Community Food and Drink Textures!

[hoik 415]

Hey guys having a bit of trouble ( I posted this in sausage kings tute as well, but thought I might get a faster response here):

Now do the same thing for the 1.000 and 2.000 LODs. (you'll need to double click to select them) Double click what??

EDIT: ok figure out what to do with the LOD's. Texture is still not working!

This is the only part I'm not sure about (from Sausage Kings tute), could it be because I haven't done this that I get this error message in game:

It's clear that the actual texture has been packed in the .pbo,

I have tired applying existing textures (the bacon one) and I get the same error (saying it cant find the bacon texture). There is obviously some problem with how I have associate the texture with my model but I can't figure it out! The textures show up in bulldozer though :( .

Any help will be appreciated.

Edited April 20, 2013 by Hoik

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

I think the issue is the \SQF directory in your string. Copy your dayz_communityassets directory to your \z\addons\ dir and then update your paths associated with your models, textures, and anything you've changed in the various config files. (just go through and delete the \sqf\ from anything you've added)

It should look like "z\addons\dayz_communityassets\book_black_clean512_co.paa".

Once you do that it should work. :)

edit: Half awake.

Move all of your directories from z\addons\sqf\ to z\addons\ just in case. Then update your paths in your various files. It'll just save you some headaches later on. :)

Edited April 20, 2013 by SausageKingofChicago

[leviski 2152]

So much creativity here I love it

[hoik 415]

Joy!

Thanks Sausage King, that did the trick :thumbsup:.

EDIT: Scale-wise, do you think the book should be larger?

Edited April 20, 2013 by Hoik

[alphax 99]

Scale-wise, do you think the book should be larger?

I think its the right size :) Maybe a small bit bigger, but only a bit.

And it looks awesome!

Edited April 20, 2013 by AlphaX

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Nice work, guys!

I've started slowly going through all of my designs. I think most of them will be having a complete redo as I want to make them look as professional as possible. Starting with the Beef Stroganoff as there is the least to change there.

By the way, Joey's pointed me to a great site for textures: http://cgtextures.com/

Check it out.

[hoik 415]

Yeah, cgtextures is the shizzle (you'll probably see the textures for these books somewhere in there), I was going to mention it I swear!

So I resized the book a bit and added the next one! What do you think of the descriptions? I've checked and it should be "Chernarussian" not "chernorussion", asside from that I thought maybe the next book could be a biography on Duke Kozlov who according to the wiki is responsible for all the castles around Chernarus.

I actually really like the idea of having books in a range of languages in the SA, especially technical ones that might prove useful in repairing cars or flying helicopters. Imagine finding a book and then needing someone else to interpret it. Also, when I first put in the book it was tiny and I happened to be watching Black Books, it looked exacly like the "little book of calm"! lol.

EDIT:

Edited April 20, 2013 by Hoik

[radivmoe 47]

I know i'm gonna come out as a douch for this post, but here we go...

A word of advice, keep these small assets as light as possible, they are clutter objects, even if they are loot elements, their impact should be minimal.

-As few triangles as possible on the models.

-Small textures if possible (and only dimensions that are powers of two).

-Resist the (dark)atraction of smooth cylinders.

A good rule of thumb to decide on a proper texture resolution is to try to place the object in typical usage situations in relation to the player/camera, if your object is usually 100 pixels wide on screen in 90% of the cases, it is pointless to have a texture that is any sharper than that (it doesn't hurt to have it on hand but don't spend time on details that will never be seen).

Model wise it also depends on the typical use case, Horde could go a liiittle cheaper on the sawblades in my opinion, is it necessary to have the tungsten carbide inserts modeled? how about the teeth curve? Unless it's a first person view model of course.

The only models that deserve to be as detailed as possible on FPS games are usually first person view guns, because they are sitting right next to the camera, and that you only have one displayed at any given time (guns you see on other players are not at the same LOD as the one you see in your hands.

I know a lot of you make these as portfolio/screenshot/showcase pieces but when it comes to game models, less is more.

you do not sound like a douche. you sound like someone who knows what they are doing, and want everyone to do as good as possible

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Got a couple bits more to do the Stroga and then I'll be reasonably happy with it. Will upload a comparison and then you guys could help me by doing a bit of a critique on it.

[sausagekingofchicago 4711]

Looks good man. :)

[attorney1977 311]

Been doing a lot of LOD work, so hopefully all should be cool for pushing Circular Saw Blades to GITHUB.

AFAIK (and from what I have painstakingly researched) - LODs are so that the GPU renders the least amount of triangles possible but still makes the scene look good. Apparently, this is all down to the individual PC, so the onus is on the model maker to make their model work with all setups:

LOD 0:

LOD 1:

LOD 2:

LOD 3:

LOD 4:

Hopefully this works as advertised. If not, then maybe we will all have to experience the last shit picture I posted all the time.

Edited April 21, 2013 by Horde

[hoik 415]

Nice, glad to see some info on LOD's. I should make a couple myself.

[attorney1977 311]

Cool man :)

From what I understand, you basically need to halve the faces of your model for each LOD. I tried to use the "decimate" tool in Blender, but the results were unsatisfactory so I had to do it by hand (which was pretty boring).

There's some really good reference material if you download the Arma sample models pack and open up the p3d's to see how they're put together

Really good resources for LODs and general O2 stuff here (may have been posted already):

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/LOD

and this following guide is pretty cool - I followed it all the way even though it's for buildings, Everything in it is relevant for other types of models for sure :)

http://community.bis..._Addon_Tutorial

Of course, if you get stuck, it's always worth going on the Arma 2 editing forums. Just don't tell them it's anything to do with Dayz! ;)

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Nice one!

[Lady Kyrah 1110]

Been doing a lot of LOD work, so hopefully all should be cool for pushing Circular Saw Blades to GITHUB.

AFAIK (and from what I have painstakingly researched) - LODs are so that the GPU renders the least amount of triangles possible but still makes the scene look good. Apparently, this is all down to the individual PC, so the onus is on the model maker to make their model work with all setups:

LOD 0:

LOD 1:

LOD 2:

LOD 3:

LOD 4:

Hopefully this works as advertised. If not, then maybe we will all have to experience the last shit picture I posted all the time.

Looks like good lods, and yes the lod swapping behavior is directed by the graphical settings chosen by the player.

You could try your little attack of the sawblades again and see how the addition of lods affected the framerate.

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Another quick update, I've decided to do a range of four very similar cans as part of an 'original recipe' range. I've found a few nice cliparts to use to keep things consistent - at the moment I've redone the beef stroganoff, and have added a new pork goulash. I am going to do a chicken dish and lamb/mutton dish too.

Then I'll get on to doing the more modern stuff - the similar designs could be used to redesign all the things reasonably quickly. I think I am going to completely redo the bag of snacks or just get rid of it, as I wasn't really too keen on it at all. I will redo the chocolate bar, though - to be honest it was rushed.

The Sodas will be redone with their own separate brandings, and I may do diet versions just to flesh out the content a bit. The potatoes can go into a new vegetable range of cans too (I might do that along with a can of cabbage, a can of rutabagas, and maybe a can of apples). I'm also considering a range of classic Chernarussian alcoholic drinks, so that would be cool.

[radivmoe 47]

this topic should seriously be awarded a price.

and i say that without contributing anything, so this has to be good.

i mean, i am crediting others. that does not happen often.

Edit: spelling cause i'm exited.

Edited April 22, 2013 by radivmoe

[hoik 415]

Sounds really good (and its making me hungry :P). Personally I like the idea of finding a sac of potatos, or a box of half rotten cabage leaves/apples/carrots\misc...

My own update: I've reworded the text of the books in to give a sense of history/mythology and prehaps some sense of loss.

This also gave me what I think is a great idea - individual photographs. All you would need is 5-10 generic models but then in the discription you could have hundreds (stay with me :) ) of individual discriptions. eg:

"Sunset at the beach. In the foreground is a couple smiling. On the horizen is the barly disernable siloute of a cargo ship."

