Hey everybody :) I've been tasked to unwrap and texture the Vivec City Canton's modular pieces. Here's the set (the top three rows belong to the lower sections and the bottom three rows belong to the middle sections):
Here's a closeup of the top left meshes which consist of bridges, stairs, platforms, etc:
I plan to build a set of tiling textures that can be used across all the meshes. I did a first pass at a stone block texture tiled across the top of the cantons. I think my texture has a bit too much contrast in the blocks. Here's a screenshot showing Morrowind's 256 texture above the 2k diffuse I created from a repeated sculpted block:
Here's a shot comparing how much the 256 and 2k textures tile. Does this density work?
I'll most likely be juggling things over the coming week because of GDC preparations and so forth but I'll try to get some more textures done ASAP :)
Are these the models that foullows made? In any case, I would love to do a bit of a brainstorm to figure where and how the building materials for Vivec were sourced, hoping that it will bring some inspiration :)
Are they a variation of the clay-ish material used for Hlaalu buildings? In that case we should expect the blocks to be quite smooth and regular in their size, mixed with some visible structures of hard stone that would prevent the clay from cracking under the weight of the structure.
Perhaps the blocks would be made of a variety of mudstone, found under the cantons themselves? Then the bumpy surface of the current texture that you made would make sense, with the blocks hand carved on all sides except on the exterior side that would be left as it is.
Also, I recall seeing a marble-ish base for some of the canton walls, perhaps the sea theme can be continued by placing serpentinite on these surfaces, which is similarly formed as other marble types, but typically found on the sea floor.
To make things even more interesting, we could put into the game traces of of rock extraction work near Vivec City, being almost reclaimed by the Ascadian Isles nature.
I probably got too carried away with this. Anyway, I hope this will stir your creative juices, whatever the design choice ends up being.
Looking forward to the next update :)
Jk is correct, the cantons are stated to be made of a packed-mud/clay material
Yeah, are these the new models or the existing in-game ones?
These are the models foullows made. Finally we are close to getting them game ready!! So excited.
happychappy wrote:
Awesome! Me too :D
Any plans on adding in wall murals like in the original concept art (bottom right corner)?
all we need to do is duplicate a wall face and apply a different texture
I'm sure we have many capable artists to do that mural too ;) It would be really cool to see some Dunmer fine arts, as there was not that much of it in the game. And what better place for those than Vivec?
The neat thing is that we can apply murals as "decal" in the Creation Kit. Get muraling peeps
Hey everyone :) I'm in the process of making sure all these pieces work together modularly but I wanted to share some progress shots :)
I created three 2048 tiling diffuse textures and a 2028x4096 texture (using 3/4s of it, will allocate the remaining space to other assets). I saw jk's suggestion of serpentinite and used that to help guide the type of stone information on the walls. Since the textures are all inherently based off the same sculpt they resemble each other a bit much at the moment but I'll break that up.
The other larger pieces are coming along fine (need to make sure the railings work). I'll post progress of those and the smaller pieces ASAP!
very nice job, this is coming along nicely :)
this is excellent dude! :o
Thanks so much everybody :):) I spent some time today getting the larger canton pieces working together, so here are some more progress shots :) These are all diffuse only and unlit.
The next shots are placement tests to show how things are working:
Here's a shot inside the left side of the above tunnel:
I'm currently re-using a tiling texture from the walls for the interior of the tunnels, so that's why there's a "shadow" on the roof. I'll figure out a better solution for the tunnels, but next up on the agenda is to get all the smaller pieces textured and working together. I'll then refine the textures and have normal/specular/cavity maps in place :)
I can't wait to see what they look like with the new maps
wow really nice progress, cant wait to put these meshes to use :)
simply brilliant! :D
so this is basically finished then? :)
The textures need more work. They appear to be underwater or like they are surrounding a pool. I like the colors, but they need to be more weathered. Right now they look fluid.
http://fessicsfavorites.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/vivec-ex...
Note how the original textures here appear to have been stained with a wash of color that is wearing away. The ones you are working on seem to be colored from inside or all the way through somehow and glowing. They should be matte. I think this is due to not having enough opacity on some of the layers you are working with. Also the marbled shapes are too small and seem to flow together and overlap where they shouldn't. Last thing, let the brown from the top section show through under the blue like it is a painted and worn surface.
Well, it could be ceramic or even glass material. Possibly even marble for a gloss finish.
It could, but its not. I doubt the entire canton is built of glass and a glaze has to be fired to reach that kind of sheen. Definitely doesnt look like marble either. The glowiness is mainly noticeable up close, but it still looks surreal.
They didn't really have all the new texture mapping technology that we do now, so for all we know, it could be made ut of shiny material.
tbh we can worry about the exact look of textures later, since tiles can be swapped out.
but do these pieces have AO for more lighting? And as per usual, cries of "what about the overlay meshes sailorboy?" from Ravanna echoed in the forum chambers until someone slapped him.
Haven't seen the textures in game, but indeed, Vivec would mostly be covered with silt terra cotta. It would not only be more sensible, but also give some nice contrast to the decorative glazed tiles (dark green stuff). But in ze deed we can worry about it later.
Hey everybody! The first set (the textured ones in the previous screenshots) is UVed and has a diffuse texture in place, the second set (the bottom right pieces in the initial post) is UVed but I need to generate two more textures, and I'm fixing up the third set (the small set in the second screenshot in the initial post). I'll post some second set screenshots in a few hours.
