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+--- Thread: Velothi Tile Set (/Thread-Velothi-Tile-Set)
- Razorwing - 01-19-2006
spankybus:
My personal assumption is that they carved their tombs in rock and then lined the walls with cement, to create a smooth impression and possibly prevent cracks from forming and ground water from seeping in. Cement sounds very modern, but it's really not; both Egyptians and Romans used it (reference).
The bricks and similar details seen in Oblivion screenies aren't poly-based, it's bump and parallax/displacement texture maps that creates the effect. To quote one of the game's producers from the Gameplay Monthly interivew posted March 25th:
"In particular we?re using [...] parallax maps (for geometry detail)."
Here's a good example of that effect, and here's a wikipedia entry.
But the walls and ceilings definetely doesn't have to be as smooth and bland as Bethesda did them. Cracks, like you suggest, would be a great detail to add. Though you might want to make special pieces for that? As repeating the same crack on every tile might look odd. Here are some other ideas that popped in my head, maybe there's one you like?
? Wobbles in the surface, to give a hand-made and primitive impression.
? Rubble.
? Broken walls, with holes the player can peek through.
? Columns.
? Indented holes in the wall to store ash urns.
? Cave-ins; separate boulders that appear to have collapsed into a corridor
? Transition from cemented wall to bare rock (might be hard to pull off)
? Skull cabinet (screenshot #1) and burial markings (screenshot #2, #3); though not really part of the architecture, they would be very nice to see again, as they play into the Dunmer's grotesque fascination with remains
- Caligula Superfly - 01-20-2006
Although the model is reletivelly simple, I can imagine the dank spookyness it would give off under torchlight. Its a great effect.
I like the sound of Razorwing's suggestions, and thinking about it a couple more popped into my head.
I think the old feel the velothi tombs were trying to give off was a mxiture of an egyptian pyramid interior, and a catacomb. Thus I would find it apropriate to have natural flooring, like dirt or granite. Mixed with tiles containing asymetrical bends and warps in the walls/ground like Razorwing suggested, it could add an extreamly spooky and robust feel to the whole thing.
Now that I think if it, wouldn't it be nice to add a small dirt floored collection of tiles to the Hlaalu set? It would add to the atmosphere of less wealthy homes vs the high noble's homes, and is a logical thing to use for basments.
- Razorwing - 01-20-2006
And I like your ideas
The Egyptian reference has crossed my mind too (screenies), and I'm sure the devs drew inspiration from them. Though Velothi seems to me to be a tad more advanced than the crude pyramid tunnels the Egyptians made.
As of yet there's no interior Hlaalu tileset, but if Oom makes one then I definetely think we should use two different textures as you say
(oh, and the PM attachment worked perfectly btw)
- dwemer lizard - 01-23-2006
:eek:
i think ob will have the skulls from itselfif you know what i mean
- spankybus - 01-23-2006
Aye, I won't be making props as I assume the OB tileset will have lots of features and items that can be combined to great effect. If after release it turns out to be wrong, we can see what can be done then.
Meantime, i am experimenting with texturiing etc..and don't poop yourself, normal mapping (yea I learned how its done somewhat) but it's a trail and error learning process, so...I am running out of hair. :banana:
- Quentin Fortune - 01-23-2006
That sounds excellent, looking forward.
And once you mastered the secrets of normal mapping you might be so kind to provide us with a tutorial ... so the errors you made are not made in vain and we all might learn from it.
Greetings
Quentin
- spankybus - 01-23-2006
not to sound snobbish, but its very VERY difficult and expensive. people here have skills no doubt. but you must make a very high res model of the object you wish to normal map.
So, if I want to normal map the chest of a toon i am creating. I have to take the low-poly-in-game model (say 400 poligons) and subdivide and stulp it into a hyper-realistic human form, usually about 150,000 polygons or more. I then paint the high-poly model skin color, color the features..nipples, etc. Any etails, such as scar's etc will actually be built into the model ,and not drawn onto the texture.
Once the model is painted and looks like a real human torso, we export the as a normal texture using Zbrush (which has to be purchased, hence the expense only with a version or MAYA or MAX new enough to use normal maps)
A normal map stpres vertex data(XYZ) instead of color data (RGB). So the normal map is places on the low-poly model, and applied the high res models vertex data to it, without actually adding any additional vertexes (and therefore no additional polies). This makes the low res poly LOOK like the high res one when light its played off of it. it's really quite brilliant.
http://rpgvault.ign.com/articles/681/681882p1.html
this is a link to a dev-log explaining briefly how normal mapping works. If we got mates here who can work with very-high-res models, then give it a try.
know you know why I was asking about hte cement vs brick quesitons
- Razorwing - 01-23-2006
Aah, so that's how Normal maps work. Thanks for the explanation, spankybus.
- spankybus - 01-23-2006
Yea, mate. it's a real PITA and I still haven't got it to work to well yet...it's the buildinghte very-high polies models that make it such a pain. it just takes a long time.
- Razorwing - 01-23-2006
spankybus:
I can imagine it is. I think it's commendable that you go above and beyond what's required and if you stick with the Normal map idea I'm sure it will come out looking just as good as anything Bethesda could have put together. Hopefully it will also come out retaining as much of the Velothi look as in the screenshots you showcased
Because if it should lose the look and feel of Velothi then it doesn't matter how good it looks, the purpose would be defeated.Keep up the good work :goodjob: