Unearthly Challenge 2009 Entries

#1 Hi everybody, we are team Thoughts Meats. Our entry for the Unearthly Challenge is called Gothic Gateway check out our WIP here:
www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/18501

#2 Very cool! I featured this blog so it gets more site traffic. I will do the same for subsequent entries of high quality. :)

#3 We have entered as well, We have made up our own blog, last week. Deborah, i sent some questions and comments of concern for t3d being used in this contest.

#4 @Edward: I got your e-mail about Unearthly Challenge and have passed your concerns onto the Torque dev team. Right now you're the only one encountering the issues that you outlined, so we're waiting to see if other artists run into the same issues.

#5 May or may not be the same issue but we are concerned about the poly limit for competition and using Torque.
I only know of one way to check poly count on the scene insode torque using the video metrics and any of the environment objects skyrocket the polycount when added.. (sky,water plane, terrain, etc.) I know they can be adjusted/removed so we are rocking on for now.
Question on my mind is the metrics polycount correct.. just a basic scene shows into the millions of poly's for my scene..

#6 I'll try something as well on this one. My entry is called 'The Thing', has nothing to do with the movie and the development blog can be found here on gg as well as (official blog for the jury) here.

Here's an early snapshot.

#7 @Dustin - The only thing to look out for is that AL renders more than just the models... it renders the prepass, shadows, and GUI elements like the metrics display itself.... they all count towards the polycount.

So don't expect it to give you an accurate count of the polycount of your models alone.

To get the metrics without displaying anything on screen enter the following into the console...

moveMap.bindCmd(keyboard, "ctrl m","echo( fpsMetricsCallback() );","");

... you can then hit Ctrl+M and have it print the current metrics to the console without any guis on your screen.

#8 hello evrybody im glad to know i wil be participating!
but my question is first if you help me out i can begin my proyect
1.So is just a final scene i mena an end game theme , no characters and mosters etc , and i can make my architecture thing with 3d max?
and is just a scene not aproyect that i have to handle it to the judges run the game?

and i have a probelm i odont have a relaly good game vidoe card i hace a nvidia gt 8500 256 mb and a si run torque in one of my proyect i cant be done with those hard edges of image how i will manage that i wnat soft nice edges .
And one of last more important for in game options of torque the ambient oclussion thing where i can manage the intensity of this really cool thing that torque 3d has?
thanks for answer me i will be ppst my image procedure here as soon you guys help me out with this question thanks
smiljan

#9 "1.So is just a final scene i mena an end game theme , no characters and mosters etc , and i can make my architecture thing with 3d max?"

No characters, monsters, ghosts, aliens, robots. You can use any 3D application to display your render. BUT no particle effects like FumeFX. If you use something like FumeFX, it has to be rendered as a sprite and represented on the sprite sheet for final submission. The scene is not required to run in any particular game engine. Screengrabs are fine.

"and i have a probelm i odont have a relaly good game vidoe card i hace a nvidia gt 8500 256 mb and a si run torque in one of my proyect i cant be done with those hard edges of image how i will manage that i wnat soft nice edges"

Your environment MUST either be shown within a video game engine, or as a screen grab from a 3D creation applicaiton (Max, Maya, etc). NO RENDERS. You can pull every trick in the book and have soft shadows with lightmaps and vertex lighting.

"And one of last more important for in game options of torque the ambient oclussion thing where i can manage the intensity of this really cool thing that torque 3d has?"

If it can be done it Torque, it's valid. The following additional Photoshop touchups are fine: adding text, adding a logo and adding an image border. No background manipulation, painting touchups or strange filters or anything else.

#10 Here's my entry. Adding some more details and motion to things:

#11 Good luck wiht your project lamont looking good!
by the way that screen space ambient oclussion is there a way to change the instensity in that i saw one perosn do it in you tube but doesent show the way it must be scripted? or where i can find a intesity of that?
and other thing i saw somethingabout no mor ethan 250.000 polygons but the only thing that isee bad in torque is that torque convert in tris i mean torque 3d right ? because thats very bad if i create a characer im max for example it will be a good one with 10.000 polygons but when i put t to torque it will double?

so that will make not too relaistic chars in torque ,and lats thing of ll whats the maximun poygons count per object to run a toruqe game good whats the maximun plycount per object for torque 3d that you recomend?
thanks very much!
smiljan

#12 The polycount of the model is the poly count that should be used to sum up to 250,000 polygons. That means, in MAX, if you create a character with 10,000 polygons, you must subtract 10,000 polygons from your 250,000 budget.

Do not use the methods for displaying the active # of triangles in Torque. That is for the # of triangles sent to the video card, not the # of triangles in your art. It is a real-time metric, not an art-asset metric. For example. If you draw the text string "Test" to the screen. That uses 8 triangles to draw. That would clearly not count for the 250,000 polygon limit of the Unearthly challenge so you must not use the triangle counter in Torque.

#13 ok but a siple quetsion out of record if im not in any challenge and i want to make my vidoe game...
so if i cxerate acar with 10.000 poygons torque will count that as triangles taht will be 20.000 polygons , so another question wahts the maximun polygon count in triangles that supports torque whats the maximun per object?

and the question you answer for the ocntest that means if i made a statue of 10.000 it will count in the contest as 10.000 not at 20.000 that will torque read?

and please i need urgent taht someone help me with screen space ambient oclussion in torque is there a way that i can manage the instensity wherever it takes?
thanks!!

#14 @Smiljan: I went ahead and put your image in the post. It's too big to see, so you may have to resize it. :)

For future reference, here's how you can add pics and use MarkupLite to manipulate the appearance of your posts:

MarkupLite Reference

#15

#16

#17 can i post my making process here?

#18 I'll make a blog post with my progress later (so tired I've been modeling, and doing contract work all day),
Rough Sketch of Checkmate

"Knight" Vehicle Untextured

I haven't read through all of the T3D info yet, can you multitexture one object with out of the box T3D (I know in TGEA there was a resource for it)?

#19 @Stephen - Yes... add two UV sets to your mesh. The first UV is used for the base/normal/detail map textues... the second UV is used on the overlay map texture.

#20