Maybe that's why my texturing is sucky, I'm going too fast.... but IDK if I've got that kind of patience.
If you feel your textures are bad, it's most likely you just need to become a better artist. Texturing is painting/drawing applied to 3d. The best advice I ever took was to stop doing 3d art for 6 months and instead fill a couple drawing pads with portrait studies...I saw major improvement in my textures later.
Texturing consists of 2 parts: technical and artistic. Technical part includes generating textures by soft. It may take 20 minutes if modeller familiar with the process. Artistic part includes drawing or compiling textures. It may take even a whole hour, if a guy realy up to polish until it's perfect.
The only part that may take like 2 hours is sculpting high poly model to generate a normal texture.
So, it's hard to imagine a texturing process that would take 6-12 hours. Probably alot of distractions around.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Unless you're talking about very simple props, or really poor textures...none of those times are realistic at all. For units and buildings like those Starcraft 2 uses, my time-range is pretty accurate for uvmapping + texturing. If you were using a more cartoony style, or used more phototextures you could cut down on time needed some but...never to where you're cranking out a great unit an hour.
Take our jeep for instance, in terms of my time on it it took roughly;
1-2 hours to get the uvmap finished
4-5 hours to paint it all by hand
1-2 hours to make the normal and spec maps (plus to iterate on it once it was ingame, to make sure things looked right)
that ends up with it being 6-9 hours of work. Now if it was something far more detailed it would take even more time, a good example is this one that took me a week to uvmap + paint;
Dogmais twisted view on reality and mapping is baffling.
I can understand why though, I'm sure plenty of us got really excited by Blizzard's plans for the arcade. It basically made SC2 into quake 3 + steam...streamlined for RTS. We've never had anything remotely like that before. If you started something on that basis, and as you worked on it kept hearing 'yes yes, we'll do it buuut...in the future' with it kept being pushed off. I'm sure most people would get bitter, no matter how passionate about the game they were.
Dogmai, it would be nice if you stopped hijacking the thread. This is meant to say congrats to the SCU team, and wish the the best.
I do have to say that watching SCU has been really encouraging, seeing it pushed through and seeing some progress on Blizzards end regarding mods (allowing the kickstarter, some [if not a lot] of support shown to the SCU guys). Grats to SCU and good luck!
Just some input on it all, I really wish the project the best (it certainly set some interesting precedents) but it could've been handled better.
-Initially is when you get the most attention and this project was unclear if it was legal even, it NEEDED a huge 'blizzard allowed' tag on top
-a clear breakdown of where the 80k goes exactly (which for the record, for a project this scope 80k is really really cheap)
-position the game less of being a sc2 mod, and more a indie game using the engine (similar to ue3 games) since this is much closer to that than 'just a mod'
Hopefully it gets some last minute attention since I do like the idea a lot.
Ok just updating here incase someone else ever bumps into the issue. The solution for the weird blending/layer issue was for me to just split the leaf model into 2, one for lower ones and one for upper. The lower kept a priority of 0, upper then got a priority of 1 and...all good. :)
Actually, I realized the last thing was due to a dumb naming error on my end. :P The using it as a mask fixed it completely, thanks!
I'm still having this weird layer issue though (leaves underneath showing through leaves on top, the leaf half-outlined in red...should be fully visible since it's the topmost one).
@smurfbizkit: Go Your model is set to use alpha as team color, not alpha as transparency. I think it doesnt work quite well if you enable both.
Yea, I don't want to enable both...where in startools does it list the 'use alpha as transparency? NOT team color' since I just checked again and couldn't find it.
I know I'm probably missing something stupidly obvious buut I've messed with startools, searched here and in the documentation but...how do I get transparency to show up ingame? I have it in the alpha channel on the diffuse just like sc2's plants do..but in the cutscene editor and ingame it's always filled in (usually the red, as shown in the pic on the left). I've also tried it as tga and dds.
Ok, I have this idea for a 'unique' game. Its gonna be a dialog based game with lots of variables that affect game play, when you roll the 'dice' the number you get (1-8) will be the number of units you can spawn, then you use the terrain to micro and defeat the enemy, once the round is over, you repeat the process.
Wouldn't that just mean the person with the best luck and/or best micro always wins? You basically eliminate any overall strategy at all.
On the subject of people going "nooo not another Dota or Tower Defense...", people said the same thing about Starcraft 2 being too much like all the other classic-rts type games (or for that matter, the 15million+ players who yearly buy each Call of Duty). If you do one, just do it well and add some new elements in.
