My First WIP Exposed *Gulp*

I didn't realize how scary it is posting my first WIP, especially after all the great work I've seen from the Unity community! Anyway, here it is--a totally new concept in game development: something sort of medieval-looking. :wink: . It's just the architecture, and all you can do is move around through it. There's no music yet, just a weird sound when you enter the level. Some of the rooms are still pretty bare, and I had to use a Cinema4D workaround to do multi-textures with lightmaps. Please tell me if you have trouble loading it, or if it runs too slow. Please also level your searing criticism at me (or nudge me with gentle, constructive criticism). My ego was torn to shreds a long time ago....

Oh, yeah, if you try to escape through the purple "doors," you will restart the level. Another note: I used CombineChildren to--well--combine the children sharing the same material.

www.theenchantedkiosk.com/Pages/TerranSageGameTest2.html

 

You will also note that there are no logs in the fireplace. I just haven't gotten around to it yet....

You may also laugh at the way I made water pour out of the dragon's mouth.

 

I wouldn't worry about flames when posting your work on here even if you think it is horrible compared to other people's stuff.

I like the intro animation although it confused me at first. The place looks nice although it seems somewhat like an empty and boring shell that contains neat decorations. I think the trick to making nice arcetecture is to integrate the neat stuff into the walls and other basic parts of the world.

Some awesome screenshots from wow:

 

Thanks, Yoggy. Those really are awesome screenshots. With my original level, I was using multi-textures in the architecture itself. The only problem is that with Cinema4D I couldn't combine those with lightmaps, because it would throw the UV's off. So now I'm trying to work around that by using a single UV map per object that also has a lightmap, and it ends up more boring.... I was hoping more "decorations" would overcome that problem.

 

pretty good so far. frame speed seemed fine on my intel imac, though i'd like to be able to move around alot faster (but don't listen to me i'm a twitchy fps player)

i like your genre mixing idea, but i have one aesthetic suggestion: try to keep the realism level of the shaders similar - even if the objects themselves are very different in style (color-shape-texture). for example, viewing the purple chairs next to the wall - for me at least they sort of ruin the overall environment because they're too "flat" - but the tall column with the orb on top fits much better because its shaded more similar to its surroundings.

hope that makes sense - but its just my opinion ; )

pic below - i'm the king of the world!!!

 

Nice work on the lightmapping. Re the animation, is it moving the camera and keyframing? You might like to check out the camera lerping example Talzor offered on this thread:
http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=3395&highlight=
I found it hard to keyframe the camera personally. I like the feel of this, though it seems to me some textures are "markers" to be finished later? just that they dont join at the edges too well.
I've learned that if you expose your work, you can get flamed, but remember, who cares what wannabes think? Mostly the people who put down others work never offerup any of their own, if they even do any. I like your work, and the framerate is good. keeping high framerates seems to be the problem with most Unity work. I find that when the screen changes frame at a speed similar to the human heartbeat that Im at most risk of having a heart attack while playing.

You could swap purple for a more muted tone to bring on the Medieval Realism expressed in a lot of really cool games of today. Limiting a colour pallette can bring things together nicely.
Im impressed with the framerate, definately. Maybe an empty game object with

Code (csharp):

1. Screen.showCursor = false;

would be in order to hide the mouse?
Looks good man
(G4 PPC, 733mhtz, 128mb videocard)
AC

 

Thanks for your replies!
dr. jones said:

I agree with you about the style differences. The columns use my own freehand-drawn Illustrator/Photoshop design plus a bumpmap, while the chair texture (diffuse) was borrowed from Blender. I think I'll stick to my own designs so that the style will always be similar. Thank you for pointing it out! I tried bumpmapping everything one time, and it seemed to slow things down while irritating my eyes. Also, I used lightmaps on some objects but not others, especially the ones that have multiple UV maps, since the lightmaps just don't work on those (from Cinema4D). Is it okay to mix bumpmaps with diffuse shaders, self-illuminated shaders, etc., as long as there's a similarity in design style?
dr. jones said:

I started with faster movement, but it was too twitchy for me. This game is going to be more of an exploration game, and not a fast FPS (though there will be some of that too). I got the idea about slowing it down from ZeroFractal's architectural walk-throughs.
Targos said:

