There is probably info on this somewhere but I was unable to find it. Is the current iteration of all models in the game considered complete? I got my first few games in over the weekend and really enjoyed it, but I found myself hoping some of the unit models were still awaiting more detail/polish. The naval ships stood out the most to me in this manner. Are there any planned update passes on the art side here? Thanks guys! Great job on the beta release, everything has gone fairly smooth for me.
The Naval assets is more than anything most likely to be revised as they were only created "recently" but they had already designed a fair number of assets for the Pre-Visualization used in the Kickstarter. All in all the meshes have a fair amount of detail; Left is the UEF T1 Striker from SupCom:FA and the Right is the PA Basic Laser Tank(Ant) and in a surprising turn of events the Ant actually has more geometry than the Striker, but mostly due to the Ant using Manifold Geometry while the Striker doesn't. Also as unit roles get more fleshed out there is the possibility that individual meshes will be revised/replaced as needed over time. Mike
Thanks for the comparison, Mike. I had been curious as well of the differences, as the PA models do appear simpler but thats more in regards to the blocky style, and I wouldnt consider it of a lesser quality. Question of clarity, "manifold geometry" Just refering to a vent having actual geo rather than texture? Or am I missing on some terminology all these years.
I'm not sure the Official Term or what not but as it's been described to me it means that every polygon/triangle is interconnected, so on the Ant the Entire Hull is a single mesh, the entire Turret is a single mess and same for the barrel, and you can't move bits without potentially distorting the rest of the mesh. Compare that to the Striker where you can easily pull of some bits and they'll be a separate object essentially, if I get a chance later today I'll do up a better pic to show what I mean if it's not clear. Mike
Ohhh, I totally understand what that is. Reduces object count a great deal. We had a jungle on our show and it was full of individual leaf meshes (i know..just plain bad idea right there) I sent it back to have the outer rim of trees merged as one mesh with texture clusters instead of seperate materials. Modeler was trying to do it the fast way so materials are just thrown on per geo. Scene rendered in 1/8th the time after we reduced the object count despite poly count being the same. I might use that term, as we always just say "merged" which means about 50 things. Does that mean they are using weighting to turn the turrets instead of the conventional seperate turret? thanks
No quite, it's less about multiple objects and more about the various bits that make up the Strike not being 'physically' connected, when I do the new pic you'll understand what I mean right away. Mike
Ah so the Ant is essentially a single "water tight" mesh. There is no sneaky geo crashing through, like the front plates on the striker. Whether the striker is merged as one mesh consisting of multiple yet unconnected polys, or seperate and moveable meshes would then make a difference on how its rigged. (not a big diff though..they are tanks lol) So does the neck of the Ant turret twist like a candy wrapper when it goes all the way around?
Yeah now you got it, Watertight is a very good way to describe it actually. The turret isn't directly connected actually, so each section is watertight but the overall mesh is merged from teh 3 main components. Mike
Visual clarification for those that don't get it. The cubes on the left are non-manifold while the ones on the right are manifold. Well, actually, I think the better word would be "whole" instead of "manifold", but that's just finicking, the point is the same. Also, a possibly relevant note, manifold models are supposedly easier to texture. In the case of Uber's models, they would be wholly easier to texture because of the way they have their textures setup. Personally, I know how to texture non-manifold models, I don't know how to texture manifolds (easily at least).
This is very interesting. I would love to see more threads like this. Parts of the PA engine explained, technology behind the game, ... Thank you all for the explanation
I think the manifold method is cleaner work when it comes to unwrapping. It comes out more like those printed paper models. Non-manifold (im using these terms now btw, god it saves my brain time) geo is cool for stuff like pistons and transforming/folding machines. Baking ambient occlusion is useless on the non-manifold though...since the contact bake is stuck where you made it. So peices like that need to be excluded or done seperately and then all composited together in the end. Manifold is just one big deal, and I can imagine is a money saver in the studio. In games especially, where live AO is...hahhahaha BAHAHAHAHAAHAHAH .. SURE.
I think Uber said they were doing something with live AO, I don't remember the "tech" name for it. It was used in Cryengine, that much I remember. I say this while my Graphics card stares at me angrily. I think this sumarizes manifold texturing easily: Manifold results in more warping (meaning that the texture may be stretched or compressed), but it also is easier on the texturer. I still personally prefer non-manifold. Less polygons, and easier to understand textures so long as you have a high-contrast AO map to go off of.
Generally you start with a single mesh, then uvmap that and then create the texture. If you're doing it the other way around, you probably would run into difficulties skinning a single mesh. The main benefits of single mesh is efficiency. It means you can have fewer contiguous uv maps, and less texture space wasted on unseen geometry. It does result in more polygons for the same number of vertices, but apparently that's not the problem you'd think it is.
