3D Coat users?

[SlipperyBrick]

Any 3D - Coat users here? I am trying to model an environment for my game in 3D - Coat but I am struggling to start. I want do the level design in a modular fashion so modelling pieces of the environment is the best way to go. Has any ever used 3D - Coat for environment modelling? Need some advice. At the moment I feel I am not using 3D - Coat as much as I should (I've bought the commercial version which is pretty much just sitting on my hard drive doing nothing, feels like a waste of money).

 

Any help on how to get started would be appreciated. Would simple planes do for the walls and floor?

 

Thanks

[ChrisV]

Well, you already know that i am a 3D Coater, so if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask, and i'll answer them as good as i can.

For modular design, here some tips:

 

- Use a grid system. The idea of modular models for 3D environments is to create fast environments with small tiling models and maximum flexibility. Before you start modelling, be sure that your grid for the 3D package you use is exactly the same as the grid of the engine you make the model for.

- To make the model as easy to use as possible, always align it with the grid lines. To make it exact use the “grid snap” function in your 3D package.

- Use a power of 2 for measurements. This means when you model a wall segment, don't make it 248 units wide and 240 units high. The best matching value here would be 256 units, which is 2 to the power of 8. So the perfect solution here would be to make the wall segment 256 wide and 256 high. If, when modeling for some real-life environments, your model doesn't fit into a power of 2 measurement, it's best to just add or subtract to the next power of two. For example, if the proportions of your wall segment doesn't fit into a span of 256 units, which is 2 to the power of 8, then you can add 128 units which is 2 to the power of 7. You can now fit your model to a width of 384 units. If it still doesn't fit, you can add or subtract the next smaller power of 2. You can repeat this process untill you find a power of two that fits, but just don't overdo it...

- Make sure the measurements of the models that will be used together match (if your wall segments are 256 wide, then also make your floor/ceiling segments 256 wide).

- Pivot placement: the aim here is to place the pivot in the most useful position for the level designer, so he can place the model quickly and easily in the 3D space. There are 5 steps for pivot placement that can be used with every model, and will result in a perfect pivot position:

- The first step is to place the pivot in the focal point of the model. While some models already have a good pivot, for most models, you have to refine the pivot position to get an easy-to-use model.

- The next step is checking your mesh for symmetry lines. As soon as a mesh has one or more symmetry lines, the pivot should be on this line or in the point of intersection. The intersection point of all three symmetry lines is also the focal point.

- The third step is to think about how the model will align with the environment. There are three basic types of alignment: aligned to the ground, to the ceiling and to the wall. The aim is to place the pivot where the model just touches the ground, ceiling or wall. When we move the pivot of a model to the very bottom of the model, and we place the model on the floor, it will stand exactly on the floor without clipping into the floor or floating a little bit above the floor.

- Fourth step: as soon as a model is made as a tiling segment, the pivot has to be moved to a point where it matches with the next model. The advantage of this pivot position is that, when you want to scale the mesh inside the editor, one side of the mesh is always fixed. So it is possible to place it aligning with the mesh on one side and then change the scale value until it aligns properly with the other side.

- And finally, some modular models are created as a part of a circle, and need to be rotated in the editor to make bigger curved geometry. In this case, the pivot must be in the circle center of the model. On some models this can result in a pivot that is very far away from the mesh. This is usually a bad pivot position, but in this case it is much more easy to use as a pivot that is in the focal point of the mesh.

- Use texture atlasses (less memory footprint, environment will load and run faster). It takes longer to plan, but less production time.

- Planning is very important. The longer you spend planning an environment the easier it will be to make and the more things will make sense to the player.

 

Hope this helps you? ?

[YouGroove]

I use it from long time.

About modular what do you mean ? Just assemble or perfectly align Tiling 3D tiles ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What you can do is do modular in some easy way :

Make only floors of a building, like first floor with walls, second floor with different wall textures, windows and doors as separate models, than assemble floors, doors, windows and some decoration in Blender to make varied buildings.

