Really beautiful, good work ai.

Did you create animated shaders?

Ok, so I believe I'm almost done. There's some issues left that I cannot do by myself. Taking a look at the screenshots will help you see this.

1. Currently, the portals are red and blue, even if a texture is applied to them. This is probably somewhere in the code which needs to be changed.
2. There's only one portal model (i.e. portal.md3). So this means both the 'out' and 'in' portals will get the same texture, so the code need to change it to something like 'portal_blue' and 'portal_red' alternatively 'portal_out' and 'portal_in'. It doesn't really matter.
Or if there was something in the code saying that one instance of the model will be using 'this' texture while another instance will be using 'that' texture. However I think that's just over-complicating things. Easier to just duplicate the model and let them use separate textures (like the flags do).

I found a .md3 export script for Blender, however it apparently didn't work to export with the textures. At least I read this script was made for Sauerbraten and you had to create a .cfg. I tried that just in case but didn't work. I even tried creating my own .qc file and replicating the ways of Milkshape but that didn't work either. Finally when I opened it with Milkshape and exported it that way the textures showed up.
So this Blender script is half-working. Would be cool if someone could take a look at it whenever they felt like it.

Script is here for anyone who wants it: http://ai.planetnexuiz.de/Scripts/Blend ... pdated.zip

So, if anyone could change the code and tell me to what he changed it to it would be cool




PS. As you can see I made it so you can look through the backside of the portals if someone shoots them close to an edge. This is a normal issue and cannot be rid without adding more polygons as a plane behind it.
I also heard there can be another method to hide it but I don't know how. But this isn't such a major problem , or what do you guys think?

PPS. No animated shaders yet. First I'm concentrating on getting the model to look right ingame. Then I can think about trying with animated shaders and stuff

Yeah, this is pretty much how they are going to look in game (minus the red portal) I haven't made any glows and such so they might be a bit dark. However before I can go on doing that correctly the code would need changes. These just shows how they look like with the removed red/blue overlay color.
Thanks to morfar which helped with the testing of this and changing the code a bit.

Come on people, let's have some applause for ai! These portals really fit into the style of Nexuiz! Great work, I can't wait to see them in game!

Thanks for spending so much time on this!

Me will thank a lot (x10 times), when he sees animated vortex inside portal.

NICE!

*applauses

http://ai.planetnexuiz.de/Models/Flags/ ... V0.4.2.pk3 Tried this one and in my opinion it's just perfect. An animation for the flag would be nice too sometime in the future but as of far I believe this is great. So my vote is +1 for adding it to SVN as soon as the devs agree. Hope to see it officially in in the close future... will probably even play CTF more often with these now

[edit] Sorry if this came off-subject, I noticed now I was looking at one of the previous pages while writing this by the time of the flag model discussion. These portals look very good too however, they're much nicer then the current ones. Should also be in officially imho.

This thread is all about the work I do so it's appropriate to talk about any things whenever.
Glad people like these.

MirceaKitsune wrote:http://ai.planetnexuiz.de/Models/Flags/z_aiFlag_BETA_STAGE_V0.4.2.pk3 Tried this one and in my opinion it's just perfect. An animation for the flag would be nice too sometime in the future but as of far I believe this is great. So my vote is +1 for adding it to SVN as soon as the devs agree. Hope to see it officially in in the close future... will probably even play CTF more often with these now

Well put, I agree. I would love to see this go forward. It'd be a shame not to include this sexy flag maybe even the tripple so people could decide. I think the tripple needs work though. I think the concept is okay but it just looks too awkward as it is now. Maybe if the top part that "makes the ball" was shrunk down and interconnected a little more hold some cool effect like your portals (which look really good by the way).

Otherwise, I'd say the 1 flag with glowing lasers, the spinningness as Micera pointed out and (:crosses fingers:) a smoke trail would be perfect.

Well, I don't know if I will be changing the design anymore. It was the design that got most votes i.e. Sev's concept won. Of course the design didn't have 3 flags but that's why I have another vote going. In the end I believe it's going to be up to Alientrap to decide which, if any, flag will be included.

The design I believe is great the way it is. 3 or 2 flags wouldn't look that good in my opinion, 1 is perfect for ctf (think I seen a screenshot of one with 2 flags but nah). All else it would need would probably be a little flag animation if you can add that. Also maybe add some texture glow, gloss and a few shaders if you'd want to try and play with that, so for example the center metal bar has a little deluxe-gloss effect if you want? If not just hoping it goes officially in the game the way it is currently as well as the new portal

Regarding the new portal though, I can't help from asking a question; Does Darkplaces currently support camera textures? As in, place a camera entity that looks in a direction, and it renders that live on a texture that you place wherever you want? Cuz if that works somehow the two portals could render each other one's views like the HL2-bases Portal game does.