"A man lays on a bed. He looks orange from the light filtered through a scarf thrown over the bed lamp. His eyes are closed as if asleep, but he smiles."

etc.For me this would add to immersion and remind the players that chernaros was not always a wasteland. What do you think?

Also I have made two LOD's for the books:

LOD0 - LOD1 - LOD2

So I think these books are nearly reaching completion, anything else I should consider doing before submitting these?

-----

I've started some work on some alternative water bottles: two varieties of drink bottles (plastic and aluminium) and two types of thermos's.

Edited April 22, 2013 by Hoik

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Sounds awesome, looking forward to seeing them - unfortunately whatever website you're using is blocked over here. As soon as you're ready (and I'm assuming you want me to do it) just put them up here, I'll give them a quick test myself to make sure and them commit them.

Joey has requested a freeze on can retextures at the moment, I hope I'll be able to put mine up, they're configured already so it's just a matter of updating the loot tables. I assume that means we can add new models.

I like the picture idea too, and I would enjoy doing a bag of potatoes but you can get sliced and canned potatoes!

[hoik 415]

Sounds awesome, looking forward to seeing them - unfortunately whatever website you're using is blocked over here. As soon as you're ready (and I'm assuming you want me to do it) just put them up here, I'll give them a quick test myself to make sure and them commit them.

Im using tinypic.com to upload my pictures, not sure why its blocked in the UK.

Yeah, It'd be great if you could forward the files to github for me. Where do you recomend I upload the file?

[willey.erd@oundleschool.org.uk 506]

Im using tinypic.com to upload my pictures, not sure why its blocked in the UK.

Yeah, It'd be great if you could forward the files to github for me. Where do you recomend I upload the file?

No, not the UK! It seems to be blocked here at Uni is all. :huh:

A dropbox file should be fine.

[attorney1977 311]

So I think these books are nearly reaching completion, anything else I should consider doing before submitting these?

If you want, you could add actual content to the books, so that the player can read them. It's just an idea, but here's how I think it could be done.

When you have your gear dialog open, you right click on the book (in much the same way as hatchet or water bottle)*** and select the "read book" option. At this point, a script is fired which closes the Gear dialog (closeDialog 0;) and displays the first page of the book onscreen as a dialog for the player to read.

There should be the following options I think:

<Next Page>

<Prev Page>

<Back to Gear (close book)>

<Back to Game (close book).>

And then the player can read as they see fit.

*** = here is example of config stuff which lets you read in the menus:

class cfgMagazines
{
	 class i_inherited_this_class;
	 class necronomican: i_inherited_this_class
	 {
		 property_x = "whatever";
		 property_y = "whatever";

		 class Toolbelt // defined in DayZ code
		 {
				 text = "Read book";
				 script = "spawn player_addBook;";
		 };
	 };
};

player_addBook would then show the first page onscreen as a dialog.

If you want to do something like this, then I can definitely help with any dialog stuff (if you want). BTW - excellent work on the books - looking really good.

Hope that is of use for you :)

Edited April 23, 2013 by Horde

[DemonGroover 8836]

Wow guys there is a lot of great work here!

Loving the books.

And is that a can of muffins i see?

[OrLoK 16188]

Hello there

I too like the books. Do the textures not also need to be "lod"'d?

Rgds

LoK

[hoik 415]

No, not the UK! It seems to be blocked here at Uni is all. :huh:

A dropbox file should be fine.

Lol, i feel silly...

Wow guys there is a lot of great work here!

Loving the books.

And is that a can of muffins i see?

I am god of canned muffin's!!! ...if only in the editor...

Hello there

I too like the books. Do the textures not also need to be "lod"'d?

Rgds

LoK

Im not sure, as far as I can tell the canned food's textures are just the one resolution, no matter the LOD. Though it makes sense to LOD the textures Im not sure if its required.

@ Horde, thanks for that info. I will definatly have a go at scripting a working book - Im not huge on scripting but its great fun...when it works.

Edited April 23, 2013 by Hoik