Mod Project: Zombie Holocaust
Posted: 2009-02-22, 06:24
Hi Team
i started the thread as a personal logfile for progress and to know what we need and found out.
First of all let me tell you Carsten, that i spend a few hours to get back into Ca3d especially CaWe.
Carsten, great work on the new terrain tool, works very well now besides a few flaws i found (and some bad icons )
CaWe
My look around the editor took me a while, i started to find a workflow into the current system, not always finding what im looking for.
I also did some compare to a very strong editor that is now proven for years as a very good editor of current generations of game-technology, based on bsp trees.
I'm speaking of UnrealED 3 (UED 3) which is sure one of the most matured editors currently available.
You know that I'm not a level designer, so I'm not really familiarized with needs and workflow as much as with my 3D work, however i found time to watch lectures and tutorials that give a very, very deep and complex insight into level editing nearly every aspect with UED3 by professional guys at Midway (who did some games with UED3 for example Unreal Tournament 3).
Of course its not possible to compare directly, but i guess it will help to show you, what the current standart is and what is really important to have.
I know that you are currently working on new features like physics, and some new Wx stuff for the editor. Pretty cool and i cant wait to get my hands on it, but i also would like to know more about old problems that still need some work, especially static models and their light contribution !
While with the UT engine nearly all detail is based on imported meshes (grouped in so called "packs" based on a theme) Ca3D still rarely uses meshes for detailing, simply because there is not much content, which we would like to change.
But what about the light calculation ? As far as i remember you still not calculate radiosity for meshes ?
Unreal Engines are using "simple" lightmap based calculation without bouncing, for static shadows and light. However the calculation can be set for each static mesh individually and will be saved as a vertex color channel or a seperate lightmap channel. The result is pretty good and merge very well into the lightmap of the level.
Its also pretty nice to be able to set lightmap size per bsp face.
As example here is a screenshot of a level that contains nearly only static meshes but has nice lit per vertex
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/media/b ... ing-10.jpg
Same scene adding shaders on top of the baked lighting
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/media/b ... ing-11.jpg
It would be very important to make sure we get a vertex map channel for static (and maybe dynamic) meshes, as it would help to merge objects much better into the current lighting calculation. im not sure how much time this will take with really rich environment and high settings for radiosity calculation.
Here are some more infos on static meshes in UED3 and static light contribution
http://waylon-art.com/LearningUnreal/UE ... htMaps.htm
I have written down a lot more things from bugs to workflow ideas and so on that i would like to send to you, Carsten as a generic tester list for the Ca3D development not especially for the mod, if you like.
The other part would be to rebuild the pipeline for exporting content like meshes into the engine properly, for static stuff we used .ase as far es i remember, md5 was best for animation. der_tons exporter was quite the best if i remember correctly in Max. So im looking forward to retry the pipeline.
We need to set up gridsizes in max to export properly, ill try to find my old notes or posts, im sure that i found a setting in the past for static mesh export in max.
Also how about a similiar way to store or collect meshes in packages like in UT. It makes a lot of sense to store, shaders, static items and so on in a kind of library, using so called "packages" with a theme, like wood_floors_01. It could contain Meshes as well materials and textures for this theme.
For the mod:
Enrico and i are ready to finish the first zombie models, and these can be used as a player model replacement.
I'm also trying today to export some static meshes, so far so good
And i think you need some new icons for the terrain tool ? I'm on this as well
i started the thread as a personal logfile for progress and to know what we need and found out.
First of all let me tell you Carsten, that i spend a few hours to get back into Ca3d especially CaWe.
Carsten, great work on the new terrain tool, works very well now besides a few flaws i found (and some bad icons )
CaWe
My look around the editor took me a while, i started to find a workflow into the current system, not always finding what im looking for.
I also did some compare to a very strong editor that is now proven for years as a very good editor of current generations of game-technology, based on bsp trees.
I'm speaking of UnrealED 3 (UED 3) which is sure one of the most matured editors currently available.
You know that I'm not a level designer, so I'm not really familiarized with needs and workflow as much as with my 3D work, however i found time to watch lectures and tutorials that give a very, very deep and complex insight into level editing nearly every aspect with UED3 by professional guys at Midway (who did some games with UED3 for example Unreal Tournament 3).
Of course its not possible to compare directly, but i guess it will help to show you, what the current standart is and what is really important to have.
I know that you are currently working on new features like physics, and some new Wx stuff for the editor. Pretty cool and i cant wait to get my hands on it, but i also would like to know more about old problems that still need some work, especially static models and their light contribution !
While with the UT engine nearly all detail is based on imported meshes (grouped in so called "packs" based on a theme) Ca3D still rarely uses meshes for detailing, simply because there is not much content, which we would like to change.
But what about the light calculation ? As far as i remember you still not calculate radiosity for meshes ?
Unreal Engines are using "simple" lightmap based calculation without bouncing, for static shadows and light. However the calculation can be set for each static mesh individually and will be saved as a vertex color channel or a seperate lightmap channel. The result is pretty good and merge very well into the lightmap of the level.
Its also pretty nice to be able to set lightmap size per bsp face.
As example here is a screenshot of a level that contains nearly only static meshes but has nice lit per vertex
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/media/b ... ing-10.jpg
Same scene adding shaders on top of the baked lighting
http://www.unrealtechnology.com/media/b ... ing-11.jpg
It would be very important to make sure we get a vertex map channel for static (and maybe dynamic) meshes, as it would help to merge objects much better into the current lighting calculation. im not sure how much time this will take with really rich environment and high settings for radiosity calculation.
Here are some more infos on static meshes in UED3 and static light contribution
http://waylon-art.com/LearningUnreal/UE ... htMaps.htm
I have written down a lot more things from bugs to workflow ideas and so on that i would like to send to you, Carsten as a generic tester list for the Ca3D development not especially for the mod, if you like.
The other part would be to rebuild the pipeline for exporting content like meshes into the engine properly, for static stuff we used .ase as far es i remember, md5 was best for animation. der_tons exporter was quite the best if i remember correctly in Max. So im looking forward to retry the pipeline.
We need to set up gridsizes in max to export properly, ill try to find my old notes or posts, im sure that i found a setting in the past for static mesh export in max.
Also how about a similiar way to store or collect meshes in packages like in UT. It makes a lot of sense to store, shaders, static items and so on in a kind of library, using so called "packages" with a theme, like wood_floors_01. It could contain Meshes as well materials and textures for this theme.
For the mod:
Enrico and i are ready to finish the first zombie models, and these can be used as a player model replacement.
I'm also trying today to export some static meshes, so far so good
And i think you need some new icons for the terrain tool ? I'm on this as well