I have started this project with a small common house with a garage in the basement, an entrance on top of the stairs and a back entrance. I started with a quick hand-sketch (the one I have posted on 3 October).
Making video game assets requires good file management because for one single object in the game you need several files (textures maps, 3d files, collision information etc.)
The employer works in Ogre 3D engine, witch in my opinion is a limited and outdated engine, but if the employer want this and is comfortable with this engine... who am I to tell him otherwise.
I am a big fan of Unreal Engine 3. Because of their free release UDK (Unreal Development Kit) I have the occasion to work with this engine and to learn how to use it by watching video tutorials that they posted.
Now back to my employer's engine... Ogre 3D... who picked that name in the first place anyway?!?!. Ogre... who likes to work with... ogres... apparently people do. Anyway... this engine doesn't support file names larger than 8 characters so I have to think on a good way to manage the files... and will be a lot of files believe me.
I am making the 3D models in 3D Studio Max 2011, I am sticking to 2011 for now, and the textures in Photoshop CS3, so I will have for beginning 1 file for the 3D object and 2 files for textures. Why 2 files for texture? Because I will need 1 file for Diffuse Channel and one for Normal Channel.
Now a little a bit about this 2 texture and what I know about diffuse and normal channels.
- Diffuse Channel is the actual texture that we see on the object... for example if I am making a brick wall ... lets say ... (it is a common example used) on the Diffuse Channel will be a picture of bricks.
- Normal Channel is for the bump information. For example my brick wall has 1 single polygon and using this normal texture makes the wall look more realistic and give the impression that the bricks are sticking out of the object... without this normal texture the wall would have a smooth surface, with no definition for bricks.
The resolution of the textures I will use will be 1024x1024 pixels. From what I have read on the forums and what I have seen in games, the developers doesn't use resolution greater than this inside their games. They rather use multiple texture and seamless textures that they tile them on the objects. So for this assets that I am building I am going to use only texture files with the maximum resolution of 1024x1024. Also I will be guiding myself from the rules that I have learned in UDK. Only square textures or this example resolutions: 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, to a maximum of 1024x1024 pixels.
I thinking to make this game assets for my employer using only Diffuse and Normal textures. He want to use as few textures files as he can get because Ogre 3D it is not a very good optimized engine and tends to hic-up when you screw with to many channels / asset.
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