Staff of Parthalan Progress

I gave up on making UV maps for the branches on the staff. Every time I tried to make some, I ran into scaling issues. On the plus side, I learned how to set seams for Pelt unwrapping.

Utilizing my newly gained skills, I split the branches with abandon and scaled them to around the same size. Then, I split the staff's shaft and flattened it out to run all the way around end to end. This is where I ran into an issue with texture stretching.

Green means no distortion. Red means distortion. Green+red means a little of both.

To fix the stretching, I tried to set the UV vertices in their same relative spacing as their mesh counterparts. This didn't work so well. That's when I found the "Show Edge Distorition" option under the Display menu of the Edit UVWs window. Checking that colors all your edges green or red depending on how much distortion there is (as seen above).

Distortion fixed, I exported the model into Mudbox and fumbled my way around the UI. Once I got the hang of the projection mapping, I used the stock stencils to paint my textures. After that, I exported all the layers into Photoshop for some fine tuning.

All I have left to do now is make the texture for the transition piece that holds the shaft and blade together. Alright, maybe some more tweaking...THEN I'll put it in-game.

Uv mapping = headache

I've been working on duplicating the Staff of Parthalan for a few days now. Sadly, I traced my shape off the original mesh because I really wanted the gem's branches perfect. So, they're set, but man, are they hard to make a UV map for.

The splines I used to trace and then fill out to make the branches no longer fit due to mesh smoothing (and the clean up/optimization that entails). I had them generate their own mapping coordinates prior to editable poly conversion, but they created rectangles (good) that didn't align with themselves (bad). Additionally, scaling them around to be seamless with the rest of the staff was difficult. So, I'm going back and breaking them off into elements again (had to collapse for smoothing to work right) in order to make selecting them easier.

Hopefully I'll have an epiphany on how to do this right. Otherwise, I'm going to break this up into multiple models, paint on them using Mudbox (never used it before), and assemble everything using nifskope.

Today's Agenda

1. Make new enchantments for the unique variant of Finesse and add to Spider's Heart's enchantment.
2. Make a standard version of Finesse or make a glowing rune to make the unique version look better than having generic enchantment shaders.
3. Make a Frying Pan staff that isn't simply two pans welded together. Something with a little more thought behind it.
4. Work on Back-Stock.
5. Make a tutorial for Portal 2.
6. Start TestMapPack 5 with...something.
7. Move boxes back into my room.
8. Do 1-7 in some sort of order.

Portal 2 Map Maker versus Authoring Tools

I've been asked multiple times on Steam's Portal 2 Workshop why I don't use the Map Maker. Rather than make several consecutive posts to fit my answer each time (1000 character limit), I'm going to put it here and link to it whenever I'm asked.

Opening Map Maker generated maps in Hammer results in 128x128x128 instances that are annoying to work with. I would have to make a replacer instance to substitute my desired wall thickness, realign and fill in tile gaps as a result of the replacements, cleanup and reapply all overlays, add and adjust lights, and tweak lightmap resolutions. By that time, I would have to scrap it all just to get whatever idea I wanted to implement in. Yes, I broke reasonable order and put all the work first to make it sound like a bigger deal.

Furthermore, I require the amount of flexibility Hammer offers to build my maps. I can't do what I do in the Map Maker. There are too many constraints, hidden entities, and limited features; it's just too restrictive. There is no prototyping my ideas in the Map Maker. I build from the inside out. Start with an element and add onto it. Starting from the outside-in is a hassle I don't want to deal with.

If I'm trying to make an idea a reality for the first time, I have no clue what I'm doing. How thick do I want walls? Pfft. How should I know? "Wow, making that brush a *insert brush entity here* really throws a curve ball" "This area's shadows are too strong/weak. I've got to adjust that." "But what if I...ya...that'll work!" "I want a custom texture there." "Huh, the engine supports more i/o than the fgd shows, better fix that"

So, mostly, it is me being stubborn and hiding behind personal preference. The other part is this: "Can you make a ferris wheel in the Map Maker?" I didn't think so.

