201 replies to this topic

[Deimos]

The pyramid in the background is x-corps final destination so to speak.

The actual base is pretty much where it was in the original. IE in the "eye" of the face of the cydonia mesa.

Next up is the final frame of the animation. There have been some changes to come after I took this render as you'll see when I fire the anim over but mainly its just extra pretties

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Edited by Deimos, 13 March 2004 - 11:58 AM.

[Vaaish]

looks a tad dark ATM. that and the smoothing groups on the avenger are messed up

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Looks really nice. Will we get to see the sheen on the avenger as it is landing?

And aren't the Cydonian pyramids five sided? I seem to remember reading that somewhere.

[Deimos]

Que? Smoothing groups are exactly the same as the previous renders. It might be the lighting or the shadows. At the moment they're set to soft rather than accurate so that might be why it looks not right.

Its dark because its night time

I've no idea Cpl.F They most likely are five sided, but I was using what I remembered from the original and AFAIK they were the quad variety

Edited by Deimos, 26 November 2003 - 05:49 PM.

[Micah]

I think 4-sided is fine, but if you want a reference regarding 5 sides, here is one, about half-way down, where it says "The D & M Pyramid is an enormous five-sided structure."

Otherwise, looks very nice

[Deimos]

Thanks Micah I'd overlooked that one.

Though the 5 sided "pyramid" they talk about is a part of a mountain range rather than an artificially built structure. Well they all are and some of them need the imagination stretching a bit to beleive what they claim them to be Kind of like looking at clouds and making reckognisable shapes out of them.

In actual fact, where the craft has landed is actually in the "eye socket" of the face and the pyramid you see is actually the alien's base of operations. When I get to it there will be an entrance leading underground to the "overmind's lair"

[Vaaish]

Que? Smoothing groups are exactly the same as the previous renders. It might be the lighting or the shadows. At the moment they're set to soft rather than accurate so that might be why it looks not right.

Its dark because its night time

I've no idea Cpl.F They most likely are five sided, but I was using what I remembered from the original and AFAIK they were the quad variety

for some reason the obj file i sent you doesn't like leaving the hard edges even when I pull it in on my machine. basically the smoothing groups have not been importing properly since i exported it. it should be pretty simple to tell where hard edges go. just look where the gets lighter. those edges are supposed to be hard. Also look at the renders I did of the Avenger from MAYA.

For a stand in model there wasn't a problem with having messed up shading groups because I thought it was going to be replaced by a higher res one but if you are saying this is the final then we really do need to get the shading groups fixed so the movie version doesn't look different from the ingame version.

Email me if you need a better explanation

[Deimos]

Yeah its all still WIP. There's loads to be done on the landscape and pyramid before I can consider anywhere near final. So the Avenger could be considered a stand in

[j'ordos]

It looks really nice, despite the messed up Avenger

One thing though: isn't the predominant colour on Mars RED?

[X-Clu-Zif]

It looks really nice, despite the messed up Avenger

One thing though: isn't the predominant colour on Mars RED?

SHHHH!!!! Don't tell him... It looks nice, ok but maybe some red...

[Breunor]

His terrain is red, but because it's nighttime, all the colors are faded. I expect if there was full daylight, it would be much more vibrant. Very nice pics Deimos, can't wait to see the animations! :happybanana:

[Deimos]

There's just no pleasing some people
All I'm gonna say is if you think you can do better then step up to bat

For an explanation. There is red but seeing as I got my research data from the Mars lander and Viking1, it isn't the traditional colouring thats in the zeitgeist.

The colour palette I used for the surface was taken from these and other images. When the sunlight is taken away the colour levels drop off leaving a washed out browny red as you see in the pic.

Because of where the sunlight is IE directly pointing towards the canals and Cydonia is on the night side of the planet I decided that to keep continutity the cydonia landing would be a night time scene. Also as I adjusted the gamma because it was difficult to make out detail on the white bg of theforums I upped it so the image isn't the correct shading anyway, hence the washed out look to it.

Edited by Deimos, 13 March 2004 - 11:59 AM.

