Custom Content Challenge #1: Modelling Light Sources

ZOMG m3h furst mohdel 3vaaa! lol

(600 faces)

I got a fresh start, and did this in about a half-hour.

Now comes the agonizing UV mapping and texturing.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

phew, you're fast!

("Work, yous stupid XSI, woooork!!!!" screams at a desktop icon)

Captain P, I would suggest just leaving it as a physics object. If the mapper wants it to not move, he can always check the motion disabled flag.

@ Andrei, I would suggest pumping up the detail on the lamp a bit more, make it smoother. Right now it looks a tad bit blocky.

@ Stadric, Normally Lava lamps come to more of a point at the top, which is capped. However, with a scolling texture, I think you could pull off the illusion of the bubbles rising. If not, you may have to make a bubble model, like what valve did with the generator tanks in kliner's lab.

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Dark_Kilauea
DVS Administration
http://www.dvstudio-production.com/

Or use env_bubbles (I believe).

Andrei: That looks excellent but you can afford a few more polies in those curves to smoothen it out a bit. The bends are too abrupt.

Stadric: Looking much better. :biggrin:

Captain P: I know that plenty of Valve's models work as both static and physics props, so... there must be some way to allow the model to be either static or physics-simulated. Also the 64x64 texture kind of shows itself around the edges of the "lit" portion, I think you should try moving it up to 128x128 or something and see if that makes it a little clearer. Looks very good though. :smile:

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-- midkay

The static versions of physics props are either prop_physics_override or a prop_physics with motion disabled.

BTW

456 triangles (polys), much higher, but that's as low as it'll go.

Now I'm wondering if I should make the lava via texturing the same face as the glass, or by adding a mush inside the glass.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

No, I mean literally some work with both prop_static and cast lightmapped shadows, and also with prop_physics and can be moved around.

That lavalamp looks great. It's hard to tell with the wires in the way but is that tiny "ring" around the top cap necessary? It looks like it'd be really hard to see, in which case you could get rid of it and save yourself several polies. 456 is just fine though.

In fact, I don't know how it would look, but I do know that lava lamps have a curve around the outermost ring of the bottle (right in the middle there, where the bottle comes out to its widest point). Maybe you could try a curve there if you felt like it. Might look nice. Might not. :smile: Either way looks great.

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-- midkay

Quick question, I know it's possible to have an alpha mask on only part of a texture, otherwise decals wouldn't work, but how do I do it? Is is just a matter of designating a certain color to contain the alpha mask?

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

To do an alpha mask in photoshop you must go to the Channels tab (the tab next to Layers) and there should be a New Channel button at the bottom; click it and you should then have an alpha channel. You need to paint on this channel with grayscale, white to black, where white is 100% opaque and black is 100% transparent.. once you're done you save the TGA out as normal, make sure "Alpha channel" is selected at the save dialog, and set to 32-bits when prompted.

That ought to do it. :smile: Don't forget the .vmt parameters, e.g. $decal "1". Might want to check Valve's Wiki for more on this.

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-- midkay

Cool, thanks.
Now to get off my ass and do it.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

For the lavalamp, I think a transparant texture for the glass and either a scrolling texture or animated bubbles would be cool. Scrolling texture is gonna be the easiest thing I think. Looks fine otherwise, although it feels somewhat sharp rather than curved, you could make it look like that's intended (I guess it is? :smile: ) and it shouldn't be a problem.

Nice one, Andrei. Certainly not bad for a first model. Ya got them mad skilz! :razz:

midk, I know it's possible and I've done it before, but the exact same .qc setup now doesn't work anymore, so I guess it's some studiomdl update or such that broke it. Previously I never needed a $keyvalues block for physics props and they worked, now I can't compile without such a block if I want them to be physical.
I'll stick with a physics model for now, the 'disable movement' flag should be enough.

