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+---- Thread: Redoran Buildings Progress Thread (1) (/Thread-Redoran-Buildings-Progress-Thread-1)
- Razorwing - 05-22-2006
Quote:Parallax mapping has nothing to do with alpha channels. Alpha channels define wether a given pixel is opaque, invisible, or anything inbetween.
You sure about that Zarf? Because Bethesda do use the alpha channel of the normal map to store the specular map for their textures.
- Axen - 05-22-2006
You can ask OblivionRules42. He's registered on these forums.
- Caligula Superfly - 05-23-2006
Just out of curiosity, what do you guys think, should I get the rest of the maps done now? Start working on some interiors? Im kinda sitting around wondering what I should do at this point.
- Zarf - 05-23-2006
Sure. Go ahead and get the maps done, I'll get shadows done as you send them to me.
I'll release the Barracks tomorrow if I remember. Just realize that the tiles still won't have shadow detail on them.
- Razorwing - 05-23-2006
It's going to be interesting to see how the normal map effect of reacting to light shining on the surface is going to affect the way the houses look in-game. My bet is it will look a whole lot better
Could I get a copy of the first finished building so I can bring it into the mod and test it out? Or maybe you could do that, Zarf? Either way is totally fine by me.If we lived in the same town I'd sure as hell buy a bottle of champagne and some fireworks now, because the goal is almost in sight. This is going to be the coolest mod ever!
:jump:
- Zarf - 05-23-2006
Heh. I'll send you the Barrakcs tonight sometime... if I can get it done. 3DS Max is quite frustrating at times. There are random bugs that plague it, whilst 3DS 7 is almost rock solid.
Grrr.
- Caligula Superfly - 05-24-2006
Well, Ill make sure to have a fourth building mapped sometime tomorrow. Not that you really need it at this point, but the sooner I have this out of the way the sooner I can get cracken on the interiors! :banana:
- Zarf - 05-24-2006
Heh. About the barracks.
![[Image: aaaah.jpg]](http://www.zarfstudios.com/ob/aaaah.jpg)
Can I get back to you on that? :3
- Caligula Superfly - 05-24-2006
Aaahhhhh! Did you lose everything or did it just not render?
- Zarf - 05-24-2006
I don't have a clue what was going on there. I KNOW I didn't mess with the self-illumination stuff, and this was right after I re-opened the autosave of this model after 3DS crashed on me. Closing the program and reopening it solved it, oddly enough.
I think I've figured out a way to get the tiles to recieve shadow detail. It's very similar to the way I was going to do it in Photoshop. I'll take the tile and put it on to the orriginal bitmap, and tile it for as many polygons have the tile texture on them. Then I'll flatten all the UVWs, reset them, get then from the .NIF if I have to, and move all of the UVWs from the actual roof over to the tiles elsewhere on the map. Then I'll render in the shadow details. It *should* work, and the solution to this problem has been haunting me in my sleep. I'll get the results up ASAP.
EDIT: The first test results are in, and they are EXTREMELY promising! It was kinda hard to make, but totaly worth it in the end. If we do everything like this, we will have the distinct advantage of having to load fewer images for textures, and all of the detail across a given model will be even. I'll post pics as soon as I get them rendered.
EDIT 2: Ok, here we go. in case you couldn't follow what I said above, you can kinda see it here.
![[Image: roof-without-shadows-thumb.jpg]](http://www.zarfstudios.com/ob/roof-without-shadows-thumb.jpg)
Note the 3 bars across the top. I moved the UVWs from the gray area to those bars, trying to keep them even.
First test result: No skylight, one texture map in the entire scene, one object for the roof.
![[Image: woohoo.jpg]](http://www.zarfstudios.com/ob/woohoo.jpg)
As you can clearly see, this will work. And it will work perfectly. :-D All I need to do is finish it.
...or I can shower... I think I'll shower.
EDIT 3: Shower's done, so is the next section.
![[Image: woohoo2.jpg]](http://www.zarfstudios.com/ob/woohoo2.jpg)
This, once again, involves only one texture map in the entire scene, no skylight shadows, and only one object for the roof. You can see the untextured portion of the 'tail' of the model here as well.
EDIT 4: Ok, the roof is completely done, except for shadow detail. I'll get to work on the 'tail' section, as there is nothing better to call it.