14 replies to this topic

[feneur]

BlenderNation is probably the top resource for Blender news, in either case it's a site for Blender news that is visited by lots of people daily. It would be nice to get 0 A.D. featured there, mostly so we can attract new contributors (hopefully animators ). To just get them to write about 0 A.D. we'd most likely just have to send a screenshot of something in 0 A.D. modeled in Blender and write a short text saying "Several contributors to the open source RTS game 0 A.D. use Blender, if you have the skills you can join too", and I'm sure they'd include a quick article. To make the most out of it I'd suggest we try and go about it a little more thought-through though (After all, if we just have an article posted and it just sounds like a cheap way to look for more contributors I doubt we'd get any, at least any who are good enough to be really useful.)

I'll make contact with them to discuss things, but even for a first contact it would be nice to have a few thoughts gathered, and in many cases they just post directly what people send them, so it would not be a bad idea to start thinking of exactly what we would like to say

First I think we most definitely should include a screenshot or two, preferably of one or more things created in Blender

Second, we should include a quick description of what 0 A.D. is, and some information about the art related things. Collada, DDS, etc etc.

Third, I think it would be a good thing to include a few words about how it is to work with Blender for 0 A.D. from one of you artists own experiences. Some good things about the process, some obstacles along the road (can't be all rosy or people will think something is wrong, just something to make it more engaging, like "in the beginning I had to force myself to remember to always turn on option X in the Collada export dialog" or something ).

Finally we should write something about areas where people can contribute, modelling and animation (mention the Mauryan Indians). Also, it might make sense to mention the texture maps needed after myconids changes are in since it's so closely related to 3D, but I'm not sure how relevant it is

[historic_bruno]

Sounds like a good idea. One thing we can do is link to http://trac.wildfire...DImplementation, a tutorial which Pureon has been working on recently, as an example of how to use Blender to create game content

I definitely agree about mentioning areas of contribution, this fits in with recent discussions over the art department's future, etc., it might be nice to link a list of possible art tasks broken down by category, which could be updated without contradicting the BlenderNation info.

Zaggy1024 would know some good details about the animation side of things. He uses some fairly advanced features of Blender and has encountered and solved a number of issues along the way

[Pureon]

I'd like to hear what Zaggy1024 thinks regarding this, since he'd be crucial in working with any potential animators we get.

I'm in agreement with Erik's thinking behind it. Some screenshots, maybe even a video showreel of some of our best blender work. We have animal animations, ships, lots of cool buildings, animated siege weapons, and even some unit gear, so there's a lot we can show.

Artists, what say you?

[Gen.Kenobi]

I remember I recorded a timelapse for RoTE. Since it's a mod for 0ad, maybe we could use it? Kimball has the raw-footage, I can't acess it, since my PC is dead.

Also, how is the status of the rigs? I'd like to try some animation, but If i remember correctly the lastest blender rig didn't work quite nicely and Jason was trying to figure out why...

[Shield Bearer]

I like the sound of this We can include some screenshots of the latest buildings and show some interesting videos of units marching to war, ships sailing, a town under siege etc.

Here's somethings we might want to use:
Mathijjs' Persian Merchant Timelapse.
Six year old animation showcase video. Maybe something we can improve upon?

And here's a showcase of all the ships I made for 0 A.D. We can use whatever we want from here, if you think its useful.

[Wijitmaker]

Quote

I'd like to try some animation, but If i remember correctly the lastest blender rig didn't work quite nicely and Jason was trying to figure out why...

The effort kind of stalled because this discussion got split into 2 different topics. I think the consensus was that we were going to up the poly count. I was waiting on some more direction before I went any further. I hadn't heard anything more, so I thought maybe I was off the hook.

New models and a common universal baseline rig for blender could really be developed in parallel. Perhaps some attention in the Blender world would bring someone to the team who is capable of doing animation and rigging in both max and blender and could us set up a new default template in blender that is capable of using .dae existing animations and a blender rig.

[Pureon]

Wijitmaker, on 20 June 2012 - 05:41 PM, said:

The effort kind of stalled because this discussion got split into 2 different topics. I think the consensus was that we were going to up the poly count. I was waiting on some more direction before I went any further. I hadn't heard anything more, so I thought maybe I was off the hook.

New models and a common universal baseline rig for blender could really be developed in parallel. Perhaps some attention in the Blender world would bring someone to the team who is capable of doing animation and rigging in both max and blender and could us set up a new default template in blender that is capable of using .dae existing animations and a blender rig.

Sounds good. I've responded with a question in the relevant topic

[Jeru]

I would like to move this topic to the open art development forum and have Cosmin have a go at this.

Any objections? I will wait until tomorrow for comment, but I don't see anything particularly sensitive in this thread.

[Jeru]

Moved to the art development forum.

[zoot]

May I suggest deferring this until normal/parallax/etc support is in? That should maximize interest from potential art contributors.

[Wijitmaker]

I agree, I think that though the bulk of the remaining must have artwork is in animation - expanding on the new capabilities that Pyrogenesis will offer has potential to take on a life of it's own and generate a lot of interest with some pretty stunning visuals.

[Cosmin]

Greetings everyone. First of all I would like to thank you all for giving me this great chance at helping out with this project.

So, first of all I wish to make a list of what sort of expertise is needed, regarding Blender. I require this information in order to start working on the official thread that will be posted on the forum. Also, I notice that Zoot mentioned something regarding some upcoming features which might have an impact on the "attraction" factor. Could you please inform me a bit more of what this is about? Oh, and also, in order to create a nice-looking thread, perhaps we could add (as mentioned in this topic) some screenshots or semi-professional information. The screenshots and information have to be relevant to the fields of expertise in which we lack contributors. Oh and if you guys have any other great ideas, let me know!

I am sorry for not being able to work 100% with this task this week, but as said I am on a business trip and I would hate to work with this if I am not able to dedicate my efforts 100%. Next week I have no work, so I wil be able to dedicate a lot of time and energy so we can have some progress with this task.

[zoot]

Cosmin, on 25 July 2012 - 03:08 PM, said:

Also, I notice that Zoot mentioned something regarding some upcoming features which might have an impact on the "attraction" factor. Could you please inform me a bit more of what this is about?

This is the relevant thread (it's really long, but the important information is in the first pages). In short, a user called myconid has been working on adding support for normal mapping, parallax mapping, specular mapping, ambient occlusion (AO) and self-illumination. These effects allow for a level of detail that has previously been unattainable in the game, and made it really tricky for artists to make good-looking assets (note e.g. all the brick walls in the game that are as perfectly flat as a mirror). Hopefully, the new capabilities which myconid has added (and which a user called wraitii has ported to a wider range of GPUs) will make it easier and more attractive to work on art assets for the game.

[Cosmin]

Alright people, I have returned from my business trip, I will be visiting family and such this weekend and on Monday I will start working with this. I will also be using google documents while working on this. Reason being that I will require some assistance from people who have knowledge regarding the required help in the different areas of expertise, and google documents is a great tool for such a task when more people are involved.

[Jeru]

Sounds good!