First of, I never had 2 flags There only a 1 flag and a 3 flag version, there might be certain screenshots where one flag is cleverly hidden behind something. That was not on purpose if that happened
The current version I have (don't know if I have released it or not) do in fact have glows. But what I discovered is that the flags are fullbright, meaning it renders the glows pretty much useless. I will try to add gloss and see if that helps, also been playing around with normal maps without luck. Could be because I just recently found out that green should be inverted so I will try with that,

I currently have problems getting the flag animated. I'm trying to make the emblem and the two gears to spin but to no avail. The thing with this design was that the flag is 'stretched' between the holders making the flag pretty much static. But if I finally find a way to animate those three main things I'll see if animating the flag will be open for consideration.
Making models is very easy comparing to rigging them and animating them for the games specs. I can animate and rig, just having problem making sure it works ingame as well.

As for the portals, I don't really know if DP supports that, but I would think not. Think I've read something like that. However what one can do is just make an animated shader (which I probably will try later if the code has changed and I can test this on my or someone elses server). Those animated shaders are pretty much like a gif to put it in a simple explanation. Just a bunch of images compiled to make it look like it's animated. I unfortunately do not know the exact steps for it. They are written down and I've read them, just haven't had luck myself, but I also didn't try very hard. I was just merely playing around to see if I could get something to work in a quick fashion.

Not portal cams last I heard. This is why gasolinepowered uses static pictures as fake portals cams.

Ok, morfar wanted to try the portals out with the same method players function. He created .skin files which in them is information on what texture to use. This method is good in that way there doesn't need to be two (or more) identical portal.md3 models, instead one. Player models functions in the way that there is one model, then that model can have several different skins. It's the .skin files job to texture the model, now the portals works in the same way. Also thanks to morfar for changing the code, compiling it and giving it to me for testing.
I have yet not found a good way to do that myself

Here's the result at least, I think it's pretty much all done, now I just have to create the last things, such as glows, normal map and gloss. I will also take a look to see if I can solve that eye sore of normal issue on the model. :/

great job!
looks very polished although glow and gloss etc. is missing.
Will you write a howto after this is finished? This thread has gone huge, so a collection of the most important facts to get models into the game would be great!
I'd be very thankful (which in fact i already am when looking at your portal )

Thanks Strahlemann.
I currently am working on the glows, almost done. Will do gloss after this, a normal map and a bump map (I want to compare those two see which one will be best suited).
I also have planned on creating a howto, in fact I have already started with it. Once these models are done I'm going to review that howto, and once I figured out a way to animate as well I will include that.
Currently I'm also learning Blender just to have a Blender section in the howto and make it so simple to understand that anyone should be able to do this.

Ok, portals are done.
Big thanks to morfar who helped out with .skin files and the shader, along with the necessary code changes. These are the final portals, I believe morfar also have comitted them now to the SVN.

Go nuts and enjoy Thanks everyone for your support on this. /bow




EDIT: Fisume wanted a download link so here you go people if you want: http://ai.planetnexuiz.de/Models/Portals/portals.pk3

fixed:

[-z-] wrote:fixed:

It never was broken.

ai wrote:

[-z-] wrote:fixed:

It never was broken.

So I take it, you're not in favor of adding the Nexuiz logo and filling in that space?

[-z-] wrote:So I take it, you're not in favor of adding the Nexuiz logo and filling in that space?

No, that's not it. But you can't fix things that never were broken. You can only add to them.

I apologize if you took offense to my internet meme humor.

I'm still looking forward for vortex.

Alien wrote:I'm still looking forward for vortex.

That thing in the middle is a vortex It's rotating and waving (like water).
We wanted a swirl or ripple effect but I never found a shader command for that :/ Maybe someone knows here.

Would waveform functions be applicable?

Alien wrote:Would waveform functions be applicable?

What do you mean? Sound?

Shaders not only modify the visible aspect of textures on a geometry brush, curve, patch or mesh model, but they can also have an effect on both the content, "shape," and apparent movement of those things. A surface effect does nothing to modify the shape or content of the brush. Surface effects include glows, transparencies and rgb (red, green, blue) value changes. Content shaders affect the way the brush operates in the game world. Examples include water, fog, nonsolid, and structural. Deformation effects change the actual shape of the affected brush or curve, and may make it appear to move.

http://www.heppler.com/shader/shader/section2.htm#2 look at 2.4.8

That is exaclty what the portal use. It's using "Sin" waves which I thought looked best of all the waves I tried. I kinda like the smoothness of the waves.

But I'll see if I can tweak the waves to make a ripple effect, if possible.

+10 for morfar