StaticMesh Architect

[Veleran]

Two pics of a StatichMesh Arch on a Niche.The surrounding walls,marquees and floor are bsp,the niche arch hole is done with a custom cut brush that is hemispherical at the top.
The mesh is no collision and i have some low poly clip brushes for the arch and pillars.






The textures are temporary and the hall is empty-i took the pics to examine later if the mesh really fits at that size to the block which is 128x 128.
I plan to incude small shadows in the arch textures so it can fit more with the bsp shadows.

First i had created the arch with bsp in max and exported it as bsp,but the sizes of some brushes was low-3 texes depth and width so they got distorted in import,so i sacrified the bsp shadows-which were too small anyway-and choose to make a similar staticmesh.

I have less portals now-anyway- if it was bsp i could add clip brushes over the solid brushes to reduce the portals.

[Veleran]

This is bsp of some untextured marquees i was checking if they projected enough to be visible at most angles,before i clone them to other walls.
Such small brushes with 2-3 texels height/depth needs screen antialising for the far views but for the moment i dont use antialising to gain some speed.
I would like to add spider webs in the corners,skeletons,bones,carpets and broken stones on the floor,and various hangings on the wall like skulls,sheilds,trophies,bookcases,cubboards,maps etc.

The two holes on the base of the wall block is for spiders to immerge,and i would propably place there no collision bars actors.

[Veleran]

Here are some sliced primitives if anyone wants them in a .3dt.
Maybe a new Editor will have have better primitives than these,but i thought maybe someone may use them.
Resize as you like.Two hemispheres can be used together (the bottom as a cut brush)
to form a dome.
The siced cylinders csn be used with a box under them and cut a hole for a door or a round arch.


By veleran at 2008-11-24

[SucOcuS]

Wow man, I really like the first 2 pics !!

[Veleran]

Some arches i made.Still untextured and empty.
All is Bsp except the round pillars-which are staticmeshes and have smaller than them solid,non transparent cylinders inside them for collision and the shadow casting.
Staticmeshes dont render well with transparent brushes projecting out of them,that why i used solid brushes.
Ithink the staticmeshes pillars are too dark because the light has already faded when it reaches them,and i did nt want to raise their ambient much.
For unknown reason the nearby bsp is brighter.

It gets slow when you look at them because i used small lightmap scale for most of the arch brushes,
because some faces appeared blackened.
Maybe i should select these faces and use smaller lightmaps to these only-i m not sure i will delete all these arches,but it is possible.
Or more possible i will optimize it a little by removing the top brushes from the balcony (the top is a balcony/passage).


By veleran at 2008-11-25


By veleran at 2008-11-25

Here is a more far view.The closer walls are still bare.


By veleran at 2008-11-25

[SucOcuS]

Wow man, with every pic you show i get more impressed.

The top of the building is just superb!!

BTW, is the framerate too low with this sort of architecture??

Anyway, great level man.

[Veleran]

Many parts of the bsp have small -or curved faces and that is why they need small lightmaps in order not to get blackened.
Higher lightmaps than 0.5 produce black faces.It is playable but slow when the view rotates.
I tried lightmap scale 20.0 to see the difference and it got more ugly than faster.


So these arches supporting the balcony above,can keep the speed at a normal rate only if it was a staticmesh.
With slightly smaller Bsp inside the mesh -just the basic shapes-for blocking the pawns view,camera collision and for at least casting some shadows on the wall behind to help blend with the sourounding bsp and keep some of the atmosphere feel.

The absence of lightmaps,the lower poly solid bsp inside it which produces less portals than the original would help the speed.

If i add the arches as staticmesh i also have to place the light closer because ussually the light is exhasted when it reaches the staticmesh.

Very big bsp walls and very small lightmaps slow down the framerate.
That is why i split the very big walls to small ones,so i can settup the lightmaps indepedently for each wall face,as long as there are no shadows passing form one piece to the other.
In this case,i leave spaces between shadow casting buildings.

So,i have to replace the bsp with staticmesh architect as the topic title says,and i will post then some more.It will look fake compared to the bsp,but at least it will be more playeable.

[Veleran]

I will re model the arches with much less detail,and i am thinking to remove the big pillars (256 units not very big) and use square bsp brushes for the columns too.
So,it is more bsp than staticmesh architect that the topic title describes.
Anyway,i managed to model something that runs fast (all bsp) and i have to cut out windows,doors and add supports for the bridges,(underneath them,and over).

One of the good things with tall towers is that you can add on the walls groteaque shaped heads for firepoints like burning oil and molted lead,to fire when you are underneath them, at a high rate with slow projectile speed and gravity on,and then pause firing for a while.

The newer brushes are less shape detailed,but at least the performance is good.I have to also say goodbye to the many marquees i had started to add to the short wall blocks,because from afar you can see many rooms and passages at once.

Here are some (untextured) pics:


By veleran at 2008-11-28


By veleran at 2008-11-28


By veleran at 2008-11-28


By veleran at 2008-11-28

Such architect looks better from above,but i have nt yet added floors that are higher than the towers.
(many times when i read the word "towers",i keep remember the very funny john cleese "Faulty Towers" tv series).

[Agentarrow]

'tear

I can't believe how grown up this makes our little engine look.

Anyway, it's quite good. Any chance you do sci-fi?
just kidding.

[Veleran]

I like sci-fi and played Mdk 1 and total anihilation (TA) for years.
I would play supreme commander now if my computer allowed it.
I did much Sci-fi work when i re-worked 3rd party unts for TA and modeled mesh details and higher res textures.
The standards for sci-fi are somewhat higher than fantasy if you take a look at star wars and other movies of the genre.

Generaly stations are very common,and these need much work,and the level textures are of more complex design and variety than fantasy-which uses old traditional materials,and these materials like stone and wood restrict the architect design to more simple forms than sci-fi.