Author Topic: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc  (Read 7599 times)

Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #30 on: 20-10-2014, 23:10:46 »
Hi.

Always look at past models/textures for references, if you see here, the M5a1_Stuart's (keeping on the same mindset as Stubbfan) folder:

http://i.imgur.com/P9qKYUE.jpg

Make sure you open up those files, to get a good idea of how fh2 devs do it. Especially the texture files. :)
I'm not exactly sure myself, but I think the devs texture the tanks by using the "bundledmesh material", and using different texture slots for the main texture and tracks?


Hopefully someone else has better insight into this, good luck. :)


Regards


I'm now able to open them up, and I've gone through several vehicles.

Do I just have to make the diffuse (texture) map and the normal map?


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Offline Roughbeak

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #31 on: 21-10-2014, 01:10:10 »
Yes, create your diffuse as well as the alpha. Then, for the normal map, just use your existing diffuse and create it. This might explain it better:

http://img521.imageshack.us/img521/9046/normalmapminitutrf7.jpg


Regards

Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #32 on: 21-10-2014, 05:10:30 »
How do I deal with moving objects on the tank (e.g. wheels, turret)?
That is, are they textured separately (I'm thinking of a separate image file for the unwrap)? or in the same image?


Tracks/ wheels usually go on a separate image from what I've seen for other FH2 vehicles. But that's normally because FH2 uses the same tracks texture for several different vehicles. e.g. pzIII M/N etc.. uses the same tracks texture, so no need to waste texture space on the body sheet if you already have the tracks texture from another vehicle.

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Does it matter how the moving parts are placed in the file? (e.g. can the turret be next to the tank?)

If you're talking about the texture sheet and how parts should be UVed than no it doesn't matter. Just as long as you follow some basic UVing rules they can be placed anywhere on the texture sheet.

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Also, what dimensions should I use? I'm currently testing with a 1024x1024 image. Should it be a higher res?

General rule of thumb is to use a square if you don't need a rectangle, that way the file size is smaller in the end. However, that being said, most FH2 vehicles are 2048X1024 so I'd go with that for the body of the vehicle.

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I've managed to unwrap, paint, and apply the resulting texture/image to the vehicle, but it looks like I'm going to have to be careful about how things are unwrapped (e.g. stretching).

Yessss ;) UVing is probably one of the hardest and most tedious parts of modeling/ texturing.

Usually you wanna start by unwrapping everything at the same size (so don't scale anything just yet) (uncheck normalize map iirc) while you're doing this you can weld similar parts with the same smoothing groups or where it's logical to connect them with each other.

From there comes UV packing :P (I hate this part) that's where you try to fit together an impossible puzzle of the parts you just unwrapped into whatever texture sheet you've set for yourself.

general rules of thumb with packing;
larger parts that are seen more by the player should get more texture space.
Pack everything as tightly as humanly possible to make the most of the texture sheet you're working with. But also be mindful of pixel bleeding
http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-modding-tutorials/90244-pixel-bleeding.html
avoid distorting the proportions of your objects wherever possible. e.g. if you're gonna scale a part do it while holding shift to keep its same proportions so there's no pixel stretching.

TBH it might be helpful to post your UV sheet and model here as you go through the process. UVing is very important and we can help you make sure you don't have to do it again from scratch ;)


Thanks for the detailed post.


(Looks like my previous response wasn't posted.

So (briefer):)

Can I reuse the tracks from the CA L6/40? To me they're quite similar to those of the CV35.


Also, what paint scheme should I use? Does anyone know what the most common one was? I am currently playing around with a sand/beige-coloured scheme. Also, what types of markings should I use?

A few people have mentioned that this tank should be added to Bardia - does anyone have any info on what markings are appropriate?


I'll post some images in a bit.


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Offline Roughbeak

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #33 on: 21-10-2014, 05:10:47 »
For the paint schemes try looking around in this website:

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/italy/Carro_Veloce_L3-35.php

It's great for those small things. :)

Offline Matthew_Baker

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #34 on: 21-10-2014, 05:10:19 »
Thanks for the detailed post.

Can I reuse the tracks from the CA L6/40? To me they're quite similar to those of the CV35.
That seems to be ok. I wouldn't worry about them for now until the model is ready for export.

Quote
Also, what paint scheme should I use? Does anyone know what the most common one was? I am currently playing around with a sand/beige-coloured scheme. Also, what types of markings should I use?

A few people have mentioned that this tank should be added to Bardia - does anyone have any info on what markings are appropriate?

These tankettes were used extensively at Bardia so there are some pretty famous photos, like this one:


The first CV-35 is burned out so I can't really tell the markings, but the 2nd one looks to have 'spotted' camo applied to it. Most Italian vehicles are going to be the overall sand that you see ingame, and then have field applied camo. The 'spots' are probably green or dark brown. Very similar to the 3rd picture down on the link Roughbeak posted.

As for markings, here's a crash course on Italian vehicle markings and what they mean.


