 Leafpod Architecture - Door claim! |
FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| Leafpod Architecture - Door claim! |
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Hello everyone, phoenixamon is making the leafpod architecture for us,
but he has run into some problems and would like some advice:
| quote: |
Hi again. I wanted to show you where I'm at with one of your models. I decided to try this one
because it stands alone and wouldn't require as much planning as the
others. I especially like the tall vine-type houses, but they are
really going to take a lot of planning to make pieces that can be
stacked up and linked together with bridge vines and all.
What I've got so far is this.
I'm not really happy with it. The base doesn't look natural. I'm not
sure how to fix that yet. I didn't make a door yet, just the door
frame, so that looks weird in this render.
Any suggestions from anyone on your team? I'm pretty out of my element on this, and I'm not sure whether to give up. |
As you can see he would like to know what we think.
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02.10.2006 09:20 |
    
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Liquid Cheese
Elder of Skyrim
Registration Date: 24.07.2006
Posts: 669
Location: England
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Hey that is great, the only improvement I can think of, is maybe
twisting the leaves a bit at the top to make it look a bit more organic
and random like in the concept. The texture on the stand looks a bit
metallic but that is probably just the far out view. |
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02.10.2006 18:04 |
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Mormacil
Herma-Mora the Woodland Man
Registration Date: 15.08.2006
Posts: 2,250
Location: Netherlands
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The idea was that one of the "legs" was in front of the door. It had sideways so it could be used as a stairs.
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02.10.2006 19:35 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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An update from our friend:
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Hi again. I've been playing with the leaf pod, and could use some input again. Right now it looks like this.
Got rid of the temp textures, for the most part. I'm much happier with
the shape of the base this time, but I've gone so far off the orginal
concept art that it's sort of embarassing. 
I've made the pod wider overall because of how I imagine furnishings
fitting inside. I don't like the current door shape because it looks
too man-made.
I'm still sort of stumped about how to get the player up to the door,
though. I took a couple of screenshots with an older version of the
model just to give you a sense of scale. (The textures are screwy in
these shots.)
Third person, standing at base
Distant shot next to my interior tileset pieces
One thought I had was to make a spiral ramp up based on this rough draft. But I don't know if I like it.
Nothing done on the interior yet. I figured I'd wait until I know
whether you're all ok with the changed shape. I'll watch your thread on
Silgrad's forum to see if there are any new comments or suggestions.
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(A note, it may be hard to see but there are many links in there, so just scan with your cursor).
He has strayed a bit from the original concept, but I think we can have
variance so this is good. He wants our opinions, so tell him what you
think (he will be checking this thread).
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07.10.2006 11:07 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Mormacil
I love them all 
, the spiral is very nice find. Though I would scale it down a little bit. |
I think that is good to know from the person that drew the concept 
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07.10.2006 11:30 |
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Mormacil
Herma-Mora the Woodland Man
Registration Date: 15.08.2006
Posts: 2,250
Location: Netherlands
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Why is it alwasy so hard to follow you 
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07.10.2006 13:09 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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I think it has worked out well. And the base is not flat, if you take a closer look.
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07.10.2006 21:18 |
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Mormacil
Herma-Mora the Woodland Man
Registration Date: 15.08.2006
Posts: 2,250
Location: Netherlands
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"cor time running out this am - one think on first"
I mean sentences like this. I need to reread your posts at least one time usually.
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07.10.2006 21:33 |
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Mormacil
Herma-Mora the Woodland Man
Registration Date: 15.08.2006
Posts: 2,250
Location: Netherlands
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I was indeed intended to be green and not wood(the base)
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07.10.2006 21:52 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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First things first... I'm a she. 
Other than that, well, this is depressing. 
I have been following the thread, but I wasn't registered and I
probably won't continue to follow the site because I have to turn off
my firewall to read this forum for some reason.
Anyway, I think raggidman and I have a different perspective. raggidman
is making good arguments for what looks like natural growth, and I
don't disagree. His ideas about stairs are excellent, and so were the
stairs in the concept art.
My perspective in building this has been more focussed on what is
playable. It's a house, so inside it has to have a floor, a mostly flat
surface to put things on. If there isn't a flat-ish base on the
outside, where's the floor come in on the inside? I can make the bottom
of the pod more rounded, but you need to be able to see where the
floor's going to fit because inside that can't be round.
The concept art did not have a door, just a gap between leaves that the
owner could walk through. That's more natural, but the interior in the
game is a separate cell, so we need something that separates the
outside from the inside. I don't like the door as I have it now and I'm
playing with different styles, but there's really no way to make a
completely natural object that's hinged. Nature doesn't make hinges. So
for me, especially without any concept art to work from, the door is
really hard. Any ideas on how to make a door that's functional and yet
still natural are appreciated.
