Project "Satan"

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 23 Jan 2006, 15:43

Heh. Well, it's actually Sathanas's project, but since "Satana" in russian and "Satan" in English mean the same, it's basically Satan's project.

It is, or was, a project to completely redo all existing OTA units to suit the detail needs of the new 3D environment. The most notable (and the only actually completed) unit was the Core Avenger made by me, with thrust flares, landing gear, and such. This project could well have laid dead until SupCom arrived, at which point it would be dead AND forgotten, if it wasn't for some noize that reminded me of its former goals.

However, with the arrival of the new model format, which is supposed to be the future for Spring (if someone fixes the bugs accompanying it), it has become hard for me, as the only person who does anything for the mod, to set up and texture the models I make. I've never been good at creating textures, and with the lack of any training, those skills have not improved. If anyone in the community would agree to support this project by lending a helping texturing hand, I would also try to do my best to accomplish the goals this project established.

Now, to clarify, I will explain what exactly I was aiming this for since Sathanas disappeared.
I wanted to create more detailed versions of the current models. Goblins, extra detail segments, underside faces too.
A criteria here is that the models should be as close to realistically possible as possible. :) This means that planes must have landing gear, kbots must have joints, missiles should launch from pylons or tubes, not textured holes in the model, etc. This would also require rescripting the units. The final version of the Avenger was a good example - it had very natural-looking landing gear, opening missile bays and both vertical and horizontal engine flares. Unfortunately, even that unit was lost to me along with the harddrive it was on. So now, I'm almost starting from scratch.

I can make the models, and most of the scripts by myself, but I'll need help texturing the units for the new format. If anyone can provide that help, please answer here.

-CSJM

Neuralize · Post by **Neuralize** » 23 Jan 2006, 17:36

Arts and Modeling forum?

Masse · Post by **Masse** » 23 Jan 2006, 17:54

i might take a look at the texturing... as long as i dont need to UV it

i havent textured any units ever... but im good at 2d stuff so i believe that texturing something shouldnt be a problem

im actually trying todo my own mod too... but i allways stop doing it when the UV mapping part comes

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 23 Jan 2006, 17:57

s3o's need to be UVmapped

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 23 Jan 2006, 18:01

Actually, Neuralize, this is more of a mod, because the models aren't the only things changed here.
And I could probably unwrap the models myself too...

DeathHawk · Post by **DeathHawk** » 24 Jan 2006, 13:08

i think somebody needs to spend some time in church

Veylon · Post by **Veylon** » 26 Jan 2006, 21:01

I thought the project "Satan" was a joke from Futurama.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 26 Jan 2006, 21:48

http://www.dbbr17626.pwp.blueyonder.co. ... /index.htm

This link is missing here :D

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 27 Jan 2006, 09:50

I'd encourage modelers not to go over the edge with invisable details. Gun barrels don't really need bores to work well on a UV mapped model. The texturing can be much more naturally applied then it was with the old system, so there's really no need to model in details that used to be hard to hide via texture, but are now very easy.

AlienDNA · Post by **AlienDNA** » 30 Jan 2006, 11:54

And I second swiftspear. All those poly's are just going to slow stuff down, and if you need extra poly's, better use them for cool things like opening missile hatches, landing gear or joints than a true hollow barrel, that you'll see only when you first build the unit, but then never again because you're always too zoomed out to see it. Such things can be textured more then sufficiently, and don't require the polies.

And always remember, a high poly model can be ugly next to a low poly one with a high poly texture. And the low poly will even run faster.

Maelstrom · Post by **Maelstrom** » 30 Jan 2006, 14:33

Poly counts do not slow down the game much at all. Caydr made this obvious in one of his threads around the place. However, having a high poly count just for the sake of it is not a good idea, so Swiftspears and AlienDNAs points still stand

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 30 Jan 2006, 16:49

Sorry people, my internet connection went AWOL on me for some reason, so no pictures for now. Rest assured that I am not intending to model hollow gun barrels for each and every unit, but at least the heavy guns like the Punisher deserve to have a greater degree of detail.

So far my intentions are:

1st level or highly spammable units: 100-300 faces.
2nd level or moderately used units: 200-600 faces.
3rd level and up or unique units: 500-1000 faces.

Currently I'm remodelling the level 1 of the Arm and Core militia (kbots that is), and most of everything is under 300 quad faces. My Fido attempt went overboard (~700 faces), seeing as it has 4 legs, 2 of which have an extra joint, but I'll try to push it into the 500'ish limit.

However, it has been confirmed that the skeleton of the model has a much greater impact on performance than polycount, so maybe I should try to optimise that division more? Especially since I'll be adding extra animated parts, like wheels, landing gear, hatches, missile pylons, and the like...

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 02 Feb 2006, 21:39

Well, my connection's still pretty much screwed, but I think I managed to upload two little videos - this one and this one. Feel free to look.

NOiZE · Post by **NOiZE** » 02 Feb 2006, 21:46

they don't work :S

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 02 Feb 2006, 21:50

What about now?

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 02 Feb 2006, 21:54

What about now?

Kixxe · Post by **Kixxe** » 02 Feb 2006, 22:51

Could turn down the awesome a litthe bit?

Nice! So thats how a hammer is suposed to fire... I always thougt it looked extremly weird when they fired.

Masse · Post by **Masse** » 02 Feb 2006, 23:44

nice nice nice

if u want anything to be tested... grab my msn

or email

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 05 Feb 2006, 15:58

I'd rather like something textured, not tested.

Another note on the project. As much as many people here would dislike it, I'm not aiming for authentic Cavedog models, preferring style over authentic design. This means that I've devised or selected several elements that will be common to the look of most units on one side, even though they won't always be exactly what the Cavedog models looked like. Most of this stuff is regarding things that I add, like joints or extensions of some kind, so it won't hurt much.

So far I've completed the level 1 Arm kbots (minus Warrior, plus the Flash tank

), and they look almost as they should. They'd look a lot better with textures, though, so I still need volunteers for this. Volunteers can use my other email (controllersean@avtograd.ru) for contact, since I didn't yet fix my primary connection.

Sean Mirrsen · Post by **Sean Mirrsen** » 07 Feb 2006, 16:56

Hmm... things are going rather slow. The more I work on the Brawler model, the less I like what I get. And I still haven't got around to texture anything. This here archive contains models that are 99% complete - Arm conbot, PeeWee, Hammer, Rocko, Jethro, Warrior, Invader, Flash, Core A.K., Thud, plus WIP variants of the Fido and the Brawler. I'd like any advice you can give (except being more authentic - I can't

), and maybe someone will texture something? Or at least provide me with some reasonably high-res textures to use...

Spring RTS Engine

Project "Satan"

Project "Satan"