In an attempt to find a project that will keep me interested and be generally entertaining for myself, I've decided to work on remaking assets from Phantasy Star Online. I've been focusing on the first level, Forest 1, and specifically just the hardsurface assets so far.
I've been posting some of this stuff in the WAYWO thread, but I suppose it's time to make a thread. I've gotten far enough and I'm having enough fun that I should actually stick with this for a while.
I'm working in UDK and modeling in Maya, but I'm only focused on assets at the moment rather than a scene. Here is my reference sheet:
Reference
This is what I've done so far:
And here are some of my progress shots. I'll post what I have and go from there. I decided to start with the basic box as a test before moving on with other objects.
Model based on PSO texture:
Finished high poly:
Textured, in UDK:
Small comm unit high poly:
Low poly comm unit with normal bake:
Comm unit textured:
Decided to work on the teleporter, on the left of the ref sheet.
High poly:
Fun render with high poly and beams:
Low poly with bake (AO, normal):
That's where I am at the moment. Now I need to paint the teleporter and figure out an effective way to animate the beam effect.
Replies
Teleporter isn't spelled right says the word check thing
How is it spelled!!!!
looks awesome
red/blue reminds me of Natural Selection for some reason
I put over 300 hours of my childhood into PSO for Dreamcast; I'll be watching this thread.
Edit: P.S. - Can you please upload some wireframes? I know it's probably just simple shapes, but I'd like to see how you ordered your topology.
Oniram - Thanks, I don't really get to do this stuff at work so whenever I do, I'm paranoid that I forgot how to texture, but I eventually get into it.
MadnessImport - Yeah, I definitely am getting more comfortable with these assets as I go, and that's why I think the teleporter is my best yet, however it's spelled.
n88tr - Well that normal is baked at 2048, but I'll end up taking it down a notch once I move it to UDK, but hopefully there'll be enough detail there and in the diffuse to keep it all in tact.
itismario - Thank you, I was using it both as a test and a style guide for this project because, as usual, I wasn't sure I'd follow through with the other stuff, but I'm feeling good about it now. With the initial asset, I wanted to establish a style an motifs that I can carry throughout all successive assets so I thought the best thing to do would be the most generic of the lot. Fortunately there is another crate to be done later.
tristamus - Ye shall receive! (Perspective is a little skewed on the reference there)
The box is sitting on 1920 tris, bottom included. That's a bit higher than I would have liked, but I'm treating each one of these as a hero asset because that's the fun in an art project. I probably put close to 2000 hours into PSO all said and done over multiple versions, primarily on Gamecube, so suffice to say, it's one of my favorite games ever. I always see people remaking games or parts of games that they love, like Half-Life, Goldeneye, Zelda, Mario etc. (JFletcher's Luigi was definitely a catalyst for this project) and I wanted to do something I loved that I simply hadn't seen before.
theonebutcher - Thanks, hopefully I can keep this up going forward.
Bart - Thank you, I always feel self-conscious about my texturing, but improving my normal mapping skills has help me tremendously.
S2Engine - Ha, I'm not even sure about doing Forest 1 let alone the Mines. That would probably end up being a pretty intense hardsurface level. This is all being done out of my rage for a lack of another PSO.
slipsius - Boom!
biofrost - Here's the diffuse for the crate:
It's not as mirrored as I suppose it could be, but I'm happy with the detail.
coots7 - Thanks, just looking at the game itself. PSO concept art didn't seem too prevalent, let alone environment stuff. Here is my reference sheet for these assets and the remaining ones that I have planned.
Just have base colors laid down on the teleporter and I was messing with it in UDK but not much to show of it at the moment.
Edit: base colors
Edit: updated effect
I'd of course love see some CAVE 2 and RUINS going on.
Great work.
If you delve into the awesomeness that is the earlier Phantasy Star games I hope you are as faithful in the translation.
Here's where I've gotten with the gate texture. Same basic effect as the teleporter with red meaning closed and blue meaning open, as is PSO tradition.
Edit: shot of everything so far
So something like this:
The material is additive and multiplies a color onto it. Then it is emitted through a mesh emitter in a particle system. The vertical streaky parts are another emitter in the same system, but they're just basic sprites. This is the first real thing I've done in cascade so I doubt I've done it as efficiently as possible.
darbeenbo - Well, that face is a separate plane so its UVs are a large square. I suppose I could have put it where you suggested and had it work, though it'd require some cleanup due to odd overlapping UVs, but frankly it just didn't occur to me as I was laying it out. I also question how much I could have gained by having unique corner pieces and such. Oh well, I'm not too worried about it, but thanks for the suggestion. I'll keep an eye out for stuff like this moving forward.
In any case, top notch work in here. Keep it up.
So awesome man.
I imagine reference, reference, reference, but that's a given.
and your textures are stunning!
Awesome job man!
tristamus - I'll try to post more progress as I go through texturing this next asset, but generally I get as much detail as I can from my high poly to push the texture through occlusion and cavity stuff, and then in painting I just focus on wear and tear. Basically then it's just erasing paint for scratches and chips and then play with colors for undercoats. Other than that, it's mostly adding in some basic noisy overlays I've painted.
So with this console, I wanted to work on incorporating zBrush more fluidly into my workflow. Because of that, I feel as though I got carried away with dents and scratches in some area, but no matter, I think it'll still work out.
Lowpoly to come, eventually.
also, the scratched metal seems a bit bright on your diffuse.
SimonT - That diffuse was just a UV layout suggestion by darbeenbo. My map is on the first page and all the corner pieces are overlapping. Though clearly I could have done a better job with efficiency there.
And here is my UV layout this time:
Thanks for the criticism everyone, I'm trying to absorb as I go and I know I've already improved my process during this project.
There are my lightmap UVs and there are no overlapping or flipped faces there. There are flipped UVs in my UV 0 channel though, if that has an effect. And cranking up the resolution of the map did not improve things. Does anyone know how I can fix this or at least improve it?
All I've done on the texture so far is throw down some base colors, no spec. I also cleaned up the normal map some in terms of erasing some of the bigger dents that don't mirror well.