| The Art of 1.33 |
| Written by MOTORMOUTH |
| Wednesday, 16 February 2011 16:12 |
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Weeks and, in the case of a few dedicated Beta team members, months of research provided the Art department with a very detailed set of Style Guides. These guides were invaluable tools in creating the new infantry models that you see in 1.33 today. With some help from an off-site art intern, Bruce “TOTO” Patnaude fired up 3D Studio Max and began to model six unique avatars and a library of distinctive kit objects. The project started with a base mesh that was generic in form and function. Referring to the style guides, TOTO altered these to create the basic infantry unit, devoid of any kit objects. New tools and techniques were used for better results. “This time around I didn't use the Physique modifier for the mesh deformation”, explains TOTO. “Instead I used the SKIN tool, which is much easier to work with”.  Once the base modeling was complete, it was on to textures. Higher resolution textures were generated for diffuse channels, and from that came the normal maps, speculars and ambient occlusion maps. Much of this latter work was assigned to James “VOLCOL” Chilton, an interactive media student from the UK. “My contributions were 3 helmet models and 3 parachute models, both created with the necessary texture maps. I also produced the normal, specular and ambient occlusions maps for the German inf/para, British inf/para and French para models”. Working off site was not much of a problem, he says, once a routine was established. “My technique would be to produce the model, then produce the model UV's and then finally the diffuse texture and texture maps. In producing the normal maps and ambient occlusion/specular maps I used some techniques that Toto showed me over Skype”.  The next step required was to create three additional LOD (level of detail) models. The highest resolution model currently sits at 5,800 triangles, compared to the old one, which is made up of 2,500. With double the triangles, well, you get double the details. The new models look much more robust and less angular. The lowest LOD (4) has 800 triangles, but since players only see that one at a great distance, nothing is lost.  The hardest part of the project reared it's head once it came time to apply animations to the model. Rigging is when you apply a skeleton to a mesh so that it can be animated. Each vertices on a mesh has to be assigned to a bone, so that when the bone moves the mesh moves with it. This is done by “vertex weighting”. “And that job” sighs TOTO, “can be a pain in the ass”. Some tough decisions were made on things that had to be left out for this first pass. Heads, for instance. With this model, a new system will need to be created to be able to swap out heads from a library. So, for the time being, there isn't the option to have a variety of different faces for the new infantry. TOTO explains that “We had also thought about swapping the rifle from the left hand to the right hand, which is used for all the other weapons. But the amount of work needed to do it was too much for too little payback”. Decals are another item that we plan on addressing in a future update. TOTO and MARTINI will need to put their heads together to find a better system for properly displaying decals. Thanks to the extraordinary effort of such a small team (duo, really), the new infantry hit the battlefield of Open Testing this week and are already earning incredibly positive reviews. Stay tuned for part 3: CODE!!! |
