them in, traditional art seems to get bonus points for certain courses. If you can do CG thats also good. And drawings obvoiusly. Maybe you should post your 'folio and get some Critisism. I hope i haven't steered you down the wrong path.

Like Groady said a broad skill set is important.

thanks groady, camper.

groady what course are you doing and where?? and do u know anything about billy blue school of graphic design (in sydney)

camper im going to be posting my folio in the next week...its very well designed and presented which is good...like contents etc everything is designed......im good with pen and ink, acryl, markers, cg.....so im on the right track i think im jus worried about my UAI...92.6 for f**ks sake!!! does anyone know anything about reduced UAI for full fee paying students??

I'm studying a Diploma of Graphic Art at Chisholm Institute of TAFE in Melbourne. Check out the design section on my site. All the stuff in there were assignments.

Thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.

There isn't really any course that will teach you the process of being a concept artist. The range of skills needed is so diverse and although there are a lot of guidelines you would need to adhere to, it really is just a matter of learning to come up with a wide range of great and original ideas and be able to translate them to paper in a way that inspires and informs people... and do it to stupidly tight deadlines.

I do a bit of concept art here at work, aswell as 3d. I mainly concept characters and sometimes props. My background is from graphic design although graphics didn't teach me much about drawing, but it did give me a solid foundation in colour and form theory, aswell as roughing out concepts and learning to think in lateral terms.

Another of the concept artist's here has a background in Industrial design and traditional medium. This certainly shows in his work as he has a very solid grasp of interiors and exteriors aswell as environments.

I've met a few very good concept artists who also come from a comic book background. The medium seems to lend itself well to the sort of qualities you need in game conepts.

I guess the best teacher is yourself, since no course is going to teach you exactly what you need to know. Try and focus on what you are passionate about and do the neccessary research in that area. For characters... life drawing, environments.. architecture etc...

Good luck with whatever you end up doing. Concepting is the best part of the process IMHO :)

i havent read any books on the topic, but check out these, they seem to have good reviews:

[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471215481/qid=1061265290…"]3-D Human Modeling and Animation, Second Edition[/url]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0571202284/qid=1061265334/sr=2-1…"]The Animator's Survival Kit[/url]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1401827551/qid=1061265562…"]Harnessing 3ds max 5[/url]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0970801505/qid=1061265600/sr=2-3…"]3ds max: Organic Modeling Training CD[/url]

[url="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1931769168/qid=1061265761…"]Advanced 3ds max 5 Modeling & Animating[/url]

Cheers.

if you want to get into games etc.. try paul steeds books.. hes done two, one on modelling a low poly character, and one on animating.

Paul Steeds was great in the day but its all editmesh etc, I'd try something a bit more relevant to todays specifications.
Don't forget the net either, tutorials are very helpful and alot of the time more up to date.

I'll recommend Steed's Animating Real-Time Game Characters book, some rather nice principles in there. I only hold back on recommending Modeling a Character in 3DS MAX as you can find most of the info online (I still think Andrew Eglington's tutorial the best to learn from IMO.)

If you haven't already, the Tutorials book that comes with MAX should be the foundation. Branch from there. Mightn't be centred on game stuff, but will give you a better knowledge of MAX and various forms of work.

Thank you all for your help/suggestions.

I just got the Animators Survival Kit book...great resource.
full of cycles, facial expressions

Inglis: Richard Williams is an absolute animation genius. Every animator should have that book.

you can also do a polygon path extrude souri if you are using max 5 thats if your in editable poly mode........ and its easy to map as well as usual it generates mapping coordinates.

chris.. [:)]

You could do the piece by piece method @:-P

A technique I have used before is to make a spline for one edge of the road, then another spline for the opposite edge. Use something like the surface tools in max to fill in the road. You can also have additional splines along the sides of the track to create areas for grass etc... Remember you will need to have an equal number of vertices in the splines, and also have splines that go across the track to break it into quads. This would probably work alright for a proper racing circuit, however if you are aiming for a track that is more similar to something like NFS, you might want to use something different.

