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#51 03/10/08 23:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Dark Delorean:

delorean.jpg

delorean1.jpg

Finally had some time to play with the texture.

One thing I learned is that using bgr555 to import a texture causes the texture to be blocky. However, using bgr32 provides a smooth texture.

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#52 03/11/08 07:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Nice job on the colors, even though I'd try to make the whole car's finish more Oni-styled, eventually.
It's a good idea to make the fog black when taking the screenshots. Oh, and BTW, still no .oni file? wink

As for the color depth, keep in mind that bgr555 allows for 32768 colors, so it shouldn't be überblocky.
Sure, it's not the 16777216 colors offered by 24-bit (bgr32 actually has 24 bits for color), but it's not 256.
Maybe you could provide the same DeLorean texture imported as bgr555 and bgr32 and let us see?
It's always a good idea to report a problem rather than saying "oh, I'll just use bgr32, no problem".


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#53 03/11/08 08:03

Iritscen
Moderator
From: NC, USA
Registered: 10/22/07

Re: Car 960

That's looking really nice (although it's true, it actually looks too nice, or too realistic, for Oni, at the moment).  But it's exciting to see this sort of thing getting done for the first time after, what, seven years of modding?  And I just joined the community a few months ago.  It's amazing how things are really coming together now as a result of a lot of hard work over time.


Check out the Anniversary Edition Seven at ae.oni2.net!

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#54 03/11/08 17:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Here is the texture using bgr555
delorean555.jpg

As you can see there is a difference between bgr555 and bgr32

Here is the zip file for the delorean .obj and .tga files.

http://edt.oni2.net/AE/delorean_data.zip

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#55 03/11/08 18:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Indeed the 15 bits don't seem enough to resolve your darkened colors, EdT.
You can still have it look good in bgr555, but you'll have to pick colors better.

Right now your 15-bit gray color "hesitates" between #101010 and #181818.
That means the 24-bit color is somewhere in between the 2, around #141414.
If you darken the car just a little bit more, you'll have #101010 everywhere.
And if you don't, it only means you'll have to carefully re-paint the whole car.
That's the art of getting good looks with a small color depth and no dithering.
Basically, you have to save your TGA as a 15-bit DDS and then edit that one.

BTW, bgr32 is not an option, because Oni won't support reflectivity for them.
And we do want reflectivity for our cars, don't we? Especially the DeLorean.

Last edited by geyser (03/11/08 20:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#56 03/11/08 20:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

I checked my settings in Photoshop and I was saving the file as 24bits/pixel.  The only other options are 16bits and 32bits.

As to picking the colors, I merely lowered the brightness on the original tga file to darken the car.  I'll see what I can do.
Of course, anyone else is welcome to give it a try.

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#57 03/11/08 20:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

The only format that allows you to save as 5551 or 4444 is DDS. You are probably talking about the TGA options.
By darkening it a bit more, you'll probably get rid of the stains, but you may get more annoying stains elsewhere.
There's no miracle solution to low-color-depth texturing. You basically have to posterize the whole thing by hand.
And it's even more challenging in 4444, i.e., with only 4 bits per color channel instead of 8: "blocky" as anything.
The basic rule is to completely avoid color gradients on large areas and to exaggerate color contrast everywhere.
Luckily for us, such a style is consistent with Oni's anime flavor (and specifically with the poor man's cel-shading).
Of course, you can always use dithering to deal with gradients, but that could be even more ugly than the stains.

BTW, what I said about #141414 above is not quite true. Replacing an 8-bit channel with a 5-bit one means this:
For every color channel 8 adjacent shades collapse into one, e.g., FF, FE, FD, FC, FB, FA, F9, F8 all appear as F8.
That means 101010 and 181818 will gather colors in the ranges 101010:171717 and 181818:1F1F1F, respectively.
So a "hesitation" between 101010 and 181818 indicates that the color range is close to 181818, not to 141414...

Last edited by geyser (03/11/08 20:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#58 03/13/08 18:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Car960 is a transformer!!!

IronDemon.jpg

The IronDemon was imported as a single object.  Not sure how to UVmap the thing, so I just chose a single color, but it has reflectivity!

http://edt.oni2.net/AE/IronDemon.obj

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#59 03/13/08 18:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Hm, I see the geometry has been trimmed a bit (the eye is gone, as well as some bevels). Is that your work?
It's a pity you didn't recompute the normals on the shinguards and elsewhere though. Screws up reflectivity.
BTW, we fixed the engine (PC only so far, sorry) so that the vehicles collide with characters and projectiles.


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#60 03/13/08 19:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

It's a pity you didn't recompute the normals on the shinguards and elsewhere though. Screws up reflectivity.

