GO TEAM

Still Awake

Almost 5am, and I'm still up... gosh. I was thinking of coming in this afternoon, but I imagine I will be shattered when I arrive in Leicester around 5ish.

I've spent a bit of time trying to think of the best way to texture these doors, and I don't think I've quite found it yet. Perhaps Joel needs consulting...

I have a model that will occur several times over the level, with multiple versions of itself next to each other, and I need to add subtle differences in the texture... urgh, this thought is too confusing for 5am... I'm off to bed.

progress_part2

shud have it done for tomorrow afternoon. gunan also send jake my asset_list.xls too. to keep him up to date with what im covering.

bridges_progress

probably make a section in the middle missing in the top one. not make it completely messed up.

I don't know

Scale for Attar

height from ground to first floor base - 128
first floor height - 16
stairs width - 96

1st floor staircase wip

hallway ground

gunna try and get the lecture ceiling done tomorrow. gotta read theory books now :(

Oh God this took forever

Unwrapping the Fletcher building took freakin' hours... as did texturing it.
And it still needs work, as it looks cartoony in places and the lower bit has no windows.
The jaggedy hole will be covered by smoke, don't worry. (Or perhaps some planes can be added)


Thankfully the jet engine is easier to unwrap...


But I'm not as far along in texturing it.

It seemed silly to upload untextured models so their textures could be judged... thus the lack of Blackboard rar's.

rubble nearlly done?

scene is around 6k of polys.

what i've been doing this week

right, i've re-done the texture on this. its not great and i really think we need a texture guide, because i'm texturing pretty blindly. am i going for rust or what, wtf is a plane doing i thought there was a nucular explosion or some thing, would be nice to be told whats going on. also its all good doing fantastic things for your portfolio but can you do them when we've got the basics done.
just sorted the dodgey texturing on the pipe at the back.
lights done.is this any better?
this is the finshed vent. what you think of the texture? again would be good to have something to go on.lecture room chairs done.


this is the lobby started but i've still got alot to do.
sorry i don't mean to sound bitchy but this stuffs been on my mind for a bit. i think we all need to have a meeting wednesday morning to discuss the direcetion we need to go in. i appreciate the crit on blackboard too so please crit these pieces, and i will start criting soon, it the only way to get the level how we all want it. could everyone also post what assets they have done and my list of what i've done is coming.

chair fix

more emphasis on the wood itself. instead of that faded yellow ugly look. too stalker-fied :p

What we are doing.

-Chris spoke to us about each of us deciding what scene we are going to be doing for his interior piece. So i've chosen to create the scene of where my 'stargate atlantis' thing is.

-The tasks and assets ive chosen to do this week are; bin, rubble, gurders, lecture ceiling, hallway ceiling, hallway ground.

...Important Notices...

*After these are done, we should have a final set of textures for the scenes, lecture room, hallway, surgery and prison. Just the remaining assets will need to be imported.

*WE NEED to all post up from my post earlier on about what assets we've done so we can check off the list that jake is keeping up to date recently. Otherwise we will be looking what assets we've done 1 week before the deadline.

*tx for replying attar to my 'grind time' post.

sink and taps.

324 = taps
300=sink

jake see if you can make a sink for your taps aswell. alternatively make the taps texture same as my sink.. then u can pant urs on.

E.R

Bed needs dirtying up a bit...

Btw if anyone has any finished models (inc textures) could they upload them to www.mediafire.com please so we can have some finished renders of our scenes.



*Update added Daljit's assets*

GRiND TiME

Right we're all in a mess. Joel ain't here to rant so I am. This is our second year and it count's a heck of alot. Doing one big asset is not going make you pass. Completing our level will make you pass.

So here's something I've arranged to get our arses in 5th gear.

1. Post here what assets and textures you've done. I wan't to see a print screen of a render otherwise if it's not textured. It isn't an asset yet. So don't list the asset name.