Major Clod, it'll probably be a bit of an effort to keep the road the exact same width on every corner and turn with that method. And yeh, it's going to be like a NFS track, with dips and hills - not going for a flat race track.
I could do it piece by piece, but that requires so much more work than the path deform modifier method, but I might have to do it that way if I can't find a better solution.
Polygon path extrude I haven't tried before. I'll muck about with it - but if I don't quite get it, can you explain it in a bit more detail? Thanks

im pretty sure u will figure poly path extrude easily souri [:)] it is probably one of the best modelling features in max 5 and im pretty sure u will get a good curve and bends on the road but i dunno how many segements u can control on the curve [:)]

have fun [:)]

I worked on a few dirt track racing games and although they were fairly simple in terms of track length I imagine the principal would be the same. We used the lofting method. We would make a series of cross sections for the different banks and corners and then a spline for the path of the track. By using the 'create shape from edge' function it was pretty easy to make other lofts to create the terrain around the track. Make sure you create mapping co-ordinates for it too in the surface parameters of the loft.

I suppose to you could just split the track up into equal sections to get over the path step limit?

oh that is quite nice info there ionized.. thank you .....I didnt even think about cross sections on tracks...that is very good method and clean as well [:P]

Is there a faster way to select all the edges from one side of the loft rather than selecting them one at a time?

I've decided to go the lofting way, but I've come across another snag, this time with texturing. I've applied different material id numbers to each segment of the spline that's used for the cross section. The outer segments have grass texture, inner has road etc.. I lofted that with a race track path. I'm using multi/sub object material for the track, with matching material id's.

The problem is for some reason only one texture is showing up for the whole loft, and for the love of god, I cannot figure out why..I convert the loft into an editable mesh, and I can see that all the faces have the same material id number, and not the material number I assigned them in the cross section before I lofted.

Nevermind, figured it out... [:)]

Just a question.

Is the position paid?

Pantmonger

This is my understanding, some of it may not be right its just what I heard.

The Playstation 2 has not much texture memory, so games use 256 and 512 maps when made for this console.

Many games are now made for cross platform.

Playstation licance has a a bit that goes along the lines of "games made for the PS2 and other platforms cannot look substantially better on the other platforms than the PS2 version."

So it goes like this, you want to make games for the cross platform market then you are limited in texture size to what the PS2 can handle.

Welcome to the land of 512 maps.

Thats my understanding, but even if that is wrong I think that it is harder to make a good texture at 512 then 1024 so it is a better way of challenging yourself.

oh and 3D RTS aint using no 1024 with a 512 for the head.

Pantmonger

Nice point Pants and sound about right.

Btw I don't consiter a 3D RTS character to be Normal. And RTS I would think 512 is more then what would be needed.

Pants used a good example saying RTS games are not using 1024 textures, neither are most games, people tend to get caught up in PC FPS game tech and think its the industry standard for all games, this just isn't true.

Another good point from Pants was that if you want to be in games as a cross platform viable artist you need to be able to do the low end as well as you can do high end or else your not as
employable.

Don't get me wrong, I love large detailed textures where you can see every bead of sweat etc and its true that higher resolution maps will obviously look cleaner and are more and more common place but (and I think this is an important but) what coder/employer wouldn't pick you over someone else if you could make your lower resolution maps better than most who can only get that detail with a higher map size.

I don't know how anyone could think creating a map at 512 is easier than a 1024 if they have to both end up with a similar quality.

One more thing and this has been said on the other post a few times, how many games lend themselves to the player being able to spend copious amounts of times at extreme zooms on textures? Not many, fps games where you play as snipers and...um..er..hmmm.

I don't see why this thread has the name "high-res vs low-res", they all have there merits and a place in the industry.

Ture many good points. I think i will wait before i have my said just now. But I would like to say you can to very nice Hi-Res textures you can easy do low-res ones (just but changing a number, an empolyer knows this) But if you have Low-res texture there is nothing saying you can do Hi-Res. The empolyer maybe able to see protenal, but dosen't know for sure.

also a Hi-res is only for close ups (mip-mapping and all) 90% of full 3D game you can go up and look at a character close up (one of the reason you can't be lazy with game art.) Also more and more games are doing in game cinematic.