The stairs in the concept art are beautiful, but Oblivion surprised me
by being very picky about the height and angle of stairs, and that
angle just won't play. I don't know why it's so picky, but I guess it
must have something to do with the character animations. I don't want
to make something with lots and lots of branches because of how many
polygons it would cost. Remember you want your computer to be able to
render a dozen houses along with trees and rocks and everything at one
time.
The textures are the easiest thing to change, so don't worry about
those. (Other than that I'm running out of green leaves to scan here in
the fall.) Right now I have the blend to green starting right where the
base meets the legs. I could make it start lower or make the whole
thing green. It just felt like wood to me. I wouldn't suggest making
everything the same tone as the leaves, though, because then the leaves
aren't distinct enough and it begins to look like a blob instead of a
plant.
At any rate, I think I'll keep working on this one and the smaller one.
The smaller one will probably have less usable space inside it for
furnishings than the player shack in the Imperial City Waterfront, but
it may be able to have a loft inside it big enough to put a bed on.
I'll see how that goes.
Please let me know if you have ant ideas for doors that are both
functional and natural, because right now that's the hardest part for
me. |
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07.10.2006 23:31 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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08.10.2006 00:18 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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T'wasn't an ambush... it was... um... something else.
IRT to the shape of the floor, the walls can be round and the shape of
the floor can be a circle, but it can not be a cup shape. Or... it
could, but you couldn't set objects on it properly. Just in case I
wasn't making sense before.
Avoid using transparency as much as possible... overlapping transparent
textures cause serious glitches on Oblivion's engine (and Morrwind's).
Stand under a waterfall and look at your hair in third person to see
what I mean. Chunks of the mesh blink in and out of view in a very ugly
way.
The small pod at the moment looks like this.
Although you can't see it from that angle, the bottom of the pod is
rounded. Both pods are shaped basically like upside-down acorns. The
base isn't finished unless you'd want to hide the ends of the stem
parts with grass or rocks.
I'm turning over my Max files and textures for someone else to take
this up. I use Max 8, and I have no idea if these files will open with
previous versions. Sorry to cut and run, but as I said to begin with, I
make squares. They're reasonably attractive squares, but they're
definitely not organic.
This is so far the most organic shape I've ever modelled from scratch,
and I'm fairly amazed that it doesn't completely suck. But it's
frustrating for me and I'm not really up to the task.
You can grab the files here. I'll make the same announcement on your thread on the TES forum in case someone there is interested.
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08.10.2006 13:55 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| quote: |
Originally posted by phoenixamon
T'wasn't an ambush... it was... um... something else.
IRT to the shape of the floor, the walls can be round and the shape of
the floor can be a circle, but it can not be a cup shape. Or... it
could, but you couldn't set objects on it properly. Just in case I
wasn't making sense before.
Avoid using transparency as much as possible... overlapping transparent
textures cause serious glitches on Oblivion's engine (and Morrwind's).
Stand under a waterfall and look at your hair in third person to see
what I mean. Chunks of the mesh blink in and out of view in a very ugly
way.
The small pod at the moment looks like this.
Although you can't see it from that angle, the bottom of the pod is
rounded. Both pods are shaped basically like upside-down acorns. The
base isn't finished unless you'd want to hide the ends of the stem
parts with grass or rocks.
I'm turning over my Max files and textures for someone else to take
this up. I use Max 8, and I have no idea if these files will open with
previous versions. Sorry to cut and run, but as I said to begin with, I
make squares. They're reasonably attractive squares, but they're
definitely not organic.
This is so far the most organic shape I've ever modelled from scratch,
and I'm fairly amazed that it doesn't completely suck. But it's
frustrating for me and I'm not really up to the task.
You can grab the files here. I'll make the same announcement on your thread on the TES forum in case someone there is interested. |
I'm sorry to hear that. But I thought you were doing an amazing job,
one question, would it be possible to have the interiors made? Because
I think the exteriors look fine. And are very high quality.
Thank you,
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08.10.2006 14:12 |
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Arbiter
Archduke
Registration Date: 24.10.2005
Posts: 2,633
Location: Croatia the Nether-Bringer
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That's bad man, you were doing amazing job. 
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08.10.2006 14:27 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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I already replied on the TES forum, but I'll give the interiors a shot.
Don't know how it will go. Since there was no concept art at all for
the interiors I'll be going on a mix of my imagination and some parts
of the Telvanni architecture from MW... they also lived in plants,
though their plants were bonzai tree mushroom that they trained to
grown in certain directions through (presumably) alteration magic.