2. List all the contributions you've made to the team so far like technical documentations you've made. Individual roles you've been managing (assigned each by Joel.)

3. Tell me why you haven't completed the assets or tasks for the weeks that have passed by.

4. What you are going to do and when will you be on track again?

On Track is the following:-

-models created
-models textured
-smd exported
-textures compiled

This is the state all our work should be in. No scene is complete at the moment. We have TWO weeks to put up a presentation and for what? prison scene half done. 5-6 assets and a plane!?
Next week on wednesday everyone will be in and have textures READY TO IMPORT. If you got a problem come online and message eachother. Don't sit and forget about it. We've jeapodised our artwork and bloggin for this? We will get through it. Just grind damit!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
...Assets...

Instrument Table
Toilet Cubicle
Whiteboard x2
HD
Prison Desk
Computer
Computer Broken
Chair
Chair Broken
Monitor
Monitor Broken
Sink Desk
Keyboard x2
Pot x2
(Bin, gurders, rubble, 2xtables, hallway ceiling coming on next wednesday)

...Textures...

Lecture walls
Lecture ground
Surgery Ground (partnered with attar)
Lecture Ceiling
Paper(alpha)
PcPart1(alpha)
PcPart2(alpha)
PcPart3(alpha)
PcPart4(alpha)

...Roles...

backup.pdf
routine.pdf
alpha_mapping.pdf
milestone_updates.xls
complete_progress.xls

...Why I haven't been on track...

-I didn't know why my normal maps weren't working untill yesterday on the blog.
-I can't create an alpha texture apparently now...
-People keep going missing in the lesson. Or decide not to come. *very lonely*
-Group meetings have been scrapped because of this.
-Milestone and 'complete progress' is losing it's structure for the countless absences of members and work not being done.
-S_T_R_E_S_S

...What you are going to do about it...

-stop whining
-get assets made for next week
-fix alpha's on current textures
-export smd's
-compile textures for everything

Presentation

It'll be useful to start getting some final renders of our assets since the presentation is less then 2weeks away. I dunno if anyone has decided upon a style/format yet? but ive posted an example below.

Compiling Textures

OK, here is how it's done "the hard way"...

Plonk your tga file in this folder :
SteamApps\username\sourcesdk_content\hl2\materialsrc\qsh

You will have to create the qsh folder.

Then drag the tga onto vtex.exe, which you can find in this folder :
SteamApps\username\sourcesdk\bin

A command window should pop up, and a vtf file should then magically appear in here :
SteamApps\username\half-life 2\hl2\materials\qsh

A vmt file will need to be created, which can be done in Notepad.
Open a new file and paste in the following :

"lightmappedgeneric"
{
"$baseTexture" "/qsh/qsh_testtexture"
}

Not this bit, though... don't paste this line.

Change the "qsh_testtexture" part to whatever the vtf is named.

The "lightmappedgeneric" part tells the engine the texture is for use in the map... if you want to use the texture for a model, replace it with "VertexLitGeneric".

ie/

"VertexLitGeneric"
{
"$baseTexture" "/qsh_testtexture"
"$bumpmap" "/qsh_testtexture_normal"
}


The $bumpmap line tells the engine where the normal map for the texture is... compile that the same way as the diffuse texture, but do not create it its own vmt file... just add that line in the main texture's vmt.

Save the Notepad file as (in this example) qsh_testtexture.vmt and put it in the same directory as the vtf. Ensure you're saving the file as qsh_testtexture.vmt and not qsh_testtexture.vmt.txt.

There are other settings to play with, but let's walk before we run, and see if what I've written here is actually understandable. If not, I'll clarify... if so, we can move on to doing models.

Joy.

Projector

It need texture bettering but the model is good at 330 polys.

Good News, Bad News...

GOOD NEWS

The flickering / black texture problem has been solved thanks to the help of one of my "internet friends". We can now deface the walls with whatever crap we like.



BAD NEWS

All the .vmt files need to have a slight change made to them.

