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Parent - By Caesar [de] Date 2013-10-21 20:18
CR is 4.x.y has four windmill wings, OC is 5.x.y has five windmill wings. I think that's a little too subtle. While it is probably harder to physically build a 5 wing mill, and I don't think I've ever seen one, I too like the 5 wing version.
Parent - - By Newton [th] Date 2013-10-21 19:25
Hmm, so you want to re-make the wind generator as well? I don't really get it, your versions look not that different structurally. And re-texturing or smaller changes to the model (thicker beams, whatever) can be done on the current model.

So, if you do it for the goal of getting a more uniform look, I must say that looking at the screenshot, the buildings don't look more uniform than what we have now imagined in textureless gray*.

* minus the obviously unfinished buildings like the chemlab
Parent - - By Fungiform Date 2013-10-21 20:26
If you are trying to be demotivate us (me?) you are doing a good job.

Sure its not uniform yet. These are the beginning models we'd like to tweak and develop until they are good. Until now the first guy who comes up with a model has it set in the game. What we are trying to do is something different:

We develop a set of core buildings from concept to model to finished. A group of people iterate over these concepts, models and textures and when we think we are finished we make a proposal to add them to the game..

While we are in this process, I find it strange to hear: "No! You are not allowed to think about that again", "Hey, at the current stage the stuff you do looks no better what we have now (just stop, you can't do it)". If you remember, this was the reason we wanted to work in private first. For the sake of openness everyone can see our humble start and the development.

This is an experiment that some people are obviously willing to put time into. It doesn't take anything away. All the buildings that are in the game are still there and if we are lucky later there will be more. If in the end the stuff we do is really crap or not worth putting in the game because its not much better, we can just dump it.
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Parent - - By Newton [th] Date 2013-10-22 10:06 Edited 2013-10-22 10:25
Hmm, thank you for pointing this out to me and so giving me the chance to clarify the misunderstandings. First of all, it is certainly not my intention to demotivate you. I appreciate the work you put into the project and respect your skills. And, I care about it, really, because it is fucking good and it is awesome to see some people dedicated to facilitating artwork getting into the game.

And just to make this clear before I elaborate: I am not running this project. Don't misunderstand my critique on the methods of your (concepting) work as a veto or anything like that. You are getting a lot of positive feedback currently, even though you say it is just a humble start. So, please don't take it personal if some feedback questions your methodology.

Reading my posts in this thread again, I can see how they might come along a bit rude to you. My concern from the beginning was that content we already have will be remade completely instead of adapting it (new texture, change size, change geometry like the thickness of beams) to fit a common style - and secretly - that it might be the end of that. When writing the posts, I thought I had already stated that concern somewhere else, now I can't find it.

There is a long road from a rendering like in the screenshots and a textured and animated model for real time rendering.
Perhaps you can understand my position better when I tell you that I was the one who created most of the first models (f.e. wind generator, tools workshop) in collaboration with the artists back then. So I walked down that road already, and I remember how much work it was to first get the (seemingly done) model into something fit for real time rendering, create a good UV map and texture it.

So, to get back to the point I was trying to make:

Apart from wanting to spare you the work to redo it, I feel as if my (and others) work was discarded without even considering that those models are generally regarded as nicely done by the community and without considering that those models could be used for the iterative improvement and the finding of a common style.

Your wind generator(s) look very similar to the current one, so what I asked you in that post was why not include any of the current buildings (without texture) for finding a common style? I imagine that making the models in the game fit together better doesn't mean that all the current models need to be ditched, or does it?

Edit:

> It doesn't take anything away. All the buildings that are in the game are still there and if we are lucky later there will be more. If in the end the stuff we do is really crap or not worth putting in the game because its not much better, we can just dump it.


I trust it will not be crap, of course it will not be crap man, you guys are good! But the implication is that not your work will be dumped, but the previous work when you are done. It doesn't have to be like this: dump the current one or dump your redesign. Some models can be based on, can be improvements of the current models. You guys are deciding that issue now in this process. And this is the point where I am trying to convince you to (partly) base your work on what we already have.
Parent - - By Sven2 [de] Date 2013-10-22 11:33
I wouldn't be too concerned about reusing existing models. If no good model is done for a building, the old model will stay by default. And even if a good model is replaced, old but beautiful models can always stay for decoration of villages. You could even do settlement melees where two factions have two different sets of structure visuals. At the moment, we have way too few structure models to build nice castles and villages (Compare the landscape of e.g. The Dark Castle in OpenClonk to a decorated landscape in Clonk Rage).