Yes, actually I keyframed the whole First Person Controller, so you can still control some of the looking movement while you're flying through the air. Is the problem you're referring to the "jerkiness" of some of the movement? Yesterday I entered your desert world and saw a similar flying/panning animation at the beginning of the game that was really smooth, like the beginning of a movie. I thought that was pretty cool. (I liked the music, too! Was that your own composition?) I haven't read Talzor's post yet, but I will. I'm not exactly sure what lerping is yet....
Targos said:

Yes, some of the textures are on their way out--or else I'm going to touch them up in Photoshop to get rid of the seams. The brown brick stripe that you see in the walls was done with the rubber stamp tool as a way to hide the seam while adding a little more color at the same time.
Yoggy said:

I'm seriously considering getting Modo so that I can do multiple UV maps with lightmaps. I've been thinking about it for a while, and your advice has me leaning even more in this direction.

 

sure, though i have to say i'm no expert on this. in the arena i'm working on for my game (my first full scene), which is semi-realistic in style, i was finding it very hard to match my textures. small differences in "feel" of the objects were ruining the effect of being there. its something i'm still trying to get better at, but here's some things i've learned:

1. be careful when mixing textures grabbed from pictures hand made ones. i've found that if you use real pics for some textures, usually they'll have to be dulled down to match any custom made ones. real pics have certain noise, color variation detail that (for me at least) is hard to generate manually.

2. make sure your shadows match. even if objects are vastly different in style, they should all look like they're sitting in the same environment lit by the same lights. this can make a huge difference. baking ambient occlusion can have a nice homogenizing effect across differently textured objects as well.

3. keep similar color saturation levels to your textures, unless the object in question is supposed to glow or have some bizzare effect (like possibly the green orbs in your scene).

the next blender release is being finalized now it has multiple UV support. i don't know if the workflow between C4D blender is practical, and i imagine it would require another point release from OTEE to work, but FYI ; )

 

Terran Sage
The opening cinematic in The Oasis is done using Talzors lerping example on the link I gave. You should take a look, though I havent figured out how to ease in and out of each section...When keyframing, Things tend to "swing" greatly,(I wonder why...?) But Talzors pakage solved it for me. Keep up the good work!

-did you get to end of the Oasis? Some people had trouble, but i didnt want to make it too easy. At the end, your supposed to walk right into the sarcophagos...
AC

 

I didn't walk right it, I had to shoot everything first!

I never got to the end. I think I blew myself up shooting some barrels as I tried to board/shoot at the plane. I never tried again because I didn't want to spend another 15 minutes babying that car into driving striaght to get to the place I died.

It was pretty fun though.

 

dr. jones said:

The grey brick walls were from a photo of a fireplace tiled and blended/rubber-stamped together in Photoshop, while the others came from other sources and samples. I didn't enhance them much from the originals, not thinking how they would "clash" with each other. Some were more high-res than others, so I didn't tile them as much or map them too big. These are all great pieces of advice, and I'm glad I showed this WIP before I got too far into it. Do you use Photoshop's (or another program's) noise, blur or artistic enhancement tools much? It sounds like you work with the hue/saturation tool quite a bit.

Ah yes, the lights....
I used a mix of Unity point lights with various colors and strengths, along with baked illumination, sometimes with unrealistic results, as in the outer "maze" of rooms. Instead of using one "sun," I used three point lights plus baked lighting that came from two light sources in C4D, so the shadows are stretched out in different directions, and some rooms are inexplicably brighter than others. My excuse is that this building is on an alien planet where there's a binary star system. :wink:
Targos said:

Unfortunately I didn't get that far. I took the dune buggy into the sand dunes for a joy ride and flipped over a few times (I tend to do that kind of thing with any kind of game, ignoring the rules or the goal and just kicking around on my own). I had fun, though! It looks like a great game. I liked the "backwards language" in the beginning. Is that how New Zealanders speak, because you're in the southern hemisphere?

