MwGek - Showcase

Nalin · Post by **Nalin** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 3:18 pm

Mwgek wrote:would you prefer a single slope or more sloped steps?

A single slope, we can texture on the raised lines - or you could model them I suppose if you feel like it.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Thu Jan 05, 2012 10:15 pm

Is this more to you liking?

I'm pretty happy with the result, but the brown textured parts need some other on it. But please keep posting points to improve it, that really helps me.

I'll make the door model soonish and post the Uv-map. So far it all goes quite nice. Been sketching for the balcony variations and window variations.

And what do you mean with bugshell on the doorframes. Like retextured redoran? Got picsur?

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/9/drestesting.png/][img]http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8455/drestesting.th.png[/img][/url]

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Thu Jan 05, 2012 10:58 pm

Looking sweet. Slightly concerned about how much floorspace those doorways take up. Some more just plain 'doorframes' with minimum extension from the wall would be very helpful variants for maximum customisability. Less ostentatious.

Nalin · Post by **Nalin** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:33 am

I really like it. With regards to the bug shell on the doorways; the darkness to them comes from dark crushed bug shell mixed with resin that is applied over the doorway. I like the idea of some of them being less finished than most as depicted in the concept I posted. Don't worry about the texture for it right now, the geometry is more important. We can do a straight swap later on with a final texture.

Slightly concerned about how much floorspace those doorways take up

And those are just the small ones. I don't envisage the Dres living closely packed together in rows like you'd find in a normal city. I'm thinking more big courtyards and open spaces with clusters of buildings. The tighter, narrower parts can still be had in between these clusters with a little creativity in building placement.

[url=http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/9131/dreslargemanor.jpg][img]http://img824.imageshack.us/img824/9131/dreslargemanor.th.jpg[/img][/url]

[url=http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2660/layoutsk.jpg][img]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/2660/layoutsk.th.jpg[/img][/url]

City planning isn't my area of expertise but I've put together this example quickly to try and help visualize possible layouts and how it shouldn't be an issue.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Fri Jan 06, 2012 9:57 am

Just from a utilitarian perspective, a just plain doorframe variant would be good. For use as a backdoor/sidedoor, or for small out of town farms or whatever. It would also help when there are doors on the walkways between buildings like in that screenshot.

Regardless of what you're thinking, it would be nice for exterior modders to have maximum flexibility! (e.g. with only these doorways, Dres buildings cannot be placed on slopes)

Nemon · Post by **Nemon** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:01 am

Yes plz to both variants. Small and big.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:48 am

For small doorways do you want the ones that are on the upper level, I really like the idea these doors with bugshell that make the dres set stand out from the rest.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:44 am

These things are supplemental and for the convenience of exterior modders: just a very thin doorway that holds a door piece, whilst still keeping enough of the Dres look, is what's needed. It will probably be for less fancy entrances, so doesn't need to be very elaborate, and shouldn't be. The key thing is that it take up little floor-space. In terms of dimensions, not extending much further out than the door itself.

For the grand doorways themselves, might it work well to have some variants with the ramps up to them going in different directions? (so rather than just the present I shape, you could have an L shape which hugs the wall, a T shape like that but has two ramps for the grandest of the grand, a U shape that actually bends round the side of the building) Would allow for more variety in a place with lots of buildings.

Nalin · Post by **Nalin** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:03 pm

Adding less horizontally stretched doorframes will no doubt be necessary, I just don't want them to end up replacing the tunnelled ones as stylistically they're an important part of the set. Using flatter ones alongside them is fine.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 5:37 pm

Guess we have to deal with less cool doorways

. Meanwhile I update the inside of the doorways to handle a circular door model. But I can't think of a good way to model it, I'm not sure what should do. Maybe like the telvanni door just round and slightly circular to the center and do the carving with texture? Or smooth what I got now and take that as a door.

Also made other variations of the balcony and mirrored the one I had. And made variations to the windows.

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/694/drestesting.png/][img]http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/8455/drestesting.th.png[/img][/url]

Nalin · Post by **Nalin** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 10:51 pm

[url=http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6455/doorpaint.jpg][img]http://img209.imageshack.us/img209/6455/doorpaint.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Yeti · Post by **Yeti** » Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:20 pm

Really awesome stuff here Mwgek. Its great to finally see the Dres set coming together.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 12:52 am

Thanks Yeti, we are doing our best

.

Screen for today: (New windows and a Tear-Banner, do we still need a Dres symbol like the Telvanni on that banner?)

