LO-POLYmodels and textures in-game shots

[Polaris]

Thanks, everyone with all of your help here in the forums...

To say thanks I thought I would post some shots of my work... I am realy proud of this work, and I owe it all to ZBRUSH, Pixologic, and this forum...

I learn something new from almost every post I read....

The only things I didnt make in zbrush is the HUD, the weponds, and the grass texture...

grass was made with a small 100x100 pice of a photo I use a microfeature resampler on and made a 512x512 seamless texture...

Everything else was made with Zbrush and Unreal ed (editor for unreal tournament 2003 just made the basic shell out of BSP everything else is static meshes all made with Zspheres and are the lowest poly models I have ever made...

While my team mates are planning contorting, cutting and bending their meshes, I already have a zmodel done.

while they are begining to model in their editor I am beginning to texture my model...

While they are UV mapping, I am placeing the meshes in my map and planning what else to make :)

Zbrush is Great for people that map like me, I can have a concept, and then make whatever I thought up in almost no time at all...

this is realy keeping my creative juices flowing, and my productivity has gone up 200%
and I am looking realy profesional without much effort..

Well enjoy the Pictures, any Comments , suggestions, or if you just plain wat to say THAT SUCKS, Is totaly welcome!

Please remember they are realy lo-poly and I am a real newbie at textureing...

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200303/user_image-1046923325urs.jpg

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200303/user_image-1046923504iju.jpg


http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200303/user_image-1046923626pcv.jpg


Well in closeing, If I keep improveing as fast as I have in the past few days, I will be at a profesional level in no time!

ZBRUSH is the best money I have ever spent!I am learning textureing and modeling in the same APPLICATION!!!

Zbrush centrail Forums are the most helpful on the planet!
Thanks again all :)

[gummie]

Hey, that is really awesome! :)
I wouldn't mind playing in that game, it does look really professional. :) :tu:

I didn't wanna be a moron, so I double checked your post, I gotta say those are some terrific, great looking leaves. Your texturing brings out the best as well, really nice job. :tu:

PS, how many polygons did it take to get the round trees? I always end up with square faceted meshes in the low poly area.

[Polaris]

Thanks for the complement Gummie!

I want to be a Profesional Video game maker some day,and Zbrush is going to make my resume full of great stuff like this, and in little time...

The mod is free you can find it on planetunreal.com/junglewarfare.

Hope this mod gets me a job! I am getting tired of makeing stuff in my free time... I want to do it for work, and then go do other things with my free time (like find a girlfriend)!


The meshes weigh in at about 900+polys not including the tops... tops are half spheres with a 2 sides masked texture on them..and tops are 32 polys each. they are kind of large for lo-poly, but I am useing them in realy small Rooms (zones) like this so the computer only renders the visable meshes...so I am stuffing the rooms full of polys and still getting AWESOME FPS! this map will have eyecandy ( also known as Zcandy here LOL!) all over my map!

the aztec/mayan theme will be great,I can practice my modeling on the statues, and learn alot about makeing/textureing player models in the process. useing all my experements for just simple map decorations :)... I like recycleing my efforts to useable stuff while I learn :)

I made the leafs in Zbrush on a 2d texture with a black background,and a 3d leaf tool I made out of a mesh I made with a unified skin from zspheres,textured with texturemaster and then de-flated them, to make them flat with a modified toy plastic material then I used Texture maker to make the black and white masks, and paintshop pro to port the image over to a TARGA .TGA file with a alpha channel to make the clear parts.


well thanks all, I will post more shots when I get new rooms done, I want to do another room tonight, so I will have more shots for you all tomarrow, or tonight..

[DMerchen]

Polaris, are the trees modeled with Z and everything else done with the world editor? Just curious. It looks great, just what I would expect in a game I would buy. The trees are awesome, and definitely fits the mood of the Aztec temple. Are they destructible? Another just curious. Anyway, it looks great. Best of luck to you! :tu:

[juandel]

WOW! - absolutely fantastico!

- juandel

[RazorX]

Hey polaris, I was actually looking into zbrush for putting stuff into UT2003. Do you think you could post the steps for getting it into the game after you model it, with the textures correct and all. I would really apreciate it.


Actually its funny. I was actually looking into it for the purpose of making a tree, a really big one though.

[Polaris]

ERmmmm @ DMerchen
I knew I forgot something.... when I was explaining how to make the tops I thought I mentioned it.... but looking back now I see I forgot to mention how I made the spheres..

I used a 3d conversion/modeling tool called milkshape by Chumbalumb software to make the spheres, for one top I used a top half of a shphere (just selected and deleted the bottom polygons).... Duplicated it and fliped the normals (polys) so the face is on the inside of the sphere... scaled the sphere a little smaller than its parent... and placed it inside the parent, and welded the front edges.... then I welded it to the tree...

the tree base I also optimised a little bit, I took all the branch tops and selected them 1 by 1 and welded all the vertexes so the branches came to a complete point (eleminated 17 polys per branch WOOT!)

all the group tops I have welded to the branch points (someone told me if you have objects all welded together in model you get better FPS even if it is just 2 points)

the only thing I made in the world editor is the lighting, the map shell (BSP... all of the big blocky cubes), and the terrain..

