Kid - Abbey V1.11

[kid1293]

Thanks!

I fixed the footprint before I uploaded.

Will the wind ever remember
The names it has blown in the past?
And with its crutch, its old age and its wisdom
It whispers, "No, this will be the last"

And the wind cries Mary

Jimi Hendrix, 1967

[Maldrick]

It's perfect.  Thank you for giving it a look.

[Maldrick]

There are no real point of no return. You can always build a new model.
See it like this with the abbey - The tower couldn't be moved on its own.
It was integrated with the walls of the abbey. so I had to move the tower AND
the wall. (and door and windows and a lot of points in the model).
Now I had the door more or less aligned with the grid. And a lopsided abbey.
So I had to move the wall on the other side too. End result a more narrow abbey.
I didn't just change the scale of the model, that would make the door too narrow and
the tower elliptic in shape. It's frustrating how many small things there are to consider.
No point of no return.

Thanks for the explanation.  I can see how one thing can lead to another etc and you really need to get to a lock point or that's all you will do is have one change necessitate another endlessly.  In my former career I spent nearly a decade in motion picture post production.  You can almost always change anything in a completed movie.  Time and money spent fixing everything else that ripples off of that change is an entirely other matter, though.

I was just curious why road spaces couldn't be added, really.  Like if everything got compiled together at a point or what.  But it sounds like in this case it went back to the structure of the building itself.  Very interesting.  One day I'm going to have to try out modding something as I find it all terribly interesting.

Thank you again.  Both for the new version and the explanation.  I wasn't too worried about the machete since there's a rather large pond between us. . But I have enough girlfriends pissed off at me on this side of the pond at it is and I hate to think I've added to your general stress level.  The abbey is beautiful and I already have some ideas for what I'd like to do with it.  Thank you. 

[embx61]

While it is surely possible to select polygons or elements in the 3d modeling software and "detach as clone" what separates it from the mesh so it can be moved wherever you want.
As it is a clone the original piece is still there too so have to be deleted.

Select the vertices and break them works the same.

I do it sometimes if I have to because I messed up somewhere but it is still a bit of a hassle. For sure if the mesh is big and compilcated.

[Abandoned]

  We have a nice new abbey and it looks like we have a new @kid1293 

[kid1293]

While it is surely possible to select polygons or elements in the 3d modeling software and "detach as clone" what separates it from the mesh so it can be moved wherever you want.
As it is a clone the original piece is still there too so have to be deleted.

I could not make a clone and delete old. There was no complete wall!
I had the tower a bit inside the abbey but the tower itself was empty,
only double walls with open door. I didn't add a tower to a completed abbey.
I built wall by wall.


edit - here is a picture from inside. (oops, some bad texturing and AO)
You can clearly see that the tower is not separate.

[embx61]

Thanks for the explanation.  I can see how one thing can lead to another etc and you really need to get to a lock point or that's all you will do is have one change necessitate another endlessly.  In my former career I spent nearly a decade in motion picture post production.  You can almost always change anything in a completed movie.  Time and money spent fixing everything else that ripples off of that change is an entirely other matter, though.

I was just curious why road spaces couldn't be added, really.  Like if everything got compiled together at a point or what.  But it sounds like in this case it went back to the structure of the building itself.  Very interesting.  One day I'm going to have to try out modding something as I find it all terribly interesting.

Thank you again.  Both for the new version and the explanation.  I wasn't too worried about the machete since there's a rather large pond between us. . But I have enough girlfriends pissed off at me on this side of the pond at it is and I hate to think I've added to your general stress level.  The abbey is beautiful and I already have some ideas for what I'd like to do with it.  Thank you. 

Roads are not part of the mesh. They are set in the Template file.
It is possible to do a road everywhere on the buildings foot print but the problem with that is that the bannies will walk straight through the walls everywhere.

In the top part it reads stuff like fast, Faster, water, deepWater and by using the numbers the modder can tell the game which tiles can be for fast travel or which tile need to be in water.

So for the Fishing Dock

The 0 is Normal, Obstacle.
The 1 is Normal, Obstacle, Water, DeepWater.
The 2 is Water, DeepWater.
The 3 means road buildable (Fast, Faster)

The lower part of the code:

The _ means bannies can walk there.
The # means Bannies can not walk there.
The . means a road can be build on that tile.

So with playing a bit with those values you can steer the Bannies a bit.
It is not perfect as Bannies cut corners and so you see them sometimes go through a wall on the corner of a building.

With many ghosted deco road pieces mods players can fill up about everything what the modder not assigns as road buildable.

Here the code in the Template File.

Code Select Expand

CreatePlacedDescription createplaced
{
PathBits _placeBits = Normal | Obstacle | Water | DeepWater;
PathBits _placeBitArray
[
Normal | Obstacle,
Normal | Obstacle | Water | DeepWater,
Water | DeepWater,
Normal | Obstacle | Fast | Faster
]
String _placeBitmap =
"2222
2222
2222
1111
0000
0000
3333";

int _width = 4;
int _height = 7;

int _footprintRotation = 0;

ComponentDescription _allowAndRemove = "Template/Clear.rsc";
}

MapDescription map
{
PathType _pathType = Immovable;
String _pathBitmap =
"###_
#___
#_#_
###_
###_
###_
....";

bool _addToOverhead = true;
Color _mapColor = 0xFF545454;
}

[kid1293]

As we are talking 3D modeling I want to share a thought.

I am doing a new house and I wanted it to be a bit 'extra'
so I made a modeled stone wall (left picture) and counted polygons. Too much.
I substituted the wall for a flat texture to get much lower polygon count. (right picture)
I gained 4270 triangles by making that change! That's 2 complete houses!

As soon as I try to make something that stands out the polygon count goes up very fast.
Another culprit is the railing. Looks nice but so costly!

[embx61]

Yes

Details like railing or round fruits in a market e.g. make the poly count go up.

It is always a balancing act between looking good and poly count.

A railing have 8 polygons (4 faces) because you van delete all the end caps as they are not visible.

If I put a barrel or crate on the floor I delete the bottom parts also as they will not be visible. same for posts, window frames end caps which will not be visible. e.g.

Most of my walls are just planes and when I do the build 2 stage I just detach as clone move it a bit to the inside and flip the faces. Instant double wall but only for the build 2 stage

If I make a hole in the wall to fit a window or door I move the extra vertices and weld them with the corner vertices of the planes.
Optimizing can take a bit of time but it can save quite some poly's.

[kid1293]

Yes, I know the frustration.
I sit a lot with Sketchup and the models I import are often closed.
I can not remove unnecessary faces without tricks, but it pays off.
If I know I have a lot of hidden faces I can select all I can see and
invert selection and delete.

One other thing - I often change the look to get more effect out of
a 'shoe-box'. Bevel the edges, raise details or make an extra corner.
It's different from model to model so I have to improvise.

But it is fun. 

[embx61]

I do this as well

Adding details as boards on the side of the roofs, posts, beams, which stick a bit out of the model walls.

Most my roofs are just a plane too. I start them as a box and around the wall perimeter I leave them double faced but delete all the inside the wall poly's.

This also helps against the moire in the game what happens if two face sides are too close together but not always easy to avoid unless you want for example a table top made too thick.

If the model is closed and the build stages are done it helps a bit to delete all the faces of posts, window frames, door frames, e.g. of the main mesh facing inside so they become a U as those will never be visible unless using transparent glass.

[RedKetchup]

but to have a double wall (real thick wall) isnt really this that makes your overall polycount jumping they are flat walls that cover most of the mesh...  it is all the bunch of little details that add alot

[RedKetchup]

about the stone wall... another thing could have been a semi transparent stonewall with precise stone cutting that clone that 4k stone effect.
and have this semi transparent stonewall be placed at 0,05 of another beige flat wall

[embx61]

If a wall is build up like in the picture a double wall will add a lot.



I will some later redesign the New England set from the ground up as fixing this will take more time then to start from scratch.

[RedKetchup]

in that screen it is not the wall that add alot....

thats all the windows and all the windows wood sticks

the wall itself with holes isnt that much. they are 2 poly by planes , if you dont ask to retriangulate all the polys , they stay 2 poly by planes with holes inside of course the holes will cost something. specially your mesh has 32 holes

windows can be huge pain, even if you try your best to low down a window (with all its wood sticks) to a low 72 poly... multiplying like in your mesh by 31 windows ...
it is 2232 polygons right there ^^

screen1 = 72 poly window.

let me do a thick wall with 32 holes (with the door)

i did a 10x8x 3 height box and by pro-boolean substraction another box of 9,8x 7,8 to give walls a 0,1 tiles thickness....
i get a thick form of walls of 32 poly.
then i add 32 holes.

i get a doubled walls of 604 poly. then i delete all the unecessairly hidden sides ... i get a double walls with just 332 poly (the interior wall only cost 166 polygons)
i dont think a cost of 166 poly is too much to give a 3D aspect with a very nice view inside the building ... personally i think the expanse worth it.

of course the 31 windows will cost alot at the end ^^ it is not necessairly the walls that cost alot overall, that is all the little details we add to it can make something jumps very quickly