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/441/drestesting.png/][img]http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8455/drestesting.th.png[/img][/url]

greendogo · Post by **greendogo** » Sat Jan 07, 2012 10:56 am

Hey guys, nice work! I'm getting excited again! I'm glad you've kept on it Mwgek.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sun Jan 08, 2012 12:25 pm

The Tear banner is cool: I think TR has a Dres banner like that Telvanni one, but in big-size. The Dres symbol there is the Skyrender (giant wasp).

On the walkways and rooftops, would it be possible to find a texture closer to Nalin's sketch: grey rather than black? I think this colour scheme works very well.

[url=http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/4701/dressmallmanor.jpg][img]http://img823.imageshack.us/img823/4701/dressmallmanor.th.jpg[/img][/url]

Playing around with the set, I also noticed that the windows and doors rotate rather awkwardly: could it be fixed so they rotate around their own centre?

When you've got the basic set finished Gek, I have a few thoughts about extra pieces that could be added in order to maximise usability and coolness. Everything so far is looking great.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:07 pm

Thanks for the interest again.

The doors rotate around the buildings. So you can gridsnap them to a buildings edge. So they do need to have a bigger rotation. It's like most other house sets, you fist need to build a house and then move and rotate in in the right place on the landscape.

As for the windows, the are older files and got deleted. New ones will be in de next upload. And yes I need to center the rotation pivot on those.

Texture are of later concern. They can be swapped anytime without any big extra effort.

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:14 pm

Ah, I thought that might be the case on the doors. Problem is that on a house bigger than 2x2, they just rotate into the middle of the building and you've got to rotate the camera and muck about a bit to get them out, which is a nuisance when you're placing many doorways in a crowded city!

Is there a way to keep their grid-snap settings whilst still moving their point of rotation? Or does the grid-snap rely on where the rotation point is?

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 1:34 pm

Well I could check the dimensions to get it right but it mostly works that way on bigger things like the bridges. Because if I place the door in the center of the worldspace like the building (x=0/y=0/z=0). The building (2x2) is 256 units wide to x and y sides. The door on the other hand is maybe 30 units. This is not and multiple of 64 which is the general gridsnap in MW CS. So if you then move the door 4x gridnsap to a side it moves 256+30 (dimension on the door) making it be placed at 286 and the other side bleeding the building.

So in short, the morrowind vanilla doors are either inbuild or like the COM tileset manually placed without gridsnap. So I thought since the dres walls are sloping and a pain to place manually. I made the door rotate to snap always the correct location, which leaves no room for errors if used correctly.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 3:27 pm

Uploading new version of the nifs.

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/406/drestest.png/][img]http://img406.imageshack.us/img406/4963/drestest.th.png[/img][/url]

Inludes:
Updated windows (4x) (better rotation and smaller version for more playful use in cs)
Balconies (2x) More coming
Improved doorways
Doorlantarn (Nalin's work)

Say what you think.

Post by **Haplo** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:06 pm

I think the issue BC was concerned about is that sometimes exterior modders will want to place doorjambs 2/3 of the way along the wall or even 1/3 of the way, because the interior will need to be set up a specific or certain way which won't really be possible if the door has to be in the exact middle of the wall each time.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sun Jan 08, 2012 4:18 pm

Well, you can put the door where ever you want. Download the file and try. With the gridsnap it snaps at the right location with rotation, then either move left or right on the x or y axis (with gridsnap if you want the standard measurement for the interiors) and without if you want to be different.

But well I can get rid of it, which means you have to make sure the wall is not caspering with the door. And that it doesn't bleed because that would look bad with the texture. Just try it, maybe download the file and you'll see its easy to have it this way..

Made the balcony with arches to put urns in and made one with a straight slope instead of the corners. Going to make them with the arches too and then I think the balcony things are done (7x). Maybe look into a balcony that fits a door under it.

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/580/dresh.png/][img]http://img580.imageshack.us/img580/5069/dresh.th.png[/img][/url]

Nalin · Post by **Nalin** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 2:56 pm

The arches work well built into the back of the rampway like that - some on the side of the rampway instead of the back might look good too. The Temple building I uploaded for you has these arches in it (as I'm sure you noticed - I'm figuring that's where you got them from) though on a larger scale. One of the possible ideas behind them was to have stalls nestled into the them with merchants selling religious paraphernalia, much like the stalls outside the Gnisis temple.