 

The more easy way caus less modular pieces, and you assemble bigger premade blocks instead :

 

[SlipperyBrick]

Ahh guys, thanks so much for the replies. I think I'll be going really small with this making the floors first then the walls etc. Then putting it all together in Blender.

[YouGroove]

In BLender some key shortcuts :

N : see object, vertex, or face position/rottaion , so you can set size or precise position of faces easy

Shift + D : duplicate some 3D object (3D tile one for example)

Shift + S : Align object to Blender grid (usefull to align or assemble 3D tiles)

[SlipperyBrick]

Thanks a lot YouGroove. I am hoping to get started on somethings tonight when I am home from work.

[Rick]

Scrotie, what do you mean by putting it all together in blender? Are you planning on making the modular pieces in 3D coat and then using those in blender to make the level? Remember, we need to use those pieces in the LE editor to put the level together because it'll save loading time and memory because of the instancing that'll take place in LE.

[bandrewk]

 

 

 

 

 

Who is the artist of these models? Where did you find it?

[YouGroove]

@bandrewk :

It's specialK work , here is the thread :

http://www.polycount.com/forum/showthread.php?t=89647

 

@Rick :

You can use 3D tiled models in Leadwerks 3, the lightening won't be broken even if you don't weld vertices of neightbour ones. 3D tiles or BSP Tiling prefabs are same, only models will allow you to do lot more complex 3D Tiles.

[YouGroove]

Here is a 20 minutes Blender test :

 

1 : make your individual tiling pieces

2 : begin to assemble them in a bigger wall and create pillar to join walls

3 : assemble walls with pillar joint

 

Easy to add variation : i could replaces wome wall pieces with walls pieces having a hole window easy.

 

Important point make always faces coordinates of small pieces with round and precise values :

X = 2 , Y = 1.2 , Z = 0

And not that x = 2.0665 , Y = 5.214112 Z = 2.2223.

 

Other imprtant shortcut in Blender :

- Select vertex or face of sub mesh of an object

- CTRL + L

It will select the whole sub mesh of the object (works for UV also)

 

 

 

Attached Blend file if you need to test Blender SHIFT + S

modular.zip

[Rick]

You can use 3D tiled models in Leadwerks 3, the lightening won't be broken even if you don't weld vertices of neightbour ones. 3D tiles or BSP Tiling prefabs are same, only models will allow you to do lot more complex 3D Tiles.

 

Yeah, that's what I was trying to make sure Scrotie knows. Not to build the model from tiles in a 3D package and export as 1 model because we won't be able to take advantage of LE's instancing.

[YouGroove]

It's vey known problem of draw passes : single draw always better than 50 draws.

I' making some test right now.

 

I use assembled model for have one draw and one physic object also :

 

What do you mean by modular in LE3 ? what modular level owuld you import ?

[YouGroove]

Exporting individual pieces and aligning in LE3 , the lighting is broken.

As lightening is done per object it will work in one assembled 3D Tiles you export as one object.

But lightening won't work if you assemble models 3D Tiles in Leadwerks 3.

 

I remember some old subject in naoter 3D app about 3D Tiles objects not pre assembled :

You had to export normals of vertex differently or break faces for objects to have some continuos lightening

 

For now i would say pre assemble your buildings before export to FBX.

[YouGroove]

Here is the tests :

Each of three buiildings is one FBX model , FPS stays around 25-30

 

 

Building prefab made of lot of BSP pieces and saved as prefab (don't take account it don't look like a building this is a prefab bug)

 

Two buildings only and not as complex only cubes for walls : FPS drop by half around 12-15 FPS

 

What to say : less objects, less draw calls indeed.

 

Some 3D engines like UDK or Unity allows to "merge" models in your scene as one object to imrove a lot performance. LE3 and Boolean Union for BSP will be a big improvment for performance and BSP.

[Rick]

Are you using 3.1 or 3.0?