Thanks for the texture input everybody, I'll keep everything in consideration. Right now I'm building AO into some of the trims/corners.
Here's a shot of the second set pieces. It reuses existing textures for the walls, but I created a unique texture for the "doorway" shaped parts. The overhanging lighter areas are shorter and slope further back compared to the first set's, so I created a modified texture with different bevels / gradients.
Here's some close-ups of the second set pieces fitting together:
I know it's been a while since the last update but I'll get the third set working and update the textures as soon as possible :)
always exciting to see progress on these, very nice :)
Pretty psyched about seeing this stuff. Vivec is like a mini project in itself.
Now as vivec is almost certainly closed as a city, how will we achieve the LODing? When all pieces are done, do we decimate each piece/simplify them, go into a temporary Ck project, replace high with low poly, and allow the ck to build our LOD for us?
many methods to use, but worth bringing up soon.
Ravanna wrote:
I'm curious as to how its going to be walled off? Just make a collision block in front of the boat entrances? or better yet add teleport (similar to what you find in caves around skyrim) to each of the stairs and docks and well as the bridges?
I think the teleport would be the way to go. Have gates in the walls that trigger a teleport when opened, and the archway boat entrances too. Also its worth bringing up and I'm interested to know- now that the Arena is open-roofed, is it going to be part of the exterior Vivec cell?
That levitation spell sure does pose some problems in terms of world building. Could Vivec even have a barrier similar to the ghostfence above the wall to keep out levitation? Doesn't fit with lore though :/
Ravanna wrote:
Need low poly Vivec architecture models optionally UVed to a single "vivec" texture atlas except tileable ones for extra performance. Note that atlas can contain textures of various sizes and resolutions unlike 256x256 like CK does.
If Vivec and Hlaalu architecture will use the same textures, than probably build a combined "hlaalu" atlas to cover everything to be included in LOD.
Keep in mind that you don't need a LOD for all Vivec models, only for walls and stuff that should be visible from outside or on map. So probably the biggest buildings only. However if the inner city will be huge, then will need LOD for smaller ones too to avoid popping when walking inside.
I'm fine with using the atlas, I like the way skyrim did it.
So yeah we could uv all major LOD pieces to a section of atlas.
Oh i remember. if we wanted enhanced distant objects such as vivec features, you gotta extra the BTO/nif and insert new pieces or edit the CK created ones.
Happy succeeded in doing this a while ago
We have our own lodgen and don't need to edit BTOs anymore. Screw CK. And screw "section" of atlas, we can have as much atlases of variable size as we want. The less the better obviously.
Hey everybody! Here's the third set UVed to fit existing textures. I still need to tweak some things to make everything fit exactly though :) I need to build a texture for the stairs -- would mud brick make sense or should I go for another material? :)
Out of town until Sunday but after I fix these pieces up I'll get the normal/spec/cavity textures up and running!
Vin could u post some pics of wireframe? I wish to know what our options are in terms of Vertex colours/AO verts, whether u modelled in smooth quads or not.
Would it be better to design the city of Vivec first? The we could create LOD models based off of the final configuration of the city. The resulting LOD models might be specific to Vivec, but wouldn't it be better/easier than creating LOD models for each piece?
Design was already done foullows, finally :P Unless you mean putting it in game in its final form and layout and THEN making LOD out of bigger parts. Might indeed be the best idea.
hm ok, aside from some extra edges in places to remove vertices with more than 24 connections, its all clean modelling, though in triangles, without quads the only way to do vertex AO it is to paint or bake, baking i think takes a very long time, and Ive only tested once.
I'm going to tweak & delete edges to have quads whenever possible, but I think we'll still have some tris here and there. If a mesh primarily has quads with a few tris, could you still use those quads for vertex AO?
Quadded models in editable poly mode are easier to vertex AO due to having loops and rings of vertices (click one vert, shift click next vert in loop to select entire loop).
There are 3 ways to make vertex ao, and all 3 have their uses, so if u can quad your meshes as much as you can it will help a great deal :)
Btw, whats the deal with collision here? will it be decimated from these meshes or made by hand later?
OK, I understand :) I think for certain meshes I'll have to build it by hand (notably the one in the last picture four posts ago), but otherwise I think I'll decimate meshes. I haven't tried building collision for this particular engine yet though :)
Hey, just a heads-up Vin Wisp. I was considering starting on the dock pieces in the concept art, and, upon investigation in Morrowind/Morroblivion, I discovered that the water level goes up pretty high on the base canton pieces (the biggest pieces). So, all those tunnels I made for those base pieces would be completely submerged unless whoever designs Vivec decides to have them standing out of the water more than they originally were. Not a big deal, they could work as-is, but just a heads-up in case you wanted to do something different with the canton-base tunnel textures.
Alright, thanks for letting us know. Right now I'm reusing some wall textures for the tunnels, but if it turns out if I need to change things around then let me know. I'm on the cusp of making meshes primarily consist of quads, so things should work out in the coming days :)
I still need to tweak the geo a bit (especially the large structure with the steps in Set 3) / soften a few more edges / etc, but here's where things are right now. Sorry about the delay -- I wanted to clean up the geo and convert some of the triangulated areas to quads.
Set 1:
Set 2:
Set 3: