Random WIP 2006-2011

[Hobo Joe]

Maybe because like he's said what he wanted to highlight/point out was something different ? [quote="Saktoth"]The tabula shot is really not a great shot to show off the spherebot texture, but thats not the point: the point is to comment on the addition of the halberd and the backpack as design elements, on whether this is enough to differentiate it from the regular spherebot, whether they in themselves look good, etc. Tabula is a good map to show this because the darker, muted, red lightning makes the glow on the halberd and backpack more noticable.

Really, I think Saktoth's been given enough grief on that one pic. To be honest I'm not sure I would have bothered continueing to answer to those responses...[/quote]


He only got grief because he repeatedly dismissed perfectly legitimate crits. People don't give you grief when you try to improve, the reason people post things here is for feedback, if you ignore all the negative feedback because you think it's perfect then you're gonna get people giving you crap.

And in order to defend himself he posted a different model on a different map from a different angle with better graphical settings. A pretty lol comparison if you ask me. And his 'map lighting is bad' excuse was dumb because A) why would you post pictures of your model from a map you say has terrible lighting? And B) the picture from another map was just as noisy.

So yeah, if you're not gonna listen to crits (unanimous ones at that) don't post. At least give a reason why you don't wanna change it rather than going with variations of "you're wrong it looks good".



@Kaiser - it's his work, not ours. He posts it for crits and suggestions and praise, not for us to do his work for him. And calling a forum full of people "do-nothings" is excessive to say the least. Just because we don't post our work all the time on the forums doesn't mean we don't know what we're talking about. There are a lot of people who do and have done tons of art-related work, much of it Spring related, including modeling and texturing, and just because they don't make post stuff for spring doesn't mean they don't have experience and knowledge to contribute. In fact, deluding yourself that you know better than other people is the reason why so many people fail at things. The idea that ANYONE at all can give valuable input to your creations is the foundation of being a good artist, dismissing it because you think you have higher or more informed opinions makes you stagnate, not to mention an asshole. Never EVER assume other people don't know what they're talking about. You don't know them or what they know or what they've accomplished.

And giving detailed crits shouldn't be necessary to someone like Saktoth who is at least moderately experienced, he knows enough to know what 'noisy' means and how to fix it. Use softer shades, less sharp lines, more block colors and less detail work(this is an rts after all), etc, pretty obvious things.

If you don't want to work on a model anymore that's fine and I can respect that, hell I do it all the time. But just SAY SO, don't go on with excuses and crap, giving lame reasons to not fix it. Acknowledge and respect other peoples inputs and criticisms, even if you're not going to conform to them. But guess what, if the majority of the people on this forum don't like it, there's a good chance the majority of the people playing the game won't like it either. It's in your best interest to please the crowd.


Ok I went off on a huge rant there, but this is a gigantic pet peeve of mine and I HATE it when people simply dismiss criticism, especially when it's the same from several sources.

[Hoi]

I agree with the post above...

But I can also imagine that it must be frustrating to work on ca. No real artists, units from others are used and changed into a lot of other units, most of those look the same, and there are at least 10 different art styles in the mod. Mod. Yeah, I said it. And after all that effort most people still play BA.

[KaiserJ]

in no way do i mean you don't know what you're talking about

its just frustrating as hell to see sak working hard on a kitbash, asking for feedback about a certain part of the model, and instead getting comments about parts that he has no intention of changing

lots of talented people here... i wouldnt have a clue how to "fix" this texture (considering its gotta match other spherebots) so when i see a "suggestion" like "fix it" then how am i supposed to glean anything from it? id LOVE to make a texture that looks as good as spherebot, let alone a better one.

its like he posted a F1 car, and you guys were like "its no good, make it faster"

if you're going to tell someone to redo something, at least give some suggestions of how you personally would do it. it takes all of a few minutes to give some points and suggestions, especially if the solution seems obvious to you. critique is judgement via criteria, and without actually providing your reasoning in reference to actual techniques or aspects of the model and texture, it's just a judgement. by withholding suggestions, you're not only making it a bit tougher on the artist in question, but on other people reading the thread who are trying to glean information from what you're saying.

im not telling you to stfu, im telling you to talk more, and share what you know. a forum thread is not a two-way conversation between an artist and a critic, you have a small obligation to clarity; otherwise, why not just PM him, right?

[Pxtl]

It's probably just the bright glow of the teamcolour sections that make the non-luminous chassis look worse on a coloured-light-map like Tabula.

[Neddie]

[quote="Hoi"]But I can also imagine that it must be frustrating to work on ca. No real artists, units from others are used and changed into a lot of other units, most of those look the same, and there are at least 10 different art styles in the mod. Mod. Yeah, I said it. And after all that effort most people still play BA.[/quote]

There are real artists, or were. There are units created by people for CA who are or were involved in the project. There are distinct families of units which appear similar because they're designed as families of units but within the overall unit roster there are again several distinct styles. It is a mod until it fully extricates itself from IP it is not free to use.

And yes, it was frustrating to work on.

However, none of this belongs in the Random WIP thread. Further discussion on the point should be taken to General Discussion or Complete Annihilation's project subforum.

I've received a lot of useless critique in my day, and as a result I work on less and release a very small fraction of what I work on. Saktoth played no small part in this process, which might be why this discussion has escaped my attention thus far. Not all of that given is useless, but Saktoth has stated he won't be using it (As various people have in the past, when it comes to Wolf's texture), and rebuffed much of the critique which is useless. I think it is time for the discussion to move along, because at this point Kaiser, Peet and Joe have said pretty much all there is to say.

At this range, the texture has always looked over detailed. From play zoom it blends because of the common colour values and the tightly packed nature of the drawn geometry. Now, to return to the point I think Saktoth wanted input on, the backpack is large but cloaking can play that off. It would be nice to see it pop off upon death, and perhaps be an element of the corpse. The halberd armament reminds me of two concepts I worked on which never made it to your desk - it will rest heavily on the animation but I like how it appears while static. Looking forward to your next WIP.

[scifi]

I agree with the post above...

But I can also imagine that it must be frustrating to work on ca. No real artists, units from others are used and changed into a lot of other units, most of those look the same, and there are at least 10 different art styles in the mod. Mod. Yeah, I said it. And after all that effort most people still play BA.

well hoi i made models from scratch for CA, the core hovers are my work, not copied.

Plus that core gunship factory model.
Also i used treeforms models and retextured them to use them for CA.
Not that i consider myself an artist but i learned from the work i did.

A thing most people forget, people go to spring cause they relate to TA, if any non-ta based mod wants people to play theyr mod they must broadcast it out of spring comunity, since people that play BA want TA style gameplay, and only 5 or 15 people can play all mods

Youll see when winter assault comes out it will need to broadcast out of the comunity to get players that are interested in the mod itself not to BA and TA style comunity.

You can argue that Mr D and Cremsus work wasnt ment for CA, but what the hell BA didnt want it either, so better used for something rather than just wasted work.

One thing i consider CA to be good at its that atracted a lot of people to modding, and to be honest it was a way to play test the spring engine both graficaly and code wise.

I dont think CA was a fail, but i do think it could be a lot better considering the people involved (yes there were real artists there, and people who knew how to code well)

But people do this in theyr free time, devs dont comit like 24 hours a day to this, they didnt have distributed tasks, or a leader that efectivly told everyone what to do and how to do it.

Bare in mind i dont care if another project or art work is better than my own, i do care if people consider the work i do worthy or not .

I left the dev scenario of CA loong time ago, just because ive becomed tired, these things dont get done from one day to the other.

[Hobo Joe]

in no way do i mean you don't know what you're talking about

its just frustrating as hell to see sak working hard on a kitbash, asking for feedback about a certain part of the model, and instead getting comments about parts that he has no intention of changing

lots of talented people here... i wouldnt have a clue how to "fix" this texture (considering its gotta match other spherebots) so when i see a "suggestion" like "fix it" then how am i supposed to glean anything from it? id LOVE to make a texture that looks as good as spherebot, let alone a better one.

its like he posted a F1 car, and you guys were like "its no good, make it faster"

if you're going to tell someone to redo something, at least give some suggestions of how you personally would do it. it takes all of a few minutes to give some points and suggestions, especially if the solution seems obvious to you. critique is judgement via criteria, and without actually providing your reasoning in reference to actual techniques or aspects of the model and texture, it's just a judgement. by withholding suggestions, you're not only making it a bit tougher on the artist in question, but on other people reading the thread who are trying to glean information from what you're saying.

im not telling you to stfu, im telling you to talk more, and share what you know. a forum thread is not a two-way conversation between an artist and a critic, you have a small obligation to clarity; otherwise, why not just PM him, right?