[Micah]

I'd bet that if the sun was shining on the dirt, it would be reddish. Since there is almost no sunlight in the picture though... the rusted brown is what I think red with no sunlight would look like.

Whoops, this was about ten minutes too late

Edited by Micah, 27 November 2003 - 01:00 PM.

[X-Clu-Zif]

I think it's beautiful, and there's no chance in heck that I could do it better... to myself, and all other that dares to criticise the pics...

[demich]

I know that these anims are concepts but:
sun doesn't look like sun
the camera moves to often/too fast change one of this settings and everything will be ok
use better textures in final version:)


if you want really good terrain generator try terragen
Look here. However i don't know if there is an option of exporting generated terrain to 3ds.

Here is a good quality image of cydnoia area

Edited by Deimos, 28 November 2003 - 08:27 AM.

[Deimos]

I know that these anims are concepts but:
sun doesn't look like sun
the camera moves to often/too fast change one of this settings and everything will be ok
use better textures in final version:)


if you want really good terrain generator try terragen
Look here. However i don't know if there is an option of exporting generated terrain to 3ds.

Here is a good quality image of cydnoia area

I'll answer/query these one by one

How is the sun suposed to look in space?

(Guys if you are going to critique, please please offer an explanation or a fix rather than just a comment. It helps the dev process too )

The camera movements are explained above and are being worked on as I mentioned earlier in the thread.

Which textures?

Terragen is a great prog but it has limitations. Its great for static images and yes it does export 3d meshes but they are just that, meshes. There's no texture data included or anything else so it usefulness is limited. Its good for compositing static images to each other though

That cydonia pic is a bit on the small side. I have a much higer res one weighing in at around 1.8mb I also have a close up of the mesa/mountain that makes up the face which is around the same size.

[Breunor]

Rock on, Brother!

This animation is going to look SO sweet!

[mikker]

sun from space.

[Micah]

That isn't exactly accurate, mikker. The "sun from space" would actually be completely blinding because there isn't even an atmosphere to filter and distort the light. That picture isvery toned down (though I don't know if those are the correct words to describe its darkness) in order to see the sun flares and spots and other varying degrees of heat and cold.

[red knight]

In fact If I dont remember wrong my geography lessons at school that kind of photographs when you can see the whole details can only be taken with special filters that polarize the image (everybody correct me if I am wrong on that, its being ages since I heard about it), and geography as you may guess wasnt my favorite subject at high school ...

Greetings
Red Knight

[j'ordos]

Plus, this picture was taken by a telescope from SOHO, a spacecraft orbiting about halfway between Earth and the Sun, so at approximately 75 million kilometres. Earth itself is at around 150 million kilometres from the sun, and Mars at around 200 (aphelion) - 250 (perihelium) million kilometres away, and we're looking at the Avenger without telescope, so I doubt we'd see the sun like that

[mikker]

okey, i just googled "sun".

[Breunor]

Obviously the size and position of certain celestial ojects might be "artisticly adjusted" to make for a pleasing sequence...

[Deimos]

After all the end result is to give the viewer some eye candy as a pavlovian reward for gettting so far into the game

Sorry its been a while since the teaser shots above but the render took more time than I originally had thought. Ok my fault entirely as half way through the initial render I decided that some moving clouds would look pretty cool so they went into the mix. I also played around with different textures for the pyramid as a rock texture though looking nice didn't really give off the feel of an alien structure. So hours of toying with different textures I settled on the one you'll see in the animation. It is a stone like structure but it also has an sheen to it that has to be seen at higher resolutions to be fully appreciated.

And before someone says it, no I'm not running off a higer res one till I'm ready to do the final render. This clip took nigh on 5 hours to render at this res so imagine how long a higher res one would take.

Other than what's been said above about colouration and model not looking right, there are some things that will be put in v. soon. The first addition will be lots and lots of rocks, which will make the scene resemble more the preference pic above. There will be little aliens running around eventually but as we don't have any bugs available you guys are just gonna have to use your imagination for it.

Just preceeding this anim there will be a three second cut of the Avenger doing a flyby of the cydonia site at altitude just to set the scene.

Need I say it is still a Work in Progress and isn't a final production. The camera path still need tweaking but I thought I'd fire it out anyway as you guys have waited long enough.

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Edited by Deimos, 13 March 2004 - 12:00 PM.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Will we actually get to see the avenger landing?

[Deimos]

Pretty much yeah

[Micah]

This was just a demo video, I know, and I'm "salivating with anticipation" (JA2 ) for the completed version

[Breunor]

We quiver with antici-

"SAY IT! SAY IT!"

-pation!
:happybanana:

[demich]

I thought there is no clouds on Mars

[Micah]

I thought there is no clouds on Mars 

See the pretty clouds?

[ATeX]

This is just great!!!

When do u think it will be finished? So we can try to put some music on it :wink:

[Puasonen]

I've heard deimos is very busy now so it can take a while..

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Yeah, until big D gets back, Bruenor is in charge of the AWD. Personally, I hope Deimos comes back soon.

[Deimos]

That depends on how soon is soon, Cpl. F

In my absence I have been working mostly on refining stuff so there aren't any huge improvements as yet but what there is is a small update to the landed avenger scene and I'm also reworking the earth-mars cutscene as well. The main differences wil be the inclusion of the new avenger and some camera editing.

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Edited by Deimos, 13 March 2004 - 12:00 PM.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Looks nice. Except that the pyramid is kind of fuzzy, like a TV's static. Other than that, the only thing I really want to ask for is a scene of the Avenger actually landing. We see it already landed in that shot.

Otherwise, that is pretty good!

[Vaaish]

That depends on how soon is soon, Cpl. F

In my absence I have been working mostly on refining stuff so there aren't any huge improvements as yet but what there is is a small update to the landed avenger scene and I'm also reworking the earth-mars cutscene as well. The main differences wil be the inclusion of the new avenger and some camera editing.

I think that the camera is still too bouncy and could be slowed bown by about 1/2 to help the flow somewhat.

Terrain looks good with the rocks, though based on the new pics of mars it wouldn't be as rough for the dirt, more like red sand.

I think the problem you are having with that pyramid is coming from the texture having too much detail for the distance and you get teh shimmering as it moves. try making the bricks on it bigger or using a different texture.

Overall it's coming

[fux0r666]

I agree with Vaaish. The camera movements are very quick and unnatural. There seems to be an instantaneous acceleration of the camera..

The models and the landscape are very nice, though.

[Puasonen]

About the camera. I know it looks a bit strange as it is now. Deimos is trying to make the avenger look like it's moving fast. Now that avenger looks like it goes fast so the idea works but because the camera is looking so strange because bouncing, it needs a little grinding.

Deimos:
Have you tried so called "TV camera"? Cameras position is fixed (stays still) but it turns 360 degrees and follows the avenger while it moves past the camera that way. It gives a nice speedy effect and could work pretty well.

Edited by Nyyperoid, 19 January 2004 - 04:23 AM.

[Vaaish]

About the camera. I know it looks a bit strange as it is now. Deimos is trying to make the avenger look like it's moving fast. Now that avenger looks like it goes fast so the idea works but because the camera is looking so strange because bouncing, it needs a little grinding.

Deimos:
Have you tried so called "TV camera"? Cameras position is fixed (stays still) but it turns 360 degrees and follows the avenger while it moves past the camera that way. It gives a nice speedy effect and could work pretty well.

The avenger is already on the ground, the camera is just doing a pan across the martian landscape to the landing zone.

If the camera is trying to show the avengers movement then I would suggest having the avenger in the FOV of the camera.

[Deimos]

If you compare the first one and the second the camera work is a lot smoother and less jerky than before. I spent quite a bit of time tweaking the camera motion. I guess the reason it seems bouncy is becasue the landscape isn't flat and I didn't want to keep the camera on a flat pan.

The pyramid that everyone thinks is a mistake actually isn't. The texture actually glitters, its meant to be the alien version of the iridium sheen but in construction. I didn't want some boring flat texture that is plainly earth based so I went for that one. I'll render up a daytime view of it, it really does look quite spectacular in full light. If you guys still don't like it then I'll look into using something else. But it wasn't a mistake. :plasma:

[Puasonen]

The avenger is already on the ground, the camera is just doing a pan across the martian landscape to the landing zone.
If the camera is trying to show the avengers movement then I would suggest having the avenger in the FOV of the camera.

Ah, sorry, I meant the earth to mars cutscene. And this landing will be shown too in the future so it can be shown with the same TV-camera technique.

edit
Finally got to look the latest version. It isn't bouncy at all anymore IMO. It looks very nice now. I can't wait to see the actual landing! And maybe this movie could end to a scene where power armored people steps out of that avenger.

Edited by Nyyperoid, 19 January 2004 - 01:18 PM.

[Breunor]

I think it would be pretty cool if the final sequence of this scene has the camera pan over to the same position over the Avenger that you'll have in the battlescape as you start to unload your troops. That would provide a very nice transition IMO.

[fux0r666]

I like that idea, breunor... showing the pyramid and then your troops would be a good way to orient the player and define the objective.

[tzuchan]

Hmm...
There's something I've been thinking about, and here seems to be the best place to bring it up as it's sorta related...

I've been think about doing a series of CTs, starting with UFO construction, and ending with the [Avenger] that has to do with FTL travel... Also, the idea that I'm currently bouncing around also involves the [HWD] as it sort of nicely links everything up.

I haven't put anything down yet and have been thinking about approaching Breunor about it, but wanted to have something written first...

Thing is, if I put that together, it would affect this neat video and I want to ask you guys before I even consider going any further...

[Deimos]

I like that idea, breunor... showing the pyramid and then your troops would be a good way to orient the player and define the objective.

Exactly my aim from the start

[Breunor]

I would avoid FTL travel for version 1 tzuchan, that opens up all kinds of possibilities beyond the scope of this game IMO. I think we can safely say that the use of Xenium to power the craft is enough to propel it so fast that the trip only takes a day or two instead of the several months with current technology. When you consider it only takes 8 seconds at light speed to go from the sun to earth, the trip from earth to mars would be pretty quick.

So maybe the avenger is outfitted with "experimental" space drives, something that's added on to help catapult the craft towards mars, but are dropped off once max momentum is reached? So you'd never see it during these later sequences, but it would be some extension to the back of the craft, something like the disposable rocket boosters used in Robotech. Obviously that version is shaped to match with the design style for the series, but I bet something similar in function could be shaped to fit the avenger design...

[tzuchan]

I was thinking that although we may get the Avenger (And as a result FTL) early in the game, we can put in the CTD that we don't know where to send it, and if we use the FTL capability (BTW, it can only work in space) and not finish the alien threat once and for all, the alien would probrably up our threat level and stop playing covert ops with us and pull out the big guns...

Anyway, will still work on it and maybe post it in the Lab when I got something workable.

But I still got a pretty neat idea for the HWD... or rather, the TED when I'm done with it. (You'll just have to wait until I can sit down and gather my thoughs on it before you find out what TED stands for )

[Deimos]

I thought I'd show a daytime version of the above scene just to show the 'tv static' in a better light.

The material actually glitters when the light shines on it and I guess becasue of the lack of light it didn't look too good.The actual material for the pyramid is like a sand type material but more reflective and a lot more coarse.

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Edited by Deimos, 13 March 2004 - 12:01 PM.

[Deimos]

As requested a daytime version of the scene. Things added to this are an atmosphere in the background, obviously the lighting has been changed but the main change is the floor texture. I've changed as the other one looked wet when lit from a daytime viewpoint. Oh and I've upped the resolution to 640x480 as well so you can make out detailling better. I bet no one will spot whats been done to the avenger

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Edited by Deimos, 13 March 2004 - 12:01 PM.

[fux0r666]

I think that the glitter is kind of bold in that it doesn't particularly look like reflectivity, rather, it looks like super reflective metallic fleck paint. I think that a more rocky appearance would convey a more anciet civilization kind of feel (as those who speculate the face on mars and the alleged evidence of pyramids to originate from).