Oooook, haven't been here in a while, but finally found a project I'd like to have a crack at. It came at the same time as I learned how to use a good few more tools in Lightwave and began fiddling with Unity3D. I still have to some some serious research in to texturing which, quite frankly, I haven't the foggiest about! But first things first I'm just going to work on the model itself. So rather than do an open environment I thought I'd restrict and control it and create it on a small space station, maybe 10 decks or so and build the story around one person trying to survive and escape by repairing and moving through the station. Simple story, no shooty-shooty! So this is where I'm at so far...it's only been three days!
That's what I was thinking. Also, round model was easier to work with! Maybe a science research station or a deep space monitoring array. Haven't decided yet.
I like it so far! Be mindful of those polygons tho, Unity wasn't very good at handling high poly meshes last time I used it (it's been a few years so maybe I'm just outdated).
Yeah I've already had Unity complain about over 65000 something-or-other. I'm using subpatching to get the smoothness but the side effect is that it puts in a lot of polys that don't seem needed. have to learn how to reduce polys without compromising the shape. For now though...toilets!
Not come across it before but from what I can see on Steam it looks pretty good. May just have to play that! I've debated whether to have the computer go a bit weird, I'd rather not have it trying to kill the character for the whole time though (but it's an option), instead I'm opting to create the feeling that, with the station in an awful condition...the depths of space is likely to kill you before anything else does. For the gameplay, I'm hoping to try and recreate the connection with the character that's similar to the new Tomb Raider (ie: lots of vocals reminding you that your nervous, scared, injured, running, thinking out loud, etc), and to give nothing away initially and throw you straight in to the story, to the point where (and I'm adding in a 'fingers crossed' here!) it's likely you won't know you're on a station for a good chunk of the beginning.
The trick with game development is to develop a high poly (the non game asset) and low poly (the actual in game object) mesh at the same time. You would use the high poly mesh to bake details into the low poly mesh, such as normal maps (bump type maps) and textures, essentially 'faking detail' where there isn't any. This allows you pull off things such as welded bolts and rivets without them actually being part of the mesh.
I'll have to look in to that, I've come across bump maps before but never really used them other than testing what it did. I'm inventing the environment as I go along at the moment so I'll probably go back over some/everything things and reduce the poly count later on once I'm happy with the look. Once I've got the shape I'll rebuild it knowing what I'm trying to achieve. There's defo some shapes with too high polys in there so it will need some work. The rooms at the back of this deck are pretty much the best example of that, as the walls aren't connected, and there aren't any connections between the walls and the structural supports. Something to work on later. I've been using the subpatching rather than the rounder (which I think the latter would produce better results). I've added a ready room to the model here and split the head between that and the obs lounge. Not really happy with the doors as they're more like corridor ends. So may change them to NB: I'm childless for the next two weeks so should be able to get working on the next deck... XD
In keeping with the august challenge--I'd love to see the saucer of the ship from Carey's novel DREADNAUGHT in gameplany as a Maquis fighter heads towards the bridge, dodging phaser batteries along the way