Time for another update I think, been a while actually (or at least it feels like that!). So over the past couple of weeks I’ve been working on various bits and pieces for the environment, firstly making rock clusters which are scattered around the bay, such as the path from the lighthouse to the beach and the hermit’s cave. I’m still in two minds about using models for rocks like this however as I’m not a big fan of the vertex lighting, even with all the advances of the OB’s per-vertex lighting and self shadowing. I find that the lighting is often inconsistent with the lightmapped geometry, so I’m considering changing them over (or at least partially) to displacements and seeing how the performance compares.
Another thing I worked on, and something that had been bugging me since the project started, was the problem of creating a realistic ocean with Valves pond water. After unsuccessfully trying various complex solutions I finally decided to go back to basics and tried a simple scrolling TwoTexture, with some carefully crafted textures, applied on a brush 1 unit above the water. Initial results were very promising but one of the major problems I had over such a large area was inevitable tilling. I countered this by converting the brush into a displacement where I could skew and shape the texture to avoid any ugly tilling and better match the contours of the shoreline. The result was quite satisfying and overall not too expensive, and I can optimise it further later on if necessary:
Something may also notice in these shots is the new lighting and sky. I saw some concerned comments that it was previously too bright, and although it was only placeholder in previous shots, I had to agree it was not in fitting with DE’s atmosphere at all. As you can see I darkened the sky and lighting considerably and tried to select a palette which better suited a darker and mysterious atmosphere.
Finally I got some help from coder, Jack Morgan, who helped fix a few annoyances such as footstep sounds and crouch speed as well as one other feature allowing me to have more control over what can be done with detail sprites; Basically I’ve been hoping Valve would fix the problem detail models (instead of sprites) killing fps in the engine since I first started mapping but unfortunately it seems like the engine is just not built to handle it. Detail models offer a very simple way of adding variation to large surfaces such as the beaches in DE without having to place hundreds of models or decals individually and only need to be seen when the player is in close proximity. The solution Jack and I came up with was to instead use sprites that are parallel to the ground which then create the effect of texture variation and detail. There results were surprisingly good and best of all cheap as chips!
After all the small bits and pieces were sorted I decided it was time to get focused. My plan is to focus on one area’s art every week and try to get them at a level where all they need is polish. This week I have been focusing on the Lighthouse area at the beginning of the first level. Originally it was just a small stone house that didn’t make much sense in that location. I decided a lighthouse would be more fitting, and with the inspiration of Ben Andrew’s concept art I built what you can see below:
This was pretty taxing to be honest, with lots of small props being required for the interior which can be very time consuming in Source. Although it still needs a lot of polish, overall I’m pleased with the results and next week I shall start on another area.
Finally I made up a short video showcasing the sea and sky in action so that you can more clearly see it to full affect, Enjoy!
Wow. Looks great.
Seeing these waves made me really want dynamic weather and actual curling crashing waves, I’m guessing that would be ridiculously expensive and or difficult to do, I think I saw some nice fluid dynamics for unreal once. Maybe there’s a way to fake it, like if you had waves crashing on a big rock that was far enough out to sea and you just had a couple prerendered animations that you cycle through – I actually have no idea what I’m talking about or hard this is to do, all I know is I’ve never seen good crashing waves and on a shoreline where everything else looks this incredibly realistic they just seem to be missing. That and a strong irregularly intermitttent wind, which you mentioned would be a problem.
Doing an awesome job, makes me greedy for more.
More news ???
Thanks for that, will check it out, seems to be a lot of interesting parameters in there I never heard of. Do you know by any chance what “$subdivsize” does? Cant find any reference to it in the Valve wiki.
Finally, visuals to match Dear Esther’s story, setting and audio!
