Rahkis Andel
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Posts posted by Rahkis Andel
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You're probably just using the wrong shrinkwrap settings. Would you mind sharing a screenshot of the modifier properties and the 3d view?
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Perhaps your comment spirited the thread away!
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Medhue Simoni wrote:Compared to all the things a creator can do to drive up the rendering cost, mesh geometry could be argued to not be the most important. I've seen people use 8 1024 textures for 1 mesh. The end product and their rendering cost is a sum of all the factors.
There's something we can both fully agree on. Polycount isn't nearly as big a deal as it used to be, particularly in comparison to how fast image textures can bloat file size.
That probably accounts for the disparity you found in other Lycan avatars.
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Of course it's mesh, that's neither here nor there. Trust me when I say that just because you don't think it causes any extra lag at all doesn't mean it's true.
Imagine that there is a magic number of tris (A tri allowance) that can be drawn in one area at a time. You've got a tri for each fur strand! Maybe more, I don't know. How much of that "allowance" do you think your mesh is taking up in comparison to a model where the fur is established with a texture? Well, it's kinda like that, except the more characters drawn, the more the FPS for everyone will drop.The more optimized everyone's meshes are, the more characters can be drawn at a time at an acceptable fps.
But hey, like you said, you're just competing and I'm sure you did the best you could with the LODs and whatnot. I have nothing against your work specifically, so no offense intended. -
Medhue Simoni wrote:Tomos Halsey wrote:I'm so glad someone else is conserned about polycount on their models
That was why sl took so many resources is because of the ineffeciency of prims/sculpts. Each sculpt you use is 2048 more polygons than the last and prims themselves take many to build some of the simplest shapes so its great you are using mesh to its full potential
Yeah, even tho I made real full body fur for my Lycan avatar, he is still way more efficient than all the other werewolves I've seen, even the free werewolf that LL gives out. I had a customer in my store wearing a very nice Lycan avatar, but when I checked it's Display Cost(ARC), it was over 300k. My Lycan Avatar, fully dressed and furred up, is only around 21k in Display Cost.Comparing your lycan to any other is irrelevant.
When it comes down to it, if every avatar used partical hair just because they could, Second Life would become rather unplayable fast, I imagine. I don't want to start an argument about it, or anything -- I love your lycan. It looks amazing and I'd certainly want one.
I just dont' agree with the fur, good looking as it is.
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Chic Aeon wrote:My experience with the decimate modifier was NOT a good one.
My experience has been consistantly good. Have you played with it enough?
For heavily subdivided all-quad meshes, use the "unsubdivide" method on multiples of 2 until it starts to generate triangles. From there, just apply the modifier and delete edges by hand, it saves you a ton of time on really dense meshes.
For triangulated meshes such as the default avatar, use the "collapse" method and just keep reducing until it doesn't resemble the original anymore. Collapse holds the original shape REALLY well and best yet, it preserves UV seams. I might use this for lower LODs, for example.
It's not always appropriate to decimate your mesh, so maybe the right circumstance hasn't arrived for you to use it properly, but when it is useful, it's REALLY useful.
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Probably the root of the bone where it hinges.
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Nacy Nightfire wrote:CTL ALT Spacebar to quickly set up a custom orientation
I knew this thread would come in handy. Thanks for the tip -- That's one I didn't know of that will save time.
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Spoiler alert:
You will need to ask for Denzel Washington's permission to use his likness, and possibly any IP owner who owns the visual aspect of a character he has played as (not sure on the specifics of that).
Long story short: You probably shouldn't be doing this unless you've been asked to do so by someone with authority. -
I think the polycount looks pretty okay. I'm not sure about the topology -- it may need some improvement to prevent clipping through the avatar, but we'll see what happens when you rig it. Maybe it's fine.
The only things that bug me on it is from an anatomical standpoint. There is an unnatural dip where the shoulder-blades should be -- as though they aren't there. I'd also expect to se a crease extending down the center of the back rather than a bulge.-
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Your sarcasm isn't lost on me, but to their credit, this is the place to beg for things if ever there was one.
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Spacebar has to be the winner since it has everything in one button and can teach you shortcuts you don't already have memorized...
But other than that, here are my favorites in no particular order:[ctrl+B] (Bevel): This function and the one below replaces a lot of different edge flipping/knifing shenanigans I used to have to go through to reroute topology before B-mesh was released.
[ctrl + I] (Inset face): Same as above.Sculpt Mode: In the past, I would roughly model my shapes out and smooth them with [W -> Smooth], then expand them with [alt + S] to scale selected along normal z axis to get back some of the volume lost by smoothing. Now I can do the same thing, except with better precision and while maintaining more details with a few brush strokes.
