Archive for the ‘3D Stuffs’ Category

Yeah i know… “Is it done yet?”, not quite.

But hey I have a prototype in sl!

Okay… No textures yet, which means it looks a bit like ass, but hey, it’s unwrapped , so there is that.

Today was fairly productive, I merged the straps with the “head harness”, enlarged the rubber seal around the head (hopefully it will make fitting easier in world) , made a strapless version of the mask (for Winter) and did a lot of work on the LPM (Low polygon model).

Hello everyone! Another update on the gas mask! Nothing big has changed since the last time, but I rebuilt the straps and detailed them a little bit, changed a few things on the buckles that where bothering me. I defined the mask edges to make it fit around the face a little better and rounded up the filter port mounting point for the “unscrewed look” (with the mouth showing through). I added a little structural seam at the symmetry axis (like real ones!) and built the hydration port on the side, it has no purpose, but it breaks the symmetry and looks kind of cool.

– EDIT – There appears to be a certain demand for a strapless gas mask, so I will do that too. The hydration valve will be optional too, for those who like things to be very symmetrical and seamless 🙂

I’ve worked a little more on it today, I finished the strap harness, (the strap ends are still missing, I know) and made a filter.

For those interested it’s in my past broadcasts on twitch, I didn’t feel like announcing that I was streaming today, I just wanted it recorded.

The wasp, is this a good name? I like it, at least for now, it’s never too late to change it… calling it the psycho II is probably not going to happen, that was back when I thought gas masks where weird instead of cool.

This modeling session went very well, better than I hoped. I almost expected that I was going to start over several time over the course of the day, but what do you know, I might be getting better after all. I know someone is gonna ask for this to be lockable, I’m not sure how to make it happen (from a visual standpoint) but I will think about it.

It’s this time again, i will be streaming most of the day on my new project: A new gasmask 🙂

[livestream type=”twitch” channel=”kyrah3D”]

The SL model is pretty much final, I won’t touch it anymore. Texture wise however, I think the black wood is too “black” and things could use a bit of contrast, but maybe that’s just me.

The metal will be tintable, the usual way, same for the laces and the hoof, if i make a light version of the texture. There is still a couple of texture glitches here and there, but nothing major that I can see.

It’s using more triangles than what I was hoping to remain under, but there is only so much I can do with these laces, short of doing it all in texture (which is the proper way to do this by the way) but you guys would probably not like that.

What’s left:

• Getting all the parts UVWmapped.
• Making all the textures.
• Some scripting, but considering these do not lock or have any bondage features, coloring HUD and maybe a walking sound.

Another work in progress, I deleted a bunch more “unnecessary” edges on the boot itself and added the LPM horseshoes. I’m sure “someone” will complain that I’ve been cheap on the polygon count, by the look of it, I won’t be able to maintain the boot under 2000 triangles, and 3000 triangles is not far considering I’m still missing the zipper pull, lacing, hooks and eyelets. I have no doubt that it will remain under 10k triangles but beyond that?

The devil is in the details…

Fun fact: a sculpted prim is 1024 triangles.

Now that the high polygon version is ready, it’s time to work on the low polygon version, the one that will be specially optimized for real-time rendering and obviously, secondlife.

I never talked about these things, but when it comes to low polygon modeling, it’s all a balancing act. Triangles take pretty much the same time to render regardless of their size, so if you want your model to be “kind” to the user’s computer, you have to balance between quality and performances.

I could write an article about it, i have a folder full of extremely bad examples of  models that have no place in SL, yet are your typical “top seller” shoes.

As of today, SL doesn’t support normal mapping (yet), so we cannot use fancy tricks. Which means that regardless of your ability to optimize, you have to shoot for a little higher polygon count than you normally would because of the tendency SL residents have to move their camera around and zoom all the way in on everything, down to the smallest piece of jewelry.

But even with normal and specular mapping, I fear that those unreasonable expectations for high fidelity rendering will only get worse.