Also, you are locked to the clean visual style with no option to break up tile textures how you see fit. Now, I admit, I've been defaulting to the clean style in my later maps, but the lack of style options is a big turn off. And I can see why they wouldn't have it.

Making the option would most likely be easy, but tedious. If you so much as use a laser, you've made your map unable to be used for 1970's Aperture. Foliage would have to be cleaned out if you changed from the destroyed theme. You want bts? Well, be sure to flag what walls you want to keep and hope that the generated vactubes won't mess up your map. What's that? There are no arms in Old Aperture, so much for those elements.

In short, I started with Hammer and that's what I'm used to. The random crashes, stupidly high memory usage, occasional failure to update assets, complete failure to reflect model changes on props, and graphical glitches are all familiar. This Map Maker is not a replacement for it. It is a way for people to break into mapping. Now, advanced Hammer users have created amazing maps in the Map Maker. I'm just not one of them.

Content Creation versus Consumption

   There isn't enough time in the day. There is just so much I want to do, but can't seem to cram into a single day.
What I do:

• Clone weapons from Dragon Age to release on Skyrim Workshop. I find it fun and it's good practice.
• Create my own weapons for release on Skyrim's Workshop (currently, Frying Pans of various shapes and sizes).
• UV map and make all the textures for the above models 
• Work on a Portal 2 mod.
  
• Make videos of maps I've made or mapping tutorials

   I'm finding my PC's specs aren't up to the task. I mean, if I do one thing at a time, it's good. But I continuously bounce from one project to the next. Like right now. I'm working on a model in 3ds Max 2011, using Photoshop CS4 to edit the texture, rendering my latest mapping tutorial in VirtualDub, and recompiling a map for re-release on the Portal 2 Workshop. I've killed Skyrim and Portal 2 for now, but usually one or the other is up at any given time.

   My machine has pushed 6GB of RAM (8 total) and I've maxed out my graphics card's 512MB of vram a few times (3dsMax threw an error about it and stopped rendering). My CPU is at 100% for minutes at a time because of Photoshop applying all the filters, blending options, layers, 3DS Max hanging on some operation I shouldn't have done (Yeah! 2 Subdivision passes!), or Vrad compiling map in both ldr and hdr. I can't run them all at once and they all take a while. This wasn't a problem until now. I'm just creating so much I now understand the need for beefy specs.

   The biggest issue is my lack of Vram. Photoshop, 3DS Max, and Hammer take it all up. If I start a game to test, Max craps out. That's another thing. I'm not playing games anymore. I'm testing what I've made for them. I still have to beat Dungeon Siege 3 and haven't touched the Explosive Mission DLC for DX:HR (Go Steam Sale!).

Starfang Greatsword

After Vigilance's release, I had a request for Starfang from Dragon Age: Origins - Warden's Keep DLC. So, I made it. Instead of taking 35 days like Vigilance, it only took 9. I'm not sure what to make of that yet. Vigilance was a lot more involved and had a lot of details I turned into actual geometry instead of relying on normal maps. I also lost a lot of time trying to get normal maps to render correctly (tip: check for anomalies if you used MeshSmooth to create your high poly model).

Anyways, I decided to take screenshots documenting its creation instead of making numerous blog posts. Without further ado, here they are:

Starting out. Using Iron Claymore as size reference

Made reference card using Dragon Age wiki image

Eyeballing shape

Basic Detailing

Starting UV unwrapping

Starting the texture

Seeing how the texture lines up on the model

Adding more base colors

Smile!

The interior of the sword reminded me of the Normandy from Mass Effect

Adding details to the texture

Baking AO to give some shading to the texture

Adding the fuller

Reshaping and realigning texture

Adding glow

Glow Set

Ingame shot

Vigilance Greatsword released on Skyrim Workshop

Pretty much the title. After a month or so of working on it, I've release my recreation of the Vigilance Greatsword. You can grab it here: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=54553393