Remember, I just started working with 3D models a few weeks ago, so I don't know what I'm doing! smile
So for any advanced modeling, I'll leave it to the experts.

I just took the ID file and opened it in a trial version of AC3D, (http://www.inivis.com/) and used the option to reduce polygons.
Unfortunatley, the trial version has expired... sad

On another note, I worked with the delorean some more, but, I can't get it to look good using bgr555. Diagonal lines look bad, any flaws in the texture are clearly seen. I guess it has to do with the texture being distorted to fit a large area. And I don't have the patience to keep working on it! tongue

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#61 03/13/08 21:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Aha, so you did reduce the polycount. That... explains a lot.

As for the DeLorean:
The texture is clearly not "distorted to fit a large area" (unless you mean that we've scaled it down from 512x512 to 256x256: texture details such as fine lines certainly suffered from that a bit).
If you have good control over your graphical tool, you can edit the texture within its final color depth before it actually gets posterized by the conversion. I'll detail that WYSIWYG texturing later.

On a second thought:
There's a problem with the overall darkness of the texture. By using only dark colors, you effectively restrict the range from 5 or 4 bits per color channel to just 2 or 3... Hence the poor resolution.
Actually, it is possible to darken the object in Oni with vertex shading. So instead of darkening the texture you could have used the original one and then enter, e.g., obj_shade 960 0.5 0.5 0.5
With that in mind, the right thing to do is to use the full color range when editing the texture (i.e. maybe even brighten the original texture as long as it doesn't saturate), and then use obj_shade.

Sorry I didn't point out that feature sooner, but I overlooked the issue with the color depth: darkening the texture is very wrong when we only have 5 or 4 bits per color, I should have known that.

Stuff like fine lines could/should be enhanced with semi-automatic "artistic" filters in 512x512 (for example, the GIMP has a "Cartoon" filter that makes the line art, if any, somewhat thicker).

Another thing left to do with the DeLorean is to adapt its size to the spacing and position of the wheel objects, which are supposed to be animated separately. Right now the car is a little too small.

Last edited by geyser (03/13/08 21:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#62 03/14/08 01:03

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Re: Car 960

EdT wrote:

Car960 is a transformer!!!

http://edt.oni2.net/AE/IronDemon.jpg

The IronDemon was imported as a single object.  Not sure how to UVmap the thing, so I just chose a single color, but it has reflectivity!

http://edt.oni2.net/AE/IronDemon.obj

btw what did you use? bgra4444? i realy wanna know how i can fix my skin pack so it can be done!

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#63 03/14/08 16:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Rexxar:  The Iron Demon had a single color texture map and I used bgra4444. 

It looks like the problem you're having with the skin pack is as geyer stated:

And it's even more challenging in 4444, i.e., with only 4 bits per color channel instead of 8: "blocky" as anything.
The basic rule is to completely avoid color gradients on large areas and to exaggerate color contrast everywhere.

I don't know how to solve this issue.

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#64 03/14/08 17:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

"It looks like the problem you're having with the skin pack is as geyser stated:"
Actually (see previous post) I had overlooked the issue with the darkening itself.
Your DeLorean texture is special because of how you've squished the color range.
Color-map-rotated textures preserve brightness and should not have such issues.
I have made modified 4444 textures myself, without noticeable loss of quality smile

Rexxar, are you sure there's any TGA in the -=Reflective=- pack you're not happy with?
Because the few I've looked at look fine to me, and I really can't see why they wouldn't.
As for the ones you made earlier (the color tweaks), can you point out the messy ones?

Last edited by geyser (03/14/08 21:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#65 03/14/08 23:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Tried to adjust the size of the car to match the wheels, but, it doesn't match:

delorean4444.jpg

Note: this is bgra4444 with an "obj_shade 960 960 0.3 0.3 0.3", using a slighly darkened TXMP

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#66 03/15/08 04:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

@ Rexxar: Let's keep the issues with character textures off this thread. When you find the time to report on them, just bump your own thread.

@ Ed: So the color conversion issue is indeed nicely fixed by leaving most of the darkening to the vertex shading. Let's congratulate ourselves.
As for the relative size of the car and the wheels, keep in mind that the wheel meshes, too, will be replaced. All that counts is their alignment...
So, what you have to do first is to make the car just a little bit larger and bring it a tiny bit to the front, so that the spacing of the axles matches.
Then you trim the DeLorean mesh in your editor to leave only a pair of wheels. Center those horizontally (not vertically). Scale and import them.


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#67 03/15/08 04:03

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Re: Car 960

I am not any expert, so i realy dont know what ya talking about smile all i just wanna know, is what color depth will i need to replace my own shiny parts wich is bgra4444.