It would probably be good if prioritization were leaning towards missing models (like the inventors lab), so we don't end up with three models for the wind generator (we already have two!) and none for the less popular buildings. But I guess the wind generator is just more fun to do :-)
Parent - By Newton [th] Date 2013-10-22 13:27

>  (like the inventors lab)


What? Oh, I thought we definitely had a model already but I can't find it nowhere. The marvelous concept artwork from Ringwaul seem to have been lost when we migrated to Git (oh damn, this is baad, I loved them! :-( ).
Parent - - By PeterW [gb] Date 2013-10-22 13:29 Edited 2013-10-22 15:03

> Apart from wanting to spare you the work to redo it


Getting in the way of people that want to do free work? Are you mad? ;)

Seriously though, the art team might not realize how much power they have. In my opinion right now OC's biggest weakness is that it is just ugly[*] - I still can't bring myself to play it for more than a few minutes before firing up the IDE to work on something to improve the graphics. We absolutely need some quality work done on general graphics design, and there are only few people who can do that kind of thing. I sure as hell can't, but any effort going into that direction has my full support.

[*] Usual disclaimer: No offense to anyone, obviously. I attribute it to 3D models making screen composition issues way harder. Just throwing together some graphics just isn't going to cut it anymore. Except for that green tentacle monster I encountered in the woods. What the hell is that supposed to be.
Attachment: tentacles.png - Tentacles? (105k)
Parent - - By Sven2 [de] Date 2013-10-22 14:01

> ugly


Maybe my standards aren't as high as yours or my taste is different, but I wouldn't second that :o
Parent - - By PeterW [gb] Date 2013-10-22 14:06 Edited 2013-10-22 14:11
Sure, didn't expect it to be a popular opinion. Almost certainly a question of taste :)
Parent - - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2013-10-22 16:26
I agree with you. I'm not too fond of the current look. Personally, I mainly dislike the realism approach of the textures.
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Parent - - By Pyrit Date 2013-10-22 19:00

>I mainly dislike the realism approach of the textures.


And for me that also applies to the landscape textures. /o\
Parent - By PeterW [gb] Date 2013-10-23 10:48
Well, the message here should be that the field is open for other approaches. If somebody has an idea for a new look and, say, needs something in the shader modified, I'm game :)

[Let's toon-shade all the things!]
Parent - - By Maikel Date 2013-10-22 16:37

> before firing up the IDE to work on something to improve the graphics.


So how are the new shaders / lightning progressing? :)
Parent - By PeterW [gb] Date 2013-10-22 17:43
Didn't say firing up the IDE helped ;(

The sun is just really hard to make work. Flies right in the face of the few simplifying assumptions I could make when building the code so far...
Parent - - By Fungiform Date 2013-10-22 17:24
Thank you very much for your long answer.
Now I feel sorry that I got myself so upset about your post.
Its so hard to get things over correctly on the forum... with the language and writing and everything.

I understand your point why we shouldn't redo things from scratch. I am aware that building the models is probably the smallest problem while doing new buildings. I don't know about scripting in Clonk and what needs to be done to get the things into the game. My technical incapabilities are also the reason why I didn't touch the existing models yet. Just yesterday I found out how I can even get the models, just to find out that Blender explodes its UI into my face when opening them (resolved). Its quite complicated to get into all the existing things in a big project like this.
At first I thought I couldn't do anything. Then I found out I could just draw my stuff and post it. I am so grateful about all the positive feedback I get and that people really start modeling after my drawings. But surely the real skill is to adapt to the existing things and expand on them instead of going around that by just pushing the own ideas. Its just way easier to build a new windmill in a program of choice instead of fighting with finished models with lots of extra stuff in blender.
All in all i'm just very happy that I can contribute with my drawings. It might seem that I do stuff like that all the time but its not like that. Sure I like to draw a lot but actually I am an mechanical engineer and only with OpenClonk I started to draw in color (see my first drawings all in b/w) and 3d-modeling. Its so cool to have a project to focus on.

So, I will continue to find my way into the Openclonk project and I promise to push harder to get into the existing stuff.

PS.: Good thing to know would be what changes a model can take without breaking the scripts and everything else related to it.
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Parent - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2013-10-22 22:00

>PS.: Good thing to know would be what changes a model can take without breaking the scripts and everything else related to it.


Nothing really. Incorporating a new model for an existing building into the game is just about adjusting a fews numbers (dimensional stuff, position of objects falling out) and adding animations here and there.
That takes about 30 mins or so.
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Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2013-10-21 21:43
To make Windmill and Wind Generator more distinguishable, maybe we could look into making one of them spin on a vertical axis? I just stumbled upon it and thought it was too interesting not to share.

