Metroid: Blue Minerva

[Waker]

Ladies and gentlemen, from work, I present the fully UV-mapped and somewhat textured cannon of Metroid: Blue Minerva.

(Note: Redid the back hinges so it no longer looks like a dick.)

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Heading home. Drool away. Time for some actual work. :P

[snarfblam]

Neither, and I've heard bad things about you, sir. :|

I herd that sum 1 else wuz b& 1 time too.

Anyways, for those of us who don't create 3D models or a regular basis, maybe you should explain some of this jibba-jabba. Does UV-mapping == texture mapping? (UV == texture coordinates?)

Also, is the in-game lighting going to be that harsh, or will it have a smoother, less polygonal appearance?

[Waker]

Neither, and I've heard bad things about you, sir. :|

I herd that sum 1 else wuz b& 1 time too.

Anyways, for those of us who don't create 3D models or a regular basis, maybe you should explain some of this jibba-jabba. Does UV-mapping == texture mapping? (UV == texture coordinates?)

Also, is the in-game lighting going to be that harsh, or will it have a smoother, less polygonal appearance?

It'll be a smoother lighting system, yeah. I'm debating on quality of the final model, but this base model will do for now until I decide on proper smoothing.

as for the jibba-jabba, a UV-Map is basically the entire model cut, split, sectioned, etc. onto a 2D surface, or an image. using a UV map means you can place whatever design, image, etc. you want on the map (you usually export it for editing in photoshop or whatever) and then import it onto the model using your favorite editor.

[Waker]

Update.

Tested in ShiVa. Won't bother posting. The entire texture map is FUCKED.

I think I need to export as .bmp. Will edit if so. Tired of UV mapping.

[Qactis]

Time to call Blarget

[Waker]

Happy holidays!

I took a day or two off from working on BM to stock up on crucial dev software AND hardware for my projects. This includes sound tools, geometry tools, texturing utilities, a ShiVa license (my own), and a screen for my laptop so I can dev on the go.

I'll be using a new UV wrapping tool that'll hopefully beat the shit out of Wings3D's.

Anyway, cheers!

[Waker]

Update: Postponed work on the cannon to experiment with 3DWS.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Just a shit level. I was going for a small chasm type feel. It could be a landing site, or just a general room.

Feedback? (P.S: The lighting is in-editor. Not actual ingame lighting. Which is much better, by the way.)

[Qactis]

If it's your landing site it needs a ship /me is shot :D but looks kinda good, I'd say make it more of a dip than a ravine, so Samus' can make her way out of it when falling in, unless you're disallowing falling in. I hate invisible barriers :/

[Waker]

...I'd say make it more of a dip than a ravine, so Samus' can make her way out of it when falling in, unless you're disallowing falling in. I hate invisible barriers :/

Fall damage and return like in the Prime games. You'd get auto-placed back. :V

[Waker]

So, metconst, time for an exciting update.


I managed to fix the cannon.


Level plans are steadily progressing.


Upon getting Reason 5, I'm starting to plan out tracks.


Logo design is underway.


At the rate things are going, I might have a single-player tech demo done by new years. I'm not making any promises, but honestly, it's looking really possible. I might have to use placeholder sounds and models as it's not essentially "done" yet or set in stone, but possibilities are looking up.

My dev systems won't ship until after the holidays or during them, rather. I am now licensed to use the ShiVa engine on my own personal license. The keyboard I ordered is arriving by ground, however the laptop screen won't be here until after the holidays. I can, however, work with the core 3D-aspects of the game until they arrive, which I am trying to do.

There has been some debate as to what I'll do for a demo, single or multiplayer. Personally I'd like to get the community as involved as possible, but with lack of a proper Samus model (it's on my todo list) it's kind of hard without using a placeholder (lame) for multiplayer. I think I'll go with single-player.

All in all, BM is progressing steadily, and updates are flying by my head faster than ever. :)

[Waker]

Helllooooo. Small update.

Upon finding what I deem to be the coolest and possibly most useful program in creating detailed environments for BM, I've done some tests.

[spoiler][/spoiler]

...