[G -> G] (Slide selected edges/vertices): I was really happy when they added this new shortcut. Now, instead of having to go through menus to get to edge slide (or making your own key bindings -- I'm too lazy) you just double-tap G. Better yet, you can slide individual vertices the same way.
[J] (Join vertices): It took a long time to teach myself to stop using [f] (Fill face) for everything, but it was worth the confusion. Now whenever I find myself in a tough topology situation and I just need to start from a blank slate, i can use [X -> Dissolve Edge] to convert the troubled area to a big n-gon and join verts until I'm happy. Better yet, J now goes THROUGH edges. If you select 2 verts, J will now cut a vertex through any edges that get in the way, making it a bit like a more primative knife. No more having to go through the clunky process of subdividing edges or using the touchy knife tool just to add a few vertices to join to.
Last But not least [F] (Fill face): Due to the above tool, I don't use F as much anymore, but due to the F2 addon, it's now an incredibly powerful tool. In a nutshell it allows you to quickly fill consecutive faces by just tapping F repeatedly (or holding it), where in the past you would have to select each area you wanted to fill one quad at a time. Since it's detailed usage is somewhat hard to explain considering how simple the tool itself is, I'd recommend just googling "F2 addon". -
I have no answers to your questions, only more questions!
Such as if you have a full mesh avatar that is rigged to the collision bones and you try to attach something that is also rigged to collision bones, what would happen?
Good luck, I would like to see more people play with the collision bones for science so that I can continue to be lazy and learn from the sidelines. Unfortunately, my main concern is that LL will remove them at some point or replace them with something else, or change how they work. There's no guarantees here, so I'd only make items for personal use with such a "feature". -
Arunnejiro wrote:My avatar requires a tail, though it isn't a furry type tail, its more of a solid kind, not unlike that of a dinosaur, kangaroo, or gecko and I've seen tails that are animated, but not like the wolf, fox, or cat ones.. They move yet they are made up of prims...How do they do it?
Well, unfortunately, I think it's brilliant scripting math that tells each segment how to move in relation to the other. I wish I had the time to learn how those things work, but math is not really my strong suit and, so it would probably take me a long time to figure out.
Arunnejiro wrote:Second, I want to make a talkjaw, though It would be annoying to split my blender file into multiple parts and it takes up more attachment slots. I have seen anime avatars made from scratch that have various expressions. IF possible I would like to know how to make the mesh jaw without seperating it, and having it move, same with the tail.
It's possible. You'd need to rig the jaw to one of the unused bones in the head or feet. Facial expressions may complicate things, though.
Arunnejiro wrote:Thirdly, When I went in blender and automatically weighted the the bones, some of the weights were off, only some though. I attempted to paint weights by shift clicking the bones then the model, though, unlike with other armature, it wouldn't allow me to edit the weights of the individual bones... Have I done something werong or is it supposed to be this way?
It's hard for me to say what the problem is by your description. Are any of your vertex groups locked? Also, what do you mean by "the other armature"? What armature are you using now?
Arunnejiro wrote:Fourth, The hands, For hte most part the same as the others, is it possible to have mesh hands that open and close, which are rigged to one mesh? Or are there any work arounds? Otherwise I might have to have the entire model, then
There aren't enough bones to animate the hands in any meaningful way.The best you can do is link a bunch of different positions together and toggle their transparency with a script.
Arunnejiro wrote:Also, how important is triangulating the polygons? If I do, it might be a problem as I would have over 9,000 Faces..Which is more than the default avatar.
Well, here is something I can actually answer intelligently.
First, lets talk terms: As far as your videocard is concerned, all of your models are made up of triangles. Ignore the quad polygon count and yes, your model already has more faces than the default avatar. The good news is that there's nothing wrong with that.
First of all, if you are making an anthropomorphic animal character, of course it's going to have a higher polycount than a human. The head and tail require more polys -- that's a no brainer. If you are at 9k tris, you did great. Just try your best to keep it under 15k altogether.
Back when the default avatar was designed, the number of polygons in a game model mattered much more than it does now. Nowadays textures are a more pressing concern.
So with that explained, triangulating isn't something you should avoid -- in fact you can't avoid it. Your model will be triangulated upon export to collada anyway. Do as you like.
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Chopping it up shouldn't affect the poly count for any of the pieces, except in that you will need some extra polygons to fill in the holes. Some parts will naturally be more dense than others because they need more loops to deform gracefully.
Unless I'm thinking of someone else, Nicolas Bishop seems to have been the only one working on Dynotopo and so it would be hard for another developer to just pick it up anytime forseeable. That said, I'm sure it's not done evolving for good.
