Quick-Crit 2008-2009

[Assault&Battery]

Took me around 4 hours to model this terrain. The Forerunner hallway and surrounding polygons are going to be replaced by a less shitty version when I finish the surrounding terrain; the hallway's a separate object than the rest of the mesh.

This is my first attempt at plane modeling an environment, not weapons like I've been practicing with. Combined the newer skills I've learned with some old stuff from previous map modeling.

Still has a shitload of work to do, but it's a start.


Poly and triangle count both stand at 375.

[Rob Oplawar]

One thing that comes with experience is efficiency. I was about to make some abrasive remark about "omg it took you 4 hours to do that", but it occurs to me that when I first started modeling I took a lot longer to do simple stuff.

Now, don't get discouraged when I say this, but, that terrain needs a lot of work. The cliffs are too uniform and smooth, and, well, you should look at some cliff modeling tutorials.

Kudos for trying plane modeling, tho. I only started that recently.

e: *looks at it a bit more* well, the cliffs are alright I suppose, they're not that bad, but still,
... well yeah they're bad.

[Assault&Battery]

I'm used to working with my old techniques, but Halo doesn't like them for some reason. The other engines I used to work with let me get away with FAR MORE than Halo does, so I have to re-learn my techniques.

[Rob Oplawar]

i know exactly what you mean.
*still learning editable poly*

[Assault&Battery]

Any advice on exactly WHAT to fix, for future reference?

EDIT: OK, I followed Tweek's cliff tutorial and spruced up the cliffs. Poly/Trit count is at 407.
Untextured, unsmoothed:

Untextured, smoothed:

Textured (Default B30 Bungie cliff textures, custom crappy placeholder beach bitmap), Smoothed:

If the new cliffs pass judgement, I will proceed on to the shitty Forerunner pathway I currently have. Hopefully it will look the same in-game as it does in the textured render, I rather like how that looks, but I understand if you guys can find flaws.

There is no wireframe this time because the only real changes were a couple cuts, re-arrangement of some verticies and the addition of a noise modifier. That, and I'm too lazy to get off my fat ass and render one.

[LlamaMaster]

Better, but still to flat. Don't rely on the noise modifier to make to cliffs look good, because it won't. Use soft selection and drag the verts to make it look more rocky. I'd give you an example, but halos stock cliffs suck major ass.

[Assault&Battery]

OK, I've beefed up my cliffs some. Here's a side-by-side comparison, new up top, old on the bottom:



Also, wireframe:


It seems like it sticks out a lot more in Max for some reason.

[Reaper Man]

The new cliffs look great.

[Assault&Battery]

The new cliffs look great.

Thanks!
I injected more steroids into the cliffs, I'll probably stop here, unless you guys say otherwise. Once again, new on top, old on bottom.


I think I may need to re-do some smoothing groups on the new cliffs, I'll get to work on those.

[Reaper Man]

The cliffs look fine, but the tunnel/entrance looks really bland.