Nifs for Lights from Lights, candles, etc. List

[ShadowDancer]

These are really a couple of rough screenshots that I threw together to get a feel for the S shape. Its not clean at all, especially where the elements are fitted together, but its good enough for an image. I added some vertex painting to it, and took screenshots in both 3ds Max and NifSkope. Please let me know how it looks (Yes, I know that the pans for the candles aren't attached and need the little points removed ) as a WIP.

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by ShadowDancer
These are really a couple of rough screenshots that I threw together to get a feel for the S shape. Its not clean at all, especially where the elements are fitted together, but its good enough for an image. I added some vertex painting to it, and took screenshots in both 3ds Max and NifSkope. Please let me know how it looks (Yes, I know that the pans for the candles aren't attached and need the little points removed ) as a WIP.

The S's look nice and highly original :goodjob:

Perhaps a metal band encompassing the anchor point of the S's to the main stem would be appropriate? In real life I imagine there would be a weld effect instead, but that would be pretty hard to simulate without making a custom texture. A band could be straightforward enough and still give the impression the S's are firmly attached to the stem.

Another thing I could mention is texture resolution. I haven't mentioned it before because not only is it complicated to explain but I don't understand it fully myself either, making any explanation dangerous in so far as it can be misleading.

As you know, if you use a 256x128 texture it will look much more crisp than a 128x64 texture because the texture is displayed in higher resolution on the pixels of your monitor. The same thing is true of uvw maps, which can be given any size imagineable and will look more or less crisp depending on its size. In other words if you add a planar map with the dimensions 128x128 it will look more crisp than a planar map with the dimensions 256x256.

One would think it's a good idea to make uvw maps very crisp, but it's actually not. When the uvw mapping is too crisp the game can't display the textures properly on the player's monitor and it winds up looking blurry, thereby effectively distorting the look of the used texture. The effect is much more noticeable in-game than it is in renders, perhaps often because renders tend to show the model much more close-up than it's seen in-game.

Since I don't know enough about the subject to offer much in the way of solid advice, my only advice would be to zoom out the viewport until your model is as large as it is likely to be seen in-game - in the case of a floorlamp perhaps 5 centimetres high. If the texture looks blurry then the uvw mapping has too high resolution. A quick fix for problems like that can often be to add an UVW Xform modifier to the model, which lets you control lots of things concerning the mapping without destroying the original mapping.

Don't take that as critisizm by the way, I've made overly crisp uvw maps a bunch of times.

[ShadowDancer]

Originally posted by Razorwing
The S's look nice and highly original :goodjob:

Perhaps a metal band encompassing the anchor point of the S's to the main stem would be appropriate? In real life I imagine there would be a weld effect instead, but that would be pretty hard to simulate without making a custom texture. A band could be straightforward enough and still give the impression the S's are firmly attached to the stem.

Another thing I could mention is texture resolution. I haven't mentioned it before because not only is it complicated to explain but I don't understand it fully myself either, making any explanation dangerous in so far as it can be misleading.

As you know, if you use a 256x128 texture it will look much more crisp than a 128x64 texture because the texture is displayed in higher resolution on the pixels of your monitor. The same thing is true of uvw maps, which can be given any size imagineable and will look more or less crisp depending on its size. In other words if you add a planar map with the dimensions 128x128 it will look more crisp than a planar map with the dimensions 256x256.

One would think it's a good idea to make uvw maps very crisp, but it's actually not. When the uvw mapping is too crisp the game can't display the textures properly on the player's monitor and it winds up looking blurry, thereby effectively distorting the look of the used texture. The effect is much more noticeable in-game than it is in renders, perhaps often because renders tend to show the model much more close-up than it's seen in-game.

Since I don't know enough about the subject to offer much in the way of solid advice, my only advice would be to zoom out the viewport until your model is as large as it is likely to be seen in-game - in the case of a floorlamp perhaps 5 centimetres high. If the texture looks blurry then the uvw mapping has too high resolution. A quick fix for problems like that can often be to add an UVW Xform modifier to the model, which lets you control lots of things concerning the mapping without destroying the original mapping.