UT2003 comes with a cool terrain system in it... you can have like 8 diffrent textures that you use to paint terrain textures on the terrain... realy easy to make roads, and trails you just paint them on in real time!

well sorry I forgot about milkshape... I use that to convert my meshes from OBJ to LWO files, and also I have to use it assign the groups to the texture... If I get texture names wrong unreal ed wont import it textured, and I have to go back enter the texture names manualy (wich dosent always work)... and I use it for realy simple stuff like half and quarter spheres , and poseing stuff, and makeing sure that they are on a grid of 8x8 and centered...


But all of the visual goodness I made with ZBRUSH the rest was no skill technical BS!

is there a way I could have imported the half meshes and posed them with the trunk and exported a completed tree? if so let me know I much prefer Zbrushes controls over milkshape and lightwave when dealing with 3d objects...plus I could have contorted the half spheres with the 3d tools, so they didnt look soooo round..... well guess I could still do that just with the spheres alone and then just pose them later!

wow cool idea!

in the upcomeing shots expect to see more realistic looking tops :)

[Polaris]

@ RazorX

ummm just texture it in zbrush and export your mesh as an obj... and open up milkshape and import your file, select all, and press CNTRL-W to weld all. your mesh should be white now... change your 3d view to textured and press the materials tab in the controls menu, in the material menu press on the button that has you texture name on it. this is the open texture menu now go select the texture so it opens in milkshape....

now the important part you will see a text blank that has the words default material in it... TYPE THAT NAME EXACTLY! and then press the assign button again...

now just export the model as a lightwave 6.5 file and go import you texturefile in unreal ed... then save texturepack.. then go to staticmesh browser and import your LWO file... and Volla! all you have to do is scale it and it is ready for ingame....

the reason I mention milkshape is that it is only like $20 compared to lightwave $1500 and 3d studio max aprox $3000....plus the steps in both lightwave are a pain in the butt! and the plugin to convert 3ds stuff to unreal is a pain to use also...

and dose a bunch of diffrent game engines from quake 3 to return to castle wolfinstein, from unreal to kingpin...

If you are makeing any game content, you should have milkshape just to convert back and forth between game engines...

and to make your textures, and models , and skins USE ZBRUSH! ZBRUSH RULES!!!!!

The best software I have ever purchased... I had demo less than a week before I bought it!

I have never been so enthusiastic about a pice of software before!

I am convinced that with my imagination and and Zbrush and a little time, I will get that Job I am looking for!!! my mapping and textureing have never looked so real!

ZBRUSH RULES!!!!!

[RazorX]

Thx alot for the help, sounds simple compared to stuff Ive heard other people going through.

[rhom]

beautiful work!(And you named some of my favorite games)

[M.G]

This is great stuff Polaris, it does look professional. The texture on the leaves works very well too. :tu: :tu: :tu:

[drjjwow]

very professional looking atmosphere.. thanks for posting it.

[zerobugetgamemaker]

Excellent stuff Polaris, and good luck with getting a job. :tu: :tu: :tu:

David

[Fux0r]

verry nice texturing on EVERYTHING, looks really nice.... hope ya get the job. gl

[Savant]

Nice work :D

You mean I can do it all in Zbrush and not even use Max at all then?

Can Zbrush export ready for UED too?
That would be nice, Zbrush sounds much easier to use than Max is and less bloated controls :)

[Polaris]

Ummm,
If you are planning on makeing stuff for UT2003, I would definatly have another 3d App if I was you... then you can be realy selective when you are optimiseing the models... also like the treetops I made, I used an application called milkshape to do it...

I dont like 3d studio either... I use lightwave Myself, and for simple stuff I use milkshape... 3d studio is way overpriced in my opinion...

anyways thanks for likeing my work :)

BTW the tree base (trunks) are not optimised at all nor are the statues or the pillars... all this was from ZBRUSH without modifying it except for changeing it from an OBJ file to a LWO file (unreal imports lightwavefiles :) )

made them with Zspheres :)

[havran]

Very useful thread, Polaris :tu: :)

I was about to give up on Milkshape because my imported OBJs were always black -- but I figured ZBC might have a thread about it --now I know what to do

For one thing, I didn't have "textured" view checked in the right-click menu in the Perspective viewport -- perhaps if I had read the texturing example in MS3D's help system :rolleyes:

But with my lack of experience I never would have guessed about selecting all, then welding

A major hurdle overcome! Now I can plan to export things to Blitz3d to make goofy little walkaround levels with odd artifacts and ambient music :D

Best wishes for your career :)

Kevin

Update: well it's not much, but my goal this weekend was to get ZBrush models and textures into Blitz3d at all -- now I can go work on my modeling and painting skills :D

http://www2.zbrushcentral.com/uploaded_from_zbc/200306/user_image-1056242516gdn.jpg

[Polaris]

It was luck that I figured out about the select all and CNTRL-W (weld all) ..

I was just trying to port a mesh over to unreal, then I selected a vertex and welded it and part of the mesh turned white... then I selected all and CNTRL-W and Volla! I had a mesh again :)

The textureing part was the hardest part of milkshape for me... If it wasnt for a mapping friend I made a few years ago I would have given up an milkshape also...

well I am glad to be of help :)

[Polaris]

No, Savant... you have to use some other program to port things over to unreal. you have to take the OBJ file that ZBRUSH makes and convert it with some other utility... I use milkshape, but sometimes I use Lithunwrap, or Lightwave to port the models over....

anyways I dont suggest useing 3dstudio or GMAX the controls are quite complex... I suggest useing LIGHTWAVE for games just because of the scaleing... in 3ds you have to scale everything after you port it over... lightwave units = unral units, so it is realy easy to scale things in lightwave...

well hope that helped you out...