Saturday, July 5, 2003
Well, my wedding is now less than three weeks away. Needless to say, in the next month or so, the work I'll be doing will become more sparse. I'm hoping the other team mameber can "kick it up a notch," (I hate Emril, I really do) since I'll be less active.
In any event, I asked the guys at SplashDamage about how they made their awesome caves for the ET maps. Basically, they used models for everything.
Taking their advice, I fashioned a cave mouth in 3ds Max that fits over the front of the cave. Doing in iwhs brushes would have taken some serious effort. In Max, it took me around an hour of fidiling to get the result I wanted:
Also, I've been working on making things look more worn down. You can see the results of these below:
Basically, I use a group of triangles and some vertex editing along the Z axis for the result I want. Also, some 3-point clipping, but that usually comes last.
Posted by Hummer @ 03:10 PM PST [Link] [No Comments]
Thursday, July 3, 2003
Well, after screwing around enough with triangels meshes, I think I found a method for building caves I'm happy with. I'll have to post the method some time, although, to be honest, it's fairly straight forward. Basically, I built a floor of triangles. I pulled the triangle vertecies out, like on the terrain to make it look more "organic." Next, I made two sets of walls, and did the same pulling on trianlge corners, then finally the ceiling. The solution insn't as elegant as I'd like since trianlges overlap in many places, but I suppose the end justifies the means :)
Posted by Hummer @ 08:37 PM PST [Link] [1 Comment]
Wednesday, July 2, 2003
Temple 2 | Inner Temple Layout
Here's a reskinned version of the pharoah model I'm borrowing. Compare the temple in the distance to This shot of an Egyptian temple. The temple I build is modeled entirely from this photo.
The inner temple is not however, and is adjusted for gameplay. If you follow the inner temple layout link, you'll find the work in progress shot of the temple. Essentially, that city model from a few days ago will lie in the center of this giant room. The room will contain columns (the squares set in a circular pattern), and has three entrances / exits. One from each side, and one from the back. The yellow line shows where players will have to travel. Players will need to place the staff into the model city, which will open doors that lead to a tomb, where the idol will lie.
At some point, another entrance to the temple will have to be made, or else the defense could simple camp the front temple entrance. I'm toying with opening up a small cavern next to the temple that has an alternate entrance, although it wold be somewhat slower.
Posted by Hummer @ 06:40 AM PST [Link] [1 Comment]
Monday, June 30, 2003
Well, I did the front of the temple where the replica city will lie. However, I used some outside models, and I want to get permission from the author before I post screens of my work using his models.
Also, the front of the temple, with the arch and surrounding rocks all i sight got up to around 10000 tris. Sooo.... I decided to make the map a bit less open :)
The way I think I'm going, which shouldn't alter the over all gameflow, is to make the central road to the axis base a tunnel, set inside a mountain. I raised up all the terrain in that area, although I have yet to change the alpha map. Essentially, the truck will move through a tunnel much like the tank on Fuel Depot. Also, I'm thinking about making far... bottom path I guess we can call it for now, another, smaller tunnel entrance, with access to the larger tunnel. this should totally block vis and split the map in two sections, which will really make things efficient... and allow for more detial later down the road.
Posted by Hummer @ 02:04 AM PST [Link] [No Comments]
Sunday, June 29, 2003
I modeled the replica city tonight. Just a few things to note about it. First, it's larger in scale than the movies but this is intentional. Basically, I want players to be able to move around in it, and possibly hide in it, as shown in picture three. Also, there's a greyish area that rises up out of the front of the model. That's where the staff will go. This model city will end up in an indoor temple, but is outdoors now since... the temple isn't built.
Posted by Hummer @ 12:53 AM PST [Link] [No Comments]