Don't take that as critisizm by the way, I've made overly crisp uvw maps a bunch of times.

I was also thinking about a band to make it look better. I will have to play with that some now that you've mentioned it as well. I have a couple ideas that should work to make it look decent.

Out of curiousity, how has the texture resolution looked on my other models? I haven't done anything with the material on the S shape yet, I just threw the material on there so that it matched the rest of the lamp rather than having it show just the mesh when I took the screenshots. It seemed that it would look better if it sorta matched. See below for why I didn't do that on a quick model.

The following is a "just for information" bit about things I have found out that might help others.

I found out after many trials and errors that setting a material on something bent works better if you set the material before bending the mesh. The bending doesn't seem to bother the material the way that moving a vertex normally does for some reason. Thats how I got the mesh to follow the contour of the legs of LightComLamp02 instead of being striped which I have seen even in some of Bethesda's nifs. If you try to map the material after the mesh is bent, its nearly impossible to get it to map cleanly.

The other thing I found out is that bends seem to work better on seperate pieces. The legs on LightComLamp02, for instance, were originally 5 pieces counting the little cap on the end of the feet. My reasoning for this is that otherwise you have to move vertices around and then play with each bend if you make it one piece to begin with where as if you make a mistake on a seperate piece its easy to just redo it, alter the lengths, change the angle, etc. One additional thing to note is that the 2 curves were done with cylinders and the rest of the legs were done with cone shapes - the cylinders produce cleaner bends in my opinion and its easier to change lengths which can distort a cone's shape, especially if you are moving vertices around.

After doing each piece seperately, I then moved the new piece to the location where the center on the end of the last piece ended up. It was surprisingly simple once I worked it out, especially when using cylinders or cones as long as you plan out where your curves are going to be beforehand and the size (radius) that you are using at a specific point. This is because the rotational point is always centered and on one end of these items which makes it easy to line them up in order.

The hardest part of this to me was keeping track of the angles at which to bend each piece to get them to fit together properly, but planning this out before hand can help out a great deal if you aren't good with numbers in your head. Line them all up at a specific angle and then add the angles of all the previous bends together to know what bend is required for each piece - I lost track midway through and had to spend a few minutes figuring out where I made the mistake when the meshes didn't line up properly because I forgot that I changed the angle at which my first piece was bent.

[ShadowDancer]

Here are a few pics of the new form for the LightComLamp02_NoCandle nif. I added the band to the top section and I think it looks pretty good, although the triangle count is a bit up there. I am also attaching the nif file so it can get checked. I think I got everything and if its ok, I will go ahead and make the version with the candles.

Edit: Helps if I attach the right file.

[Razorwing]

I checked out the LightComLamp02NoCandle.nif you posted. Technically it looks alright, with the only problem being that it lacks tangent space information. Visually I think the S's are too highpoly; you could probably use seven sides on the shapes without the difference being noticeable. I don't think the lamp itself is too highpoly, it's just that the high detail of the S's can't be discerned from a normal playing distance.

As you said, mapping a mesh after it's finished is always more work than doing it beforehand. If you map a plane that has three segments and then move about the vertices the map will move along with the surface whereas if you map it afterwards it becomes between hard and impossible to map it so that it's both seamless and projects in the right direction. You can notice that a lot on for instance Bethesda's rocks, how they mapped the rock surface first and deformed it later, giving softly flowing and naturally-looking mapping.

The best solution is often to use splines because you can draw for instance a cylindrical object, like a rope, and the generated mapping will flow seamlessly as you move the spline's vertices about. The cool thing about splines is that you can control most things without distorting the mapping or complicating the process, like switching between 12 sides to 3 sides to 24 sides with the mapping still intact, seamless, and flowing however the vertices are moved.

Originally posted by ShadowDancer
Out of curiousity, how has the texture resolution looked on my other models?

Hard for me to say since I haven't playtested them myself, but I think all of them are on the high side. They would probably look even better with less uvw map resolution. Perhaps you could import corresponding Bethesda models into 3D Studio Max and compare roughly their uwv map resolution to yours? That would be the best advice I could give since it's a situation where it's hard to say what is wrong and what is right. If you decide to change the resolution on your models you'd probably want to use an UVW Xform modifier so as to retain the mapping you already set up.