Quote
1st Company ~ Red
2nd Company ~ Sky Blue
3rd Company ~ Yellow

1st Platoon ~ 1 bar
2nd Platoon ~ 2 bars
3rd Platoon ~ 3 bars

All of those things (camo, markings etc) are easily interchangeable tho once you build a good .psd to work with. Here's maybe my favorite tut of all time, really give you a good feel for what goes into a texture.
http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/tutorials/skinningdingo.php

Again tho, that UV needs to be good to make the texture worthwhile.  :)

Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #35 on: 21-10-2014, 09:10:58 »
For the paint schemes try looking around in this website:

http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/italy/Carro_Veloce_L3-35.php

It's great for those small things. :)


Thanks for the link. I think I'll go for a weathered version of the second one from the top (not unlike the other Italian tanks, I suppose).

I'll figure out markings later (though, does anyone have an order of battle for Bardia?).

I should note generally that, between photos, (seemingly) every CV-35 is different from the next (usually small variations, e.g. it seems the lights were removed in combat). I'm not sure if I've seen more variation for a tank.


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Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #36 on: 21-10-2014, 09:10:15 »
Thanks for the detailed post.

Can I reuse the tracks from the CA L6/40? To me they're quite similar to those of the CV35.
That seems to be ok. I wouldn't worry about them for now until the model is ready for export.

Quote
Also, what paint scheme should I use? Does anyone know what the most common one was? I am currently playing around with a sand/beige-coloured scheme. Also, what types of markings should I use?

A few people have mentioned that this tank should be added to Bardia - does anyone have any info on what markings are appropriate?

These tankettes were used extensively at Bardia so there are some pretty famous photos, like this one:


The first CV-35 is burned out so I can't really tell the markings, but the 2nd one looks to have 'spotted' camo applied to it. Most Italian vehicles are going to be the overall sand that you see ingame, and then have field applied camo. The 'spots' are probably green or dark brown. Very similar to the 3rd picture down on the link Roughbeak posted.

As for markings, here's a crash course on Italian vehicle markings and what they mean.


Quote
1st Company ~ Red
2nd Company ~ Sky Blue
3rd Company ~ Yellow

1st Platoon ~ 1 bar
2nd Platoon ~ 2 bars
3rd Platoon ~ 3 bars

All of those things (camo, markings etc) are easily interchangeable tho once you build a good .psd to work with. Here's maybe my favorite tut of all time, really give you a good feel for what goes into a texture.
http://forgottenhope.warumdarum.de/tutorials/skinningdingo.php

Again tho, that UV needs to be good to make the texture worthwhile.  :)


Thanks for the info.


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Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #37 on: 21-10-2014, 09:10:23 »
The mess:



I had a UV map, but there was a lot of stretching. Being new to the whole thing, I have no idea how I arrived at the first one (clicking things randomly can do that :P). Anyhow, the above is a later attempt. Following a tutorial, I grouped faces in sets, in the hopes that those faces would be linked in the UV map, but... that didn't seem to work.

--

The pieces as they are in 3Ds max:



Do I piece them together as they would be displayed in-game (e.g. gun mount in the cradle), or is separated okay?



Another question: should the wheel axles be in place, or are those placed during export? I know the wheels and tracks are added separately later, but I'm not sure about the other things (axles, suspension, etc).


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Offline Stubbfan

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #38 on: 21-10-2014, 10:10:04 »
You should include everything in the same file.

Often when i get a model from a modeler it's in one big part with the body, turret, wheels, tracks etc all stuck together. Then it's my job to split it up and sort it properly.

As for the images, i cannot see them at work, have to get home first.

Offline Roughbeak

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #39 on: 21-10-2014, 15:10:07 »
The mess:




Not bad, but you really need to use every space as possible to fit these pieces inside the uv box. I see those pieces, more notably in top right, are very tiny in comparison to the others. If you textured this, as is, you will a get very low res textures or it will display bad no matter what.

Not exactly sure what are those tiny pieces are, but the only way out of this is take all of those pieces (Ctrl + a) and try to be very ingenious of how to resize those tiny ones to fit them into something great. As Matt Baker said, uv unwrapping + packing is a huge process for models, and it is worth it to take your time in it. It will be worth spent.

Don't worry though, every modeller goes through these mistakes and it's common. :)


Regards

« Last Edit: 21-10-2014, 15:10:32 by Roughbeak »

Offline Stubbfan

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #40 on: 21-10-2014, 18:10:53 »
Quote
Do I piece them together as they would be displayed in-game (e.g. gun mount in the cradle), or is separated okay?

There's no must do's here. You can leave it as that, but to export it, it would need to be put back in place.

Also, if you place everything as it should be, you can create an Ambient Occlusion (AO) map for your texture.

Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #41 on: 21-10-2014, 23:10:54 »
I figured out the source of one problem.

I set the UV map to use material IDs, and the end result was a bit better (obviously things need to be packed in a bit more):




I realized that all those small parts that are floating around are due to things like this:




I'm not sure why things are so weirdly triangulated, and I've been trying to merge them together ("Cap Holes" seems to create an abstract art piece regardless of what I try).

Has anyone had this problem before?