This clean and High detail work is what sets the GFX amazing looking games from the not so good ones. I would love to see a game come out tomorrow with 512 textures look better then one with 1024 (from developers with same level empolyees and money/time.)

Im not a 3d guy (well not yet) but wouldnt it be easier to create for hi res then scale down to low res? Working with graphics i have learnt that it is always better to do the hi res first, cuz if u start on the other end of the scale, and then try to 'scale up' your work, u r left with less than moderate results. Things that were once small and clean, are now big and blurry etc. To me, this would also apply to 3D, but then 3D is a different beast to 2D so i don't really know how that side of things work.

Also, once the new tech comes out, low res low polys wont matter as much as it does now. It will all become a thing of the past. In my opinion you are better off learning to create things photo realistic, and then scale back accordingly.

Shonuff: I think you missed the point, it wasn't wether creating it low res then scaling up was bad, thats just obviously wrong.
It was wether its harder to create a low or high res texture and not be able to tell a huge amount of difference between them and wether most games need you to be able to create great art in lo or high.

Also, I keep on about this but no one seems to listen, most games aren't using the most advanced tech yet, MMOG's, simulators, strategy and games your mum plays when shes bored still outsell and out numbered FPS games especially in Asian markets. I was pointing out that to be viable across the board low-end skills are still a big plus, not better than high- end just that they 'are as valid'.

Half life 2, Doom 3, Far Cry, Stalker, Dues Ex 2 etc all use the new tech, but they have one other thing in common....FPS name a sim game using normal maps and 2 x 1024 maps?

There is alot of exciting uses for new technologies, higher res textures and larger polycounts and for nearly every genre of game but keep in mind that only a small percent ever use the top tech in the first few years of its inception, remember bump maps? been around for ages and only a handful of games use them even now.

I guess what I'm trying to say in a rambling sort of way is this. [:P]
The new tech is great, I love playing with it and I can't wait to have photo realistic models in my brand new copy of Warcraft 10 but its making it easier on artists ,not harder, and i still like having challenges so I won't be forgetting my roots anytime soon.

Dean

quote:I love playing with it and I can't wait to have photo realistic models in my brand new copy of Warcraft 10 but its making it easier on artists ,not harder...

I think its most certainly the opposite; an artists job is getting much harder. Or more precisely, an artist has to do much more work to create a finished asset.

Just a quick (food for thought) example: painting a 256x256 texture may take me 4 hours. If i were to then paint a 512x512 texture (which is 4 times the space) it should take 4 times as long. I will paint at the same quality; i can't simply afford to do lower quality work because there is more texture to work with.

Hey, that means a 1024x1024 should take me... 64 hours... good god.

Smeg: I think you disproved your own point with that time thing man. [:P] No one spends 64 hrs on a 1024 texture, well no one who wants to get paid for it.

'Generally' it takes me around the same time to do a 256 as it does a 1024, don't know about anyone else, although correct me if I'm wrong but I think Pants is the same, that true man?
Different process, same amount of sweat.

Didn't mean low-end is harder for everyone just that I'm personally finding its getting easier to be an artist with newer tools and higher texture sizes/polycounts etc, not everyone, just me. Lucky me I guess.

Maybe coming from a traditional art background is why I feel that having 6000 polys and 2 x 1024 maps etc feels easier and has a more natural workflow.
With that sort of creative freedom you are closer to being able to create assets the way you would in real life, for example painting and sculpting.

Low-end and high-end texturing are to a degree different disciplines that borrow largely from each other, I don't see how in general one is harder than the other.
I personally find the challenges of doing things lower-end just as rewarding as high-end, especially if the end product is nearly indistinguishable from someone who had alot more to work with.

They are both valid and as games artists we should really strive to excel at both, high-end keeps us in the game versus others for future advances and low because most games still need to be playable for the consumer with mid-low end hardware.

