look of zealot Starcraft 2 - Page 3

On June 25 2010 15:40 Xapti wrote:
There's a reason units are low detail (pow poly in particular).

Maybe in 5-10 years when people have better PCs people can make better models, but for now it seems like a bad idea to me.

On June 25 2010 21:24 im a roc wrote:
I think the reason that they didn't make it look more like your version is to keep polygon count down. Yours would probably cause a lot more lag in game, and Blizzard's rule has always been gameplay first.

On June 26 2010 05:40 Palm wrote:
As Klumaster has mentioned, there is far more to consider when it comes to performance then just poly-count. As we push more and more into shader driven effects, the demand for texture centric resources grows ever higher.

The unit models in Starcraft 2 uses a multitude of textures amalgamated together outside the default rendering pipeline via .FX shaders. Diffuse, Normal, Emissive and Specular maps, just to name a few. In fact the default Zealot model uses ten textures in total, ranging from 64x128 to 512x512 resolutions, and that's just to get the look we see currently in game.

The Portrait model uses a further four 1024x1024 textures. Add in another eight textures for each and every texture already mentioned (Mipmapping) each a fourth of the total area of the previous (e.g. Base 1024x1024 image > 512x512 > 256x256 > 128x128 > 64x64 > 32x32 > 16x16 > 8x8 > 4x4 > 1x1) and you can start to see how things can get pretty resource heavy very quickly (both texture and "processing power"), especially in a strategy game like SC2 with multitudes of units, terrain and buildings being rendered at once.

All of that aside, would I like to see the new version in game? No all that fussed really. It would be difficult to fully appreciate the extra detail at the default camera distance. I'm quite happy with the current Zealot model, up close it may not look very "realistic" but I will take a stab and assume most players rarely stop to admire the view in the midst of a competitive game anyway.

On June 25 2010 15:59 Last Romantic wrote:
looks like reach

+approve

The reason I havnt posted it yet is because I can't get the ponytail to appear. Hope to fix that soon.

My comp is a little on the nice side tho, not amazing but nice. I'd like to see how it affects someone with a not so good comp. Although if the game already lags for u, this isn't gonna help.

On June 26 2010 06:13 Palm wrote:


Since the Zealot ponytail is treated differently to the rest of the model (physics applied to allow it to wave about based on the Zealots accelerated motion) the engine itself appends its own ponytail model to the Zealot. I think Blizzards Dev's refer to them as "Ribbons" (Ponytails, Corrupter tentacles etc). It's my guess that the engine just references a specific bone in the Zealots model and attaches the end of the "Ribbon" to it's position. I would assume you removed this bone when deleting parts of the standard unit to make way for the portrait head. So it should be an easy fix to just create a new bone in the position required, that shares the same name as the old bone before it was deleted. Try calling it "Star2Ribbon01" and see how that goes.



I doubt anyone would notice any difference from just one model, I was more referring to the accumulative effect of adding fine details to every model and the performance problems you would have as a result. Just throwing it out there really.

nvm i just got word that its just the exporter that currently doesn't support ribbons. Just gotta wait for a new version

On June 26 2010 13:29 Palm wrote:


Yep, I just stumbled upon your conversation with Nintoxicated01 over on sc2mapster.com just now . I tested directly importing and exporting a model with no manipulation beforehand and found that there were still no particle or ribbon effects, so I was beginning to assumed it was an issue with the importer/exporter. Good to hear the script will be getting support soon.