[ShadowDancer]

Here are a couple pics with one of the branches at 7 sides for the S shape. They are at different distances but the closest one is when sneaking in front of it. I also toned down the texture on the center part of the lamp and I am still working on the arms to get the texture right.

[Razorwing]

If you're finished with the new batch of lights, could I get a copy of them? TIA

[Ghogiel]

Originally posted by ShadowDancer
I found out after many trials and errors that setting a material on something bent works better if you set the material before bending the mesh. The bending doesn't seem to bother the material the way that moving a vertex normally does for some reason. Thats how I got the mesh to follow the contour of the legs of LightComLamp02 instead of being striped which I have seen even in some of Bethesda's nifs. If you try to map the material after the mesh is bent, its nearly impossible to get it to map cleanly.

In max terms, materials are not textures. They can end up being complex shaders, that include textures(maps), and have them doing doing crazy stuff. I learnt some cool stuff about materials in max just recently, crazy. anyway, A material added to a object before "bending" will display no differnet in renders to the same shader added after bending.
You mean UV before bending. yes, it can be quicker to Uv depending on the method you used to create the mesh, but it is certianly not near impossible to create very accurate UV maps of any shaped object in minutes. max's standard UV tool kit is actually lacking in selection and editing tools, making things tedious or impossible...I use turbounwrap from chuggnut.com in max 8 and polyboost in max 09. UVing one of those curves, assuming its quads, clean mesh, under 1000tris, would take me minutes to make a fairly distortionless UV. Its not imposible nor very time consuming.

The other thing I found out is that bends seem to work better on seperate pieces. The legs on LightComLamp02, for instance, were originally 5 pieces counting the little cap on the end of the feet. My reasoning for this is that otherwise you have to move vertices around and then play with each bend if you make it one piece to begin with where as if you make a mistake on a seperate piece its easy to just redo it, alter the lengths, change the angle, etc. One additional thing to note is that the 2 curves were done with cylinders and the rest of the legs were done with cone shapes - the cylinders produce cleaner bends in my opinion and its easier to change lengths which can distort a cone's shape, especially if you are moving vertices around.

I second RW- learn how to loft a spline. I would have done all of those curvey shapes as lofts. the auto mapping with are very good as well, saving time. You'll spam slap your forehead at the time you spent bending and attaching those cylinders together compared to the stuff you can do with splines.

what is a UVW map resolution? thats texture size right?

[Razorwing]

Originally posted by Ghogiel
what is a UVW map resolution? thats texture size right?

No that would be the texture's resolution. What I meant by saying "the uvw map's resolution" is, to take an example, the length, width and height settings on the uvw map modifier or the tile settings on an uvw xform modifier. I've seen so many models ruined by too high resolution, turning the beautiful textures into a blurry mess. (Some of them were my own models.)

Originally posted by Ghogiel
I use turbounwrap from chuggnut.com in max 8 [...]

I downloaded it to give it a try, but got stumped on how it's supposed to be used. From reading forum threads I googled I got the impression it would kick in automatically when adding an unwrap uvw modifier, but for me it didn't and I'm sure I installed it okay because I overwrote the original file of the same name.

[Ghogiel]

I never used uvw map or the xform. for tiling in max I controll that in the material editor. I don't know how higher resolution would end up at bluring. "seen so many models ruined by too high resolution, turning the beautiful textures into a blurry mess." for the sake of thread hijacking I won't ask.

hmmm.
the turbounwrap tool is a new modifier, look in your modifier list for turboUVW, here are the install inscructions.
http://www.chuggnut.com/Scripts/TurboUnw...nwrap.html
alternatively you can use the older unwrap uvw replacer. http://www.chuggnut.com/Scripts/unwrapto...ols1.4.zip
which works in versions max5-8
this will remove the default tool set menu on the unwrap uvw modifier and replace it completely. don't worry, the old tool set sucks. its shocking. no selection tools, no align tools, nothing! maddness.