PBX returns

Get help with installing and running the Cafu Engine here. This forum is also for general questions and discussion of all aspects regarding the Cafu Engine.
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Shadow
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PBX returns

Post by Shadow » 2005-02-07, 01:54

hey edareot and i started working on pbx again. i was bored waiting for the superbowl so i did a little modeling work.
http://photobucket.com/albums/v612/HIethan592/
just go there for all the screens so far. the gun isnt finished yet. i just put in the framework so yeah.
http://s3.invisionfree.com/pbxtreme/index.php?act=site thats our current site but it will be updated prolly by the end of the week.
any other help is glady accepted
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-07, 23:45

ok so im modeling that gun... if there will be a max of 14 people online at a time, relatively small maps and not much for special effects, how many polys is to much for the gun? im at like 2.5k right now but i think i can bring it down a bit by finding the uneccesary stuff and changing the cylinders from 16 sided to 8 or 12 and such. but just wondering wut i should use as a generic cap
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-10, 00:29

....?
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-10, 01:58

new WIP gun
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Post by FraGGer » 2005-02-13, 00:54

Nice stuff Shadow :D
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Post by Carsten » 2005-02-13, 14:44

Great work Shadow! :)
I don't know how many polys are too many, but I'd compare to comparable weapons others have done in order to get a clue about the proper order of magnitude. ;)
Best regards,
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Post by Kai » 2005-02-13, 17:33

2,5 k for a gun is pretty high, sounds to me that it is quite unoptimised.
The world model should be around 1k- 1,5 maximum, depending how complex the shape is made.

Have in mind that most weapons are rarely visible at a close range, you will not see most details. The worldmodel should always be more simplified compared to the playerview version.
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-13, 18:05

thats where it gets interesting...
its paintball. so therefore its close range. and there is no world model. on moedels are the one the player sees and other peoples guns. people who play these games want really nice looking guns. the other games have nice looking guns and thats what carries them. they have cruddy world graphics and almost no similarity to real paintball. except greg hastings of course (awesome game). so im looking to have good gun graphics and good world graphics to beat them out
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-13, 18:06

alot of it is unoptimized and will be fixed or normal mapped.
alot of it is in the tubing on the front of the gun. i am thiking about making that stuff 3 sided instead of the 6 it is now
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Post by Kai » 2005-02-13, 18:44

Hmm the quality of a model is made 50% by mesh and 50% by the texture.

Some ideas, like the seperating of a weapon into world and player version is for a good reason.
There will be a performance increase when the new "level of detail" is implemented...

By close range i mean really close. The main aspect is to think of how much of the screen is used for the gun. For a screen resolution like 1024*768 a close range would be 50% or more (thats really close) that would mean you see 512* 384 pixel only for the gun, and now think how many polys are visible .. It would be a waste to spend more polys on details you would only see in very few situations (or never, due to the fact those polys are in subpixel space)

A nice look is more related to the texture, the mesh is more defining the shape. Try to find faces that are less important an merge vertices that are very close together. Take a few notes and calculations on how much a reduction will decrease the polycount.

Its hard to explain how to reduce effectivly, thats just based on experience, and what options the engine offers to make things look good.
Example: A 4-sided tube will look like a highrestube, when using a dynamic light (because specular-angle is interpolated on pixelbase)

Im not very informed about what other games related to paintball are on the market or in development, and im not playing this sport.
But i think its a good idea to develop a mod that is not so exhausted like CS styled games.

Im very convinced that you will create a pretty nice paintballmod :)
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-13, 20:28

here is an example of a good paintball game. notice how much of the screen is covered by the gun...
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now i am modeling my player view gun detailed on both sides since eventually i want to be able to have the player able to switch gun hands during the game. this will require detail on both sides of the gun. i know how to optimize the mesh and i will be doing it soon. there are alot of extra polys on the tank and those will be cut out soon since in most cases the tank is under arm anyways. i should have a real dev doc on the pbx forums soon so that u guys can find out wut we are planning if ur interested.
thanks for your opionions so far
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Post by Kai » 2005-02-13, 21:13

Your screenshot shows the playerview of the gunmodel but this is pretty simple, i can't tell how much polys are spend but look to me like only a few hundred.
detailed on both sides since eventually i want to be able to have the player able to switch gun hands during the game
Hmm this would be quite ineffective. In such a case you should mirror the model (if you have text on the gun , like on the screenshot above, this must be seperated) during the game, you find such an option in most games like Unreal or CS.

When mirroring a model, watch out if you use nmaps, this can be corrupt the origin axis, but its no problem to compensate this with a few lines of code ;)



Oh yeah this site http://www.paintball2000.de seems to be a very good ressource for reference images :coolp:
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Post by FraGGer » 2005-02-13, 21:41

woah this looks nicer n nicer :D
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-13, 23:00

i have considered the mirroring option but it just doesnt work with paintball guns. i have yet to find a gun that is symmetrical. digital paintball tried this solution and an agry mod almost took over the world in revenge for it. lol for instance look at my gun that is posted above. on the front of the gun there is a pneumatic assembly that is not even close to symmetrical.
here is my latest screen...
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even with the grips and barrel added i have managed to drop the polly count down a bit more than 500
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Post by Shadow » 2005-02-28, 04:34

heres another gun i worked on for like an hour today
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dye matrix <1100 triangles so i think its in good shape poly wise
if it needs to be cut down a bit i know wut to do so its good. starting to work on a third person model now
and here is a cheap ass render of it http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v612/ ... atrixR.jpg

Kai - this is a gun that could be mirrored for the effect of switching hands since it is vitually the same on both sides. buth this is a rare case with paintball guns and paintball players will notice

note that this was modeled, textured, and rendered with wings3d a free app
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