Anyway, it's as good as it "needs" to be for my usage. At least for now.And yeah, I highly reccomend Avastar. I don't have it personally (yet), and you could surely make do without it, but I think you'd make your money back pretty fast in the time it could save you.
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I wouldn't hold my breath for Dynotopo to "mature". It's pretty much as feature complete as it is going to be for the foreseeable future. If I recall correctly, the main developer has moved on to a real job!
Despite that, dynotopo is my new favorite thing about Blender, hands-down.
The zoom issue doesn't bug me much, just don't use it for high-frequency detail. That's not really what it's meant for and the viewport performance starts to get iffy real fast once you get up in the million poly range.
My workflow is: Dynotopo concept, retopologize, add Multires and shrinkwrap, sculpt high-res on multires mesh, down-res for game-ready model and Bake normals.
Here's a good thread that contains over 100 pages of people testing out what is possible with this "immature" feature.
As for what would be more lucrative in Second Life, the last person I'd turn to advice from is myself, to be honest.
Avatars are definitely a good market to get into since there will never really be too many people talented enough to make good ones. Plus there will probably be no end to the untapped niches in that market.
Just keep in mind the limitations of mesh. All the people with furry avatars I've ever met (including my girlfriend) have heavily modded theirs to the point where it could be made up of 2 or 3 different avatars and you wouldn't have any idea where any one part came from. If you market a full mesh avatar that is all mesh in one piece, there isn't much you can do to mod that. Heck, there isn't much you can do to clothe that, for that matter.
I think it's going to be pretty common for the head, hands feet and other extremities to be mesh but to just provide an alpha, skin and shape for the default SL avatar's body. That way people can still mix and match to their contentment.
If you want to also provide an optional mesh body on top of that, that's just an extra perk. It's up to you to decide whether that extra effort will be worth it.
So, yeah. I didn't mean that you shouldn't make an avatar, just that you should think twice about it being fully mesh all in one piece.-
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I agree. All good points.
Your process need not change, however.Use only enough mesh density to maintain a good silhouette all around and good deformation in the highest LOD. Make up for the lack of polygons with a high quality diffuse texture.
Follow those "simple" steps and those who can't see your normal maps will still see a good model. Consider this: 10k tris is still more than the default avatar has and with the right textures the default avatar can look pretty incredible (and it cannot use normal maps!). I wouldn't suggest avoiding materials just because some people wont see it. Even if it is a feature most of your customers won't use for a while, it's still a feature that will drive more sales over time.
Again, I definitely agree that it would be silly to make something that looks like crap without materials!-
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All I really meant to get across was that you should be careful as you work and be ready for setbacks.
My workflow involves sculpting in almost every step of the modeling process. I don't know how sculpting would differ from subdiv modeling on a multires surface...You don't necessarily need to abandon multires.
There is a whole can of worms here, so I'll try to keep it brief:The entire cg industry moved away from vert pushing to a sculpting based workflow all in the course of like one year -- probably starting around when you stopped a few years back. There is a reason for that -- the old way was slow and unnatural. I suggest you throw everything you know out the window, download 2.68 and start catching up with the times (CGCookie is a good place to start). In the end, your work will greatly benefit from doing so. You don't need a tablet to sculpt.
I would also reconsider starting out with a commercial full mesh avatar, furry or otherwise. There is a reason why there are so few on the market and it's not due to lack of talent. It's due to lack of interest.
If you really want to make mesh avatars, I suggest making mesh heads, hands and feet and just create skins and shapes for the default sl body. That way it's not all just one mesh object and you have to take it or leave it as it is.
Just my 2 cents. I don't want it to sound like I'm telling you not to do what you want. I reserve the right to be completely wrong
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tweetiepah wrote:I do have a question about your model, if you don't mind. Why did leave the belly button on your game mesh rather than have a flat stomach and the belly button in a normal map? Is there a reason I should do this on my model as well for other similar details? Is this for clients who have normal mapping turned off?
Unlike adults (where I'd probably do as you suggested) newborn babies have bulbous belly buttons which are rather visible from the side. Not having it would detract from the silhouette, which can't be faked by a normal map.
In this case, that extra detail has a noticeable effect on the look and feel of the model, while having a minimal impact on the poly count. That's the kind of tradeoff you're okay making on the high LOD.
This is also the first place I will start reducing the polycount for the lower LODs, since it wouldn't be noticeable from a distance.
On Multires:
Keep in mind that the multires system in Blender has it's quirks(bugs).
The rules of thumb are:
- Only up-res when necessary to get the next level of detail.
- Never go back and alter a previous level. Going back and playing with earlier levels will often cause artifacts in your higher levels that cannot be fixed without ruining all of your details.
