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Full Version: Attempt at Khet Set
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Howdy,

I'm a long term casual Wings3D user, and I've long been using it to produce models for my own programs (hobby/student programmer), and this is one of my more serious attempts and modeling anything. I'm really not very good at this stuff, but felt like posting anyway (might even asking for your suggestions on how to fix/improve some stuff later on).

Relevant but unnecessary ramble follows
A few days ago I had the opportunity to play the game Khet (2.0) "The Laser Game" and have since been working on stylized (no intent to add faces, even if I was capable of such a feat) models for a Khet Computer game (had a 3D engine lying around waiting for testing, and this has been a great way to go about testing it).

To get models into my program I have to triangulate and export them from Wings3D as OBJs, and then run them through a converter I coerced a friend into writing by making him cookies. The system supports texturing, but I'm no good at texturing, or making textures, so this was another nice opportunity to save me some work, as the models don't really need any texture just pretty colors (that the software can change in runtime).

Enough rambling here is a screenshot of the models in Wings3D. The lower set is the smoothed and tessellated final models, the set above are the working copy. The greeny grey faces are the "mirrors".

[Image: khetModels.png]

Some detail of the Scarab (which I'm rather proud of, made good use I think of the Line|Crease tool).

[Image: khetScarab.png]

A screen shot from in-game - I tried (and failed) to get a sensible viewing angle of everything). Note that all the models are slightly transparent (but the front faces of the mirrors are not) and are lit from above by a white point light (as such, I forget what the point light shaders do pretty quickly).

[Image: khetScrn.png]

This last screenshot shows the detail of the pharaohs "cascading" tile sort of effect thing, which simply doesn't work. Any suggestions on how I might get a roof-tile sort of effect going for the head dress (without textuing)? Not only does this give the appearance of messed up normals, but it leaves horrid artefact's when you are far away from the model (in Wings3D and my own software (the dots on the Pharaoh (between the two Silver Anubis (no idea what the plural is)))).

[Image: khetPharaohCascade.png]

Anyhow, I'm pleased with what is at most 5 days work, though I don't expect any of you professionals to be impressed in the slightest!

Quick thanks to the developers for this zero-learning-curve software, it's been an invaluable tool for my 3D programming.
Hi VisualMelon, I'm not a specialist, but would suggest you to try triangulate your model before export. Also, it's a good idea doesn't have those n-gons that we can see in the Pharaoh - prefer preserve quads.
That dots, maybe came from the hard edges you used?! (I think I saw some orange edges in your model). Try remove them and load your model in the game again.
Hi micheus, thanks for the suggestions - I infact have to triangulate the models before export (my model format requires it and the converter is appropriately lazy), sorry if the work-flow wasn't quite clear (the smooth models in the first screenshot are smoothed and triangulated (the exact models I export)). Even so, yes, there are some n-gons in there that I should address, thanks for pointing that out!

Indeed the dots are a result of the hard edges (and I should think the nature of non-linear depth calculations for perspective projections), and I felt they were probably necessary to yield the overlapping tile effect I'm after, but I will go ahead and try without them and see what happens.

Edit/Update
Putting those soft edges in looks rather promising! I always felt like it might be a bit dodgy, but after a couple of smooths worked out rather well. Shown with point-light somewhere directly above:

[Image: khetPharaohSoft.png]

After adding a bit more geometry (basically cut each "row" up a bit more) it's starting to look more like I envisioned. No fun lighting here:

[Image: khetPharaohSoft2.png]

I'll keep playing with it (could probably do with being extruded/bumped out a bit), and might upload a screenshot from in-game tomorrow or something.

Thanks micheus! Smile