Irridium Sheen

[demich]

ok but how to tell him which vertexes?

I'm making a iridium plate with hole and hole must be made by texturing not by modeling. How to tell the game engine to leave this part of plate without adding iridium shine?

[Deimos]

For now just texture it up as you would normally do. We'll work out the sheen when we've got a fully runnig engine to test it and see it in action.

[Guest drewid]

OR if you aren't using too many polys yet - - - - -make a real hole.

[Deimos]

Micah is going to take me out and shoot me

 

Anyway here's a small flyby of Crix's Firestorm with the iridium sheen applied to it.

Also if you guys haven't guessed, I kinda like the blue Ion glow from the engines of the advanced craft.

 

It is a more extreme mapping than the avenger in the earth mars anim but I wanted to show it off to the max as an example. It will actually be a little more toned down when its applied properly.

 

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Edited March 13, 2004 by Deimos

[Cpl. Facehugger]

Very nice. I love it!

 

Uh-oh, do you guys think we may be using the sheen too much? Sure it looks cool, but when everything has the sheen, it may start to lose its novelty.

As long as the Art Department can give us enough variation in what the models look like, maby it won't matter though.

[Guest Jim69]

Alien alloy uses the sheen effect, it won't be seen elsewhere, AFAIK this was decided keeping in mind what you just said quite a while ago.

[Cpl. Facehugger]

I know about only alien alloy using the sheen, but there is a lot of stuff made of alien alloy! Armor, plasma weapons, hovertanks, advanced craft, ufos, alien body armor (?) All sorts of things.

[Breunor]

Hey Demich, you can make additional polys where the hole would be, just a flat circle. Group that seperately and give it a different material without the sheen I guess.

[Guest Jim69]

Only just over 4 months late ::

[Deimos]

Guys it seems that you're worried that the sheen will look like overkill.

 

No need to, the example above is like I said an extreme version to really show it off (make it totally obvious) In game mapping as also shown in the earth mars anim will be much more subtle. It won't be the in your face rainbow show it is in the example above. Trust me

[[[Micah]]]

Very nice, quite the "beauty pass"

[Guest Jim69]

Guys it seems that you're worried that the sheen will look like overkill.

I think Facehugger was suggesting more that the sheen would be overused if it is used for alien alloy's. Personally I don't think it will, IMO it is more than a "Dude, that is cool" it is something that distinguishes the alien alloys from human ones in a way that most metals don't. If this is what the thinking behind it was ( I think it was ) then it is fine IMO.

[Breunor]

Not only will it be a little more discreet, but you can still have an underlying texture for more variety. So it shouldn't be an issue.

[Deimos]

Jim is spot on there. In the original alien alloys (yeah I know about the lack of technology) didn't have any way of distinguishing themselves as otherworldly technology. The iridium sheen not only works on a visual level but also reading through whats been said in this thread about it add depth to it. The way its grown almost organically and IIRC Breunor posted the links to the alien origins being from undersea and the way the alloys are a reference to the whole alien ethos, ties everything in nicely to give that uniformed feel to the alien tech.

 

When the Humans get a hold of it there will be things like decals and identifying marks all over the armour and so on.

 

If it does turn out to be too much (and we won't know until we have a battlescape with everything running) then its a simple case of dulling down the sheen for the human tech to represent that we don't fully have the alien's understanding of the manufacture and processing of the alloys.

 

There is one other damn good reason to have the iridium sheen in the game apart from defining the look of the aliens, how many other games have ever used something like this? Answers on a postcard to....

 

Seriously though, not only will we have a unique look from the shape and interiors of the ufo's but the sheen will reinforce the uniqueness aspect not found in any other game in this genre. That's a good thing from the point of view of getting people to a, notice us and b, remember our game. The iridium sheen is our USP- unique selling point. Coming from my background that's like the holy grail getting a usp for a product.