GOOD NEWS

We haven't really made that many yet, and...

BAD NEWS

...I'm probably going to force a re-compiling of all our stuff anyway, as the directory structure hasn't happened, and some file names could do with changing. We need to start "finalising" stuff.
Also we have unnecessary normal maps all over the place... I'm not anti-normal maps, but can we please only have them where they make a difference ?

NEWS THAT IS BAD FOR THE PROJECT BUT MIGHT MAKE YOU HAPPY

I won't be in on Wednesday morning, as I'm staying at home on Tuesday night for... religious reasons...

Hallowed are the Ori.



I should be in at around 12.15 / 12.20.

pots n pans

no it's not normal mapped this time. gotta cut down on those.

sections finalized.

Well people are still asking questions to what sections we are covering in this level and someone needs to stamp it to our heads so we all manage to create a balanced theme for our textures and dynamic set of scenes for the level. Because we don't want the whole building looking burnt out do we?

1. outside - the user will view a devasted set of collapsed levels leaving them isolated and have no means of access other than the queens building itself.

2. lobby - the area where the user can decide to descend to the first floor or continue to the hallway.

3. walkway - after entering they will be greeted with the set of stairs to take them to the first floor and cross the walkway to the otherside of the main hallway.

4. hallway - the main area where the user will explore the building after entering it. They will have the option to navigate either left,right,ahead or above into the following sections.

5. surgery - a set of rooms on the left of the hallway for the user to explore the area where labwork on unrecognized subjects were conducted.

6. lecture - two rooms on the right of the hallway for the user to see where lectures to member's in the facility took place.

7. toilet - a simple toilet room.

8. storage - a simple storage room.

9. prison - a set of cells at the back of the building. the user can explore this area to see what secrets were buried in the building.

So concluding, we have 9 rooms/scenes to create. Tom will be producing a colour theme for each area after looking again into Asim's lighting technical documentation. After that, we will use both sets of documentation and fix our textures to meet the requirements of the scenes we build assets and textures for.

Now let's get crackin'.

lecture ceiling

tiling texture. for some reason it looks better in PS than Max. maybe i might try the non-3 lights shader. could bring out the spec better.

toilet cubicle done.

444 polys.

Screenshots for Asim

jake vending machine textures

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=XHI20KFS

download it and unrar/zip it.

The Bookshelf

Heres the bookshelf
and im naming everything I do with qsh_assetname perhaps I'll add a area to it later.

Prison Break

http://www.mediafire.com/?am0dyiyyzmn

Textures all vtf'd up.

Btw how's everyone naming their files? I think it'll be useful to include the area the texture is going to be applied to the filename aswel. Otherwise w'll end up with loads of 'qsh_wall1 etc...'


qsh_prison_wall_diffuse.tga
qsh_prison_wall_normal_spec.tga ?

ceiling done.

...

VTFTool

If uv'e got steam installed you can download VTFTool to convert your tga to vtf/vmt's, since studiocompiler doesn't seem to work on the latest verison of steam.

Anyways just stick the exe here

C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\username\sourcesdk\bin and follow the steps below.

























Then click 'lets go' and select 'no' in the dialog box.

Just make sure all tga's are 1024x1024 / 32bit if your using an alpha and 24bit otherwise.

Also the specular map goes in the alpha channel of the normal map, so dont create a seperate texture for each.

http://www.wunderboy.org/sourceapps.php#vtftool

ground done.

i hope too.

bricks done

i hope.

Curtain Rail

Heres the curtain rail... I should alpha the curtian itself but this is just basci for the moment.

Mattress

Heres the Mattress I finally got a texture working for it, I like it though perhaps some dirt texture needs to be added.

Neeeeeeowwwwwww....

Modelled this morning. 724 Triangles.

Smoothing error on the front rim noticed and fixed... ignore it.

queens has just gone stargate atlantis!

...

The walkway begins

Heres a look at the walkway in early stages it looks good now I have to add the benches, won't that be fun.