You can get around a lot of the tiled-ness of the the standard HL2 water by borrowing its improved relative from Lost Coast, using two normal maps that are scaled differently and are scrolling in different directions. It’s still not perfect (it’ll look like an ominously calm stretch of sea, rather than anything remotely choppy – but your overlying waves should magnificently counteract that) but it’s a great improvement. Here’s the water from some other mod thingy to work from, the ‘TextureScroll’ under Proxies is the important new bit:
“Water”
{
“Water_DX60″
{
“$fallbackmaterial” “nature/water_canals_water2_dx70″
}
“Water_DX80″
{
“$refractamount” “.13″
}
“Water_DX81″
{
“$refractamount” “.13″
}
“$abovewater” 1
“%compilewater” 1
“$surfaceprop” “water”
“%tooltexture” “dev/water_normal”
“$refracttexture” “_rt_WaterRefraction”
“$refracttint” “{255 250 245}”
“$refractamount” “.75″
“$reflecttexture” “_rt_WaterReflection”
“$reflectamount” “.45″
“$reflecttint” “[.95 .95 .95]”
“$envmap” “env_cubemap”
“$scale” “[1 1]”
“$bumpmap” “dev/water_dudv”
“$normalmap” “dev/water_normal”
“$cheapwaterstartdistance” “2000″
“$cheapwaterenddistance” “3000″
“$bottommaterial” “nature/water_minerva_beneath”
“$subdivsize” 64
“$bumpframe” “0″
“$fogenable” 1
“$fogcolor” “{50 45 42}”
“$fogstart” 1.00
“$fogend” 150.00
“$bumpoffset” “[0 0]”
“$scroll1″ “[.01 .01 .1]”
“$scroll2″ “[-.04 .04 .15]”
“Proxies”
{
// “AnimatedTexture”
// {
// “animatedtexturevar” “$normalmap”
// “animatedtextureframenumvar” “$bumpframe”
// “animatedtextureframerate” 30.00
// }
“TextureScroll”
{
“texturescrollvar” “$bumptransform”
“texturescrollrate” .02
“texturescrollangle” 65.00
}
}
}
RE: borgking
The shader is an additive one which does not require an alpha channel on the two textures.
Great work.
Anyway I have a small question.
You mentioned, that you used a displacement on the water to avoid tiling.
How did you fix the problem source has with two blendtextures having another alpha-channel?
I tried it for another problem (light faking with blending two selfillum-textures) and finaly found out that according to the Valve-Developer-Wiki a blendtexture can only support one alpha-channel, that has to be applied to the whole texture.
I’m jealous. Fantastic work, a very organic looking scene which Source isn’t known for.
However some critiques: Couple of stretched textures. This can be fixed with EP2 Technology. ($seamless_scale. They appear to be on displacements. If their on models, I’m sure you know how to fix that.
The rockwalls appear to have an excellent normal map. Do they have an SSBump? I think an SSBump might look better considering the use of a flashlight in DE. There’s several threads on Interlopers about the issue/creating your own.
Lighthouse appears to be missing the bulb inside of it? I could understand if it was broken, but I don’t think they would have taken it out of the light house.
Could we possibly get a shot with models turned off? I’m curious as to how much of this is done with models, and how much is done with carefully done brushwork and displacements. Also, could you possibly give people an idea of how the wave texture looks? There’s many people curious as to how it’s done as it looks awesome.
Just my two cents. =)
Wow, this looks fantastic. I sort of worry that it might end up looking flat in places due to not a huge amount of contrast. Have you tried a HDR compile yet? I think that *could* work really well with this enviroment.
Incredible work!
Your rock models of its very good! Do not replace them by displacements!
The only thing that surprised me in your video is the speed of the clouds (too fast for my taste)
Keep well! more more more !
Great work, I might add 2 ideas to the water work you might look into or if you probably thought about this before.
You could use some particle effects for water splashes against the rocks or the shore, it would look great especially in the area around the lighthouse, don’t forget that you might use some sound effect to it as well, I know this is not easy to make, try to take it into consideration.
The second idea is about possibility of making water edges smooth, that would probably require shader/coding work, finding a good shader coder is difficult, and there might be some engine limitations of I have no idea.
I played the first DE release and thought it was great, totally different. The mood it got me into and when I saw new media release about the remake just made my spine get chills. After I finished your mod I had euphoria feeling for some time, that’s what made the mod great. Best regards.
What should i say? Its simple uber-awesome!! You did a damn great job, as i said on Youtube the Sky, the Textures and this damn nice brushwork tops everything i’ve seen so far. Every Level-Designer who actually work on source should use this as a measurement for his work.
Keep up the good work and pls dont let DE die!