If someone could take over finishing the exteriors... the missing doors
and either stairs or ramps... I'd really appreciate it. I've hit a wall
on those parts and I think I could stare at it all day without getting
any more done on them. |
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08.10.2006 15:00 |
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Mormacil
Herma-Mora the Woodland Man
Registration Date: 15.08.2006
Posts: 2,250
Location: Netherlands
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Ok let us draw interiors 
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08.10.2006 15:33 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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Yeah, if you've seen the inside of one giant lead pod plant house,
you've seen them all. Which is to say, I missed the joke.
Unless you just want a shell, in which case you don't need me to do any
more. Just have someone invert the normals on the pod part of the mesh
and fip the UV coordinates and you're done. If you want it to have
features, on the other hand, you're stuck with my imagination. |
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08.10.2006 15:47 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| quote: |
Originally posted by phoenixamon
Yeah, if you've seen the inside of one giant lead pod plant house, you've seen them all. Which is to say, I missed the joke.
Unless you just want a shell, in which case you don't need me to do any
more. Just have someone invert the normals on the pod part of the mesh
and fip the UV coordinates and you're done. If you want it to have
features, on the other hand, you're stuck with my imagination. |
You imagination has gotten you this far no? I trust you will make them as good as your exteriors, which were amazing.
We can handle the ramps and door. But so far we have no talented
interior builders. The large hut should be two storey, as in divided
into two sections. Above and below. Either a ramp or something else for
the stairs inside it.
I look forward very much to seeing your work again, even if it will be for a last time.
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08.10.2006 16:31 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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Ah-ha! Now I understand what you were describing.
Thanks for the pic. That would make a wonderful animation. But we can't
use an animation as a load door, and if we don't put interiors in
separate cells the game will choak and die.
I had a similar idea... have one of the large leaves curl over to form
a ramp up to the door. Can the Bosmer communicate with the plants? If
they can, it would make sense for the plants to animate at their
command, making things like lifts feasible without mechanical means. |
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09.10.2006 19:14 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| quote: |
Originally posted by phoenixamon
Ah-ha! Now I understand what you were describing.
Thanks for the pic. That would make a wonderful animation. But we can't
use an animation as a load door, and if we don't put interiors in
separate cells the game will choak and die.
I had a similar idea... have one of the large leaves curl over to form
a ramp up to the door. Can the Bosmer communicate with the plants? If
they can, it would make sense for the plants to animate at their
command, making things like lifts feasible without mechanical means. |
Yes, to answer your question. The Bosmer can indeed communicate with
plants. That is one of the ways their architectre is made. They
sing/coax it into a certain shape until they are ready to live there.
And I we can't have an interior in the same cell as an exterior. As Pheonix said, the game will simply die
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09.10.2006 19:56 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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We shall see if someone else takes up those pod exteriors. I'm well and
truly done with them for the forseeable future. Maybe something will
come to me while I'm modelling the interior and I'll be interested in
making more changes myself, but at the moment it's just plain not fun.
A hobby that isn't fun isn't a hobby anymore.
Don't expect to see animations that respond to the player's movement.
While they'd be possible to a limited extent in the game engine, the
amount of work they'd take in mesh work and then coding would be
unreasonable.
Also keep in mind that Valenwood, being almost entirely make of natural
curved surfaces, is going to be far more GPU intensive than Cyrodill.
You need to be careful about extras. It doesn't matter how beautiful it
is if your processor can't render more than 1 house without dropping
frame rates to near zero. |
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10.10.2006 03:34 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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Just a first glance at the inner pod so you can see what I've been up to. There's still a lot to be done.
Standing on the lower floor:
This is the large pod, so you can imagine how tight the quarters will
be in the small one. So far there's a ramp going up to the second
floor, but it may turn into stairs. Some of it's not UV mapped and
there's no vertex shading yet. Still some hard corners. The second
floor will not be a separate cell. It'll be open with just a banister
rather than walls. It would feel too cramped for me if it were closed
off. |
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10.10.2006 14:21 |
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Psychotic
Jarl of Skyrim
Registration Date: 30.07.2006
Posts: 3,533
Location: Sheogorath's Realm
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Oooo... NICE!
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10.10.2006 14:58 |
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Mormacil
Herma-Mora the Woodland Man
Registration Date: 15.08.2006
Posts: 2,250
Location: Netherlands
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offtopic: why is everyone archer?
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10.10.2006 15:23 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Mormacil
offtopic: why is everyone archer?
