A broken, falling, moon (Fin P.2)

Started by TheBadger, May 11, 2012, 04:32:38 AM

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TheBadger

Hello.

I have looked through the forums and thought on this for a long time. I cannot come up with anyway to break apart a moon, other than by doing one of the following.

1) Use huge craters to deform at least part of a moon in TG2, and use fake stones as debris. Similar but more extreme to what was done here: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=14512.0 (by freelancah)
The problem I see and don't know an answer too is, how to place the fake stones in empty space and have them be exactly where I want them.

2) create a model of a moon in a 3d program with debris, and import the .obj.
But how large would the .obj have to be. How much could I enlarge it once in TG2?
For this one I think I could place the object in the sky by using the coordinates of a TG2 moon, placing my .obj, and then deleting the TG2 moon.

What do you guys think about the two methods I have, and, what better ways could there be?
It has been eaten.

Kevin F

I'd go for option 2. The obj would have to be huge but that's no problem, you could make as big as you want in TG2. For rock debris you could also use the inbuilt rock obj or use Wings 3D which can make really nice rock shapes.

TheBadger

Quote from: Kevin F on May 11, 2012, 04:49:47 AM
I'd go for option 2. The obj would have to be huge but that's no problem, you could make as big as you want in TG2. For rock debris you could also use the inbuilt rock obj or use Wings 3D which can make really nice rock shapes.

Thanks for helping me Kevin :)

About model .obj size not being a problem... When I export an object from Hexagon2 I get a 30mb file, when I export  from MudBox the same file is a gig. Assuming I ever come to an understanding of that, are you saying its not an issue for TG2?

I just learned to model so I don't know all the ins and outs. I know I can make the moon and related pieces, and make them look good! But should I make this thing gigantic in the modeler? Or should I just use a gigantic texture? Or to ask another way... the bigger the object, the better the enlargement in TG2?

It has been eaten.

Kadri


What are you trying to do TheBadger ?
Is it an animation , a still? Will you see the object from many sides etc. ?
As you remember from some other threads here you could use a still planet texture and other real objects together or only textures on planes etc. Or do all of them as real objects.

Search in which way the other programs export objects.
As you know TG2 does object export too and if you use high settings you can get objects over a GB in TG2 too.
Using such high poly objects is not recommended without reason .
Some programs could not open them easily even.
In fact one of the aspects for using TG2 is the way it can use his own procedural objects with infinitive(relative) detail .

You should model the objects (if you go this route) the way you want to see it in TG2.
You can add detail as real displacement if you use only the micro render but you should know what you do first.





TheBadger

Here is an image from an animated movie I found that makes a good example of part of what Im trying to do.
[attachimg=1]

In this image from the film you see the moon as it is a long time after the event that shattered the satellite.
I want to make an image where debris from the moon is still raining down, something relatively soon after the event..

I think that I can make the objects I need. But how big should I make them? I guess I would not want to make them actual size. Should I texture them in TG2 or before?

I think I need to have objects like this also (to make it look good) in addition to the main moon parts.
http://images.wikia.com/memoryalpha/en/images/2/2a/Asteroid_belt,_Q2.jpg

It has been eaten.

TheBadger

#5
Hi
I finally have gotten to a place with various softwares that I can now try and make the projects that I have posted on.

Here is a screen grab of a model for the moon. Its in the early stage.
[attach=1]

So..

What I would like to know is how should I go about doing the texture?
I have a 8192x4096 map of the moon surface. But how could I break it up properly over the surface of the three main parts you see in my image above? (if there is a larger size map some place please post a link... I thought big ben posted one??)
I am not concerned about the inside areas, I can make that up as I go along. But the outside parts of the sphere need the details.

As an object I could do a bump map

Or
I could do a great job in mudbux sculpting various details. But I still need some actual details from the map to make it look real. Does anyone know how to use a map like a moon map to sculpt in mudbox?! I am not even sure what words to use to search on line.

