Jump to content
Ultra Engine Community

Andy Gilbert

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    533

  • Joined

  • Last visited

 Content Type 

Blog Entries posted by Andy Gilbert

  1. Andy Gilbert
    So.. Recently i had a small moan to myself and on the forum, requesting (for the second time i think) for more CSG features. Boolean operations would be amazing but even simple features such as Vertex editing and extraction would be Good and make workflow much easier. And also Texture Locking!!
     
    Anyway, I asked because i have this idea for a game in mind and i know in my head how i would like it to look and I know with the current CSG features it would be long winded and limited. The options is make them as models outside and import them , but you lose the amazing lightmapping you get with CSG segments or option 2 is do most of the geometry using CSG and get the nice lighting and shadows but have limited shapes and geometry.
     
    So.. I decided to give the CSG a real test today and see what can be done. Now these are no AAA screens, but In the end i was surprised at the outcome, mainly because this is the look im Actually after. I wish i could say i was also surprised at how easy it was, but unfortunatly i cant. There were some very frustrating times which nearly made me want to give up, no locking of texting was a biggie, having to make shapes by hacking other together,not good. But I am happy with the outcome. I just wish we had more brushes, simple ones like half a cylinder and half a sphere. Just to make thinks a little easier.
     
    Anyway this an old chruch style building in CSG all in the editor. The first is nothing but CSG and the second is the same with a little bit of vegetation detail to see how it might look.
     
    With some small detail models to add finishing touches i think the outcome will be good.
     


     
    Thanks
    Andy
  2. Andy Gilbert
    My hours of use in leadwerks 3 is already counting up fast and along the way i thought i would share some of the things ive found so far. Which no doubt means this will turn into a small rant about the features i wish leadwerks 3 had in its current version I am not going to talk about bugs as we all should expect them in new software and trust they get resolved as soon as Josh can get around to them, what i am going to talk about are a couple of (to me) significant issues with the "current" leadwerks 3 when developing for PC or MAC.
     
    To start with and get it off my chest, leadwerks 3 in my eyes is extreamly good and i am happy with my purchase, i find its easy of use for simply getting stuck in and making a quick game very good (despite the current bugs). But im finding in its current state a, quick game or demo is about all i seem to be able to do.
     
    At the moment i am primarily interested in developing for PC (and maybe mac) thefore I deciced to see if I could script a quick FPS system along with some AI for learning purposes. After a short time I posted my result on here which some of you might have seen (I wont post it again) and I was very surprised at how easy I personally found it to put the demo together with animations, sounds and AI. So this encouraged me to go ahead and see if I can get a full blown FPS game with some decent visuals and some clever AI running around, which is where I started hitting some confusing problems.
     
    The CSG / Model conflict
    First, i started by designing a larger level and as my understanding goes when CSG is involved you create your base layer, blocking and main structure out of CSG and then add in detail with models. This to me is great as I love developing 3D environment models, but not so keen on making full blown levels in 3D, so to me the CSG is great and a very wise feature. Until... you try to apply both, it unfortunatly doesnt currently work in certain areas and this (for me) is down to normal mapping and shadows.
     
    Shadows
    I can easily create a nice level structure in CSG, through some lights in and get some lovely looking shadows from a lightmap pass and it looks great! Unfortunatly CSG can only have diffuse textures and are therefore a bit "flat" looking, but nevertherless looks ok. So now if i add some detail models, these can cast static shadows but only onto CSG and not onto anything else or even them selves, this instantly gives a confusing visual conflict of light (which we all know is one of the most important factors of todays games), at first i thought it wouldnt be much of a big deal but the more detail you add the bigger the visual conflict becomes. I then tried to not add so much detail and try to balance it, but then the problem just remains and the level looks empty and dated, I then thought I could do some of the detail in CSG but without any simple CSG operations other than rotate and scew this is impossible (especially without a texture lock feature), so this is the first wall I hit.
     
    This also came a problem when I threw in a mid-poly character with a nice modern gun, normals and spec, but it was instantly spoilt without shadows, even with a simple plane shadow underneath it instantly made it look like a visual from 10 years back.
     