Please have at look at those images for inspiration:


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Parent - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2013-10-21 21:52
Mh, looks good.
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Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2013-10-22 14:42
doodles
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Parent - - By Newton [th] Date 2013-10-22 14:47
The screw (like the top left one) looks like it could be a "water current generator" that would work similarly to the wind generators but instead of sky as background, water in the background.
Parent - - By Sven2 [de] Date 2013-10-22 15:21
We don't have proper flow simulation for liquid bodies in the engine though.
Parent - - By Newton [th] Date 2013-10-22 15:30
That doesn't matter. We also have no wind flow simulation. I imagine placing it underwater is enough for it to generate energy, it doesn't have to be a building that is always buildable. Though, it might be already enough of a challenge to build it underwater - building the wind generator is no challenge at all.
Parent - By PeterW [gb] Date 2013-10-22 16:16
Just having the building underwater is not hard - two loam for a map with rain, or just build it underground, then flood the tunnel. It would be nice to make fluids more integral to the game, but so far I'd like Sven's (?) inverse pump concept better.
Parent - - By Nachtfalter Date 2013-10-22 15:40
I would like to see that concept as a pump! Imo a much more interesting approach, than the horsehead/pumpjack design.
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Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2013-10-22 17:46
I read some document about pumps. They review all kinds of pumps (and energy generation methods) in there, lots of little pictures, worth a look! Unfortunately, what I took away is that every screw-like pump has to have the screw itself "hidden" in some pipe - or it won't even work. So I don't really know how to make a pump out of that idea.
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Parent - - By Luchs [de] Date 2013-10-22 19:54
Transparent pipe ;)
Parent - By Matthias [de] Date 2013-10-22 20:43
Transparency! D:
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Parent - - By pluto [au] Date 2013-11-04 16:51 Edited 2013-11-04 16:58
Okay, Zapper linked me the picture in the chatroom, but instead to discuss it there, It might be more senseful to write it here.

FIrst of all, I do not thing it is good, to have only one graphic designer for the whole set of main buildings, because of that, all following buildings will simpliy fit into the whole set even worse than it was the case until now.
Just a texture guideline and a colorpallet would have been enough similarity of the already existing buildings, after some additional changes (or a redesign of the structures which fitted in worse). I think the elevator and the windgenerator, were already quite good (besides the texture/color issue which was mentioned around a month(?) ago)

Now some more related thoughts about the conclusions of the chat discussion:

the whole set looks very industrial/modern/exact:

the wooden beams and structures(or parts) are too small and too filigree. This applies to both: the main beams of the structures and the diagonal supporting beams and to the basement of the saw mill as well.. It just looks too elegant, especially when compared with the former models of the windgenerator and the elevator.
--> make the beams more skrewed, differing in length, use less diagonal beams, but bigger ones!
--> let the side elevator structure be not build from only one beam, Like the former one, let be it build with more then one single long beam
--> replace the curved roof of the elevator "tower" with a simpel wooden roof. It looks less technical-modern. ( like the one which is attached to the saw mill hut)

the foundry(?) with its robotic melting crucible, the perfectly adjusted rails, the exactly vertical chimney and the structure which looks like a nuclear reactor.
--> add 2 little(but not filigree) characteristical, curved chimeys made of metal plates, with these little cone-shaped rainshields on the top to the "nuclear reactor"
--> remove the railed robot melting pot, ore add some big wooden beams to enforce some skrewed metal columns
--> let the big chimney made of natural stone bricks, let it be skrewed and ther should be some stones missing on the top/ or just let the thing not be pefectly finished.

the blacksmith is very "block-ish"
-replace the cube-like-chimney/exhaust hood with two chimneys which could look like the the chimney form the Clonk-Rage castle structure where metal can be heated to use it on the anvil. They should differ in height, one of them could have such an already described curved additionall small chimney at one side(like the sawmill chimney)
-remove the hammer symbol
-replace the textil sun shield over the anvil with a sloped wooden one (like the one you should use on top of the elevator as well) supported by some skewed diagonal wooden beams.

the sawmill:
- the hut lets me think about a outside lavatory, the wooden ones with a heart cut in the door.
--> remove the hut
--> remove the wooden basement, or replace it by greater beams
--> let the roof be a bit disangled and skrewed as well, netter replace the one big root with 2 seperated roofs slightly in differen heights but of course, the shoud overlap to protect against the rain

I was a bit busy with organizing my studies and trip, thats why I post all my thoughts now at once. BTW that's why my battery-model-project and the animal model were freezed as well.
But it is at allways: grumbleing is easy, to change all the stuff is written on another page.
Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2013-11-04 22:34

> FIrst of all, I do not thing it is good, to have only one graphic designer for the whole set of main buildings, because of that, all following buildings will simpliy fit into the whole set even worse than it was the case until now.


