SUBSIM Radio Room Forums - View Single Post - U-BOOT_HAHD Official Thread

Hans Witteman · 02-22-11, 12:03 AM

Hi shipmates,

Ok go get a coffee since this post will be a bit technical and a bit long

First i like to annouced that Brett25 has join our team he have experience in 3d textures and design so with reaper7 we will have two team members on ships texturing. So let's welcome our new team member with a beer and sausage

Talking about ships texturing now since you all know we have a special way of texturing our ships i will explain a bit here the worflow involved as a primer for the team folks.

I just start doing the Fletcher new UVW layout when i realised that it's was not a good idea to just throw you the template and let you start on your own without knowing the procedure i develop to attain the most out of the SH3 graphic engine.

First i will detail the procedure by steps just so you get familiar with it and later on this week i will do a complete step by step video so you guys could start to unleash your creativity at it.

Generally speaking if you look at the ships in SH3 the first thing you noticed is how blend they look under any kind of lighting the reason is quite obvious it is the lack of shadow and decent specular mask.

And most ship have a very messy UVW layout that omit you from texturing both side differently + under hull have an horrible stretch on the bow and stern fortunately for us we have custom layout to correct all that.

For the shadow we solved the problem in a very elegant way since all shadows made the HAHD way are taking zero additional resources on the graphic engine because we blend the shadow pass in the diffuse pass in the paint program so as you see that what give us an edge

Next thing to keep in mind is that we can only exploit 2 texture channels, most ship used both solely on a texture base ex : channel 1 main hull and side cabins on deck channel 2 deck wooden part and cabin top.

The reason they do it this way is because it would look horrible to have all the ship UVW layout on 1 single channel on a 512X512 resolution so they split it on both channels to have higher resolution on certain parts of the ship.

So we bypass this limitation with blending our different pass in the paint program and for the specular pass we use an alpha channel embed in our texture with the use of the specular mask controller.

Don't worry on the technical jargon i used because the video will show you the process step by step with my beautiful broken English accent

Ok the steps involved are as follow :

1. Using S3D editor to export the different ships sections.

2. Importing the OBJ to your 3d application.

3. Unwrapping the UVW layout the HAHD way.

4. Painting the skin ship on the new UVW template in your paint program.

5. Using RTT or render to texture feature in the 3d application to get the shadows pass and specular.

6. Blending the shadow pass in the paint program.

7. Adjusting the specular mask and save it in the alpha channel as TGA.

And voila now we have the nicest ships ever in SH3 they even look better than the SH5 ones no joke i will show you proof this week.

Take note that all ships template are made at 2048X2048 to start the painting because by experienced the skin will look much better when re size to 1024X1024 or even for lower spec machine 512X512 it is common practice in the industry. For the very large battleship like the Bismark and other capital ships 2048X2048 is required to get decent details.

It might sound complicated and tedious but i can assure you that after 2 or 3 ships done this way it will become second nature for you and in term of time i can do a complete ship in a day so there is no big deal there to attain such beautiful result

it is normal that you will swear in the first time and will probably throw darts at my picture but hey at the end you will be damn proud of your work

Ok so for reaper7 and Brett25 you will have to wait until the next weekend so i can put up the process on video because i am currently using the Fletcher as a demo to show you the step by step.

Also very important i need a safe way to share the assets and files toward each others in a private manner because i don't want everybody to have access to it and claiming it was their work the reason for this is quite obvious many here didn't help me at all on certain aspects when they knew how to do it so i am just returning the change to them. And don't worry only the video show the technique correctly even if someone read this post he would not attain the same result at the end.

But i am not a greedy kind of guy because after the mod is release i will make all videos public

Sorry for the hefty post but it was required for the team setup.

So i am waiting your solutions regarding assets sharing in a confidential matter because Makman is waiting for files to begin his work.

Also in my 15 years in the business i gather quite an impressive texture collection and some are custom to fit certain needs so when we have a good sharing files solution i will provide amazing texture perfect for ships texturing.

Also important note on screen resolution for our mod i know some will be displease with that but to have all the detail assets and stability in gameplay we have to work with the default 1024X768 every bit of the code is optimized for that resolution and by testing believe me i know what i am talking about.

Random CTD happen when trying higher resolution and frequently when encounter with large convoy so we have to make compromised between beautiful assets and stability.

Go back to see the video on the first page and you will see that when everything is well texture and optimized it look really good on 1024X768.

Feel free to test further at higher res but don't come back to me to solve the issue because i won't spend time on that.

