Art Request: Question mark

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 4:21 pm

I’d like an untextured extruded 3D model of a question mark (in DAT format) to use on the Load screen for files with an unknown ship. Helvetica or Arial would be best, in keeping with the standard Oolite text.

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:49 pm

I’m working on this myself now. Whether I’ll give up in frustration is still an open question.

Frame · Post by **Frame** » Sat Jun 02, 2007 6:57 pm

Me to the rescue.... perhaps

http://home20.inet.tele.dk/dp1974/Questionmark1.rar

Two models, since its more than 512 faces that is currently supported by 1.68

i know the new limit will be 800, this model is about 752 or something...

Cheers Frame

Frame · Post by **Frame** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:55 am

So is this of any use to you ?

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 12:29 pm

I’ve done my own, which is more like I imagined it in my head… but it requires smoothing, which is buggy. So, we’ll see.

Note non-shader-based specular highlights! Woo, new material model!

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 1:45 pm

I also note gaps between the surfaces. Is this intended so?

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 2:28 pm

Those are, in fact, the smoothing bugs. :-)

Commander McLane · Post by **Commander McLane** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 3:09 pm

Ahruman wrote:
Those are, in fact, the smoothing bugs.

Ah, interesting.

Perhaps I should take out the smoothing in order to improve my gappy asteroids.

Frame · Post by **Frame** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:08 pm

Ahruman wrote:
I’ve done my own, which is more like I imagined it in my head… but it requires smoothing, which is buggy. So, we’ll see.

Note non-shader-based specular highlights! Woo, new material model!

roger, mine is the ariel font, which is why it got so high poly... i thought since it will only show on the ship yard screen, lets give it some nice round edges, however if i understand you correctly you want the sign to be rounded at the edges, which is also something i can do with smoothing.. for instance the keelback ship and the scarlet ship you saw in another thread is completely smoothed and looks oright in game...

Cheers Frame...

JensAyton · Post by **JensAyton** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 8:40 pm

Frame wrote:
roger, mine is the ariel font, which is why it got so high poly... i thought since it will only show on the ship yard screen, lets give it some nice round edges, however if i understand you correctly you want the sign to be rounded at the edges, which is also something i can do with smoothing.. for instance the keelback ship and the scarlet ship you saw in another thread is completely smoothed and looks oright in game...

My question mark (which is Helvetica, but subdivided to a lower extent than yours) does use smoothing, but extra polygons are needed near the corners for this to look right. The profile of the question mark looks like this:

This arrangement provides the illusion of curved corners with flat panels between them. The “extra” vertices are necessary. Without them, the graphics card will interpolate the lighting across the entire surface, and the result will look awful for a sharp-cornered shape like a square. Additionally, the specular highlights wouldn’t work at all.

If I were to start again (horrible thought) I’d use a higher subdivision level and manually trim down the complexity, leaving more detail at the top. The method used in Wings to get the extra vertices is rather inefficient and results in other artefacts. The current model has 310 vertices and 612 faces, and about a third of those are more hinderance than help.

Frame · Post by **Frame** » Sun Jun 03, 2007 11:42 pm

yeah i know of the problem you describe it is as old as rendering realtime graphics.

I assume that oolite allways smooths at 90 or 180 degree angles either way it will always look awfull since the DAT files do not hold any additional information about smoothing groups..

There is a trick however and I created new model with it..

The trick is to Detach all sides from eachother, its kind a hard to explain exactly but the bottomline is that is what you do..

However it is Vertice exspensive as it will almost certainly Double or Triple the number of vertices..

Anyway to make a long story short... i have here a model that works with smoothing.. i have not tested it with specular highlights but at least in Demoships at startup it looks oright, if i look away from the fact that oolite 1.68 PC version slaps a default texture on...

But no smoothing errors..

its 318 Vertices
and 188 faces..

Here is the link

http://home20.inet.tele.dk/dp1974/quesmark4.rar

packed since my browser just opens the dat file

, i have no clue if macs browser do the same...