Wait, what? I don't really get the point you are trying to make - is it something like "Well the player creations are going to mess up graphic consistency anyway, so we shouldn't even try!"? I sure hope not, but I can't extract any other point from that statement.
Let me restate some things that might have been lost in the course of the discussion: No one is excluding any designs now. The reason that only the fungiform/nachtfalter buildings are discussed is simply that they were the ones to tackle this task first. You obviously had some ideas about those designs, and it's completely fine to discuss them here like you did. (Although a picture would have saved you lots of words and would be much more precise and inspiring. ;))

> Just a texture guideline and a colorpallet would have been enough similarity of the already existing buildings, after some additional changes (or a redesign of the structures which fitted in worse).


We had this topic a bit further up. Please read the answers as well, it should explain why there are new sketches for existing buildings.

I agree with a lot of your points regarding the structures- to make everything less perfect and more cobbled together was one of my main wishes as well.
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Parent - - By Fungiform Date 2013-11-06 00:53
Again: Making everything not perfect from the beginning takes much more time to model and makes it more time-consuming to change stuff later.
I would make an "imperfect pass" over all wooden beams and structures after the structures are decided on. I don't see why I should waste my time to model an imperfect wood beam when its not clear that it will be there. Until then just imagine everything is imperfect like you want it to.
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Parent - - By pluto [au] Date 2013-11-07 05:34
I dont get the point? the model should be as perfect as for the author possible, but the style should be somehow not perfect. Let's say "comic"-styled: http://s3us.siedler3.net/images/building/small_houses/r_viehzucht.gif <- all wooden beams are not perfect (btw Settlers 3 could offer some nice ideas for texture and color guidlines)
Parent - By Fungiform Date 2013-11-07 07:21
i think there was an misunderstanding.
sure, the model should be as perfect as for the author possible but the imperfections (e.g not straight wooden beams) I would insert later.
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Parent - - By pluto [au] Date 2013-11-07 05:26

>Wait, what? I don't really get the point you are trying to make - is it something like "Well the player creations are going to mess up graphic consistency anyway, so we shouldn't even try!"? I sure hope not, but I can't extract any other point from that statement.


Sorry for the foolish English! However, you got the point. I really like some of the old buildings, and somehow some of them already fit together nicely. I mean, not all of them are that good and that well fitting together, but some of them were only created for beeing a "dummy" or lets say as "not-beeing-the-final-model" Of course these ones should get remodeled sooner or later. Retexturing the good ones following a guidline woul'd have been a good alternative instread of remodel everything. So to work on a texture guidline, some examples first could have saved a lot effort.

This had some advantages:
1) Saving time
2)new buildings from other authors will fit in easier because yes! there are some little inconsitencies, but they are fine, they are good, and they are a part of beeing a project with free and sometimes spontanous contributions by single authors. Anyway little changes can be done if necessary, to keep "inconsistency" at a minimum level, but I dont think will be.
3) The project must not and should not have to rely on a single chief-executive-designer

You're right, this arguementation is a bit to late anyway.
Parent - - By Nachtschatten Date 2013-11-07 08:11

> The project must not and should not have to rely on a single chief-executive-designer


As far as I understood it, the "graphics core team" consists of more than one person. Does it not?
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Parent - By pluto [au] Date 2013-11-19 03:40
Yes it is a whole team but:
the one who is the modelling guy is the one who "finally" mainly decides the style.
Parent - - By Fungiform Date 2013-11-07 17:09
I don't think its too late. You seem to have so many good ideas, so I wonder if you wouldn't like to work with us... the only difference then is that no one does all the steps of one building alone but only some. I have the feeling that like this its much MORE community work than before. Mathi and me did a lot of concept work. The models came mostly from Nachtfalter. Dragonclonk did some pre work for texturing and we all did some research. Wherever someone wants to join its nice, just that no one does everything from start to end... still if you want to do everything from start to end you can. Nobody stops you. 

