No Clue

[koufuyo]

(Seems as though I have quite a bit on my mind in terms of 3D topics)

Ever feel as though you are left out of the loop
in terms of art and videogames ?

I sure do now, I spent most of college just working on things and just seeing what was in museums, da artist and famous types of folks.

I had no idea that so many people were sculpting
in zbrush nor did I really think that so many people were making real
things.

I mean heck, I missed most of this gen.
I barely played video games from 2005-2011
I only played handhelds oncse in awhile and a couple of mario titles on wii
during winter/summer break.

I didn't check gamespot or
any of these places because I was just making things.
Coming here is an eye opener indeed!

What happened?
When did scuplting become mainstream.
Can I catch up?

Btw, did anyone here let the times past them?

[Del]

~ You totally need a blog. Or a diary. Or a VH1 special.

[Entity]

Not sure if serious...

[koufuyo]

well idk,
Again, I am trying to start conversation..
This popped in my mind, and think this is a pressing topic.
I mean, when did this all happen?

[Tom Ellis]

Or a VH1 special.

+1 Lol.

Seriously man things move on, it's common sense. Especially anything related to tech. New technologies develop, if you're not involved, then sure you fall behind.

But really, making a topic about this? It's like saying 'OMGZ I hadn't bought a PC since 1990 which was a 486/66, and now you can get like 4 corez in one processor! How is this possible?!!'

Your last post was about how to get the energy to work... less posting of these topics and more making art. There's your answer.

[gauss]

Thank you for your poem,
I found your employment of line breaks
particularly

effective?

[CheeseOnToast]

Almost a haiku Gauss. Almost.

[Hugh]

wow your not lieing Gamespot was replaced by Ign along time ago in popularity. You got about another year before the next next gen is ready.

Sculpting is like any methodology in art or life it will take time to learn

[Joshua Stubbles]

I was out of the industry for nearly 3yrs. The normal mapping/hires modeling shit passed me by. But I've been fighting back ever since and starting to do pretty well.

[Yozora]

I mean, when did this all happen?

Yesterday around 5:20pm, GMT.

[Arkadius]

However, with the advent of shaders in personal computers and game consoles, normal mapping became widely used in proprietary commercial video games starting in late 2003, and followed by open source games in later years. Normal mapping's popularity for real-time rendering is due to its good quality to processing requirements ratio versus other methods of producing similar effects. Much of this efficiency is made possible by distance-indexed detail scaling, a technique which selectively decreases the detail of the normal map of a given texture (cf. mipmapping), meaning that more distant surfaces require less complex lighting simulation.
Basic normal mapping can be implemented in any hardware that supports palettized textures. The first game console to have specialized normal mapping hardware was the Sega Dreamcast. However, Microsoft's Xbox was the first console to widely use the effect in retail games. Out of the sixth generation consoles, only the PlayStation 2's GPU lacks built-in normal mapping support. Games for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 rely heavily on normal mapping and are beginning to implement parallax mapping. The Nintendo 3DS has been shown to support normal mapping, as demonstrated by Resident Evil: Revelations and Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater.

I really didnt start hearing about normal mapping till Gears of War, maybe it was one of the games that pushed normal mapping into the light?

[Tom Ellis]

maybe it was one of the games that pushed to normal map into the light?

Or the dark, depending on which way you look at it ;)

[odium]

Doom 3 was the first major game I know of that used it, Riddick was there too. There are others but they were a little naff and don't recall the names of them. Doom 3 predates Gears by a good few years.

Actually didn't Chrome use normal maps? It was terrible to look at mine you but the whole thing used them no?

[Skamberin]

Far Cry is always forgotten :( and splinter cell chaos theory and Battlefield 2

[odium]

Yup, Farcry beat both Riddick and Doom 3 by a good 5 or so monthes, but if I recall it didn't use it everywhere, just on the indoor nicely lit parts.

[Zipfinator]

This thread is full of rascals... Anyway, sculpting has been around for a long time. It's been used in movies since the late 1990's from what I've seen and it's been used in games since sometime around 2004, or at least that's when Valve started using it a bit for HL2.

[koufuyo]

I mean I heard about it around 2008,
but I never actually saw it in game you know?

[Autocon]

This is what happens when you dont pay attention in college and just squeek by, you dont pay attention to what other students/industry fokes are doing your going to get lost.

This is what happens when you dont play games and learn what they are doing and where games are headed.

This is what happens with technology, it is always evolving and making huge leaps and you must stay on it.

This is what happens when your not passionate about what you do. If you were really passionate about 3d art you would live it everyday by either working on it or reading up on the industry on sites like Kotaku, Gamasutra and such.



You have some super cool sketches and a ton of 3d characters so it seems that you enjoy what you do but from the sound of things you must have been working in bubble of isolation for a long time. Making art is fun but if you dont stay up to date on what is new, what people are doing and what is expected your just going to stay in the same spot instead of moving forward.

Start coming to PC everyday, read threads in Pimping and Previewing, What are you working on, the Polycount News and Technical Talk. Ditch your Wii and get a console like PS3 or 360. The Wii is nothing more then a Gamecube with waggle and art done for the Wii looks dated compared to everything done on the PS3/360. Stay up to date with the industry or it will pass you by again.

