New Showcase Level

[Duion]

@marauder2k9

No, it is not that urgent, I just have a website for CC0 licensed textures and I would like to extend it: https://duion.com/art/main

[marauder2k9]

Okay next update on the showcase level. Have gotten a big library now of textures that i think should suit the showcase idea. A few weekends out in the countryside i have textures for almost everything apart from tree canopies and branches but mostly because i don't really know the best way to photograph these for textures. If anyone could give me a few hints or some material i can read up on to get these it would be a big help.

Apart from the textures i think i have the basics completely figured out now.

I have styled the underground bunker on a ww2 style bunker as if this has been an ancient relic now re-purposed as a refuge for people. U cant go deeper into the bunker only out towards the countryside and the house with the alien menace running rampant that you need to "bust some caps" into lol Now i have leafed over many resources on melee weapons and projectiles and adding items to an inventory to create key like moments. Couple of questions needing answered by a few people here a lot more qualified to answer them for me apart from the tree textures one.

1. Im going to set up the melee on the torque wrench to be a short range invisible projectile going out from the muzzle point i have set on the torque wrench, what i want to know is, is there a way to set up the "firing" of said project to happen on a certain keyframe of an animation? i think there is a way to delay it isnt there? but can i set a keyframe event for that specifically so that at the peak of the swing it fires the projectile? i think there is a resource covering this and i had a quick glance over it while i was working on other things.

2. i know how to set up a trigger for a door way or to play a certain animation. I have it in my level design notes that i want the player to only be able to open the door when they retrieve the valve (simple inventory check). Now when they walk up to where the valve needs to be placed i want it to play the animation of the players character putting the valve in place and turning it to unlock the doorway. i know how to set the trigger to play certain animations but should the valve be set up as a weaponimage that just gets spawned in place when the animation finishes? if so would it need its own animations and can they be set to spawn and play on a keyframe trigger from another objects animations?

[marauder2k9]

Okay! Going to be releasing first screenshots this week. Think i have the underground bunker section almost finished off just need to add bits of detail into certain areas. Hopefully with a few screens it will tweak some interest. Still need advice on the posts above so any help would be greatly appreciated.

[JeffR]

Woo! Looking forward to seeing where this is at :)

[marauder2k9]

sorry for lack of a screenshot this week, i was hoping to be working on it all week to get it looking the way i want but didnt get the chance to, only getting the chance to do my tweaks and things now, but for the time being heres a screenshot i was going to do a couple of weeks ago of some assets imported into a blank room in torque for testing before texturing. had the blank room saved with these assets to test for lighting and things like that

[marauder2k9]

even writing to you guys from my day job now lol :P

As you all are aware im making my final tweaks this week to hopefully get some fully featured screens up by the weekend. Hopefully you guys like what you see and hopefully it will tweak a bit more interest towards this little showcase. Although my questions above have gone unanswered i am going with my gut on them and just doing them whatever way i can to get the best results. One question i do need answered though and this is for doorways, is there a way to change the pivot point of an object? I have the pivot for my internal doorway set in max to below the centre of the hinges but when the model is imported it sets the pivot point to the centre of the object. It would make it a lot easier to position/stage these static doors where i want them to be without the need of constantly having to align the mesh up again to the door hinges modeled into the wall sections. Everything i have modeled is mostly modular except for static objects. All wires and cables are modular, all the railings are modular (pay no attention to the railing end piece in the photo above) Stairways are modular and so are some lights. Atm the bunker is made up of 1189 TSStatic meshes (of which about 200 are different models) i am working off of these pictures as my concept art http://pdf.bretagne.over-blog.com/article-paris-un-bond-dans-le-passe-116632080.html

I am following those pictures quite closely and hoping that it turns out to be a more decrepit rendition of it. Broken ceilings and broken walls were the earth has started to cave in on the bunker are more towards the exit of the bunker (to give the sense that not only are there actual threats from an enemy but time is also attacking the safety of the bunker)

If you guys have any input at all i would love to see it and would love to hear any methods u guys used to complete different tasks similar to what i am trying out here.

[Jason Campbell]

Wow, that's a lot of models. Performance is still ok?

[marauder2k9]

Performance is still good on my machine lik yeah, havent really ran any sort of fps tests or anything but i havent had any lag when running through the rooms, the highest poly count model is actually the door shown in the screenshot above with 4000 polygons because of all the little details, i could probably get that down to 2000 if i was really trying to optimize though

[Duion]

The performance issue will most likely not come from objects with too many polygons, but from the high number of separate static objects. Your total polygon budget is maybe 3 million, but your total drawcall budget is more like 3000. I don't know the exact numbers, but just so you get an idea. Someone is also working on a prefab feature or better instancing, which will solve performance issues from too many objects, but I don't know how far that is.

[marauder2k9]

3000 really? im using zones though too so its not going to be rendering all those objects at the same time

[Duion]

The limit is per scene, just open the metrics and test it. I don't know how good zones are, never needed them since your budget is so big, I mean you can have much more than 3 million polygons and 3000 drawcalls, it just depends what hardware you aim at.

[marauder2k9]

this as a showcase, optimization isnt really a necessity for me here, just aiming for it to look good, youve never used zones? they seem to be working as required when i flow through them in the scene?