Dave's WIP's

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Dave_91
I've also started making the Ashland rock set, the shapes of the rocks are fairly simple, so it shouldn't take long at all to complete the set. I'll be doing rocks 01-16, with some variations. What would be a good poly count for a mid-large sized terrain rock? I'm 50/50 about smoothing it, or leaving it low-ish poly. High poly has just under 1000 verts (965 to be exact). Low poly has 247 but looks quite blocky.

It's the faces (a.k.a. triangles) that count though, not the vertices.

Hard to give a general figure. I suppose the best advice is to compare your rock to a similarly sized Oblivion rock and see if you're in the same range. I don't think I ever did that myself, but I probably should have.

In either case, as long as it looks as smooth as you want it to look there's no reason to use more faces than necessary. But if you find you have room in the budget for more faces it's a good idea to add details (crevices or bulges) that let you add vertexpainted shadows, because they make the model look much cooler.

[Dave_91]

Yeah, well I think 1000 verts max should be alright. Anything more may take up more than necessary. I'm finding it really quick and easy to make simple shape models now, even texturing's becoming easier. Thing I don't get with textures though, is how the hell people manage to create such high quality ones in photoshop. I mean, I was looking at the UV set and texture for the Ceremonial Ordinator Armour by Cyro, the the detailing on the texture is really quality... do these guys get real pictures of the kinda things they're making and minipulate them? Or do they actually make the textures from scratch?

If I knew how I'd give it a try, but I don't.

[InsanitySorrow]

I second help for that and any other tutorials for creating new textures from scratch. I am currently looking at a tut for creating a seemless image using GIMP. If you want the link Dave PM me.

[Dave_91]

Sure that'd be great. :goodjob:

[InsanitySorrow]

Actually, better idea, maybe I could start a thread for all these tutorials, for people to use. They are not mine but I can put the authors name down.

[Dave_91]

Sounds good to me. However, d'you know any Photoshop tutorials for making a texture?

[InsanitySorrow]

I will take a look for some too.

[fwp_coder]

just look around in your house or the internet or whatever and look at the structure and color of different things. scan them in or take a photo. For the chitin armor for example i would look for insect structures, then play around with them.
also use your painting skills!

Also try ambient occlusion. it will help you see where different things are on the texture better. heres a tut http://www.williamkladis.com/index2.html

[Dave_91]

Thanks Felix. :goodjob:

[Dave_91]

Textured screenshots of the top part of the Silt Strider using the Darker Morrowind textures. I personally think it's a little too dark in places, but that can be changed easily in photoshop. I wish I knew why sometimes when I texture things, the selected meshes that were textured vanish (as seen in the sitting part of the shell)...

Also, a screenshot of a Stink Bug i found that might work for a Chitin Shield-like texture, anyone agree?

And here's a screen with default Morrowind SS textures- which I think looks a lot better than the darker MW version, even though the textures are much lower res.