HELP!  :)

QuoteWhat are you trying to do TheBadger ?
Is it an animation , a still? Will you see the object from many sides etc. ?
I never know for sure what I will want in the end. So I try to make everything good enough for an animation, where detail from every view is high.
It has been eaten.

Tangled-Universe

Can't you make stamps/stencils of moon textures for detailing your mesh?
You can use the same textures for texturing, of course.

http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/moon.php

TheBadger

Yes! Ha. ;D
I thought (for some reason) that I would have to make a stencil that wrapped around the object the same way you place an image map on a moon in TG2.

But now I realize that this is not really a must. I can make stamps/stencils of just the areas on the three faces of the moon like you see in my screen grab. This is possible!

Though it would be good if I could somehow make a stencil that wrapped around the object. But since we can only ever see one side of the moon anyway, and because my moon is in the process of destruction I think I have a good deal of wiggle room.

Thanks for helping me to talk out a solution, Martin!

I'm getting on this right now.
It has been eaten.

Tangled-Universe

If you want to wrap the texture and displace it then you should try to do that in Maya or so.
Use a moonmap as displacement and bake that into polygons.

You can also do that in TG2:
Apply the imagemap for colour as well as displacement.
Then export the moon using the micro exporter and import the mesh into Maya and break the moon there.
You would still need to texture the cracked sides, so I'm not sure whether this approach would save you any time or would give a better result.

TheBadger

Hi martin.

I did not think to texture it first and then break it up, it sounds like a good idea to me.
I have been sitting here tying to see a way to do it it. And I keep concluding that decimating the object after I finish the model and sculpt would then destroy my UVs. Thus ruining any detailed sculpting.
Nothing can be done without UVs (I think).
PTEX may not even be a good solution in this case even if TG2 could take it.

Its strange! I know that people use Maya (for example) to make objects that when animated explode. Its hard to imagine that every little part of an object that is to be exploded must individually be created, or at least individually UV mapped.

Its not easy to find specific instruction for this sort of thing. I have a Digital Tutors membership... Its helpful but certainly not the be all end all of tutorials.

Unless someone reading this knows exactly how to do this I will keep going with the solution you already lead me to

If you look at the cartoon image I posted above, you can see 3 main parts to the moon object as well as a debris ring/cloud. I will do similar. But that part I will do in TG2 using some TGD from this forum.
It has been eaten.

TheBadger

#10
Best I could get it without one of the fancy UV plugins. I don't think the seams will be an issue.

Now off to Modbox we go.
It has been eaten.

TheBadger

#11
Ok, had to learn a ton of stuff before I could finish this... Man is there a lot to learn!

So, I ended up using a particle system to create the smaller debris parts. I then used 2 different uv mapped (simple forms) and assigned them to each particle instance. At the intended render distance there is no worry about the appearance of repetition.

Lastly I used a .py script to convert all particles to geometry so I could alter them individually (if I wanted) and export them to .obj.

Learning how to do it took a while. But the actual doing only took like ten minutes, excluding fussing with placement and such.
Now all I have to do is go in and sculpt the moon and larger debris parts.

By the way this image is also for my entry for the road competition. basic set up.

@T-U,
It turns out that I could have just mapped the sphere and then "shattered" it. But I had already done the work on the main form before I learned dynamics. Just thought you would like to know that your suggestion would have worked.  :)



[EDIT] Ahh, I see now that you really cant see the high amount of debris/particles, but I think in a dawn/dusk scene it will really pop!
It has been eaten.

Dune

Terrific! You pick up things fast, my compliments, Michael. Curious to see what you come up with in the contest.......

TheBadger

#13
OK no bump or displacement here yet, but I think I got that figured now too. But here is the finished object in simple low poly form (low poly if you don't count the particles that you cant even see in this image >:( ).


The displaced or bumped (not sure which I'll do yet in TG...probably bump because the object will be so far away) object will look very nice (if I do that stuff right)


Anyway... Take a look and let me know if you see anything you find terrible.
It has been eaten.

mhaze

Very Impressive.  As Dune says you learn fast!