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So yesterday I blitzed through the last steps to get the Juggernaut into sc2. This basically equated to finishing the textures, making the Thrusters, and getting the sc2 materials rigged. This was easy, but menial work. Then I exported the model to the m3 format.
Between being unable to concentrate and focus on my work, and running into a LOT of confusion with some of the small spikes that weren't using the sc2 materials and thus giving me errors on export, I reached the ability to click the nice big export button around supper time (4-5). So I clicked it, and waited.
A previous export of mine, the Crusader class and eventually the Devastator class, each take anywhere from 30 seconds to 3-5 minutes completely randomly. It seems to be based on the usage of textures. The guy who's working on the script is pretty quick to note that maxscript is really slow.
Well, previously I exported Antharas from Lineage 2 with 30fps animations (they break massively when re-scaled) into Starcraft 2. The animations, of course, freaked out - but the export took around 3-4 hours. This one was no different.
![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img94/7803/ccccvc.jpg)
Good God. I say to HKS on vent, "I hope there's nothing I need to fix immediately.
So I export this huge bitch into my testing map. The map is now 30mb, compressed from 127mb (with my other stuff). Yeah, this will never make it into a published map, but I don't care - I don't make published projects. They ban me for violence and references to real-life events, anyways.
Okay, something IS fucked up. One of the wings is backfaced, and the neck seems to be backfaced too. God DAMNIT. I think it's because I forgot to collapse the modifier stack on those parts, which for some reason have an extra edit mesh modifier.
![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img137/5010/terrain003.jpg)
I also had a guy on Sc2mapster rig me the cinematic BC model for use as an in-game unit. They look pretty side-by-side if you ignore the hideously broken wing.
Of course, I wanted to stress this this thing. How well does sc2 handle dozens of 100k poly models using insanely high rez textures?
![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img641/5686/terrain002.jpg)
Surprisingly well! The performance loss I get is minimal, usually from zooming out, or from effects. Even when I pit them in a huge battle against a mass of + Show Spoiler [CAMPAIGN UNITS] +Leviathans and Hybrids that shoot fireballs + Arcane carriers that relentlessly spam protoss building explosion graphics
+ Show Spoiler [i warned u] +
most people would be like omg 14-16 fps is awful but I'll be like nah it's fine, and most of that performance loss is from the building explosions. Just a couple of those and all their particles seems to have an enormous impact on performance that raw polies never does.
Not that I'd be spawning 40 of these things, more like 10 max in a big map. They won't be player controlled units, either.
When I go to save my map and sleep, the map gives me a random set of errors. Checksum errors or something, iirc. I try to save again, errors again. GalaxyEdit is flakey like this - it IS alpha software, after all. Well, I go to save to a new map. It works. I run one more ingame tests (to see if the new bc's work with the old weapons)... oh, where's all my models?
As it turns out, the editor randomly decided to vaporize everything I had in the map.
Brilliant.
So now I have to re-export the model who knows how many times AND reconfigure everything in the map, probably for it to just explode again.
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I dont really understand why you are doing this. Can you please explain to me why you are doing this?
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Private campaign project.
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On September 02 2010 03:49 CryingCow wrote:
I dont really understand why you are doing this. Can you please explain to me why you are doing this?
its iskatumesk. why does grass photosynthesize?
great blog as usual, your work is amazing
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Ship looks cool, but the laser is very over-saturated. Is that just the screenshot or does it look the same in motion?
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I think you should make the lines of the ship a little more clean (the red lasers for example). I get the "gritty feel" you're going for but it doesn't work out too well IMO.
Just a small complaint though, otherwise great work
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Lasers are from the Crusader-class weapon set and not intended for this ship, they look as intended.
/e
SubtleArt > That is well outside my skill level and probably won't ever happen since I don't actually know how to use photoshop.
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On September 02 2010 04:07 IskatuMesk wrote:
Lasers are from the Crusader-class weapon set and not intended for this ship, they look as intended.
/e
SubtleArt > That is well outside my skill level and probably won't ever happen since I don't actually know how to use photoshop.
Ah well, you did a great job anyway  . How long does this take btw??
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It was my first ever UV map (the wings and fixing the center) which you can see the process of in my earlier blogs.
The original model was from 2008 and required around 5-6 hours to make. It was then updated and skinned by a guy named SgtHK. I returned to it a few days ago in the effort to update it to SC2-compliant standards. This meant totally rebuilding the textures from the ground up since they relied on 3ds max plugins/materials. That took a day in itself, largely because I don't know anything about graphics or photoshop. The UV work for the wing alone took around 7-8 hours. The wing model and other touchups add to around 3-4 hours. The two exports I've done so far total at least 6-7 hours.
The unit wasn't configured with its proper weaponry and stuff ingame, it was using weapons for another (much bigger) unit, which is why they look weird.
/edit
The editor just corrupted the last remnants of the map in my effort to recover it. I'm sorry, I'm not going to be working with alpha software anymore. The campaign is indefinitely postponed until blizzard decides to actually put some effort into their product. This is just one of oh so many avoidable ridiculous shit in the editor, like the upgrades that refer to data that doesn't exist in any of the dependencies and crash when you click on them.
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Whats the point of what your doing...?
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Awesome work IskatuMesk. I love seeing modders in the RTS community. Look forward to seeing more of your work and maybe a release of your project when it is done.
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On September 02 2010 04:53 SC2Phoenix wrote:
Whats the point of what your doing...?
What's the point of what YOU are doing?
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ballin as usual iskatu, i cant wait to play this campaign.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img225/4060/screenshot2010083121125.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://a.imageshack.us/img341/7240/screenshot2010083121124.jpg)
