Roman Building

This is somthing I worked on last night, I used alot of cg subtract so there are a few errors I need to fix(easy fix though).









Tell me what you think. I used to do alot of these but I got out of it for a while.

looks nice for being made completely out of wed blocks

Thx, heres a low polly version:

looks great , but blocks kill your frame rate and subtract makes it even worse , but like i said for blocks looks real good

Agreed, i would say you should learn how to use MED or some other modeling program.

Thanks for the replies. I did not know that wed blocks were bad, (they couldnt be that bad?) but I guess I will start learning milkshape.

They are, trust me, when i made a whole level out of them and tried to compile it took over 12 hours to do. And it was a small level, with little lighting.

Thats because of substract and it takes that long because all calculations are done before the game runs and this makes blocks awfull fast.

You can import the house into MED, at least you could with some of the older versions of MED.
Then remove the invisible faces between the 'blocks', and finally 'melt' the vertices of the faces which shall have no seams.

Thanks I'll try that

There is nothing wrong with blocks. Block levels were here first, and ran on machines much slower than we have today.

Just don't ever use subtract. never ever.

Block levels are great because the lighting is so easy, and are indeed pre-calculated before runtime. And that's why blocks are great. you can have 20 lights in one room, and it wont effect how fast the level runs when playing it. It will increase the build time though.

Unlike model levels where you have to add numerous dynamic lights, which do kill the framerate, or you have to fake the lighting by adding dark and bright areas to the skins, then use seperate skins for each wall with different lighting etc etc...

Learn model levels later. Make basic block levels and add models for details. Don't try to make every little thing out of blocks!

Also use the 'snap' feature... maybe set to 8 or more, but NEVER set it to '1' or 'no snapping'
This way all edges and walls and floors line up perfectly and will build faster.

Block levels are fine... just a lot of people go with models because they like to use shaders for reflection and normalmapping... but nothing beats block lighting without great pains with the skins and dynamic lights.

I have a lighting 'tutorial' in the wiki link which you should read.

Again, for the 3rd time, don't ever use subtract!

Omce you get used to level making and model making, you can move on to making levels from models.

But only do it out of some necessity, not because 'everyone else' is doing it.

Oh, one more thing... don't let blocks intersect with each other. Only let the edges and faces touch each other. But don't let a block be inside another. That takes up calculations too during building, and can affect how fast it plays to some degree.

- Jason

actually this is very wrong. models can be light mapped just as easily, you just need to be able to bake them, and you need to get a plugin.

Hi there BlueBeast, (Jason?)
Just read your statement re 'subtract' "never use subtract"
WHY? Please explain the dangers of using it.
David Moreton

Good Work.

‘Subtract’ splits a block’s faces in undesirable ways adding very long thin faces which cause problems in three ways. One, the skewed faces are more difficult for the compiler to correctly snap together sometimes leaving visible seams in the geometry. Two, the skewed faces are more difficult to light correctly sometimes leaving noticeable lighting artifacts. Three, sometimes the faces created are so thin that they are completely removed. You can see the edges for these faces by pushing the f11 key.

For simple things like a square door 'subtract' should be sufficient, but don’t try complicated shapes.

Building complicated shapes like arches out of individual blocks gives control over faces, kind of like modeling using quads. Keeping the number of skewed faces down makes a huge positive impact on frame rate as well as preventing all the problems listed above.

I don't disagree with Lostclimate, my point is in WED all you need to do is add a light. Thats it.

With models you need multiple steps for the same effect. And plugins, or programs like MAX or MAya etc.

I liken it to the now obsolete 'flare'... it was much easier to click a checkbox then to make a 32 bit tga.

I've been at this tuf a few years now, and i don't know the first thing about lightmapping... starting with blocks is just easier for now is all I'm saying.

And one more thing about subtract... it can add significant time to the building for the engine. I, personally wouldnt even use it for doorways. simple doorways are just 3 blocks, and no risks of problems

The new mesh compiler allows to use models as meshes and then shadows can be baked in ED just like with any block.

Imho the huge advantage of blocks is the easiness of texturing them. Models need to be unwrapped and that can be a very time consuming task. More freedom in level creation has its price.

CSG substract is fine if used properly. You should never use it for holes, windows, caves, ... though. This is a real killer.
If you need to cut off an edge of a block, or the top of some cone, it normally works just great. Just don't overdo it.

Reading the above almost makes me want to go back to blocks again. Main reason I choosed for models is that models are needed for the dynamics in the game, and I don't get them to visually fit with blocks at all. For me, it was either blocks only or models only. Allowed to use models as meshes sounds nice.

So, yes, nice building .

I'll have to respectfully disagree here. I would say that it is easier to learn how to texture blocks, but once you learn how to UV map with any competent modeling package, texturing blocks seems archaic.

For instance try placing a texture around one of the prefab cylinders in WED. It takes a lot of patience to get the texture lined up on all faces just right. On the other hand, UV mapping a cylinder is incredibly easy.

Sorry, I’m so far off topic. The Roman building is a good start.

A cylinder? Probably yes.

A whole house? I don't think so.

A cylinder was just an easy example. To each his own I guess.

If the house only had walls and no detail geometry, I'll give you it "might" be easier.

But, consider this, even when texturing a simple plane that is at an angle in WED, the texture will be distorted and one must use geometry to figure out how to fit a texture perfectly. Take a let's say 128 x 128 quant cube flattened into something close to a plane. Now apply a 128 pixel texture to the top face of plane. It should fit perfectly. Now, tilt the plane down 45 degrees. Now, the texture doesn't fit. It is stretched on the y-axis even though the face of the plane is the same size.

So, you have to scale the texture down on the y-axis to around .7. (Sorry don't have time to figure it out exactly, but you use the equation for a right triangle to determine proportion.)

Now, I can hear you argue, why not just use the "fit texture button". Well, problem is sometime you will want to use a rotated texture that isn't a square (maybe 128 x 512), or will not want to fit the texture exactly to only one block. This just makes texturing large scenes of blocks nearly unbearable.

Yes, UV mapping is difficult to learn, but it is the way to go. I say this not to argue but to save some people the trouble I went through endlessly tweaking textures in WED when I should have just been learning UV mapping.

To try and let you regain your thread i have made a thread in morbius for members to finish this argument about blocks and models.

Is there a way to preserve the UV coordinates when exporting to med?
I tried a long time ago, and You get a model without textures, without UV's,
and blocks that use smooth shading, which makes them visible.

I cannot recommend exporting from wed to med, unless it has been improved in A7

Block textures often don't need to be set so perfectly. I mean.. who cares if it does not fit perfect around a 9 degree edge? It could be just build like this around the edge. And finally when it comes to a top-plane, too, you'd have to use a "wall" and "top" texture to fit both. If you have it, it is easy to texture with blocks, if not, nobody cares, too.
If you stick to a few rules with blocks you can get nice texturing in no time, and for the more complicated parts you can still use models.

Take a look at this example of a combination of blocks and models, the block texture fits without the need to change the settings of the faces (for none-90-degree-blocks, too).

This works meanwhile.