understanding ship component textures (especially in TA)

from GalCiv2 Forums

i'll start this off by saying i have virtually no experience doing 3D graphics generation of any sort. still, i know my way around photoshop, and i'm a fast learner. with that said...

i was wondering if anyone could help me understand how textures are mapped onto ship components, especially in TA. i'm hoping to see the few remaining components with low-res textures from DL go away by v 2.0. i'll be very happy if that does happen, but i have further ideas.

by poking around in the files and visual observation, it seems like a the textures are re-used on multiple ship components. i think this might be correct because of the talk of "memory optimizations." but i am unsure. can anyone confirm for me? if this is the case, i don't understand how the 3D engine 'knows' what parts of a texture to map onto a given wire frame, and what parts to ignore (if any): assuming this is a valid question, can anyone explain how it works? if there's are articles or tutorials somewhere online, i'd be more than happy to undertake self-directed learning: i don't expect a full course of study in 3D CGI or anything; my main challenge is that i don't even know enough to figure out what it is i need to know.

i ask because i was wondering if it'd be possible to 'copy' existing wireframes (or any appropriate files) but map alternative textures onto them. the idea here is to increase the number of jewelry pieces available in a given visual style without haivng to build everything from scratch.

thanks guys ;)

modding
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Reply #1 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

i don't understand how the 3D engine 'knows' what parts of a texture to map onto a given wire frame, and what parts to ignore (if any): assuming this is a valid question, can anyone explain how it works?

 

Each model contains a UV map, which is basically a set of coordinates (on the texture) paired to each vertex. So the engine then 'pins' the texture onto the model at those points, and stretches the skin all around it for the resulting appearance.

It'd be one thing to just swap out similar textures, but if you really want to do it, you'd need the source models so you could completely redo the UV mapping.

Reply #2 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

It'd be one thing to just swap out similar textures, but if you really want to do it, you'd need the source models so you could completely redo the UV mapping.

hmm well that's a start; thanks kryo. i suppose i could start with the simple swap-outs and see what happens. with regard to the 'source models,' is this something i could do as a home user with, say SketchUp?

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Reply #3 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

...is this something i could do as a home user with, say SketchUp?

 

Bluntly said, NO.

 

3D modeling tasks require extensive knowledge of the appropriate softwares (Namely or thrown in as some examples - 3DStudioMax, Maya, plus a couple of hundreds more along with some 'shareware offers' such as Blender).

The UV texturing is as much involving as the basic meshing work... and, in  fact, most professional designer enviro have these integrated with many other assets (One may think Cinema4D).

 

I'd recommend downloading Blender first and try your hands over a simple re-modeling project to get a grasp of the entire activity - then, decide.

Reply #4 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

heh, well, i never thought it'd be "easy," but i'm a pretty smart guy. i'll follow your advice and see what comes of it.

Reply #5 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

plus a couple of hundreds more along with some 'shareware offers' such as Blender).

   I tried opening one of the UV map files with Blender, and they are NOT compatible.

Reply #6 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Blender has a set of Plugins which *may* be able to do compatible work on a number of files (Dunno about the UV mapping though).

The 'regular format' of 3D models in GC is, for example, a "true" DirectX structure with some additional dummies (HardPoints) attached within - IIRC, a 3dStudioMax processing step.

 

The trick with modeling & texturing is that the genuine production items are *Supposed* to be a general (as much universal as possible) choice that the developer made in order to provide customizable principles to their files.

Finding the proper software to DO everything with such 3D models is another story altogether -- Blender included.