Fair enough. I figured calling a texture noisy would be a pretty straightforward crit but I guess not. But I do think Saktoth understood it, because he kept deflecting it with weird dismissive posts.

[Saktoth]

Its not my work i am defending, it is WiE's. Efforts to 'improve' and 'tone down the noise' have been made before (by jK) and they just blanked out the texture detail. We actually had jK's version of the texture ingame for a long time. I deliberately tried to restore WiE's original high-detailed texture to the game. I am not, now, going to 'fix it' by destroying the models detail. Which makes it weird that Rattle is criticizing me from the other direction given how hard i've fought against such efforts to deviate from WiE's original.

Anyway, its clear that this is just coming from a 'bash CA' perspective, as Hois post makes pretty clear, so so much for meaningful critique.

[Hobo Joe]

Except it's not. The other spherebot model and texture look amazing, but the version you made is noisy. Smooth out the scratches and static and use a more steady grey color use a slight AO map and it will be much better.

[Saktoth]

Here are the changes from WiE's first version:
An AO bake (yup), darker metallic parts (pipes, internal metal pieces, feet, hands) to give dark/light contrast on broader areas (this is for distance recognition, so there are distinct darker and lighter sections to the model at distance), and the tex2 (glow, reflections etc).

[scifi]

Here are the changes from WiE's first version:
An AO bake (yup), darker metallic parts (pipes, internal metal pieces, feet, hands) to give dark/light contrast on broader areas (this is for distance recognition, so there are distinct darker and lighter sections to the model at distance), and the tex2 (glow, reflections etc).

The version you showed is clearly diferent from the current one.

I cant say whats the best version as its dependant on taste.But i do prefer the scratches on the shoulders and the overall work in the first version. You cant really improve the current texture, it is as good as it can get, still i prefer the original one(its a personal opinion), and dont say the first one couldnt be seen from far, it could be seen very well, it just didnt have as mutch reflectivness and normal mapping as the latest version.

[PicassoCT]

Beherith Lowpoly, lieked that one

beherith.jpg

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[Hoi]

Anyway, its clear that this is just coming from a 'bash CA' perspective, as Hois post makes pretty clear, so so much for meaningful critique.

Not at all. I just don't like how everything that's not 100% praising is made ridiculous, that got me pissed off.

Really the thing that's really easy to fix is the color. Metal does not have some kind of yellow color. I suggest you select the yellow areas in photoshop, desaturate until the yellow is gone, make a new layer, apply a layer mask with the selection (so that the layer will only affect the area that was previously yellow), then fill the layer itself with 100% blue set blending mode to overlay and opacity around 3-6%. It's really easy to do and will make the texture so much better. Just trust me on that. If you post the texture as an attachment I can do it for you.

[Beherith]

Aww i get no balls and dick?
Nice stuff though Picasso :D

[PicassoCT]

Aww i get no balls and dick?
Nice stuff though Picasso :D

you heard him, he tricked me into it, and manipulated me, into add such atrocities like reproducederal organic things to this animal kingdom unit. Bad Behe, bad, but i accept your challenge.

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Suborbital Bombardment Plane- a Oneway Unit - takes time to climb. Was easy to modell, base upon a white taile eagel and a heron. Not everything has to be highpoly to be beautifull

[Wombat]

2,8k faces :D got bit bored with texturing, i sux at adding details, any ideas ?

[PicassoCT]

nice, rollin lunar surface, making sure there is no man alive on the moon...

[MidKnight]

Stuff

Yeah, I agree with pretty much everything here, especially the end part. CA's a great proving ground for budding modders and artists, and in no way a 'fail' of a game.
Many people, however, eventually leave CA development because of all the arguments and drama that takes place before anything gets pushed through.
Disclaimer: This says nothing of my personal status regarding CA. I'll get you guys a model, as soon as I pull together enough motivation to make one. :)

[Wartender]

wow wombat you got really good really fast, i wish i could have dedicated myself to modelling/texturing this summer, but i didn't have the time or the resources =\

[Das Bruce]

Currently your texture serves to make the wheels look more like an (ten)ogon that a circle. Maybe try rounding the tyres at the corners a bit to make it less noticable.