Good Luck :)

[Justin Meisse]

This is why some studios have game & console buy rebates - to encourage their employees to stay up to date with the tech. That's how I got a Wii & PS3, two systems I wasn't really interested in enough to drop a bunch of money on.

[Ruz]

normal mapping is the norm now

[koufuyo]

Gah, no one else was using zbrush that often either.
Seriously, no one really made anything.
Sure we would add normals or bump, but I never really saw anyone make
a full figure in zbrush, export and do all this retop jazz.

Lol funny you should say I did play disgaea 3 and final fantasy; 13 it didn't seem as there was much
brush work there either...
Maybe I am playing the wrong games?

[Justin Meisse]

Dreamcast & the original Xbox could handle normal maps but it didn't become common on console games until the 360 & PS3 launched.

I remember playing "Escape From Butcher Bay" on my Xbox and being blown away, I think that actually beat Doom 3 to the market by a few months.

So yeah, we are about 7 years into the normal map generation - most job descriptions don't even say they require normal mapping knowledge, it's just assumed.

[Andreas]

This is what happens when your not passionate about what you do.


Nail on head. Stop whinning kouyfu. Your work is fine, and well lit, which is a rarity. Use Dominance War V to your advantage and learn the current gen workflow.

[Justin Meisse]

I just borrowed Final Fantasy 13, it uses normal maps, primarily on characters, I noticed alot of environment pieces that either had no normal maps or too much lighting painted into them.

[koufuyo]

Really? On the main characters I don't see a thing.
Definately some of the deities, or late game monster
But most everything details seemed to be made of many meshes.

[Justin Meisse]

the most obvious are the folds in her clothing
http://www.artbyjustin.com/misc/ffxiiinormals.jpg

there's also some parts were they zoom really close up on some ugly low-rez normals

[Del]

Really? On the main characters I don't see a thing.
Definately some of the deities, or late game monster
But most everything details seemed to be made of many meshes.


http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/TruthWalker/lignthings-1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/TruthWalker/n901_00-1.jpg

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y9/TruthWalker/n901_07-1.jpg

[koufuyo]

wow, that's news to me........

I guess I never noticed, guess I wasn't paying attention

That really doesn't look like it even has normals or were scuplted ...

These do

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/koufuyo/raktavija.png

http://i145.photobucket.com/albums/r225/koufuyo/Behemothpulse.jpg

[pior]

Yup they totally are, just try the same kind of asset by yourself and you'll instantly notice the impact even on smooth surfaces. (and yeah if you were wondering : same with the legs, arms, and so on)
The meshes themselves are very dense too, yet not dense enough to not need normal info. Without NMaps these characters would look like oldschool DoA2 characters.

Just get to it! You'll see.

[koufuyo]

In that case, I do add subtle normals in just about every piece.
I when I am saying zbrush (I do use it for those normals),

I am talking hyper normals like the pictures I posted you know?
And complete projections

[leilei]

Dreamcast & the original Xbox could handle normal maps but it didn't become common on console games until the 360 & PS3 launched.

Dreamcast didn't support them at all, not even the video chipset's successor either.
Xbox... normal maps were in Halo IIRC, but it's only noticable on indoor structures


OFF-TOPICRY: 1998-99 had Outcast and Trespasser (yes that crappy one!) had normal maps on models. Trespasser even had a interesting shadowmap system (not to mention sprite LOD and 'physics')

[eld]

In that case, I do add subtle normals in just about every piece.
I when I am saying zbrush (I do use it for those normals),

I am talking hyper normals like the pictures I posted you know?
And complete projections

Hyper normals?, Since the main objective of normalmapping is to emulate the look of a higher resolution mesh on a lower one, it doesn't mean you have to zbruswrinkle everything to the extreme.

So you can have some really smooth highpoly models, with some sharp interesting areas at some places, with some smooth smooth bevels going on, and then transfer all that information over to a less detailed model but keep the fidelity.

Leilei, quite a bunch of games on the xbox used it to different degrees, and in halo2 they used the whole highpoly baking process on characters even.

But since most was ps2/gamecube/xbox multiplatform games, it was usually never used as a core feature in games, but just slapped on.

[Saman]

Dreamcast didn't support them at all, not even the video chipset's successor either.



I did some research on this because according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_mapping dreamcast was the first console to have specialized normal mapping hardware. I also found another interesting article( http://handheldwii.wordpress.com/2009/01/17/72944782/ ). Here is an excerpt;

To back it up, I have the word of Simon F from the Beyond3d forums. He’s worked in the PowerVR group of Imagination Technologies (nee Videologic) for over 16 years and in other 3D related positions at other companies prior to that. I figured I’d get someone in the know to quote to prevent crazed fan boy outrage.
“Dreamcast had a normal map texture format and could do dot products with an incoming light direction to modify the shading of surfaces (you could even change the opacity if you wanted to).
The normal map vectors, however, were not stored in Cartesian coordinates but in a polar-ish form. At the time I was worried that, if we used Cartesian coordinates, the cost of renormalisation of the vectors in the texture (e.g. due to bilinear filtering) and of the per-vertex light vectors would be too high. I shouldn’t have worried since 1) re-normalisation can be done with relatively little hardware and 2) when other hardware came along that did normal mapping with Cartesian vectors I don’t think it did either.”