 

Thank you, Muriac, I actually wondered about that. I lightened the "soft shadows" in C4D to about 80% in the lightmaps and then added lights in Unity as well, trying to illuminate the black patches--but then things seemed too bright and some of the shadows were lost.

 

Here are some screenshots of changes I've been making, following the advice of all of you (I haven't gotten around to darkening the shadows yet, though). I discovered ways to create the illusion of multiple textures with one lightmap by "splitting" one object into two or three (without destroying the object's original shape and applying separate single textures and lightmaps to each in C4D). It's more memory-intensive than using one tiled texture mapped multiple times with one lightmap, but it's all I could do in C4D (unless it does vertex lightmaps like Maya, which I'm not sure it does). I also toned down the purple and changed some of the "cartoonish" textures. I also used ScrollTexture on the water pouring out of the dragon's mouth.

I haven't yet done a Webplayer version of this yet, so you'll still see the old version of the architecture on my Website.

Thanks again for all your help!

 

Looks like you should turn on anisotropic filtering for the floor textures, but other than that it's looking pretty nice. Though speaking of floor textures I think it would be better if the same stone texture wasn't used everywhere so much, as it gets repetitive.

--Eric

 

Thanks, Eric. I was actually thinking the same thing about the walls, too, so I'm starting to break them up into other textures as well. I started off with the whole building--walls and floors, but not the ceiling--as one object with one texture and one UV map, since that's the only way I could bake and apply the lightmap in C4D. But now that I've learned how to break the building up into separate objects, applying lightmaps to each one, I might have to hold myself from making the building look too psychedelic instead!

I used multiple UV's with a single tiled texture on the columns in this room, but there are no lightmaps on them either, so I could get away with that. I'm not sure I like that texture, though, so I might replace it.

 

looking good.

i agree with eric - i think even just changing the floor texture would make a big difference - there aren't many buildings you see in real life that have the exact same masonry for the floors the walls. even if they did it wouldn't have the same amount of wear grime etc. its little things like that which may not be obvious but subconsiously your mind is telling you something doesn't look right.

IMO definitly an improvement though : )

 

Thanks, Dr. Jones.

Here are more screenshots. Today I went a little nuts with Photoshop. I basically used the same brick texture over and over again, layering other images on top of it, fiddling with the filters and colors, then applying it to different parts of the models. Some of the colors were accidentally applied, but I kind of like it. I tried to keep in mind all the advice, like adding different textures to the floor (though there I kind of compromised between the brick texture and mosaic-like textures), darkening the shadows, and homogenizing the texture styles (getting rid of the toon-like textures). I even lightened the skybox for more contrast. The only thing I haven't done was use an anisotropic filter for the floors.

 

Just click on a floor texture in the inspector and drag the "aniso level" slider over some until the blurriness disappears. (You could of course do that with all textures, but it's mostly noticeable on the floors, and since it slows things down a little it's best to be sparing.) Definitely an improvement, BTW.

--Eric

 

Thanks, Eric, I'll try that.

Man, it really makes a difference showing a work in progress! I just walked through the older version on my Website, and it's amazing how much better the new version looks in comparison. At first I was just going to create the whole level and then show it to people, but I think I would have been sorely disappointed and would probably have to start over from scratch.

 

This is looking good man!
Hmmm, now I cant stop imagining this added to cgGorans water shader thread collab idea....You know, the stunning nature one...
AC

 

Looking better and better! It looks to me like you have a pretty good setup but you need to be more careful with how you model, and how you choose colors and textures, for it to look excellent.

I think a good way to choose colors for textures and decide on ways to UV map objects is to look at how it is done in either great looking games of today or old style pixel art.

