New Gas Bag underway!

Sun Jul 26, 2009 3:54 am

By the way, for those of you that wanted a gasbag child, I have decided to produce two different gasbags. The one you see here will belch a smaller yet fatter and more child like gasbag that will more accurately resemble the original gasbag but with a higher poly count and detail. However, I'm not sure on how to accomplish the spawning of the child from the parents belch and may need assistance from some of our programmers here. If you think you may be able to help with that, please contact me through PM or E-mail, or perhaps I could figure it out myself by examining the old 2k4 code of the gasbag but I have no idea how or where to find such code in the 2k4 files.

Fri Jul 31, 2009 11:00 pm

I got my computer in today so work on the gasbag has commenced. I have also started a new brute. I should be finished modeling by the time I get my graphics tablet in a week or so to start my textures. I'll post more images and animation videos shortly.

Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:21 pm

Well I started back on the gasbag last night and I apologize for slacking on my duties here but I did just get a new computer that finally plays all my games on full graphics at 60+ FPS so I'm sure you can all understand. Anyways, I finally figured out why I couldn't get Blender 2.49 to work, I was missing an important C++ library which you can find here:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/deta ... laylang=en

Also you can download Blender 2.49 with a whole lot of goodies here:
http://www.blender.org/download/get-blender/

One of the things it offered which I had hoped to obtain before finishing the high poly gasbag, is a sculpt tool which uses textures in draw mode with anchor which is very nice to size and rotate the effects of the texture. It was the one thing that Blender was lacking that zbrush offered and now they are neck to neck. Textures that I can accurately and quickly draw with the new Intuos4 which I am so happy with. No regrets there. Except the regret of the other day when my foot got tangled up in the cords and yanked the front of my computer clean off... Oops! O' well, the tablet is still in good shape. Check out the textures I drew up to use with Blender sculpt tool last night:

Veins:

Flesh:

Scars:

Although I didn't get to use the new 2.49 draw achored texture sculpt tools, I think 2.48 did well enough with texture grab although it tends to be inaccurate:

And this was all accomplished last night and this morning while you all slept comfortably in your beds, psychopath Savage Mike had it all taken care of... I'm sure that will help you all sleep better at night... Or day, eh?

Enough teasing, High Poly Gasbag is finished and Low Poly is finished and I know I broke promises in the passed but I'm sure I'll be showing animations soon. By the way, no morph targets so we are stuck with some lame shaking about of the arms and very little lip movement I'm afraid... Unless something reveals itself soon because I'm so tired of researching the very limited documentation on UE3 on the net with no results. I would need a programmer to pull off using vehicle morph targets on characters. I am studying some Python and a bit of C++ but once again, documentation on UnrealScript is limited. Oh, I'll be showing some high poly models of the brute soon too.

EDIT: Oh, Ant, I have been working on your cave but it may take a few days. I want to get it right the first time this time around, and guess what? With the new computer... 8 MILLION FACES and I could push more if I wanted but that would be crazy

Wed Aug 12, 2009 1:51 pm

Wow! Looks neat with the veins and the scars.

Can't wait to see the finished product when you get the normal maps done!

Thu Aug 13, 2009 3:15 pm

Finally got the Normal computed even though my new bad ass computer would have liked to have taken a shit a few times but it worked! Here is the low poly the normal will be mapped to making appear as the following, and the UV and Normal follow.

I'll be sending the UV layout to Gimp to do my diffuse, Specular, and emmiter maps, yes he will glow a tiny bit in his pulsing veins just before he launches a fire ball at your face! Well, I best pull out the Intuos and start drawing textures, wish me luck!

Thu Aug 13, 2009 6:09 pm

People have been asking me what is the Diffuse Map and although it is a simple concept, it is actually very hard to explain. it is the color of an object with no specularity or shading. Just color. We want the Normals and shader models to do our shading and specular maps and shader models to do our shine or reflections of light. Anyway, the Diffuse Map is very plain with only color like the following:

Of coarse, I will be adding a bit more but not much, this is pretty much it. I am using Gimp with my normal as a slightly opaic layer above. i frequintly turn on and off the normal image layer to see my work like above and here it is on below. It helps me to distiguish where certain features are and it gives you an idea of shading on the finished product.

Anyways... There it is, a Diffuse Map. I still must finish it up and do some tweaking at 4096 * 4096 pixels and then scale it down to 2048 to hide any brush stokes. Then I'll pretty much use the Diffuse for my Specular just with a grey scale negative and the emmiter will be quick like.

Thu Aug 13, 2009 11:24 pm

Finished first Beta Diffuse Texture but my Normal Texture doesn't seem to be mapping to the UV correctly. Deffinately needs tweaking but aniamtions should be coming soon since I have been putting in over-time.

He may seem a bit too shiny but that is because I haven't developed Specular Maps yet. Once I do, His eyes and inner mouth will be about the same but his flesh will have much less specularity. I also must do the emmiter for the pulsing lava within the veins. I really wish the Normal Map would map correctly... Hmmm...

Fri Aug 14, 2009 12:38 am

I finally got the Normal to map correctly and you're about to see why it is so important. UT3 uses Normal Maps in its Material editor giving you the high poly look in a low poly model. The Specular Maps are still not in place but they will be shortly.

The following is without a Normal Map:

However, the next one is with Normal Map:

Here is the side of the GasBag with and without Normal Map, you should be able to tell which is which:

Here are a few more with Normal Map:

I will be fine tuning the Diffuse Map or Color Texture, which ever you prefer. Afterwards, I will change the Diffuse Map to greyscale and making it a negative, which will be my Specular Map. The Specular Power I will develop in the UE3 Editor. Thank you for being patient and it shouldn't take much longer.

If anyone has any suggestions, I am open to them. That is why I am sharing the process of building this gasbag so that you all can be a part of its assembly. You have an idea about how it should be textured or painted, please feel free to share your ideas.

Fri Aug 14, 2009 3:56 am

Isn't this the prettiest big brown eyes you ever seen?

Fri Aug 14, 2009 11:43 pm

I inverted my Normals just the way UT likes it so this is what you will see in game minus arms and animations and Specular Maps. A specular is applied but UT3 renders specular differently and much better than does Blender sadly enough:

i will need to do some fine tuning to the Diffuse as before mention because as you can see the eues overlap the flesh and some fine tuning of the Normal map must be done also.