    Normals & spec
    The second conflict I found is the normals and specular maps. To me specular maps are extreamly important, normal maps show detail but specular maps tell the user what the material is, and we can have this with imported models and thats great. But having it with models but not with CSG causes a very similer conflict. If you watch my video of the underground "wearhouse" style FPS, when I fire the gun a flashing light emits to give the effect of a muzzleflash, what surface around me flash? only imported models with a normal map applied, so the gun, cardboard boxes & the signs on the wall do, but the actual walls and level dont and to be honest I cant figure a simple way around it.
     
    Options
    Do the whole level in an external 3d modeller so you can have normals and specs, but then still have no shadows. Or do a game where alot of work can be done using simple CSG shapes and some detail models where shadows and lighting are not as important which is why I think the current version of leadwerks 3 is designed for the mobile platform and not for PC (which is a dang for me).
     
    After all said and done though leadwerks 3 is very powerful and i like it alot, but unfortunatly just missing some vital features that bring it on par with some of the other engines.
     
    I know there is a roadmap that will cover most of the issues im finding and I just hope that in the near future we get some of these features back that will allow us to develop exciting and graphically pleasing games for PC and MAC.
     
    But for now, even some projected shadows for imported models would make a HUGE difference.
     
    Thanks for reading.
    Andy
  3. Andy Gilbert

    Rocky Scene

    By Andy Gilbert,

    After finished another larger rock i decided to put a few into a scene to see how they go.
     
    In the scene are only 3 different rocks! They all rotate and scale to create a nice non repetative scene.
     
    All very low-poly, the newer larger rock in the back are 500 tris where as the other 2 type are 200 tris each.
     

     
    Also Played with this little scene a bit more..

    Thanks
    Andy
  4. Andy Gilbert
    using UDK terrains as inspiration i wanted to try and get the same effect within leadwerks.
     
    UDK's terrains can look extreamly nice, but that is fine when you have support for megatextures. This mean you have terrain building software such as world machine and others that offer features for creating massive mega textures which not only means you get unlimted layers as such, you get full procedral weathering effects, errosions, rocks etc and of course a mega normal map to make the whole terrain pop.
     
    So after a little bit of thinking i managed to get a "not to far off" result in leadwerks.
     
    Taken from the editor, no objects, just 3 texture layers.
     

     
    And from FPS view:

     
    Thanks
    Andy
  5. Andy Gilbert
    Hi, just showing this is more of what im trying to achive in regards to "usage".
     
    This bundle is made up of the same rock, i have made 3 sizes of, each share the same mat and textures, and rotated and places correctly means you can simply make a nice bundle without to much repetition.
     
    And the good thing about this rock is its 200 tris!!
     

     
     
    And here is a very quick scene put together using these rocks, at 200 tris i could have 100's of them!

    Thanks
    Andy
  6. Andy Gilbert
    As well as enironment models, they need some nice terrain to be places upon. This is another part of the pipeline that I belive can make or break a scene. Getting natural looking terrains can be difficult but there are some excellent tools out there to help us.
     
    One I use in world machine, once you get your head around the software its really good. Most of the time I make make a hightmap else where and use world machine to refine and add weather effects.
     
    Another one i have used alot is well know L3DT and sometimes still do, i used this to create my initial terrains for my (on going) parafly simulator project. (www.parafly-sim.co.uk)
     
    Anyway here is one with two different texturing looks, each use only 3 texture layers.
     


    Thanks
    Andy
  7. Andy Gilbert

    Rocks, Stone and Walls

    By Andy Gilbert,

    HI, instead of me filling the forum showcase with images i have decided to start a blog with my work.
     
    My aim is to develop so "good natural" looking models for outdoor scenes using standard or low cost software. It seems that its taken me along time to get to a point where i feel im on the right lines with the high-low game asset pipeline, im to some this comes very easy but for me who doesnt have to much time to learn, try and buy the software to do it ive had some fustrating times!
     
    But today i feel im "getting" somwhere and therefore will showcase them in here, i may add these to the asset store if i feel they are worthy of being.
     
    To start it off ill repeat the ones in this thread:
     
     
    A single rock that can be made to look more than one.

     
    A modular stone wall, the wall i nthe image is made from 5 of the same objects.
     

     
    A new rock, i want to create some large rocks, boulders and cliffs so this is a start (only 800 tris)

     
    Thanks
    Andy
Copyright © 2024 Ultra Software.
All rights reserved.
×
×
  • Create New...