[WIP] Static Objects

[Salmonella]

I increased the roof's LOD, and made some adjustments on the color,


but here I come again with new issues, shadows...I mean, the green arrows is where the shadow are good, and the red the bad ones.

Why that weird jagged shadows? I've modeled all the parts with the same technique, the windows covers uses the same shader of the roof, why they behave different?
I'm really upset with it.
I read on other sites that it maybe due light map quality/setting, but this was shot on final/2048, and you see some self shadows and ground shadows perfectly, and only few weird!

[GhostDance101]

Are you really 100% sure you generated 2048 lightmap for that? for a static that size 512 is as high as i would go...
The jagged lines look a lot like aliasing from a low res lightmap tbh.
Maybe add a screen shot of the lightmap dds might help us work out whats wrong.

Also sometimes the exporter can end up messing up the uvs for the lightmaps, which it generates when you export, this can cause artifacts and glitches in the shadows. But this looks a lot more like pixelation in the lm most likely due to low res and the bf2 editor being rubbish.

[Salmonella]

I'm triple sure about the 2048 texture, at least if I set lower resolutions the things get worst.
Don't know if the 2048 refers only to terrain lightmap size, but I noticed, when I set 2048 it generate 256x256 shadows, 1024->128 and so.

That’s the "full size" shadowmap it generates when I set 2048/final quality.

[GhostDance101]

Yep that's a 256 size lm. The lightmap size is dictated by the lightmap sample files when generated with the bf2editor . You need to set it in the export window like so to generate Biger ones.
Well that's for 3dsmax.... don't have a clue about maya....

[[R-DEV]Rhino]

256 should be fine for a building of that size, just that sort of stuff happens when you LM in the BF2 editor. If you lightmapped the object in Max it would be fine.

How many tris is your building now? doing a zigzag roof takes up quite a few tris, I know I've done it on a few of my models but I wouldn't do it on a building that appears a lot tbh unless it was necessary to make it look good.

[Salmonella]

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Rhino

If you lightmapped the object in Max it would be fine....

Theres any way to make only the lighmapping in 3ds, I mean making all modeling, UV etc in Maya, then do the lightmapping on the exported model in Max?

The only thing I found about lightmaps in maya
Unity Community // View topic - Making lightmaps in Maya (tutorial)

Originally Posted by [R-DEV]Rhino

How many tris is your building now? doing a zigzag roof takes up quite a few tris, I know I've done it on a few of my models but I wouldn't do it on a building that appears a lot tbh unless it was necessary to make it look good.

lod0 -1340/ lod1- 928/ lod2 - 316, but I don't think the zig-zag is the reason, even the lowers lods went wrong,


Just a small doubt, how is the process of "Audit" for models? In communty foruns says only about maps audits, but how it works for models?

[GhostDance101]

To lightmap your model in 3dsmax follow this tutorial. The fact it's made and exported with Maya should not make any difference.

Link

[Salmonella]

for sure, even with no experience in 3ds, it gives faster and smoother shadows than the BFeditor.. nice tutorial...


now that I know that my model's shadows will work, I'll back to modeling... there are many more houses to go....

[Salmonella]

hey folks, I really need a brief on how the models are evaluated!!!
I know that only when we make our first build it will be sent to Audit, but at this time will be too late to change the possible errors not only on maps but on all the models, it will be a huge massive absurd waste of time.

I mean, can I have one of my models "pre-audited" so I can take this as a standard one and make all others within the same guidelines? It will spare me months of re-work if something was wrong.

So, this model I was showing in the current week, is pretty much done, all lods, cols, lightmaps tested, just waiting new textures from Rhino or not.


Can I send it for you guys? so you can say "OK, thats it!" or "NO, you need to fix this, this, this..."

[GhostDance101]

Well the first thing I would say is you could make it look a lot better by adding some nice dirt layer and also some crack layer would be good...
Apart from that you could add some extra stuff to the lod0 like some electrical cabling or tv areal or something to jazz it up a bit...

Your model looks very well optimized as it is... and the cols look good.

Really the best way to get some good critical feedback is send it to Rhino. He will let you know if something is wrong. But the only way to be sure it works 100% is to just test the hell out of it and fix any bugs that you see.