Yeah.

So, anyone who was worried about the quality of organic meshes, fret not. I have many resources.

Cheers.

(P.S: They have bone physics attached to them. AKA... breakable trees.)

[Qactis]

Hell the metroid games never had destructable plants, but I'm not complaining :D

[Waker]

My original plans for the landing site were done today.

The idea is that you land on a small raised rock-platform in the shadow of a mountain. Said mountain is a temple that leads directly into BM's environment. There will be rain, lightning, flashes, atmospheric shit and all that, and don't forget the overgrowth.

Yes, the terrain has some flaws. Don't blame me, blame the LOD manager for this program. If I zoom out from one spot in particular it defaults to about 1/2 vertex count, if I'm lucky, so it makes it hard to spot minor flaws in the terrain.

Will do some checkups tonight when editing more.

And without further adieu, here's the alpha landing site.

(note: it's not textured properly.)

[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler][/spoiler]
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Buccaneer]

Wow, I see you're running steady with a quite huge project over your shoulders, and getting good at it!
This is kind of the first time I take to read this post carefully, checking how the plot for this game goes (a pretty original and daring one) and reviews/responses of the thread.

Prologues aside, I find this kind of enticing, but I fear that it lacks something... Well, you just started! That's overly natural, but I'm afraid that even in the process there's something that needs to be done.

I don't know how's your workflow, but I think you could use a bit more of 'paper resources' while developing this, unless your idea of doing drafts is via rendering a bit of this and that. Don't take me wrong, but do you have concept art and more writings involving Blue Minerva and the chozo world it inhabits? I understand this project was running in its heels until your group disbanded, and everything concerning the progress of BM is lost inside somebody's PC.

Seeing that you're serious on the big endeavor of developing this, I suggest having some Master Plans to stick to. That way you could drive into something safer while doing your work, instead of trying various set ups for things. Also, you could entice wanderers to work temporarily (or full time) on this, unless you plan to release BM somewhere around 2017, despising all the way those puny humans and their trial and error methods.


... That's my feedback. By the way, I love how the cannon looks. *smiles*.

[Waker]

To be honest, paper resources wear me down. I'm a person who loves (read: LOVES) to experiment in his editor and push out something cool within a few minutes time, then fine-tune it to suit the current scene and environment theme. It's really something like an artist starting on a scrap painting, then pushing it further to gain something REALLY good that everyone likes.

The story is all up in my head. Writing it down hinders the process of creative thought, reason being if I dream up an idea, I have to rewrite it and I don't like to waste time or paper or text to do it. Yes, everything was pretty much lost inside the leader's PC when I last saw this project, but that doesn't stop me from rebuilding what I see fit.

As for master plans, I'm, honestly, just on a scavenger hunt both on the web and in my brain to see what content can be pulled in that fits decently well with the subject matter. For instance, I didn't know that SpeedTree, my organic mesh modeling program, existed, nor that my level editor did, nor my texture/UV wrapping utility, nor my engine! It's all about finding cool shit along the road of development then pushing it into place as everything wraps together. That's the fun part, the excitement of "What can I find next?"

And as for team workings... Let's just say, this is the most fun I've had solo for awhile. It's been a month, and I'm almost ready to do some final designs on a project that normally would take years if governed by a commercial dev studio. I tried the team aspect and it didn't work well at all, so I went solo, and I'm having a blast.

Game creation shouldn't be a job, it should be a hobby, a career, something fun to do in your spare time, and that's how I treat it. I always look forward to coming home to my Wings3D window and ShiVa editor up with Foo Fighters playing, because I know some ideas will come out of it somewhere.

Thanks for the feedback on the cannon, by the way. :)

[Blarget2]

nice job, keep up the good work waker  :^_^:

[Waker]

I'm having a panic.

Terrain software these days is very, very limited to only a few apps. It's a sad fact, and I'm having a hard time discerning the good from bad.

So I need your help, MetConst, badly; should I keep using my default terrain editor, which can produce images like what you saw in the previous test post, or should I search for a new one? And if you're for the latter, what should I use?

Please help, I'd love to hear some feedback.

[snarfblam]

What's wrong with your current terrain software? There isn't much to go on with the terrain you posted. I would think that any basic terrain editor should have the essentials. A raise shit tool, a lower shit tool, a single-vertex tool, a smooth shit over tool, and support for multiple textures... what am I missing? Your terrain is badly in need of more textures, maybe a macro texture, and definitely some smoothing, but I figured that these were just details to be ironed out.

[Waker]

The problem with my current software is the bullshit that it loves to throw out.

That whole mesh? 131,072 polys. And that's without smoothing.

And plus, the fucking thing loves to magically create creases in everything, which I can't smooth worth shit.

What I really, really need is a voxel terrain editor. One that can export in mesh format. That'll provide lossless geometry editing and smooth performance speeds.

[snarfblam]

My terrain editing experience in it's entirety is limited to UnrealEd. Smoothing doesn't involve creating more polygons. Its more like using a blur tool on the height map. The polygon count shouldn't be a huge issue, and 131,072 isn't unreasonable. 256x256 is a very sensibly sized height map, and you should not be drawing the whole thing at once. Some reasonable optimizations will keep things in check. Only draw what's in front of the player and use some well-placed occlusion volumes. I thought you were using some kind of game engine. These things should be built in.

Edit: You aren't... like... creating a mesh for the terrain, are you?

[Waker]

They are built in.

The thing is, the entire map is REALLY low poly. And by low poly, I mean low quality, even with smoothing.

Smoothing that will add more mesh objects into the scene thus higher polycounts.

And trust me, I tried smoothing a lot of the map. It turned out to be shit. The heightmap it generates isn't even absolute grayscale; it's default is a light gray. That's bad for translation into ShiVa (game engine) because, well, it can't tell the difference.

If you want I can post the example heightmap from that scene.

[snarfblam]

The thing is, the entire map is REALLY low poly. And by low poly, I mean low quality, even with smoothing.

What? Your poly count is fine. If you want more, increase the size of the terrain. What you have now is pretty conservative, but it's really about how you use it.

Smoothing that will add more mesh objects into the scene thus higher polycounts.

What?

The heightmap it generates isn't even absolute grayscale; it's default is a light gray. That's bad for translation into ShiVa (game engine) because, well, it can't tell the difference.

Absolute grayscale? Not sure I understand what you're getting at.

If it starts out too high (light gray), lower a spot to something more reasonable and flatten it all out from there. Or just import a solid 50% gray image. If everything is crammed up in the light grays then you're wasting a lot of "vertical resolution."

And trust me, I tried smoothing a lot of the map. It turned out to be shit.

Do it better. I don't know exactly what you're after. If you want really pointy peaks and lumpy hills, you're already there. If you want things a bit smoother, a quick pass with a smoothing tool should fix it nice.

Maybe you really do need a better tool, because I don't understand why you're getting hung up on some of these things, and you're only getting started. Either way, Imma duck outta here now, because it just doesn't seem like we're on the same page.

[Waker]

By low-poly, I mean shitty quality for the count I'm getting. I know it's not a HUGE count, but it's pretty "what is this shit" quality for the stuff I'm using.

Mesh objects in the editor I use are used for referenced subdivision for smoothing, so it looks better instead of just blending out the terrain map.

Absolute grayscale means it has no RGB values past normal shades of gray. Sadly when I imported the map into the engine it declined it because of the RGB traces.

I can tell you one thing: everything in that picture is smoothed down to a point where I can't apply any more to it.

yes, I need a new tool.

[Waker]

Update.

On my way to redoing the cannon's UV map for the umpteenth freaking time. What happened is that some of the polys were torn so textures didn't apply right.

Going to use 3DWS for terrain, still. Considering EarthSculptor for ref. maps. Lots and lots of plans for the intro rooms.

Anyway, again, happy holidays (I don't have any plans for music or SFX due to my keyboard not arriving yet.)

Later.

[Waker]

Legit update!

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Landing site: 45% done.

Lighting is not final. Nor are textures.

Poly Count: 8,000.