I really like this picture. darks should be blue - purple or "cold", lights should be yellow or "warm": http://gas13.ru/tutorials/sywtbapa/51/5-2.gif

look at how the wood beams are placed in the brick wall to the left: http://screenshots.filesnetwork.com/95/news2/28276_3.jpg
I think your work could greatly benefit from this type of thing.

notice how they use different brick textures that fit with how they modeled it to make it look nice and how the lighted parts are very yellow orange and everything else is blue green: http://img.hrej.cz/ca/b4a05ce3fc727dc6602de190cf2e77.jpg

 

You mean after a few months of learning about modeling and texturing, I'm still not a Game Dev Master? :wink:

Thanks for the pics and advice, Yoggy. I actually tried to blue and purple my shadows, but wasn't sure how realistic that was. I think the problem is that I made the shadows TOO purple or blue, almost cartoonish, so I changed them back to black. I also just tried using yellow/orange with some of the lights, but wasn't sure if I should apply that in the lightmap or in Unity itself. Last night I baked it into the lightmap, along with some purplish shadows, and I got a strange mix of colors. Or maybe I'm just not used to it. I guess I have to tweak it to get it right. Do most people color their Unity lights, or bake the colored lights in their 3D modeling app? Or do they use a combination of both? I guess whatever works best....

I agree that the colored lights and shadows create more atmosphere, but I haven't quite the hang of it yet.

 

Here's a screenshot of a room with purple/blue shadows and an orangish illumination baked in C4D. I had to do a lot of tweaking in Photoshop, because the "purplish" shadows turn pink, I think from the orange light. I'm not sure how well this works. Please ignore the green light in the center. I'm thinking of changing it to a color that fits the lightmap illumination better.

I know they didn't use electric lights in medieval times (except perhaps the Knights Templar, who were actually alien robots posing as knights :wink: ), but the game is fantasy/sci fi, so it doesn't really take place in the Middle Ages. This building is part of a modern Illuminati (with alien connections, of course) stronghold.

 

I would say too much purple, not enough blue and the shadows aren't dark enough.

For indoor lighting it might not be so good. Maybe just bright orange and dark black for the shadows in there? I think the biggest thing that is keeping your map from looking wonderful is the lack of great texturing on things other than the walls and floor.

 

Yoggy said:

I realize I have a long way to go. Every day I add a little bit more. I'm going to have things standing on the table, chairs and other furniture, more variety on the walls and floors, plants, statues, lamps (that are the correct color!), doors, gates, and of course evil alien robots (found in most castles, from what I've heard). I wanted to show the level in its early stages so that I wouldn't go too far in the wrong direction, and all of this advice has helped a lot.

Here's another screenshot, this one with ambient illumination, darker, black shadows and light that might be too orange this time. I like it better, though--it has more atmosphere. I forgot to get rid of the green light, however, and I have to reverse the normals at the base of one of the pillars. I'm still experimenting with the beam thing above, too. It's going to change to a dark wood eventually.

 

That latest screenie is looking much better, the yellows and cyan are working well together. The purple is still popping out a bit too much on the table. I like that you increased the frequency of the bricks, it looks much better and doesn't suffer too much from the increased repetition. One suggestion would be to create some sort of base board or framing for where the floor and ceiling meets the walls.

I'm still unclear how you're pulling of shadow maps in a single repeating texture, but since you have the method working you should do an ambient occlusion pass on the brick textures to make it pop a little more.

It's cool to see this scene progress, keep it up man.

 

wow, progressing along nicely.

lol awesome - i can't wait!

 

That last screenshot looks a lot better! it really adds life to the room that it didn't have before. Next time you bake the lighting I would change the light color a little bit. It seems a little too green or maybe just too saturated/not light enough.

I think the blue/brown/white texture on the structures inside there really takes away from the feel. I am assuming it is a place holder but in any case it needs to go more than anything else in they picture.

I think that the brown stripes on the brick texture are ok for the floor but need to be replaced by wooden beams in the walls.

 

Agreed with the last poster. That looks great! But that blue/white pattern is repeated in too many places and is way too regular. I think the light color is just about perfect, though.

 

Thanks again for all your comments. Yeah, I'm getting bored with that repeating texture myself. Like I said, the beams above are going to change. And so will the walls. I really like the idea of the wooden baseboards and beams in the walls, Yoggy and Antenna Tree. I'll experiment with that soon. And yes, the purple table clashes too much with everything else. That's a throwback to the original Webplayer version.

By the way, this level is almost an exact duplicate of my home....

 

A new screenshot. I didn't exactly put wooden beams in the walls--more like designer wainscoting--but I did magically turn the overhead beams and the table to wood as well as get rid of the brown brickwork seams in the walls and floor.