Blender is getting better all the time and it's possible you won't run into any problems, but if you do, sometimes "apply to base" (alters your base mesh to better match the highest subdivision level) in the multires modifier panel can save you from artifacts. They usually occur in areas where the multires mesh is displaced too far from the base-mesh. Just remember that your base mesh as it originally was will be lost forever unless you saved it first.
It sounds like you're on the right path. Just be prepared to roll with the punches; making an avatar is never easy and there are many setbacks on the horizon. If you're ever stuck, this is a good place to ask questions.
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I use a mix of automated and manual edge reduction. To get to my high LOD. Note that this comes before UV unwrapping.
Edit: It sounds like you're using a bottom up paradigm, where as I use top-down. That is, I start with the highest level of detail and decimate the model for each lower LOD. I see no reason why your way shouldn't work, but personally I would find it slower and less intuitive. Blender can do a lot of the reductions for you. Also, as you pointed out, there is no half-subdivision.
For lower LODs, I would probably mainly stick to automated. If you use the decimate modifier on "collapse", it will preserve your UV seams and maintain volume well enough that you won't notice at a distance.
For the high LOD, I start by applying the subdivsions to a copied mesh (I always keep a backup with all the modifiers in tact). I sculpted up to a multires level of 4 in this case, which came out to around 1 million polygons.Then I use the decimate modifier on Un-Subdivide. It is only useful on multiples of 2 -- you'll see why as you play with it. As you can see, after 6 iterations, I dropped to a workable 14k. Note that you could go down another 2 iterations and not really have to do any manual reduction, but I found that the automated unsubdiv caused too much of a loss of volume and detail. You want to keep your game-ready mesh as similar as possible to the volume of the high poly model for best results on your normal map. Also, Blender doesn't know where to leave more edge loops to allow for good deformations.
To manually reduce, I look for main edge flows (loops that terminate at polls circled in red), select the next continuous edge loop and then pick roughly every other loop. Then just hit x and delete edge loops.
What I can't illustrate in screenshots is how I choose edge loops to keep for the sake of deformation and holding volume. Always start with the easiest way:Start by trying to quickly remove every other edge loop from different parts of the body. Note any areas that lose a significant amount of volume or shape. After that, see if you can make up for the loss of volume by moving around nearby edge loops with edge slide and alt+s to scale along normals. If you can't, undo and leave an extra edge loop or two there. You should almost always leave some extra loops around the pelvis, shoulders, mouth and eyes, off the top of my head.
It takes some extra TLC, but it's worth the extra effort for the most visible LODs.-
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I personally consider ~10k tris (Yes, tris, not quads) to be the ideal polycount for the highest LOD. That tends to be enough to get a good silhouette, and not be an impossible challenge to get all-quad.
For example, the newborn avatar I'm working on has less than 10k tris and looks like this:
The matcap is a poor simulation of how smooth it will look when materials/textures are applied in game. The normal maps will give it back the detail I sculpted in. Basically, it'll look as good as a model with double it's poly count.
So to sum it all up, I shoot for 10k and am happy as long as I stay under 15k. 20k would be my max, and that would be for something with wings or four arms or something else crazy.
I hope someone else will chime in about the lower LODs, because I'm not too knowledgeable on that aspect.-
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No modeling experience? Liar!
That's too good for someone with no modeling experience. I'm onto your tricks.
Seriously, though, keep it up. That's really cool. -
Thanks for sharing. It sounds like your experience was pretty positive, then? Your expertise transferred over pretty cleanly to SL from the sound of it.
I have yet to really got into Second Life (even now, I only test mesh in world...never to explore or talk), so I honestly don't know if this is a unique project or not, but I know I've never seen anything like it and it makes me really hopeful for what might pop up next.
It's usually takes a few talented and determined folks to pave the way for big changes in standards. Personally, I think improved interactions in SL are far more critical than just adding more verts and bigger textures (and lag as a consequence) to make everything prettier. I mean, Second Life will always be graphically several steps behind every other online game simply by nature of what it is (and isn't).
Anyway, I'll post what I'm working on soon as long as it's okay with my co-creator. -
Against my better judgement, I suspected that there were at least a handful of industry professionals in Second Life. I'm glad to see that was true!
Care to share your thoughts? Surely you could have created something more personally fulfilling outside of SL without being restrained by it's engine and scripting language. What was the result of this experiment? Was it worth it to you?
I'm a 3d hobbyist and programmer going back and forth on just how much time I'm really willing to spend on/in SL, so your input would be really interesting.
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Unfortunately, SL is not up to snuff with transparency sorting. That method would wind up looking terrible and I don't think there is any plans to fix it. Hopefully I'm wrong on that.
If there was any reasonable alternative to get the result she did, I would be more insistent.