With all that said...I'd really like to see someone do a mod that makes use of data banks in more clever ways. Banks are one of the, if not the most underused element in SC2 modding.
I think you're confusing "ghost-like" with "ghost-copy".
Wasn't saying it had to use all those things, just that those are what make the ghost...the ghost. It is an attack unit with multiple direct-cast damage dealing abilities. The important part is that it deals damage, and isn't support. If as suggested already, the ghost had an anti-emp that healed shields of friendly units it would become an endgame support unit (aoe shield heal is so good it would override most any other uses).
Since this is a ghost-like unit it means; needs to cloak, needs to deal ok damage by itself, needs to have some castable damage-dealing spells (single target, aoe, and aoe/utility). Emphasis is on damage-dealing, not so much on support.
Instead of it having cloak, why not give it a self-hallucinate? It'll always be visible, buut it can look like its a probe, zealot, stalker, etc. (should keep its typical movement speed though).
A lightning rifle that has a single bounce (like muta's, or chain lightning in WC3) would give it some style with its normal attack. Bonus would be to have it's version of 'snipe' be the ability to tag enemy units as kind of lightning rods/conductors...soo its normal attack would get an extra bounce to it. IE; see a SCV line, tag 5 units and the default lightning rifle shot will bounce 5 extra times.
Blink-swap, as an extra mobility spell where it works kind of like blink but it just swaps the location of the protoss ghost and the targeted (enemy or friendly) unit. Unlike normal blink, this would cost mana and shouldn't be castable on massive units.
Now for the Nuke-like power (needs to be built at the academy, costs separate money), why not a sort of orbital strike ability that deals burst energy damage on impact (similar to storm, and slightly less damage overall than a nuke would). Buut after it hits, the area hit generates a temp power radius that lets you warp-in.
Some other notes, I like the idea somehow of the unit maybe having an ability (or its default weapon) bypassing shields and directly dealing hull damage...or maybe having an ability (on a semi-long cooldown) that lets it drain shields from nearby units (friendly or enemy) and convert it directly into mana.
Making this a weekly exercise isn't practical. To do any sort of quality ingame unit it'll take a couple full days of work. For me it typically is 1 day model, .5 day uvmap, 1 day texture. If someone had the skills to do something on par with the SC2 Thor, a huge, detailed unit like that (even ignoring animations of any sort) would likely take most of the week.
I'd highly suggest you make this into a monthly, or tone down the exercise...to be say, small 300 poly map props.
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joecab thanks for typing that up! Interesting stuff, especially the WC3 assets point
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If you feel your textures are bad, it's most likely you just need to become a better artist. Texturing is painting/drawing applied to 3d. The best advice I ever took was to stop doing 3d art for 6 months and instead fill a couple drawing pads with portrait studies...I saw major improvement in my textures later.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Unless you're talking about very simple props, or really poor textures...none of those times are realistic at all. For units and buildings like those Starcraft 2 uses, my time-range is pretty accurate for uvmapping + texturing. If you were using a more cartoony style, or used more phototextures you could cut down on time needed some but...never to where you're cranking out a great unit an hour.
Take our jeep for instance, in terms of my time on it it took roughly;
that ends up with it being 6-9 hours of work. Now if it was something far more detailed it would take even more time, a good example is this one that took me a week to uvmap + paint;
http://smurfbizkit.deviantart.com/art/Sky-Corsair-Pirate-Airship-368381799
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I can understand why though, I'm sure plenty of us got really excited by Blizzard's plans for the arcade. It basically made SC2 into quake 3 + steam...streamlined for RTS. We've never had anything remotely like that before. If you started something on that basis, and as you worked on it kept hearing 'yes yes, we'll do it buuut...in the future' with it kept being pushed off. I'm sure most people would get bitter, no matter how passionate about the game they were.
Dogmai, it would be nice if you stopped hijacking the thread. This is meant to say congrats to the SCU team, and wish the the best.
I do have to say that watching SCU has been really encouraging, seeing it pushed through and seeing some progress on Blizzards end regarding mods (allowing the kickstarter, some [if not a lot] of support shown to the SCU guys). Grats to SCU and good luck!
0
I don't model, but texturing alone was at least 6-12 hours per object. That screen only has about 7 things too, so far we have 50-60 done.
Thanks! Hopefully it won't be too long.
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It's an unannounced project we've been working on for a while. A better, non-cropped version of the screen is here;
http://smurfbizkit.deviantart.com/art/Geistkrieg-Allies-397119507
our last big project was this; http://www.moddb.com/mods/mideast-crisis-2
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Just some input on it all, I really wish the project the best (it certainly set some interesting precedents) but it could've been handled better.