I think 512 textures can often cut it if we learn to optomise geometry and only use definition where it's really needed. It can become a balancing act with smaller textures vs extra poly's but I think adding more poly's can be more beneficial provided the target platform can handle it. As an example, I specialise in modeling cars and I generally only have one or two (maximum) 512x512 textures to work with for any typical XBox game. One will be taken up for the interior, so I'm left with a single 512x512 for all the lights, logos/badges, grills etc. By modeling all the shutlines I can get a far superior looking car with higher texture definition for the other parts than if I were to paint the shutlines on the texture thus shaving of a couple of hundred poly's in the process. It definitely helps when we have realtime shadows/shading and numerous other special effects which all do there part in helping keep the texture budget to a minimum.

The point i am making is that you should make an effort to use all of the texture space you have at your disposal; just as you would polygons. If you can look at your 512 texture (for example) when you're done and say "y'know what, i could have got away with a texture half this size..." then half it.

There are extremely good texture artists who can squeeze every last pixel from a 256 map. If they texture a 512, it will look phenomenal because they can use those resources to do more of the same. If you compare their work to your 512 map (mentioned above) you?ll understand the point I am making.

Just because you have more pixels to play with doesn?t mean you can simply do the same job. Malus, you yourself have said on many occasions that 2000 triangles is very different to 6000 triangles; this is the same concept only the results can be even more pronounced.

This brings me back to the point of my original post; for an artist to complete an efficient, polished asset, they have to put in much more work on a 1024, 6000 poly model, then they would a 256, 2000 poly model.

I seriously recommend everyone check out [url="http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20030409/rubin_01.shtml"]this[/url]
GDC 2003 Video:
Jason Rubin's "Great Game Graphics... Who Cares?"

quote:Originally posted by Malus

The new tech is great, I love playing with it and I can't wait to have photo realistic models in my brand new copy of Warcraft 10 but its making it easier on artists ,not harder, and I still like having challenges so I won't be forgetting my roots anytime soon.

This is not true and maybe why you have a different out look on this. Modelling in general is getting easier to pick out because for higher polycount and better modelling tools, but good modelling is getting harder a lot harder. I have Only been don't art for about 2.5 years now and I would hate to have been starting now then starting then. I find that good nowadays is harder because of the extra res. And good work these days looks a lot better then say a year ago. Look at T2 that was some amazing art work in 1994 (I think that was the year) but if you were a to make that model today it would take about one tenth of the time, but it would be classed as shit work.

Back to mine point, you should be adding a lot more to your Hi-res work then low-res, there are things that are too small and fine a detail you wouldn't be able to fit and to look good on a 512, but on a 1024 you need to add these things to make your work stand out.

For example: I'm doing a hi-res model of a tribe character and the extra detail I need to add has been so huge it have taken me about 7 hours to do the jetpack (and that is modelling flat out) were it would have taken me about 2 hours at the most to model it the jetpack in low res.

And I think that maybe the problem with work that isn't better from the same artist when they are changing up texture res, they aren't add the extra stuff to there texture and putting in that extra time. I'm not talking about you Malus I don't know your work both low and high res to make a statement like that just talking in general (polycount is a perfect e.g. of what I'm trying to say here.)

I understand what you're saying, but also consider that once you're fairly experienced with painting 1024x1024 textures and resizing them down to 512 or 256, you pretty much know how the texture will look even before it's been resized, therefore it's not too difficult to judge the amount of detail you'll need to paint onto the large one.
I do agree that it does take more time to paint a large texture, put I don't think it's proportionate to it's size, I find that a 1024 texture will only take me slightly longer to paint than a 512.
On the other hand, if you're not resizing a 1024 texture and you have all those pixels to play with, making the most of them can take many times longer than painting a small texture.

Yeah we seem to be getting onto the whole "resizing from a high-es to a lo-res" issue, not the topic.

Smeg: Of course you should use all the texture space, I didn't say otherwise.

quote:Just because you have more pixels to play with doesn?t mean you can simply do the same job. Malus, you yourself have said on many occasions that 2000 triangles is very different to 6000 triangles; this is the same concept only the results can be even more pronounced.