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#68 03/15/08 05:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Rexxar: Well, like I said, I can't see anything wrong with the shiny parts in your -=Reflective=- pack...
Or do you mean you are afraid of things going wrong when you change the colors and add reflectivity?

Last edited by geyser (03/15/08 05:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#69 03/15/08 05:03

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Re: Car 960

I mean in the way i import my textures with the bat files, i dont know what format I'll need to use, the textures gets messed up when i use bgra4444 for my own shiny parts wich i made, but the default like the chest piece at a striker, is shiny, but the textures around does not look like it is 256 colors :S

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#70 03/15/08 22:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

This is just weird:

deloreanweird.jpg

I figured out what caused this, but, can you guess how this happened?

Here's the video, so you really can see it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dAFtdKC32es

And yes, that's another car I was adding... smile

Last edited by EdT (03/15/08 23:03)

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#71 03/16/08 05:03

Tracker
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Car 960

If you place a sprite (2 D picture) in GameStudio, it also always turns in the direction of the player.
Only if you assign a value to one of its three axes (x, y, z), it doesn't turn any more (e.g. x=0.001;).

Last edited by Tracker (03/16/08 05:03)


ONI is the best game in the universe!

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#72 03/16/08 08:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

@ Tracker: Incorrect. Oni does have "sprites" (particles: lights, flares, smoke, fire, etc), but they have nothing to do with the effect shown by Ed (for one thing, the car is definitely 3D).
Ed's DeLorean (and Ferrari in the video) are simply "turned inside out". The far side of every mesh is seen, whereas the near side is not. Perspective and movement help figuring it out.
This exact same effect can be achieved by flipping all the polygons, but in this case I think a simpler explanation is that Ed has started toying with reflection/transparency and messed up.
I've already had my characters look that way after I (re)imported 555 textures as 5551. OUP then automatically labels them as "transparent", which makes Oni draw polygons differently.
I'm not 100% sure what exactly it does when rendering the mesh: looks like it ignores the backface culling and draws the polies front-to back as opposed to the usual way (back-to-front).
Therefore the frontmost triangles are drawn first, double-sided and fully opaque. However, the backmost triangles (also double-sided and opaque) are drawn later and overwrite them...
This front-to-back order also extends to the rendering of the M3GM. That's the right wheels are "hidden" by the car just as if they were left wheels (and vice-versa for the far side wheels).
The bottom line of this is that an M3GM with a transparent texture will look always look weird in Oni if there are high levels of opacity, with a more or less dramatic inside-out effect...

@ Ferrari: it will be harder to disguise the Ferrari to adapt it to Oni's universe and plot, even if we rewrite a lot. But I'm glad to see you keep foraging on Turbosquid for low-poly content.

Last edited by geyser (03/16/08 13:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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#73 03/16/08 10:03

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Guilty as charged!  When I converted the texture for the Ferrari, I used bgra4444, but forgot to add an Alpha channel.  But when I saw how it came out, I thought that would make an interesting video, so I did the same for the Delorean big_smile

Thanks for explaining why the effect occurred.  But I thought it was unusual, how at one point, the Ferrari appeared over the Delorean, even though the Ferrari was way behind it.

geyser: Are you thinking of using these models more in Oni?  I thought they would be used only in the cutscene, to replace the current vehicles. 

How to explain these cars?  Well even today, we have "classic" cars on the street, so someone in Oni's time is into "Classic" cars smile

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#74 03/16/08 16:03

geyser
Member
From: beyond the veil
Registered: 01/14/07
Website

Re: Car 960

Well, as I said, the front-to-back order is used not only for the faces of a given mesh, but for all the "transparent" meshes in the current view.
So the frontmost mesh will be completely "overwritten" if there's another mesh behind it that's "labeled as transparent but actually opaque".
As I also said, that thing is a bug. Hidden geometry will always look weird if the farther of two faces involved has a high degree of opacity.

You didn't actually "forget to add an alpha channel", EdT. OniSplit handles this situation simply by generating a fully opaque alpha channel.
However, Oni's TXMP are simply not supposed to use the alpha channel for transparency (even though this is sorta the "default setting")...
The only TXMP in Oni which have an alpha channel and use it for transparency rather than reflectivity are transparent enough and look OK.

Too many "classic" cars at the Airport or overall would mean too many classic car lovers.
A cameo or two is fine, but the Ferraris are more than you can get away with, plotwise...
For one thing, they're not as boxy as the DeLorean and the Countach and Oni's own cars.
For another, don't forget that even the DeLorean still needs to be completely retextured.
Classic or not classic, it has to be more than just a free model grabbed from Turbosquid.

Last edited by geyser (03/16/08 16:03)


Behold the power of that which is yet unborn! For the swirling images that flow forth from the Chrysalis are only a shadow of the sleeper's true power.

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