-Initially is when you get the most attention and this project was unclear if it was legal even, it NEEDED a huge 'blizzard allowed' tag on top
-a clear breakdown of where the 80k goes exactly (which for the record, for a project this scope 80k is really really cheap)
-position the game less of being a sc2 mod, and more a indie game using the engine (similar to ue3 games) since this is much closer to that than 'just a mod'
Hopefully it gets some last minute attention since I do like the idea a lot.
0
Ok just updating here incase someone else ever bumps into the issue. The solution for the weird blending/layer issue was for me to just split the leaf model into 2, one for lower ones and one for upper. The lower kept a priority of 0, upper then got a priority of 1 and...all good. :)
0
Actually, I realized the last thing was due to a dumb naming error on my end. :P The using it as a mask fixed it completely, thanks!
I'm still having this weird layer issue though (leaves underneath showing through leaves on top, the leaf half-outlined in red...should be fully visible since it's the topmost one).
http://i.imgur.com/8jSS72v.jpg
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edit
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Yea, I don't want to enable both...where in startools does it list the 'use alpha as transparency? NOT team color' since I just checked again and couldn't find it.
0
I know I'm probably missing something stupidly obvious buut I've messed with startools, searched here and in the documentation but...how do I get transparency to show up ingame? I have it in the alpha channel on the diffuse just like sc2's plants do..but in the cutscene editor and ingame it's always filled in (usually the red, as shown in the pic on the left). I've also tried it as tga and dds.
http://i.imgur.com/EOUUy0B.jpg
0
Wouldn't that just mean the person with the best luck and/or best micro always wins? You basically eliminate any overall strategy at all.
On the subject of people going "nooo not another Dota or Tower Defense...", people said the same thing about Starcraft 2 being too much like all the other classic-rts type games (or for that matter, the 15million+ players who yearly buy each Call of Duty). If you do one, just do it well and add some new elements in.
With all that said...I'd really like to see someone do a mod that makes use of data banks in more clever ways. Banks are one of the, if not the most underused element in SC2 modding.
0
Wasn't saying it had to use all those things, just that those are what make the ghost...the ghost. It is an attack unit with multiple direct-cast damage dealing abilities. The important part is that it deals damage, and isn't support. If as suggested already, the ghost had an anti-emp that healed shields of friendly units it would become an endgame support unit (aoe shield heal is so good it would override most any other uses).
0
A couple of ideas and comments;
I like the idea of it being female protoss.
Since this is a ghost-like unit it means; needs to cloak, needs to deal ok damage by itself, needs to have some castable damage-dealing spells (single target, aoe, and aoe/utility). Emphasis is on damage-dealing, not so much on support.
Instead of it having cloak, why not give it a self-hallucinate? It'll always be visible, buut it can look like its a probe, zealot, stalker, etc. (should keep its typical movement speed though).
A lightning rifle that has a single bounce (like muta's, or chain lightning in WC3) would give it some style with its normal attack. Bonus would be to have it's version of 'snipe' be the ability to tag enemy units as kind of lightning rods/conductors...soo its normal attack would get an extra bounce to it. IE; see a SCV line, tag 5 units and the default lightning rifle shot will bounce 5 extra times.
Blink-swap, as an extra mobility spell where it works kind of like blink but it just swaps the location of the protoss ghost and the targeted (enemy or friendly) unit. Unlike normal blink, this would cost mana and shouldn't be castable on massive units.
Now for the Nuke-like power (needs to be built at the academy, costs separate money), why not a sort of orbital strike ability that deals burst energy damage on impact (similar to storm, and slightly less damage overall than a nuke would). Buut after it hits, the area hit generates a temp power radius that lets you warp-in.
Some other notes, I like the idea somehow of the unit maybe having an ability (or its default weapon) bypassing shields and directly dealing hull damage...or maybe having an ability (on a semi-long cooldown) that lets it drain shields from nearby units (friendly or enemy) and convert it directly into mana.
0
Making this a weekly exercise isn't practical. To do any sort of quality ingame unit it'll take a couple full days of work. For me it typically is 1 day model, .5 day uvmap, 1 day texture. If someone had the skills to do something on par with the SC2 Thor, a huge, detailed unit like that (even ignoring animations of any sort) would likely take most of the week.
I'd highly suggest you make this into a monthly, or tone down the exercise...to be say, small 300 poly map props.