Author Topic: Piiiiiii-neeeeeeeerrrr.....in the pines (pic) (Read 1791 times)

DREDIOCK · « **Reply #2 on:** March 02, 2005, 08:59:05 AM »

Now that looks cool

Easyscor · « **Reply #3 on:** March 02, 2005, 10:02:55 AM »

I sure hope that's real because I want those tiles.

Waffle · « **Reply #4 on:** March 02, 2005, 10:11:16 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by hitech
How?

You want me to give away my secrets?

I need some "hows" answered too....lol
Like how to get the shadows of trees transparent...
I'm having all sorts of issues with the "materials.ac" file...and them loosing the material properties through the conversions.
Was there ever an "materials.ac" file released?

Can read more here: http://hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=144167

One more thing...
When building terrain tiles - when you click "display terrain in background" it displays the tile 4 times(subtile positions) Now say I choose terr0005 as background and place objects on all four quadrants. Now I do the same for terr0105. So now if terr0005 is the top left subtile, and terr0105 is the top right subtile -Objects now should be corresponding with the tiles/terrain objects created in the OE, or will it just use the objects from the first terr0005 tile over all 4 quadrants.

Reason im asking this, is on the farm land objects (terr0003), I can get the ter0003 objects to show up, but if I take the exact same OE built terrain and change the name to ter0103 - the TE will flash white where the objects are supposed to be, and then they're gone. I haven't tried on other terrain types, just the farm.

As far as the pines go - they're using a 4 stage LOD with
Total objects: 25 surfaces: 92 vertices: 354

as compared to the stock "trees1" file
Total objects: 12 surfaces: 59 vertices: 234

I'm using 5 Horizontal planes - the top 3 are textured with gradually larger circles as you go down - lower 2 layers are just filler -

then just vertical planes extending which has the tiled pine tree profile textured.

I'll still not happy with them yet from above, but if I can get the materials working correctly on my end - I think it'll come out nice.
I can send you the ac3c / texture if you want to look at it.

Superfly · « **Reply #5 on:** March 02, 2005, 10:50:31 AM »

can you post some shots of those trees from different angles?

Octavius · « **Reply #6 on:** March 02, 2005, 10:57:23 AM »

Holy!

Looks like Operation Flashpoint

hitech · « **Reply #7 on:** March 02, 2005, 10:58:38 AM »

You can't just rename shp files. You would need to rename the .til file and rebuild.

And here is our material file.

Try material 29 for a shadow.

http://www.hitechcreations.com/hitech/material.ac

HiTech

Easyscor · « **Reply #8 on:** March 02, 2005, 11:13:56 AM »

Waffle, this is from my notes (paraphrased), I hope it helps in some way, those are really nice trees!

TRANSPARENCIES

Per asw:

Create a bitmap for the object then create another one named similar but appended with a "_a.bmp" i.e. “objectname_a.bmp”.

This file is not referenced in anyway to the ac file created in AC3d I just made it the same size and made sure the name is the same but with the _a added to the end of the file name. Both images are an 8 bit bmp(256 color)..
Black (0,0,0) is tranparent, white(255,255,255) shows the texture map.. shades of gray in between the two seems to affect the level of transparency

Per hitech:

You can also have a transparent index file.

To make terrain tiles show up in the TE you might need to empty your cache/stdshps folder.

This thread between TexMurphy and Hitech seems to explain how to do that:

[url]http://www.hitechcreations.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=142394&highlight=Hitech[url]

Waffle · « **Reply #9 on:** March 02, 2005, 11:58:53 AM »

Superfly -

I just started a rebuild of the pines and am redoing the top 3 layers of textures - had a little revelation on how to make it look better from viewed from above. I also need to clean up a few things. I'll post a few of those as soon as I'm done.

Thx for the materials HT - will see what happens...

BTW - is there a material that is not affected by the game light?
is that the ambient? Was thinking that would help blend in some of the vertical planes that change color so much with different light direction.

also can there be more than 3-4 LODs?

detch01 · « **Reply #10 on:** March 02, 2005, 12:12:22 PM »

Very very cool Waffle

Cheers,
asw

Raptor · « **Reply #11 on:** March 02, 2005, 12:23:54 PM »

you know you did something right when hitech wants to know how you did it. Absolutely amazing:eek:

Furball · « **Reply #12 on:** March 02, 2005, 12:44:34 PM »

awesome job, hows the FPS hit compared to normal tree's?

Waffle · « **Reply #13 on:** March 02, 2005, 01:58:23 PM »

Superfly
- heres some pics of the rework in progress.
I dropped one of the "filler" layers and changed it to circles.
I still have work to do on adjusting the heights of the layers, as well as more texture work, but you can get an idea of what's going on.

BTW - any word on if more than 4 LODs can be used on an object?

Waffle · « **Reply #14 on:** March 02, 2005, 04:36:57 PM »

Some more pics after "roughing up" the edges and adjusting some heights of polys. Still have to do some color teaking and optimization (LODS). You'll have to excuse the antialising...looking at the pics makes me dizzy too...lol