Our goal was not to exclude anyone or anything. I can't emphasize that often enough. We just wanted to start a focused workforce for the graphics. There is no single chief-executive-designer (who should that be?) its just that we don't build the stuff alone but in a dedicated team? Whats so bad about that? If someone wants to work alone its fine.
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Parent - By pluto [au] Date 2013-11-19 03:36 Edited 2013-11-19 04:09
The problem is: what happens when Nachtfalter does not have time for a lon period, for modeling new structures. Then we stuck with a lot of models by Nachtfalter and a bunch of buildings by others, which might not fit togher very good.
Besides that it is now harder to modify a single structure now, because of this defined style by the other models of the set. If there is no set, it was easily possible to modify a single building to make it a better part of a "set" because the style was not so strongly defined(let's say there was no style at all, but a styleguide would have the benefit that it just makes sure that all the structures fit together somehow, which should and could be enough IMO
Of course it would not be a problem if open clonk would be a project with a defined end and when Nachtfalter would provide all structure models and the texture guys from the core team would provide all textures until everything is finished. But of course this game is made for creating new content easily.

To get a conclusion out of it: A main model design by a single person limits the possibility of remodeling single models or creating content of similar style by others more than just a styleguide.


In my thoughts of a graphic-core team's tasks, they would be limited on providing such a guidline, several textures and maybe some simple textured models like a modular system( e.g. wooden beams, colums, metal T-bar buckstays or even windows, furniture, roof- or brick tiles, which then can be modified by others) Besides that, the team is of course a bunch of people who have some expertise with graphics and design stuff, so they are the ones who should offer advises for models which were presented in the forum. Let's say, they are the guideline-jedi's they can make sure, that structures follow the guidlines, by giving the neccesary tips and advices.
That would save a lot of work and a lot of responsibility for this core team and it would allow others who are interested easier to provide own models and ideas. This is my vision how a somehow supervised but still "open" system could work.
Parent - By pluto [au] Date 2013-11-19 04:14
Oh and I am still confused about two graphic boards, where are these concepts? I found a lot of them here, but it would be better to create single threads for the structures (like it was in the old board before). Each model(and or conept) gets its own thread and replys always are related to this model/concept. This would make things much easier.
Parent - - By Matthias [de] Date 2013-11-05 00:07
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Parent - - By Fungiform Date 2013-11-06 00:57
While it looks nice I think its more than weird to build a furnace with wood...
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Parent - By Matthias [de] Date 2013-11-06 12:05
Yeah, somewhat. I wanted to try to visualise it without much metal.
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- - By Nachtfalter Date 2013-11-08 20:36
I put the actual windgenerator model into the compilation. I also changed the foundry model (the chimney is based on the thomasbirne design) and put a heavier stone into the engery thingy.



Bigger Version. Please keep in mind: The models are more like sketches, not finished versions!

I still have no clue how to redesign the sawmill. I like it already very much. But it's still to soon to refine the design and put more details into it i guess.
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Parent - By Fungiform Date 2013-11-09 20:32
I actually had an I idea for an alternative sawmill design but at the moment I have little time to work on it...
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Parent - - By Fungiform Date 2013-11-15 22:51
Woa, I just followed the "thomasbrine"-link. What crazy thing is that!? Its perfect :)
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Parent - By Newton [th] Date 2013-11-16 07:06
Looks like a giant R2D2 whose head exploded ;-) (Or would it be, rather, R2D2 looks like a tiny Thomasbirne?)
- - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2014-03-08 17:41
Will there be any more progress on this? Is something planned?

If no, would it be possible for you, Nachtfalter, to post the finished models somewhere so others may access them?
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Parent - - By Nachtfalter Date 2014-03-08 18:19

>Will there be any more progress on this? Is something planned?


There is currently nothing ongoing between me and Fungiform. Maybe he can post a statement where we go from here.

>If no, would it be possible for you, Nachtfalter, to post the finished models somewhere so others may access them?


If there will be a negative statement. Sure!
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Parent - - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2014-03-13 15:45
As I have just read your blog post on clonkspot stating your temporal(?) lack of motivation towards OC, I just want to urge you again to consider finishing this project here. Discussion in the Clonk Forum showed again that graphics is a major point of critique on OC and your splendid work here could be the next beacon of productivity to everyone. If just there was any data we could use to include into the project and not just screenshots.

If time's pressing you hard or you doubt that motivation comes back to you, please rethink whether the negative statement might be at hand and possibly let someone else rekindle the fire. I know that it is very hard, giving your work away to someone else.
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Parent - - By Nachtfalter Date 2014-03-13 17:55

>could be the next beacon of productivity to everyone.


I hope so! Motivation is a strange thing. Like a rollercoaster with with Loopings that lead into a wall. A wall full of spikes .

> I know that it is very hard, giving your work away to someone else.


Not at all. This models are not created by myself. There was nice teamwork involved! So here they are.
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Parent - - By Clonkonaut [de] Date 2014-03-13 18:00
Many thanks! Just for the record: CC-by 3.0 included?
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Up Topic Development / Art Workshop / [Model] New Buildings!
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