I'll sketch an awning or two to fit those alcoves for you along with some other overhanging bits that fit onto the basic geometry of the rest of the set.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Tue Jan 10, 2012 4:03 pm

That would be appreciated. Could you maybe also take the time and download the file and (maybe maybe

) model the door yourself? I have trouble getting it right.

ApelCiH · Post by **ApelCiH** » Tue Jan 17, 2012 11:07 pm

I think you should fix smoothing groups, apply vertex weld till 0,0001, and draw vertex shading.
Also you doing wrong matterial settings for ex meshes.
Here is example, i fixed one of your mesh.
By the way you can also fix mapping, because corners of those meshes somewhere is non-tiled.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Mon Jan 23, 2012 6:06 pm

Thnx for the imput, but I'm not sure what you changed besides vertex paint. And that is still on my to do list.

Going to make some progress on this soon. Been quite busy of late.

Worsas · Post by **Worsas** » Mon Feb 20, 2012 12:14 am

How is this coming along?

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Tue Feb 21, 2012 2:09 pm

Didn't found any time lately. Fired up Max a few times and did some minor adjustments. Besides that, nothing much.

greendogo · Post by **greendogo** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:25 am

Are you still planning on working on this in the future?

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:35 am

MWGek has been fixing a depressing number of our models in TR_Data. I recall him saying that he was looking forward to finishing that job, then finishing the dres set.

greendogo · Post by **greendogo** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:37 am

I like how fixing errors is what he's looking forward to, and not finishing the set. That speaks volumes to why it hasn't been finished in years past.

Thrignar Fraxix · Post by **Thrignar Fraxix** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 11:41 am

greendogo wrote:I like how fixing errors is what he's looking forward to, and not finishing the set. That speaks volumes to why it hasn't been finished in years past.

finishing the set is what he is looking forward to so he can get back to what he prefers, making the dres set.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 12:42 pm

I would like to see this finished also, but we really had some problems with the models in SE release which had great inpact on FPS and needed to be fixed. Now I am finishing off the Necrom meshes, that have been left dead for some time now. And some are in bad shape, but mostly the problem is lack of collision and bad model structure.

It's not that I like to do this, but I don't see anyone else around picking that up so...

On the update side of things. Aeven offered a helping hand for the dres texture tileset(maybe you get your deco textures then

. So I will upload a basic building mesh with dummy textures for Aeven to play around with.

Why · Post by **Why** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:15 pm

I'm a bit late to this party but things like

Nalin wrote:I can sort out some alpha mapped decals to add around the doorways and windows and such when the set is done

would definitely be a great addition. Paintings, ancestral imagery, religious texts and such, especially if they can just be gridsnapped onto walls.

Great work so far, to everyone involved.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 4:54 pm

That is something I already experimented with, it looks a bit pasted on (similar to the 6th house drawings in vanilla). But it should be perfectly possible to have that around some of the doors. But that is for a later stage when questers/dialogue people know something about the npc living there.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:03 pm

Update since I will focus on this stuff in the time ahead.

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20/testnie.png/][img]http://img20.imageshack.us/img20/9766/testnie.th.png[/img][/url]

This is going to be the basic texture-set that I'm going to work with. From here we could make variations or swap textures for better ones. Just want to make a basic tileset finished.

Nemon · Post by **Nemon** » Thu Jun 21, 2012 4:44 pm

I can see myself making perfect exteriors with statics like that.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 6:30 pm

Update: Main building geometry is complete, just need to make a slight variation in the wall texture for upper level and the topper.

Started on finishing door/window texture. After some failures I'm happy with this crushed bugshell door. Sign of status among the Dres. Going to make 2 variations with incomplete bugshell paste, for lesser Dres. I hope to bring that light greenish color back in some of the other stuff for Dres.

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/545/testtsg.png/][img]http://img545.imageshack.us/img545/8721/testtsg.th.png[/img][/url]

Post by **Haplo** » Sat Jun 23, 2012 8:42 pm

Bloodthirsty Crustacean · Sat Jun 23, 2012 10:47 pm

Really great, and the green's an excellent touch.

If poss, remember to include as discussed way back a simple additional 'just-doorframe' mesh that can be used in cramped places and on more complex terrain.

Mwgek · Post by **Mwgek** » Sun Jun 24, 2012 7:05 pm

Yes I will make a smaller version, but I don't like it

.

Here is an update: WIP on door, Doorframe/windows are about done.

[url=http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/849/testac.png/][img]http://img849.imageshack.us/img849/7483/testac.th.png[/img][/url]