Random wip 2012+

[PicassoCT]

it certainly doesent look that way...still... mmh.. from the darkness levels i would guess you are located in europe..

[rattle]

Mix in some colors to break up the grays.. quickest way is putting on some textures with jpeg artifacts at low opacity in a blend mode

[scifi]

hm still not good
btw what i mean by real life textures,are textures i find on the internet like this one. But the rest is made by me and taken from older projects.

[PicassoCT]

Real Life textures are a nice.. basis. But you need to work on them to be really good. Cause this is hollywood, this is were dreams are born, and therefore we make reallife more real then it really is... Try something.. make a cartoon version of the same texture.. and then try to blend it with the original... so long.. till it looks just maybee.. maybee realistic.. then post the results.. or wait



Lets try it with this.. plz post result screen for comparison

[scifi]

i couldnt resist i had to reduce saturation, i reduced the detail to a more simplistic look, also added doors to the thing.

This is in Upspring

[Beherith]

I like the second pic more. Keep in mind that things look very flat in Wings3D without specular and normal mapping and self illumination - and thats without more advanced features like parallax mapping and multiple light sources. Crazybump and ShaderMap Pro both give quite good and quick results for normal, parralax and specular maps, though specular always needs some manual fine tuning. If you want, AO bakes can add a great deal at the cost of increased UV space.

[scifi]

hmmm it does look better

[PicassoCT]

oh, yes it does.. im sure in some long forgotten castle, some lawyer is opening his case.. because of looking to professional :D

tasty units look tasty.. gonna make that tongue a sticky


Unitlingus

[Pressure Line]

just laying down the base, which will then have a bit of noise, and a whole load of colour applied :)

[smoth]

I like it without noise it is really cute!

[Pressure Line]

The noise makes the difference between this:

and this:

Its just to stop things looking *too* clean

[smoth]

No

That is the difference made by highlighted edges and a better uv map

[Pressure Line]

Also related: Been working with a way to make nice buildpics...

I need to make the tank slightly larger on the groundplate, and possibly de-saturate the ground texture a bit. Might put in a background, but un-decided on that.

[BaNa]

Also related: Been working with a way to make nice buildpics...

I need to make the tank slightly larger on the groundplate, and possibly de-saturate the ground texture a bit. Might put in a background, but un-decided on that.

imo green on green is fail, otherwise the models themselves look nice. Just make ground sand or something that makes green pop.

edit: I would also recommend background or ground in background too.

[PicassoCT]

nah no background is good.. makes for more distinctive shapes on the mechs ..

[BaNa]

then what about no background and no ground?

[PicassoCT]

why not just make sampe examples for comparison



Mmmh.. the astetics are actually quite compelling. I wouldnt change that.. its very mech warrior-ish.. this is .. reminding you of the table top heritage.. on the right side i have what i have in mind for jw.. but those icons are not for prettyness, more optimized for recognition..

Removing the background.. actually didnt work out well as you can see.. it might make the mches more distinctive in shape, but for the tanks and apcs, and radar and jumpship generators (and i dont know... (elementals?)) it does nothing.

Now for the ultimate test.. in a battle situation your attention is spread thin, especially as a noob. You have stress. So you slide that mouse to the left( or the right) and - two step back gentleman, out of the blink of an eye, got to recognise without really focusing...
still they are beautifull.

Im quite interested on smoths opinion here.. he always had some good advice when it came to interface design

[gajop]

well since it's battletech, i assume there are going to be at least a few (2>) factions, so i'd put faction designations in the background

[PicassoCT]

Enter: The Matrice (Adjazenz) - never invert..





Anyone want some timy in a bucket?

[Pressure Line]

There are only a few faction-specific units, and those are for the most part variants on the same chassis (where one faction prefers lasers over autocannons etc)

As for radar icons, i will probably just borrow some from MegaMek (especially for the tanks) eg: