Machines: Wired for Spring

[knorke]

.3ds is fine.
export to 3ds
load model in Upspring
DO STRANGE THINGS
export as .s3o

[DjDec]

I have upspring now. is 770 polys too much for a unit with the power of peewee
It is about the second smallest unit in the game.

[smoth]

Polycount is not as important as how you use them. I suggest you download gundam rts and see what I mean. I regularly use >1100 tris

[Wombat]

im not familiar with Machines, but these models are cute, do u have some closer pics of all these units ?

btw, i suggest u upload here all models u make, maybe someone will bother to fix any issues, send u back and u will learn faster (i suggest obj extension. remember to select mesh in blender before export, popular mistake :D)

[knorke]

I have upspring now. is 770 polys too much for a unit with the power of peewee
It is about the second smallest unit in the game.

Appearently polycount is not that much a problem but 770 polys for unit that is basically a box with wheels still seems a bit much. Popular mistake is to make wheels and barrels from cylinders with too many sides.

[DjDec]

A: Bronchitis is not fun (i have been in bed with it for the last couple of days)

B: What is a good number of sides for a cylinder used as a wheel?

C: My Models
If someone can tell me how i'm suppost to upload an obj file to this site that would help. 'Im getting the The extension obj is not allowed.' thing =(

D: Some 'cute' units (i don't see how)

[Beherith]

B: 12-16
C: zip it.

[knorke]

Isn't there this soft edge smoothing that even 6 sided cylinders can appear perfectly round?

Try to get a unit ingame asap, it is motivating and you learn alot from it, like how to model so that texturing is easy etc. Even if you only have scouts, reapers and warrors ingame, you can still make something like the skirmish battles (the ones without base building)
But you can not do anything with 100 half done ones.
get well

[Wombat]

select mesh to export - file (top left) - export - wavefront (obj). dont change anything, to be sure, check if file is bigger than 0 mb

and ye there is smooth option. switch to edit mode (tab), ctrl + tab to select face select mode, select faces, W, set smooth.

i use blender 2.49b btw ;P so keys may differ

[zwzsg]

Don't smooth the unit by creating extra polygons in Blender (or Wings)! Instead smooth in UpSpring by welding the vertice and recalculating their normal.

[DjDec]

Ok here are 2 models that i made
Any advise?
Ill start making more when i get better and try to get my head round all the upspring stuff and getting the units into the game.

[oksnoop2]

This is a good start. Do not get discouraged. It actually looks very similar to one of my first wings models. A few areas of improvement would be. Reduce the panel count on the wheels. You will thank yourself down the road when you are UV mapping it. It looks like the "face" in the front is inside out. It's easy enough to fix, just invert it. Another rule of thumb I use is never use a sphere. It just creates a lot of faces.

[DjDec]

Another rule of thumb I use is never use a sphere. It just creates a lot of faces.

What do i use instead of a sphere then? I did reduce the sphere by quite a bit on the eradicator

[oksnoop2]

I use an octotad. Here is my take on your unit. Sorry I took a few liberties artistically but this is what i mean when i say you can save some faces.

[smoth]

create a 10 sided cylinder for wheels

a low poly sphereoid is fine for the car he has I would say use more polys on that so you don't see sharp protrusions on that orb.

Understand that model will be smoothed based on relative angles of the faces. You can setup smoothing groups to isolate sets of faces and create smooth areas with minimal poly count.

See The attached image for an example

[MidKnight]

create a 10 sided cylinder for wheels

a low poly sphereoid is fine for the car he has I would say use more polys on that so you don't see sharp protrusions on that orb.

Understand that model will be smoothed based on relative angles of the faces. You can setup smoothing groups to isolate sets of faces and create smooth areas with minimal poly count.

See The attached image for an example

...There is no attached image.

Also, why a 10-sided cylinder in particular? Ten is a nice number, but why 10 instead of, say, 8 or 12?

[smoth]

because the wheels look fairly large in comparison to the rest of the vehicle.

fixed attachment.

[MidKnight]

Ah, makes sense!