Terragen 2 Contest

[DeathTwister]

Hay all,

The other thing is that there is no visible sun and I'd like to make a small flare on the right side to show a sun/star in the distance.

You can add another sun/light source and put it where you would like to.

question:
Can we upload our entry and keep working on it with more renders up until the deadline?  I have one that is almost there, but do not want to miss the deadline, and I want to add one more thing, then do a very long render and I am not sure if time lines will permit.  But if I can upload one version now (conforms to all rules) then if I get the final final one rendered in time I can upload over the same file name maybe? I think I heard something that we could somewhere but could not find it now and needed to know or I have to have mine done by the end of the weekend, Arg???

Question:
I have been having mapping problems with the models I am bringing in. If I take a model from 3d max, and bring it into XSI and make the textures shaders in XSI and then export them all out as a .obj object all goes well and fine except for one thing so far.  All the texture tiling I have done is gone and no way I found to make the tiles tile 4 times like I had it in either XSI or Max.  I can tile when I am doing terrains in tgd2, but not on a model that I could find.  Or am I a dummy again and not seeing the obvious?  I need to retile the (model/model parts) from 1x1x to 4x4x somehow.  Then I will be a happy camper for a day or 2.

I have also noticed for me anyway so far, that sub-object mapping sucks, of course it may be the way I was doing it? maybe not, but I have not been able to get multi-sub mapping to work at all, even using just 2-4 textures, and UV unwrap don't seem to come out right for me either, so I had to go simple here and I am still having some problems with tilling now.  Any ideas on the tiling at least?  Maybe add a shader to get the tilling I want? but which one? and where? hahaha lolol, thanks for the help in advance if anyone knows? /smiles....
DeathTwister
it's all in the tweak ain't it? /smiles.......

[rcallicotte]

Is it the correct assumption then that MeltingIce called the rules from the beginning?  If so, I'll enter it without the sun.  Otherwise, let me know.  I'm going to enter what I have...now. 

Thanks for the answers.

[DeathTwister]

Haha I am getting nervious now you guys,

No one knows how to reset the tilling on textures for INC models? oh noooo, that not good. I am pretty much done with my entry except for some model mapping issues I need to address if I can.  I guess I could just enter it and either re-edit it later or find the answer now, I would like to know now if I can, lololol ROTFL yup yup /winks.
I have looked and can find no way to make the texture on my model go from tilling once like it seems to do on default, to tilling the texture 4 times like I need to do to have it look right, well to me anyway /smiles....

There should be a feature in the tabs with models for re-tilling texures and there is not one in there now, hint, hint /smiles.  anyway I could not figure it out so far.
Since there don't seem to be one I make it a request for next release /chuckles. So if I can get an answer, all I got to do is re-tile, re-render and submit my humble entry /smiles.....

DT

[MeltingIce]

Is it the correct assumption then that MeltingIce called the rules from the beginning?  If so, I'll enter it without the sun.  Otherwise, let me know.  I'm going to enter what I have...now. 

Thanks for the answers.

Yea I wrote down all the rules before the contest started, and I would like to stick to them.  I was a little lenient with the first contest, but I need to be a little more strict for this one to make it fair for everyone.

[Oshyan]

DT, the Default Shader, which is used normally for imported model textures, doesn't support tiling at the moment. You can use an Image Map shader in place of it - it does support tiling. You would only be able to turn tiling off and on though, not set the price number of tiles. However if the scaling and UV mapping is correct I would think it should work right. Tiling settings on imported model textures will certainly be supported properly in the future.

- Oshyan

[DeathTwister]

Ah Brother oshyan,

Wow thankies so very much, I knew there had to be a way to skin that cat and yes, I had figured they had forgotten to suport that part after going through every setting there was for models very closely, so was not surprising with so much they have thought of, to have forgotten that one, and I think it should be on their To-Do list /smiles and I am pretty sure it is I would think sometime in the future.

This makes good sence when thinking about it,  so I will try and replace the shader it has with a image map shader and see if I can tweak it right, and yes it does kinda look like it did have all the other mapping info on the model except for the tilling aspect so I would think that if I can get tilling to work, then it should read that info nativly I think as well and look the way I want it.

  Everything else I plan to do for my entry is done for now, I had to drop for now the Spaceship and glowing drives idea in my scene for now, I will add them later, maybe by the time the comp is finished I will have that worked out, but it is hard to spend to much time on entries when I have deadlines to meet on our companies stuff, as I am sure we all know full well hahaha rotfl.  However my own time is mine and I love building worlds more these days then I do just playing in other peoples video game worlds hahaha, I think that is why we are all here really /winks.  KK thanks one last time for the info for all of us and I am off...

Side note, All are awesome entries, that have been posted so far, really really good work from every entry, it will be a hella fun time when all the entries are in and it is voting time.  Good luck to all.

