Renzatic on 14/12/2012 at 00:13
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
I know I shouldn't double-post, but time has gone by, I am getting sick of "last edited by..." at the bottom of my posts so. Yeah.
I've reported you to the moderators. :mad:
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Anywho, woot! Thanks for the tutorial dude. I got it exported and here it is (no annoying disappearing of leaves):
Looks pretty good...if not a little shrimpy and fullbright. Do you want me to make it taller, or show you how to do it? I'm good either/or.
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Stupid question: How do I see tris in blender? Or am I gonna just have to manually calculate what the tris would be?
Easy. Look at the header on the top of the screen while you're in edit mode, there next to the little Blender logo and version number. It'll show your amount of verts, edges, faces, and a final tri count.
Yeah...I just figured that out myself, too. :P
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I have to say, I'm lovin' the dark exporter plugin. Much easier to just open blender, modify the file and export right into the thief folder. Not that 3ds to bin can't do that, but it's an old program and tries to automatically scale the image, blah blah... Just sayin', the dark exporter is great.
It's pretty slick, and definitely made the whole process of making and importing considerably easier than what I thought it'd be. Though that one thing Daraan said about intersecting polygons kinda worries me a bit. Your corn might actually be higher poly than what I originally thought, cuz I do have some leaves that intersect with the stalk. Might have to move them out a bit.
darthsLair on 14/12/2012 at 02:10
That looks very good ! Nice work !
sNeaksieGarrett on 14/12/2012 at 02:25
:O
Oh it was fullbright because I placed the model on a frobable object and highlighted the corn stalk when I took the photo. I could make it taller. I could rescale it in dromed I think, but I suppose we could (or rather I could with your help) scale it in blender too.
Thanks, that's simple enough.:)
Hmm, yeah. I still haven't tested adding a whole bunch of them with the newly exported one, but I imagine it's still going to lower the FPS a bit with more than, say, 20 corn stalks in one area.
Renzatic on 15/12/2012 at 05:27
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
:O
Oh it was fullbright because I placed the model on a frobable object and highlighted the corn stalk when I took the photo. I could make it taller. I could rescale it in dromed I think, but I suppose we could (or rather I could with your help) scale it in blender too.
It's hard to tell from the screenshot, but it looks about half the size of a realistically proportioned stalk. It'd probably be a little short still, but the one quickest way to fix it is just to simply scale it in Blender until the ears of corn itself are roughly the size of an actual piece.
I'd recommend importing a model from Thief into the editor for reference. Once you've got something to contrast it again, then select the model, hit S, drag til it looks good, then reexport it. If you want or need to do any more, I'll help you out.
Also, I'm up for taking suggestions on a tutorial object. If you've got something in mind, toss it by me.
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Hmm, yeah. I still haven't tested adding a whole bunch of them with the newly exported one, but I imagine it's still going to lower the FPS a bit with more than, say, 20 corn stalks in one area.
Are the ears of corn really that important to you? You could take them off and lower the poly count by 200ish tris easily. If you're going for a really dense field, that's what I'd recommend.
sNeaksieGarrett on 15/12/2012 at 05:54
Good idea on importing a model. One thing I did notice myself was it seemed a tad short in comparison to Garrett. In thief terms, everything has to be scaled in reference to a 6ft tall Garrett I think. I just remember reading a long time ago that's about how tall he is. In any case, I think it'd be cool if the plant was about as tall as Garrett if not higher. (Actually, come to think of it, it more or less is, but could be taller so that the top of the plant does not meet with garrett's eyes so to speak.)
I'll have to do some testing, although it would be nice to keep the ears on the plant. Actually, I just had an idea. I could have two models, one with ears, and one without... Then I can just use very few eared stalks and the rest will all be earless.
Also, at this point I should ask you if you consider the "cornstalk2.blend" file you sent me the final version of the plant or if you wanted to do something more to it before I start tweaking it/using it in dromed?
Renzatic on 15/12/2012 at 06:10
Quote Posted by sNeaksieGarrett
Good idea on importing a model. One thing I did notice myself was it seemed a tad short in comparison to Garrett. In thief terms, everything has to be scaled in reference to a 6ft tall Garrett I think. I just remember reading a long time ago that's about how tall he is. In any case, I think it'd be cool if the plant was about as tall as Garrett if not higher. (Actually, come to think of it, it more or less is, but could be taller so that the top of the plant does not meet with garrett's eyes so to speak.)
Yup. Like I said, I'd use the ears themselves as reference, since the leaves can pretty much be any size within reason. If it looks like the corn can fit in your hand realistically ingame, then it's about the right size.
Or if you want it taller, you could scale it, then grab a poly on each object that makes the ears, use Ctrl+L to select it all, and scale them down separate from the stalk while growing the rest up to taste. By the way, G is the hotkey for move in case you're wondering.
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I'll have to do some testing, although it would be nice to keep the ears on the plant. Actually, I just had an idea. I could have two models, one with ears, and one without... Then I can just use very few eared stalks and the rest will all be earless.
Also, at this point I should ask you if you consider the "cornstalk2.blend" file you sent me the final version of the plant or if you wanted to do something more to it before I start tweaking it/using it in dromed?
I don't have an official final version, that's totally up to you. There isn't anything stopping you from mixing and matching. Like using the higher poly first rev alongside the lower poly second. Or better yet, deleting the ears and even more leaves off the second to create a third or fourth model to use as filler. You don't have to use just one. In fact, using a bunch would be preferable, since it'd keep everything from looking too sameish.
LarryG on 15/12/2012 at 15:02
Best to scale the model properly in blender. If you scale in DromEd, the shadows won't be right. They will always match the size of the object before scaling, IIRC (unless Newdark fixed that ... did it? anyone know?).
sNeaksieGarrett on 15/12/2012 at 18:23
Point taken, larry.;)
Alright renz, here's your cornstalk in-game.
Close-up to show sense of scale (I did rescale the plant):
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1552[/ATTACH]
Further out shot:
[ATTACH=CONFIG]1553[/ATTACH]
If you look closely you should be able to tell that some stalks have the ears, and some do not. (Hmm, my screenies don't do a very good job of showing that off I just realized.. But in the first shot there's an eared stalk next to an earless to the left.) I just did a quick little arrangement in dromed of earless and eared stalks. What I did is I started with two earless stalks and put an eared stalk next to them.
Renzatic on 15/12/2012 at 20:03
Yeah, that looks a helluva lot better.
Alright! If you're happy with it I'm happy with it. I'm gonna ask RSoul a couple of Blender specific questions, then I'll start my tutorial!
...which isn't going to be corn related, but you'll learn how to manipulate the stalk pretty easily once I'm done.
fibanocci on 1/10/2014 at 08:09
I'm looking for a corn object, too. Which one is on the screenshot? Can I have this? It's hard to browse the forums. It's very slow.
I got the one by Christine, but it looks outdated.
