Hello, I have a question: How do you go about texturing a low polygon spaceship? By low polygon I also mean the texture file cannot be larger than 512x512. Do you use real world pictures and convert them to fit your model? Or do you draw from scratch or use vector graphics? I have no clue. Below is a picture of a HIGH polygon spaceship with a nice texture job. Would it be impossible to achive a simalir texture style on a low poly model? Here is an example of a lower polygon spaceship model: [edited by - Critical_Waste on May 15, 2003 8:15:17 PM]

AAAAAAAAAaaaaawwwwww... ok, I jsut typed for ten minutes, but I couldnt be arsed doing it again.
Simply put. Take nice shots from various angles of your ship and use those for your texture.
Be sure to have no perspective when taking the shots, as they would produce depth distortion, which you dont want.
Something like that :


If you have ever seen the tank textures in HAlflife, that''s what you want.

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mmmh, *bump* ?

Sancte Isidore ora pro nobis !

Heh, well after abusing some people here I recieved some help and came across many nice pages. I think I might have taken the wrong lesson away from the whole deal. Anyways to answer my own question a little better here is a website which is very helpful:
Building a better Space(ship) in Lightwave 6
Even if you don't have lightwave I am sure you can get similar results with other programs though, I will also be looking into these tutorials today as well and let you know as to how it works out.

[edited by - Critical_Waste on May 21, 2003 1:28:58 PM]

I wasnt aware of those tutorials, thx for the link Critical_Waste, I have a new bookmark now.

right... but do you understand what I am trying to explain here ?

Do your high poly model, then take nice side render of the high qulity model, and use those views to texture a low poly model.

In my picture, your low poly model would be the red lines, using the pictures taken from the green and blue arrow.

ANyway, I am sure you''ll understand at some point.
Think Doom III.


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quote: Original post by ahw
...Anyway, I am sure you''ll understand at some point. Think Doom III.

Yes I understand _however_ some texture details might be tucked away in a hard to see part of the model mesh (but are nessary). Should I just break down the high poly model so that this wil never be the case? Also how would you recommend postioning the camera over the high poly parts? What about perspective? I mean, If you have two polygons meeting and one poly is at an angel and the other is flat you will have a conflect of perscpetive. Also if you have an overlapping part of the model how do you get around it? Seperate the conflicting part and capture the high poly model?

Um, so many questions. This is why I ask so many questions...

The idea is to separate the high poly model in manageable chunks.

Imagine you are a modeller painting a miniature spaceship : you dont build the spaceship, then paint it, right ? First you paint the separate pieces, *then* you mount it. That way you avoid the difficulty of having to paint in hard to reach corners.

In the picture you show, you would keep the main hull and take pictures of this base shape.
Then you would take separate pictures of the "wings" things, and possibly the tower and cannon elements.

Each time you take pictures, you must *disable* perspective while rendering, because perspective would produce distortion because of depth (see 3D graphics 101 to understand why that happen... the fish eye lens effect is an extreme case of this sort of distortion).

I *really* suggest that you take Valve Hammer, and try to model a tank using the HAlflife textures. It would REALLY make it clear how to make low poly model using a nice texture full of details.

Another thing you have to remember is that hard to see places, well, are hard to see. So it''s usually not worth it to use a detailed and unique texture for them. What would generally happen is that a skin maker would use a "glue" texture.
This is a term used in level mapping to designate a texture that is generic enough that you can use it for this sort of little details. It''s used when you have some minor detail and you dont really know what to put on it, say some pipe, or the top side of a ledge, or in your picture, the vertical edge that is behind the face A (you wouldnt see it from the Green arrow perspective, nor from the Blue arrow perspective)

Also, remember that a skin can be used in multiple areas. You could have, say, a logo on a metallic hull background. That logo could be reused in various areas of the ship, scaled down or up, rotated, mirrored, etc.
So it''s useful, when you have done a high details render of the various elements of the ship, to see which one are *really* necessary.
For example, say you have done a nice render of face A and the face ust underneath, those panels things, right ?
Now you want to use that render as a texture for face A.
But it would be useless to use a full texture of the 12+ panels... that would be a huge texture, and without really different details.
It would be much more interesting for you to do just one of the panels, eventually two/three (to give a bit of variety, a bit like you can have three different textures of the same kind of wall in level mapping). The advantage is that you end up using 12 times less space, or put another way, you could have 12 times more details on each of the separate panels. See ?

For the choice of perspective, most of the time, a simple side/front/top view *without* perspective should do a good job.
But in some places, for very large angled surfaces, you could simply position the camera to be directly aligned with the normal to the plane.
In your picture, take the example of the front of the ship, that big diamond shaped surface with the ellipse in it.
Rendering it from the Green arrow perspective (top view) would probably do the trick, but if you really wanted to do things nicely, you could very well render it from a less vertical angle.
In this particular case, it would be a good idea since the face is so big compared to the total shape of the hull and there are so much details in there.

In the case of something like face A, on the other hand, that really wouldnt be necessary.

Again, I suggest you use something like Valve Hammer and try to use textures of ships or tanks that are available for free on websites, and try your hand at it.
It''s much faster than using something like Milkshape, and you''ll quickly get an idea of the various concepts I described.

If you have more questions, well, ask again

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