As for the texture being too low-res, I just found out that's due to the compiling process. By default, textures are being compressed and filtered. I just turned that off (by creating a .txt file with the same name as the .tga file, in the same folder, containing the lines "nocompress" "1" and "nonice" "1") and it looks a lot sharper now. Result:


It's about finished now, I only got to fix the mass center... right now it's at 0 0 0, which results in some funny behaviour... :smile:

(and no, that didn't change the color, I did... :razz: )

As for Photoshop and Alpha channels, version 7 contains a bug that causes .tga's not to be saved with an alpha channel. There's a fix for this which you can download, or you can update to version 7.10. Found that out yesterday. Oh, and thanks for the Add channel button, midk. Hadn't figured that out yet, it's certainly faster than selecting something and saving the selection to a channel. :smile:

EDIT: The Valve wiki is pretty cool actually. I'm using it more intensively now, and I'm just stumbling upon collision info that's just what I need for my own game. Looks like I'm on the right path with my collision system design. :biggrin:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Stadric: np. :smile:

Captain P: Ah, I see. :\ Physics + "no motion" flag sounds fine. Also, that new texture looks better and I like the blue color and reflectance. Looks very good. :smile:

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-- midkay

Thanks. :smile:

Only thing left is that crappy $masscenter thing. I can't figure out the correct syntax of the value, right now the mass center stays 0 0 0. No example on the Valve wiki either. Gonna look on the VERC forums now for it, otherwise it'll be some experimenting, I guess.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Bah, second last day of school and we got a bunch of s**t dumped on us. I have my exam tomorrow at 8 in the morning, then I'm off after 11 for the summer. I'll get to work on it after that.

Summer school = :sad:

Just got started on my own model :smile: Sort of a 7 foot floor lamp -- only thing I've constructed so far is the base, so it looks more like a land mine

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Done! Here's the download (18 kB). Tomorrow, next model. Now, sleep. :smile:

// About the $masscenter, it's indeed $masscenter 0 0 1, or whatever other values you want. Only thing is: I assumed the middle value to be height, while it's the last one. Oops... :biggrin:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

This is a lamp that actually exists in my house :razz:




608 polies :biggrin:

Edit: When I start putting the skin together, I was wondering if there was anyway to emulate HL1's chrome effect in HL2?

Edit Edit: 14 users online! I haven't seen a number like that in a while -- perhaps this modeling comp thingy is already stiring up interest?

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Cool, "G" :smile:

I only suggest raising it up, it should be a bit higher IMO. Should be a simple matter. Looks as tall as a person or so, should probably be like 1.5x that height.

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-- midkay

I'd remove the ball from the middle, seems like unnecessary polys. Who's gonna be looking up there?

Torchiere don't generally use normal light bulbs, they tend to use these:

Halogen bulbs.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

@Midk: I might stretch it/srhink it depending on how it looks in-game. I'm hoping it's fine as it is :smile:

@Frenchy: Well, the ball's (uhhhh) there in the real-life one, so I added it in :wink: I think it would look a little better than a straight cylinder, to :smile: Polys are a good point, though. I might see if I can hack a few out of the ball, but I think it might remain as is.

@Stadric: That's actually what is in the real-life lamp :razz: Laziness forced me into a simple-olden-styled light bulb, though I'm going to look into correcting it :smile:

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Well, what I was thinking is why not just have a flat surface there? Is anyone going to be looking at the light source? They can't see it, so I'd just cheat and put a square there.

I'm sure in the end it doesn't really make a difference though.

I see your point -- though in the final model, the player's eye height should be a bit lower/almost equal to where the ball is, so there is a good chance they will look there/see it at some point. Plus, that ball is supposed to be the "attraction" to the lamp. :smile:

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Breaking the laws of mapping since 2003 and doing a damn fine job at it

Some really good stuff being made already, I can't wait to get home and take a crack at it myself!

Thanks for the feedback guys. I went on and made the thing smoother, but now it's obviously heavier on the polycount.



And that crappy little ornament on top... not sure why a light post
would need it, but the ones in reality have that little pimple on top,
so.... :heee:

G, looks good. I'd keep the ball if I where you, simply because if it's a physics model, you can't guarantee it's position... :smile:
I would create some LOD versions of it though, such round shapes are good candidates for lower poly versions, and on a LOD distance of 25 or so the difference is already hard to notice.

Stadric, you're gonna model those? Looks like some interesting material work then. :smile:

EDIT: Andrei, can you post a smooth-shaded screenie?

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

A textured lava lamp, I don't know if alpha will work in XSI.

I thnk I'm just going to go with an env_bubbles inside. And cubemaps.

Here's a glimpse of what the skin looks like.
http://img169.imageshack.us/img169/9311/basicskin01hg2.jpg
:rolleyes:

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

a wall light I made





the wireframe the on version http://www.slackiller.com/images/snarkpacks/wall_light1.jpg

Slackiller - that looks great. :biggrin:

I should get around to putting my wall lamp into Source, but.. gah.. the UV mapping/unwrapping/material set up... :\

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-- midkay

an ingame shot of the model i showed already. i'll rearrange the bits to make a desk version too.