Best regards Hans

02-22-11, 12:03 AM	#279
Hans Witteman Kaleun of U-3 Join Date: Sep 2008 Location: somewhere in 1939 Posts: 1,816 Downloads: 123 Uploads: 0	News and updates on workflow Hi shipmates, Ok go get a coffee since this post will be a bit technical and a bit long First i like to annouced that Brett25 has join our team he have experience in 3d textures and design so with reaper7 we will have two team members on ships texturing. So let's welcome our new team member with a beer and sausage Talking about ships texturing now since you all know we have a special way of texturing our ships i will explain a bit here the worflow involved as a primer for the team folks. I just start doing the Fletcher new UVW layout when i realised that it's was not a good idea to just throw you the template and let you start on your own without knowing the procedure i develop to attain the most out of the SH3 graphic engine. First i will detail the procedure by steps just so you get familiar with it and later on this week i will do a complete step by step video so you guys could start to unleash your creativity at it. Generally speaking if you look at the ships in SH3 the first thing you noticed is how blend they look under any kind of lighting the reason is quite obvious it is the lack of shadow and decent specular mask. And most ship have a very messy UVW layout that omit you from texturing both side differently + under hull have an horrible stretch on the bow and stern fortunately for us we have custom layout to correct all that. For the shadow we solved the problem in a very elegant way since all shadows made the HAHD way are taking zero additional resources on the graphic engine because we blend the shadow pass in the diffuse pass in the paint program so as you see that what give us an edge Next thing to keep in mind is that we can only exploit 2 texture channels, most ship used both solely on a texture base ex : channel 1 main hull and side cabins on deck channel 2 deck wooden part and cabin top. The reason they do it this way is because it would look horrible to have all the ship UVW layout on 1 single channel on a 512X512 resolution so they split it on both channels to have higher resolution on certain parts of the ship. So we bypass this limitation with blending our different pass in the paint program and for the specular pass we use an alpha channel embed in our texture with the use of the specular mask controller. Don't worry on the technical jargon i used because the video will show you the process step by step with my beautiful broken English accent Ok the steps involved are as follow : 1. Using S3D editor to export the different ships sections. 2. Importing the OBJ to your 3d application. 3. Unwrapping the UVW layout the HAHD way. 4. Painting the skin ship on the new UVW template in your paint program. 5. Using RTT or render to texture feature in the 3d application to get the shadows pass and specular. 6. Blending the shadow pass in the paint program. 7. Adjusting the specular mask and save it in the alpha channel as TGA. And voila now we have the nicest ships ever in SH3 they even look better than the SH5 ones no joke i will show you proof this week. Take note that all ships template are made at 2048X2048 to start the painting because by experienced the skin will look much better when re size to 1024X1024 or even for lower spec machine 512X512 it is common practice in the industry. For the very large battleship like the Bismark and other capital ships 2048X2048 is required to get decent details. It might sound complicated and tedious but i can assure you that after 2 or 3 ships done this way it will become second nature for you and in term of time i can do a complete ship in a day so there is no big deal there to attain such beautiful result it is normal that you will swear in the first time and will probably throw darts at my picture but hey at the end you will be damn proud of your work Ok so for reaper7 and Brett25 you will have to wait until the next weekend so i can put up the process on video because i am currently using the Fletcher as a demo to show you the step by step. Also very important i need a safe way to share the assets and files toward each others in a private manner because i don't want everybody to have access to it and claiming it was their work the reason for this is quite obvious many here didn't help me at all on certain aspects when they knew how to do it so i am just returning the change to them. And don't worry only the video show the technique correctly even if someone read this post he would not attain the same result at the end. But i am not a greedy kind of guy because after the mod is release i will make all videos public Sorry for the hefty post but it was required for the team setup. So i am waiting your solutions regarding assets sharing in a confidential matter because Makman is waiting for files to begin his work. Also in my 15 years in the business i gather quite an impressive texture collection and some are custom to fit certain needs so when we have a good sharing files solution i will provide amazing texture perfect for ships texturing. Also important note on screen resolution for our mod i know some will be displease with that but to have all the detail assets and stability in gameplay we have to work with the default 1024X768 every bit of the code is optimized for that resolution and by testing believe me i know what i am talking about. Random CTD happen when trying higher resolution and frequently when encounter with large convoy so we have to make compromised between beautiful assets and stability. Go back to see the video on the first page and you will see that when everything is well texture and optimized it look really good on 1024X768. Feel free to test further at higher res but don't come back to me to solve the issue because i won't spend time on that. Best regards Hans __________________ Last edited by Hans Witteman; 02-22-11 at 06:32 AM.