I never said you do the same job, same amount of effort on 'my' part, I actually stated they were different disciplines so yes we agree on that. [:)]
What I don't agree on is that you need to put in more effort on creating a 1024 compared to a 512, I just tend to use a different type of workflow, its personally not harder, just different.

Heres an example my friend, a make up artist, was showing me.
Ever seen stage makeup up close? terrible, looks shocking, but at a distance its perfect, now compare that to makeup for photo shoots, much nicer up close but would'nt be visible in theatre.
Now say I needed to make someone look like they had blushed youthful cheeks and natural makeup on, its 2 different diciplines after the same effect, both would take reasonably similar amounts of time but get there in different ways.

Doord: If you read my post again you'll see I meant easier for 'me', not easier in general. I don't assume to know how everyone works.

Red5: If it takes progressively longer for you to paint a 1024 over a 512 fair enough, thats how you work, just not for me in my personal experience.
You resize 1024's to 256's? you're a mad man. lol
I used to resize by half ie. 1024's to 512's but I've been doing them at actual size recently and find it cuts out the middle man.

Malus, I don't know anyone who paints their textures at 512 or lower unless they're reasonably basic, and I didn't actually say I resize from 1024 down to 256. My textures usually have many small parts and it's quite difficult juggling everything around to fit, so I paint each part individually on a separate texture then move them across and resize them all to fit onto the 512 while making the most of the available space.

Red5: Fair enough, you don't know anyone, I know people who do it either way. Neither is wrong or right.

quote:...but also consider that once you're fairly experienced with painting 1024x1024 textures and resizing them down to 512 or 256....

Just thought you meant that you'd resize a 1024 to a 256 by the statement above. Sorry to imply otherwise.

....512 texture harder to do than a 1024......??????

only a few years back didn't we have just six x 256 square bmp's to cover a whole level including effects and texture animations???

oh the amnesia, pass me my tablets.....sqwerrggghhhghwereewlttgghhh!!!!

Is anyone bothering to read the "harder for me" bit or are they just skimming these posts? actually let me rephrase that to more challenging for me.

Just to clarify, even though it should be obvious, I mean its more challenging "for me" to make a 512 look as detailed as a 1024. not 512's in general, doing a cartoonish 512 for instance isn't going to be anywere near as hard, "for me", as a detailed fps 1024 map.

My understanding is that most game engines can be made to 'force double sided' but its does cost in memory and run time speed. Combine this with the fact that most of the time the other side is not visable anyway and its not worth it overall. So usualy the answer is no, you just get more polys to play with instead.

Pantmonger

Triangles only get drawn in one direction (clockwise, anticlockwise) unless you draw both, which is bad. Thats why when you clip through something in a game you can't see things from the inside.

Scott.

yeah, from my experience playing games I kinda figured that would be the case. I want to do some cloth/flag modelling in the challenge at the moment, but it's not going to look very good if the model rotates and the flag 'disappears'. I want to model it as accurate to an acceptable game model as possible... I guess this would mean if I were to do something like a flag I'd have to make a duplicate and flip the normals on it... doubling the polycount to show both sides?

" doubling the polycount to show both sides?"

Maybe more as you will need to add the edges unless you want it to vanish from the top or side.

Pantmonger

Most engines support two-sided materials, that is to say, whether it is one or two sided is a property of the material.

The dowside to this is that the triangles share the same lighting and texturing. If a light points at the front of the flag, the back also lights up. If you point a light at the back, it will be dark on both sides.

Doubling up triangles allows accurate lighting. It also allows you to have different texture coordinates on the back of the flag, should you want to.

Long story short, you could use a two-sided max material if you choose, its your call.

It's usually best to clone the faces, then just flip the normals, leaving the neighbouring verts un-welded so as not to bork vertex lighting.

J.I. Styles: Interesting, would you possibly still have some z-buffering issues or is this a total fix?
I understand the normals are facing different directions therefore when one is drawn the other probably isn't but I haven't seen it done, I'm all curious now, hmmm.

Do you have any examples? maybe realtime ones that we could check out?

If the faces are flipped and exported properly, the back-faces will get culled, so there is no z-buffer issue.

sweet, hello new technique. [:P] (old for others I'm sure)