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i eat paint

This thread rocks. Nice modeling all around.

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http://maze5.net

mazemaster said:
This thread rocks. Nice modeling all around.

I agree, great job guys!

Looking forward to more :smile:

Can somebody tell me what's wrong with my qc file or vmt file. The model shows up in Hammer, but it's covered with that old familiar pink and black.
Here's my qc file:

$modelname "Snarkpacks/p1_lights/LavaLamp.mdl"
unimportant
$cdmaterials "models/Snarkpacks/p1_lights/LavaLamp"
unimportant

I've messed around with the $cdmaterials property, to no avail, so I think it's my
and here's my .vmt

"VertexLitGeneric"
{
"$baseTexture" "models/Snarkpacks/p1_lights/LavaLamp
"$model" 1
"$envmap" "env_cubemap"
"$surfaceprop" "metal"
"$envmapmask" "glass/glasswindowbreak070a_mask"
"$translucent" 1
"$nocull" 1
}

Maybe it's because I only got 4 hours of sleep last night, but I'll be damned if I can figure it out right now.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Just a quick glance revealed that you did forget a quotation mark after the $basetexture value:

"$baseTexture" "models/Snarkpacks/p1_lights/LavaLamp

:smile:

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-- midkay

Jup, a checkerboard texture often means a wrong .vmt. An easy way to check if it's a .vmt problem or a .qc problem is to make the .vmt use cubemaps and normalmapping. If the checkerboard texture glows and looks bumped, it's a .vmt problem.

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

the $cdmaterials value is the folder location of your texture, relative to your [mod]materials folder.

so, $cdmaterials "models/Snarkpacks/p1_lights/LavaLamp"

is actually saying that your texture is at;-

[mod]materials/models/snarkpacks/p1_lights/lavalamp/mytexture.vmt

[color=white]th texture name, (the yellow bit[/color]), doesn't need to be in the qc, as the model was exported from your model editor already wearing the texturename.

if your texturename is lavalamp, and it sits in the p1_lights folder, then drop 'lavalamp' from the cdmaterials path.

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i eat paint

It was a combination of what midk and fishy said.

The alpha isn't working yet, but I'll try it again soon enough.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Hey guys, look at this awesome lamp!

...and a bunch of dead zombies...

I love it :biggrin:

yeah, it was the same map I used to test my colored glass textures, so I put in some zombies and rebels so it wasn't boring. Then it was the first map on the list when I wanted to test the lava lamp model. But the rebels kept winning, so I made more zombies in-game with the give npc_zombie command.
Then I made more than one zombie in the same place.
But then I killed them.

And that's what I did today. :razz:

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

I think the shape and size looks good, but the texture could use some work. Dirty it up a bit or give it some detailing (a brand name maybe?) to liven it up.

Decided to try and make this thing:

This is what i currently got.

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Boo f**king Hoo

Looks good, Natus! Nice style there. :smile:

What's the poly count so far?

I'm going next week bytheway, seeya later all! Keep up the modelling ah. :wink:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Thats a nice design - not so abstract to make it hard to use effectively, but unorthodox enough to make it visually interesting in its own right. Looks like you are doing a good job turning it into a prop too :smile: Keep it up mate!

Cya soon Captain :smile:

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[img]http://card.mygamercard.net/sig/Default/reno84.png[/img]
Designer @ Haiku Interactive | ReNo-vation.net

XSI pisses me off.

Where's the boolean tool and the chamfer tool?

Nice to see that this is getting some pretty cool entries :smile: <br style="color: white;">

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Insurgency

Here's one I made in very little time, it's not practical, but it does look cool.

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Would look cool with beams and stuff inside of it.

Oooh, beams.

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Boo f**king Hoo

Yeah it kinda looks like one of those orbs that has arcing electricity inside and when you put your hand on it the electricity clumps around your hand.

Anyway, as for the model, are you planning on improving the skin, especially around the base? As far as I can tell its monotone at the moment.

Of course, I said it took very little time, and I meant it.
I think I'm going to get rid of that red circle, too.
For the record, it's two models, the arm and the orb.

Incidentally, is iwannamap.com working for anyone?

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Also change the texture of the dock. Docks are rarely tile. -Facepunch
As I Lay Dying

Incidentally, is iwannamap.com working for anyone?

Is now.

Nice models