Spring RTS Engine

Im trying to remodel it, but trying to improve.





not finished, just say if you like it, WIP.

Good to see sombody else taking up the challenge, just remember to watch your Polycount on these basic units and you're as good as gold.

Nice start.

One thing to keep in mind though, cylinder objects look just as round when they're 8-10-or-12 sided from far away as they do with being super round up close.

Using less sides on cylinders is always an easy way to save polygons on round objects.

With these low cost "spammable" units, lower triangle counts is always better, because there will likely be very many of them onscreen.

The 'framing' around what I imagine is the cockpit is a somewhat overkill imo.

edit: and +1 about Mr.D's comments on Cylinders

(OT: Mr.D, did you find the T-54 turret a royal pain when modelling it for that Bf42 mod? I've been examining it lately and the flat welded plates on the top combined with the overall cast egg shape is quite a pain)

An image of the original cavedog unit would be nice for comparison :)

There's a good cavedog render gallery at http://www.planetannihilation.com (search the sidebar, it's there)

MR.D wrote:Good to see sombody else taking up the challenge, just remember to watch your Polycount on these basic units and you're as good as gold.

Nice start.

One thing to keep in mind though, cylinder objects look just as round when they're 8-10-or-12 sided from far away as they do with being super round up close.

The weapon cylinder haves 12 sides, and the joints 10, but with 6 o 7 will look fine so I'm going to optimize that.


I have a question, i never modeled for Ota or for the spring engine so.. I wonder how models are animated, I made everything that should fly, go away, rotate, move when exploding, or doing a animation an different object, so, if they are animated from scripts... I have to set the different piece centers manually? or thats ignored?


Another thing, i find a rocket launcher with only 2 legs rather strange, it should have a stable base...

should I add another leg?

FLOZi wrote:The 'framing' around what I imagine is the cockpit is a somewhat overkill imo.

edit: and +1 about Mr.D's comments on Cylinders

And thats is good or bad?

sorry, im not a native speaker.

bad - too much polygons and will not be visible when unit is seen from far away

zorbawic wrote:bad - too much polygons and will not be visible when unit is seen from far away

Ok. I removed it and i added the shield. I dont like it, but is supposed to be able to turn to protect the rocko, and not to be tiny and 'cute'.


Also i uploaded the model, feel free to look at it, its a .blend



pd: now it haves 488 faces.

668 faces. see attached image.


pd: im a totally noob in texturing... so i need help.

Uh looks weird... especially the legs.

rattle wrote:Uh looks weird... especially the legs.

the legs are done in the same way that the original rocko are.


But, what looks weird? the shield? maybe its too big..

For the most part, I really like it, its got a style to it.

Some of the model could use some cleaning up, but not much, overall its pretty well done.

I think that the shield might be throwing off the porportions a bit though, the dimensions are ok, but the shield might look better if it wasn't as thick.

There is a bevel on outside of the front facing edge of the shield that looks off, if its intentional thats fine, just looks out of place with the other edges on the shield itself because it doesn't meet the bottom with a bevel as well.

Just my opinion though.

mmm... whats better for the shield? bevels or spikes? or both?

err, the shield is fine, fi you changed the shield it wouldnt be the same at all.

I feel there will always be that one person wanting the shield changed because it isnt a hi poly clone of the original rocko and has slight changes. If anything you have improved the shield. Just texture it as is. Spike or extra stuff on it would just ruin it. Its great as it is.

hey. just i was trying to uv unwarp it when i noticed that i need to unify all the object to be able to map it to a single texture, so, i will ask it again, how the engine handles animations?


every piece thats moves much be a different object?

There was a tutorial made where you could keep all your objects seperated but uvw_map them all to 1 material.

But yes, all objects that will move via animation need to be seperately named objects.

MR.D wrote:There was a tutorial made where you could keep all your objects seperated but uvw_map them all to 1 material.

But yes, all objects that will move via animation need to be seperately named objects.

Im been looking for it, but i couldnt find anything,

im using blender.

combine them all into one object, uv map, unbind save.

some pics for inspiration:
some are not of rocket launchers but you could get ideas from them.

this one is from quake 4:

why arent those in Spring?