 

Why are you comparing models with bsp? Doesn't seem like an even comparison. Make the models modular and piece them together and compare that with fully put together models. Also, make the level rather large and compare loading times with 1 large level model vs modular level.

 

Also, are you using plans for walls and such? Give them some depth and see if that helps with the lighting.

 

Josh also has improvements that aren't available yet. Something to do with recreating textures in real-time or something. I would wait until that fix is released to get any real sort of numbers from this.

[YouGroove]

Are you using 3.1 or 3.0?

3.1

Why are you comparing models with bsp? Doesn't seem like an even comparison. Make the models modular and piece them together and compare that with fully put together models

You are right, but i wanted to test it

For models it's better but same conclusion frame rate drops a little , im' going to remake and publish the test for models only so.

But what i've said about broken lightening is right, assembled in one model no problem, but when using models aligned in LE3 they don't share same lightening pass so it is broken.

 

Josh also has improvements that aren't available yet. Something to do with recreating textures in real-time or something. I would wait until that fix is released to get any real sort of numbers from this.

 

 

I know Josh did some imrovments on frame rate, what is great.

My goal is not to say frame rate is bad , but only goal here is to compare frame rate using one model Vs multiple models. Indeed one model will be always less draw call than several, it's a balance to find.

 

I think like Skyrim, 3D Tiles are used in a specific tool or directly in 3DSMAX , than they just assemble all level 3D tiles as one or several big models specially that Skyrim levels dungeons are not radom generated.

http://blog.joelburgess.com/2013/04/skyrims-modular-level-design-gdc-2013.html

[YouGroove]

5 models buildings : average is 28 FPS

 

Using small wall in LE3 and aligning parenting to make the 5 buildings , average FPS 18 FPS

 

So better avoid 3D Tiles or use them in a clever way (top down camera, reduced field of view, LOD ...)

 

Models in zip if you want to test yourself.

Models.zip

[Rick]

Or a better solution might be to bring this to Josh's attention because instancing is supposed to be better. What is the loading times for both scenes?

[Einlander]

My question is why so many polygons? The picture of the building with the fire escape has 11k tris, and your scenes are rendering in excess of 40k polys, and if you used 3dcoat which likes to turn everything to quads, it reveals your models are pushing almost double to triple the polycount reported by leadwerks.

 

In that one scene of yours, you can fit 4 of those ENTIRE buildings or 1 20 story building with polygons to spare.

 

Now we can do 2 things, 1 would be to lower the poly count, or 2 aggressive occlusion culling. There is no reason to be pushing that many polygons for 2 buildings.

[SlipperyBrick]

I noticed the lighting issue that YouGroove was demonstrating when I brought a test model in to LE. I am using the beta branch on Steam. I've been kitbashing in 3D - Coat to get the basic shapes of our level so as Rick said we can instance this in LE.

 

The lighting issue is there though with the pieces I bring into the engine, you can see the seams of where each object ends and meets. Don't know whether this is a bug, I haven't made any textures for the models yet though, so that might solve that issue when I get the spec and diffuse maps in?

[YouGroove]

Or a better solution might be to bring this to Josh's attention because instancing is supposed to be better. What is the loading times for both scenes?

Yes models are in the zip file if you want to test or stress test. Loading time is too long, as 40000 K is even polycount of today next gen one charcater only for example.

 

My question is why so many polygons? The picture of the building with the fire escape has 11k tris, and your scenes are rendering in excess of 40k polys, and if you used 3dcoat which likes to turn everything to quads, it reveals your models are pushing almost double to triple the polycount reported by leadwerks.

I used Blender only to make the models you can download the file in the first posts here.

This is just a test Eilander, wanted to see how much modular you can go using one model or several assembled 3D tiles.

40 000 is not a lot, as 3D characters today can have 15 000 to 60 000 polygons or more for cinematic.