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Offline Matthew_Baker

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #42 on: 22-10-2014, 04:10:49 »
just some quick things since I don't have a lot of time right now:

I set the UV map to use material IDs, and the end result was a bit better (obviously things need to be packed in a bit more):

you can go that route, it seemed to produce some ok results. I like to take each element and unwrap it manually tho, just because you have more control that way and make sure that nothing is warped etc. sometimes when you do it with a script like that it produces some undesirable results on the tricky shapes because it cant find the best way to unwrap it. 

Quote

I realized that all those small parts that are floating around are due to things like this:

I think that's more or less a result of what I'm talking about. that shape you're showing seems like it could be unwraped as just its own object. Those individual faces shouldn't be unwrapped individually (I think that's what you're talking about)

About the packing. Idk if you've really gotten into it yet but a lot of those pieces could be overlapped. the small ones especially that don't take up a lot of pixel space (so it's hard to put anything distinct on them.) You can overlap things that are going to have more or less the same texture that won't be noticed and that are small. Looking at the relative size of those parts they may barely take up 1 pixel on the texture sheet. Better to overlap them when you can and then scale them up a bit at the end to fit them in between the spaces of the more important elements.

generally speaking; you should have relatively little of those tiny tiny pieces as they aren't going to be noticed much on the model and they're almost useless on the texture sheet. Obviously it's a product of modeling to have those tiny pieces lying around, but best go over the model once more and see where some of them can be eliminated (while still maintaining the shape) or where they can be attached to other elements on the UV map to create a larger piece that will see more pixels.

also, as a note, looking at the model it looks like there are a few faces that aren't going to ever be seen.

the face behind the guns come to mind. There looks to be a few faces that will never be seen on the model that you could do with deleting. That will save you some texture space for other things and obviously save on tris in the end. I'd go over the model to tune it up a bit before packing the UV.

These are just some things I noticed. I'm by no means a great modeler but I've seen my fair share of feedback:
http://www.realitymod.com/forum/f388-pr-bf2-community-modding/121511-wip-fmk-1-fmk-3-mines-pr-f.html
;D

also I don't mean to come off harsh if I do, I'm just pointing out some things. The model actually looks really good, so it deserves a good UV and texture.

Btw in that thread alone Rhino posts at least 15 'mini' tutorials on modeling, UVing, tips ticks etc... the guys knows his stuff and he helped me out a lot with that first model. there's a lot of learning that can be done in that thread alone. :)

Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #43 on: 23-10-2014, 07:10:27 »
you can go that route, it seemed to produce some ok results. I like to take each element and unwrap it manually tho, just because you have more control that way and make sure that nothing is warped etc. sometimes when you do it with a script like that it produces some undesirable results on the tricky shapes because it cant find the best way to unwrap it.

How do you manually unwrap it?


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I think that's more or less a result of what I'm talking about. that shape you're showing seems like it could be unwraped as just its own object. Those individual faces shouldn't be unwrapped individually (I think that's what you're talking about)

Right. The entire face (about 35 or so polygons, which are coplanar) has it's own material ID. When I do the mapping by material ID, it's grouped together, but the individuals polygons are fragmented/detached. I'm trying to figure out how to get the face to be in one piece in the UV.

Most of the small pieces belong together, actually.


Quote
About the packing. Idk if you've really gotten into it yet but a lot of those pieces could be overlapped. the small ones especially that don't take up a lot of pixel space (so it's hard to put anything distinct on them.) You can overlap things that are going to have more or less the same texture that won't be noticed and that are small. Looking at the relative size of those parts they may barely take up 1 pixel on the texture sheet. Better to overlap them when you can and then scale them up a bit at the end to fit them in between the spaces of the more important elements.

I'll be sure to remember that (I didn't realize you could overlap things - that's a pretty clever way of dealing with limited real estate).


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generally speaking; you should have relatively little of those tiny tiny pieces as they aren't going to be noticed much on the model and they're almost useless on the texture sheet. Obviously it's a product of modeling to have those tiny pieces lying around, but best go over the model once more and see where some of them can be eliminated (while still maintaining the shape) or where they can be attached to other elements on the UV map to create a larger piece that will see more pixels.

I read somewhere that I should be using a high-poly model for the UV map, and have it mapped onto a lower-poly model - is that true?

If not, there are a few places where I can simplify the model that will (hopefully) eliminate a lot of the small pieces floating around.


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the face behind the guns come to mind. There looks to be a few faces that will never be seen on the model that you could do with deleting. That will save you some texture space for other things and obviously save on tris in the end. I'd go over the model to tune it up a bit before packing the UV.

What do you mean by deleting? Do you mean just removing entirely, or just not texturing? I'm not sure how the gun mantlet and cradle are animated (and whether intersecting surfaces are permitted).


Quote
also I don't mean to come off harsh if I do, I'm just pointing out some things. The model actually looks really good, so it deserves a good UV and texture.

No harshness :). Thanks for all your help.


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Offline NotOnymous

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Re: [Vehicle] Fiat CV-35 - input, etc
« Reply #44 on: 23-10-2014, 07:10:34 »
Here's what I think you mean:



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