DT

[DeathTwister]

Yawn....Good morning../smiles,

  Well I uploaded my entry and unless I can find a mapping problem, I have with another perspective, which I liked better, but it had a weired mapping glitch somehow on one of the toruses on the space station, and no way to select it out the gate to fix it.  Trial and error time.

  I did the math and it could take me 40+hours just to figure out what part of the station is the culprit as I have to hi-end render each change in order to see what part of the 10 pieces of the space station I made has the problem.  That could take up to and beyond the deadline for entries so I decided to enter This version unless I can solve the one I had wanted to submit.  But the mapping on this version is not to bad, so I went with it.

Suggestion Box for Planet Side with INC Models.
1. when Importing trees, models of any kind, it would be real nice to:
   A. be able to see the models/mesh and sub-model parts to be able to select them for editing both for models, trees and plants.
   b. and a button that allows you to set tiles on textures at least, and tile them up to 8 times? would be nice.
   c. Would be real sweet to be able to get my bump mapping back I had also, I could not find a bumping       channel for the model as well.
2. The .obj format when importing needs work. Because, if we can get the info we want in like we send the info out as an .obj then that would also help.  It is getting crossed somewhat somehow I think some ware coming into tgd2. This is not a whine, just for the main part observations I am finding with bringing models in.

  I had a gas with this months comp guys and all the entries I have seen that have entered are awesome and going to be tough to vote on and we still have peeps like me that have not entered yet, so this is exciting as to what other entries will pop up /smiles....

I want to thank all that helped me, and all of us with ideas, and tutorials, and information in all the ways that we did get and hope everyone else is having as much fun as I am.  Ya'll have a good day and see ya'll around....haaahaha

DT

[rcallicotte]

I tried and could not upload my entry.  It's almost 9M, but the limit is 22M.  Anyone know why?  I sent an email to the admin.

[Oshyan]

DT, use crop renders of *only* the area of the space station - this should reduce render time dramatically and still show you if errors are happening.

We're aware that the OBJ importer needs further development. We have improved it with past releases and will continue to do so. If you have any *specific* problems that you can provide files to illustrate that would be very helpful for us in fixing any remaining problems.

Calico, are you saying your *image* is 9 megabytes? Is it uncompressed (.bmp or other non-compressed format)? Even at high resolution and quality a .jpg compressed version of your image should not be larger than 1MB or so, and probably less.

- Oshyan

[su_liam]

Hi again guys,


DeathTwister

Sweet Jesus. You've discovered the secret naugahyde shader?!? I like it...

[MeltingIce]

I tried and could not upload my entry.  It's almost 9M, but the limit is 22M.  Anyone know why?  I sent an email to the admin.

Yea, I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "9M".  Do you mean its 9MB? Because thats huge haha.  A little more specific would be good so I can determine what the problem is, thanks.

[DeathTwister]

Hay just a quicky,

Oshyan, Wow great idea with the cropper, and if I get the chance I will do that, but work nabbed me again and I am working in the Big C (Constructor) right now again /winks...Got to meets ma deadlines and they getting way to close atm.

Thanks for the planet coment Su Liam ya I think I can do it again and I did keep the file for reference for later and will post the tgd file if ya like? /smiles... it was interesting the way it came out.  By the way Su, good to see ya came over to this forum. KEWL.../winks lets have some fun, can't wait to see what ya come up with.

DT

[rcallicotte]

My image is a TIF with no compression and really tight (244 pixels per inch).  Maybe that's it?    

I guess I could do a JPG instead.  I'll look at that idea tonight.   

DT, use crop renders of *only* the area of the space station - this should reduce render time dramatically and still show you if errors are happening.

We're aware that the OBJ importer needs further development. We have improved it with past releases and will continue to do so. If you have any *specific* problems that you can provide files to illustrate that would be very helpful for us in fixing any remaining problems.

Calico, are you saying your *image* is 9 megabytes? Is it uncompressed (.bmp or other non-compressed format)? Even at high resolution and quality a .jpg compressed version of your image should not be larger than 1MB or so, and probably less.

- Oshyan

[su_liam]

I'm so happy. I finally got a good render. Not as ambitious as I'd originally intended, but I think I'll enter it anyway. "When your sight surpasses what's plainly in view, pull your head from the clouds, keep the ground to your shoes. ... It's improper that folks get so carried away."

By the way, would it invalidate my entry to put it up on 'rosity? I'm very proud of it and designpaths isn't loading for me.

[Oshyan]

Calico, the TIFF is fine for your own use on your computer in editing and whatnot, but any image you upload to a website should be in either .jpg or, if absolute best quality is necessary (only for printing purposes, really) then .png. .jpg will save a huge amount of file size while providing virtually indistinguishable quality.

- Oshyan