 

In that one scene of yours, you can fit 4 of those ENTIRE buildings or 1 20 story building with polygons to spare

No for a scene you won't use 120 building , and use a lot LOD, only nearest ones will have lot of detail.

 

 

Now we can do 2 things, 1 would be to lower the poly count, or 2 aggressive occlusion culling. There is no reason to be pushing that many polygons for 2 buildings

Why not , if i wanted 80 000 polygons in my scene ? a group of next gen characters easy represent 80 000 poly and more in cinematic. I would bet lot more in LOD and mip mapping, lightening quality shader variation.

 

In debug without buildings i got 30 FPS, adding two models buildings frame rate is almost unchanged, some 25-28 FPS.

Only tile based building making in LE3 will make lot of entities and drop frame rate to 15 FPS.

There is no problem from polygons number, but more on entities number so the way you make your building (one model Vs aligned 3D tiles in LE3) , this is same problem for any 3D engine.

UDK or Unity propose some merging functions to merge your models as one model.

 

Indeed not compare with AAA engines, but they push polygons lot more higher , not only building, but all level model individual entities that are a lot to manage.

 

The lighting issue is there though with the pieces I bring into the engine, you can see the seams of where each object ends and meets. Don't know whether this is a bug, I haven't made any textures for the models yet though, so that might solve that issue when I get the spec and diffuse maps in?

This is not a bug, it was working like that on some other 3D engines.

To have continuous lightening, you must use BSP for 3D Tiles, or make models in a special way : i'll try to find the thread on that.

 

After some test, in fact you must do like BSP with models, so recalculate treshold of normals in LE3 to 15° for example. With this hard surfaces and not smoothed faces value ,lightening will be ok.

[SlipperyBrick]

I am learning about LOD and want to know how its managed in Leadwerks. I will be moving onto the texturing stages for finalizing some models I have made and want to know as much as I can before I carry on.

[YouGroove]

. I work in 3D - Coat and was wondering is LOD managed automatically in LE on models I have made and textures I have done and brought into Leadwerks?

Could it be 3D coat or another app, there is no LOD system in Leadwerks 3.

It is for community project or your own one ?

-----------------

 

About optimisation :

A simple cubic 3D model imported in LE3 , i assembled in 3D coat, they are 3 heights of them and frame rate go very low, this is not complex model, but this represents too much entities for LE3 with static shadow .

3D scene :

 

In game :

 

I would say , avoid 3D Tiles for now, go for already assembled models before FBX export.

Specially if it is static level indeed

[SlipperyBrick]

Well this is more of a collaboration. Rick and I are working on a project (we are the only LE users, along with Patrick) the rest of the team involved are doing concept art for the design stages of the game and we also have 3D modellers making assets for the game. I use 3D - Coat, other team members are using Maya. Rick and myself thought it would be a good idea to take a modular approach for the level design for the games environment, taking into considering limitations in memory, loading times for the game etc. We still want to keep a very high quality in visualization for the game, making sure our models and textures are made efficiently whilst still having high quality graphics.

 

The modular approach to modelling the environment would be good practice for my modelling skills but also would be a great way to design the levels throughout the game, reusing environment assets (possibly re-texturing them as well to make them look different) would give a great performance boost for our game.

 

I wanted to know if anybody else preferably 3D - Coat users take the same approach when making environments for their projects and if they can share some tips. I am finding that I am running in to problems already such as the lighting in LE as discussed above. Plus I have read about LOD and how that can affect resources when the game is running.

 

I don't want to run into any major issues after modelling, texturing and putting the whole level together in LE and have to come back to it and sort out things that should have been taken into consideration in the level design stages.

[YouGroove]

Make modular 3D stuff, but assemble them in your 3D app (Blender, Maya etc ...)

Make the buildings you want using 3D Tiles in your 3D app , than export your whole building as one mesh only to FBX.

Caus LE3 don't have ability to combine models as one (see floor below)

 

reusing environment assets (possibly re-texturing them as well to make them look different) would give a great performance boost for our game.

Yes.