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Because archers are the best 
Anyway, looking very good Pheonix, great job. Can't wait to see the
finished product. The vine idea is a very nice touch. I got the
impression the bigger pod was wider rather than taller though (but
still tall enough to fit two sotries, as your comparison picture
showed). Also keep in mind Beth's interior are bigger that their
exteriors, so I think if it becomes a problem it would be possible to
add some space. But it's looking great so far,
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10.10.2006 17:15 |
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Arbiter
Archduke
Registration Date: 24.10.2005
Posts: 2,633
Location: Croatia the Nether-Bringer
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Darn, that's impressive.
It's the size of a hut, right?
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10.10.2006 17:28 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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| quote: |
Originally posted by Arbiter
Darn, that's impressive.
It's the size of a hut, right? |
It's the size of the bigger leafpod we saw. The smaller one will be
almost the size of a shack at the Waterfront, from what I gather
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10.10.2006 17:36 |
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Liquid Cheese
Elder of Skyrim
Registration Date: 24.07.2006
Posts: 669
Location: England
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Wow that is a really top notch interior, I love the vine thing in the middle.
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10.10.2006 21:44 |
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walrus
First Knight
Registration Date: 06.03.2006
Posts: 191
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That interior looks really nice. 
What is the polycount like?
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10.10.2006 23:04 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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Here's a render straight from max for a more complete view.
The lower floor has ~1.5x the floor space of the shack in the
waterfront district, although less of it may be usable since there
aren't square corners you can jam furniture into. The upper floor
starts at the widest point in the pod. It would be 2x the size of the
waterfront shack except I have to cut away 1/4 of it to make room for
the ramp or stairs.
I don't have an accurate poly count now because it's all in pieces, but
I'm kind of a polygon nazi, so it's low considering all the curves. The
vines are all one piece, and that's ~8300 faces. I got excellent
framerates for my machine when taking those screenshots, which is
really what I wanted to see when I loaded the game. Plenty of processor
time for furnishings and decor. Main thing is, the collision mesh can't
include perfect collisions for all those vines or the game will begin
to bleed and whine. The collisions for the vines (other than the
central stalk) are just bounding boxes.
Yes, indeed, the walls are round. I inverted the outer pod for the
basic shape and then started building in. Squaring it out after that
wouldn't help much.
Videos.. no, I don't do them. I'm too lazy for that.
And no, I haven't seen this island mod, but I have heard from others
that they flatly refuse to share resources, so I'm not going to pester
them. |
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11.10.2006 01:14 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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Very very nice. Beth is not the king of optimization, so says their
church at an amazing 30k polies. Some UV's need fixing but I know you
know that, so I can't see any problems with it
Great work,
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11.10.2006 09:03 |
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Mormacil
Herma-Mora the Woodland Man
Registration Date: 15.08.2006
Posts: 2,250
Location: Netherlands
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Very nice indeed
good job
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11.10.2006 09:53 |
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Arbiter
Archduke
Registration Date: 24.10.2005
Posts: 2,633
Location: Croatia the Nether-Bringer
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VERY good. I'm glad to hear that you're also an avid supporter of optimization.
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11.10.2006 10:51 |
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phoenixamon
Journeyman
Registration Date: 07.10.2006
Posts: 13
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I guess "avid supporter of optimization" sounds better than "polygon nazi", eh?
I've gotten used to being slammed for it.
I have to admit, though, now that I've looked at a lot of Beth's meshes
in Max their polycounts aren't as off the wall as they first seemed to
me. They made a lot of cut-outs around edges that could have been
square planes so that they could put accurate vertex shading around
connecting shapes. It's definitely a weird way to work, but since extra
polys are lighter than loading extra textures for shading it makes a
type of sense. I'd prefer an engine that could handle self-shadowing,
mind you... but at least I see the method to their madness (sometimes).
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11.10.2006 11:32 |
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Arbiter
Archduke
Registration Date: 24.10.2005
Posts: 2,633
Location: Croatia the Nether-Bringer
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| quote: |
Originally posted by phoenixamon
I guess "avid supporter of optimization" sounds better than "polygon nazi", eh?
I've gotten used to being slammed for it.
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True that.
But better be carefull with polys than to have needless number of them.
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11.10.2006 13:00 |
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FLESH
Archduke
Registration Date: 23.06.2006
Posts: 2,823
Location: Ireland
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Beth's tower model (small one I think) is 36k pollies. It's good to be a polly 'Natzi'
as you so aptly put it, take care with that though, some people may take offence even if none was meant.
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11.10.2006 21:00 |
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Arbiter
Archduke
Registration Date: 24.10.2005
Posts: 2,633
Location: Croatia the Nether-Bringer
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| quote: |
Originally posted by FLESH
take care with that though, some people may take offence even if none was meant. |
And thus, from now we shall call it avid "supporter of optimization"...... it sounds professional.
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11.10.2006 22:06 |
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