making tunnels with subsurf

[zuriastrad]

as some of you may have noticed i like subsurf for high poly modelling, but it can be used for making maps too. obviously if you use too much then there will be too many polygons and the game will slow down, but if you manage to avoid this then it can be quite useful.

here's an example.


the mesh on the left is the original. very simple and made with snap to grid to get an even appearance. the middle one has one level of subsurf applied and the one on the right has two levels. the one on the right may be a little too high-poly for some, but the middle one is pretty safe. to make these kind of shapes without subsurf would be hard work, this way is a lot easier.

subsurf-tunnel-demo.blend

[zuriastrad]

i've been working with this a little. i've made what i reckon are the basic building blocks for tunnels, a crossroad, t-piece, bend and straight. i built these with blender's grid settings set to 8, so they will line up ok in gtkradiant. all i need to do now it to texture them and export them to ase files and then mappers can start building complex underground tunnel systems. could be fun.


subsurf-tunnel-blocks-0001.blend

[zuriastrad]

here's a shot of the initial blocks and the two different levels of subsurf. i might make two sets of building blocks so that mappers have the option of higher or lower poly.



subsurf-tunnel-blocks-0002.blend

[zuriastrad]

here's a zip file with the 8 different ase files in it. the uvmapping is pretty crude, but i'll wait to see if anyone uses them in a map before i decide whether to upgrade them.

subsurf-tunnel-ase-files.zip