[Role Playing Game] Memento Mori

[Talavaj]

There won't be a demo, it will however be released as episodic content, so you could say "something playable" will come first, it will give people time to mess around with it until next episode comes out.
First episode will be level 1 with introduction + 1 free play map (based on the first level)
Second Episode will be levels 2 and 3 with Flooded Metro level + 2 free play maps. (based on levels 2 and 3)
Finally, the third episode will be levels 4 and 5 (Downtown part 1 and Downtown part 2) with Broadway level as optional level only for free play and two more free play maps (based on levels 4 and 5).

To get the rough idea of the level layouts, some concepts based on google earth imagery:

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

It would be cool if each of them had their own individual and unique environments, but it would be too hard on your part.

 

[GnomeDefender]

I'm guessing Level ??? is level 4.

 

[Talavaj]

That comes down to the amount of art reuse, but the locations are picked from the most diverse environments around the city to help with that.
Level 1 has mostly small buildings, apartments, sushi bars, Japanese garden and a tall apartment building in the center it also has some more colorful foliage because of some overgrown cherry trees.
Level 2 has a couple of tall buildings and more open space, Level 3 is a swarm of taller buildings with very little open space.
The last two levels are the downtown with skyscrapers but those two will probably look more of the same.
As for the (??) Broadway level, it was intended to be level 4 but it is slightly sidetracked so it would make little sense, for that reason it may a free play map with environment similar to level 3 that will come with levels 4 and 5.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

Ah, I see. If you still don't make Broadway a free play map, you should still make one. It could be one thats incorporating a little bit of all levels.

 

[Talavaj]

I'll see about that, there will actually be many free play maps (one for each story level).
Also, does anybody have experience working with skyboxes ? I was messing with one random idea that would have some geometry inside but I realized the skybox actually follows the camera and does not stay static which looks fine when there is just the sky, but with geometry inside it looks completely silly.
Is there any way to make it static or something ?

Picture for explanation below.

 

[PROXY]

Maybe it's billboarded? That could solve the problem, but I've never checked for myself.

 

[Talavaj]

Well apparently, the skybox is fine and works the way wc3 skyboxes work, it just wasn't quite what I expected.

Anyway sorry for slower updates, I have been working on some more detailed assets some of which I didn't even attempt modeling before (cars) so odds are they will be hideous !
Cars will be pretty major part of the interactive environment, although you won't be able to drive anything (naturally) you will be able to break into their trunks with the use of shotguns or some of the heavier tools.
Most will have loot along the lines of emergency kits, but some may rarely have shopping bags that may contain consumables.
Specific cars such as police or ambulance may have loot that you would expect such cars to have such as shotguns or medicine.
Of course some cars may have nothing so one may think twice before wasting shotgun shots, stamina and durability of your tools.
Some may even be big enough to serve as shelter. (cargo vans)

Now, as for question of the day.
Do you like RP ? (roleplay)
I often find myself indulging in RP if the game offers any, good example would be me realizing that the part of Fallout 3 that I loved the most was placing nuka cola all over my house or hunting bears for meat at night.
I was playing with an idea of implementing similar (but significantly more limited) features in the mod.
The RP would be limited because of the way the mod will make you travel from place to place in dire environment so furnishing your "wrecked van" would make little sense seeing how you may have to move to a new shelther in a few in-game days.
But still, there may be some RP elements from time to time such as cooking (heating up, really) meals or taking a bath in water that you heated up in a pot.
These would have some "gamy" uses such as raising your comfort (multiplier combating your horror) or healing your exhaustion/hygiene.

So the question is, do you think RP elements would have a place in a dire survival game without interfering with its tension and pace ?
Realistically speaking, if I was in an apocalyptic situation no matter the conditions I wouldn't just sit under a bridge chewing my nails consumed in an omnipresent fear.
I would take a break from time to time, read a book or have a relaxing bath.
But hey I cannot speak for everybody.

 

[BallisticTerrain]

I love roleplaying. It increases immersion tenfold when you can do little wierd things in the game.
Maybe you could make some common household items, rare and often times useless after the apocalypse, and allow the player to pick them up.
You know, headphones, books, art supplies, dollar bills, cell phones, TVs. toys etc.

And stuff like vintage wine bottles/expensive cigars.
The player could interact with these in some way or they could just be there to show how much the world has changed.

I don't think it would interfere with things to often. It would be good to give players a break from constantly fighting for their lives. If you have a good shelter set up, you can sit back and have a drink and shoot horrible night enemies with a 12 gauge, no matter how bad an idea it is. That would be incredibly satisfying.

You should also try to tell stories with the environment. You know, the guy skeleton sitting the the bathtub with a toaster. That also adds immersion.

 

[Talavaj]

You should also try to tell stories with the environment. You know, the guy skeleton sitting the the bathtub with a toaster. That also adds immersion.

Yeah, I'm planning to do things like this. Majority of the "missions" or "objectives" will be obtained searching corpses, those will often have letters, notes or diaries left for other survivors (some, won't of course leave anything behind because people are different) those may map the events up to their final demise and their actions an experience will be reflected on the environment.
Because of plot related reasons, there won't be stories of people prior to the "apocalypse" however.

The only thing I'm fearing is that adding too many RP or "relaxing" elements will ruin the original grim and serious tone of the mod.
But then again, I have played a survival roguelike game that devs pushed so far into "uncompromising survival" that it stopped being fun, became frustrating, tedious and generally not fun to play because the game forced the players to constantly do things and face enemies without giving the players any breaks whatsoever.
I certainly don't want MM to devolve into that.

 

[Almia]

Question.
Is this single player? if so,how would you support the game's save load? game cache?

 

[Talavaj]

SP campaign yes. I'm not sure what exactly will be transferred over levels though.
Some minor things such as current values of horror/fitness may not be stored.

I was thinking of something so stupidly simple like creating dummy heroes/units each representing an item/perk, saving those then reloading them and assign the player the proper item/perk according to which dummy units were stored.
With dummy hero levels representing further information such as amount of ammunition, wear on items or perk progression.
Instead of messing around with booleans, integers and what not.

 

[Almia]

^ I guess,stick with Game Cache XD

 

[FRENGERS]

Quotes

A brilliant idea sir.
I went and made a quick volumetric mesh here:

The jagged edges of "voxels" can be seen however, I'll try to make a mesh from billboarded particles but that may be even more taxing.

Also, the "reflection" will behave naturally and will be the most apparent in the appropriate angles and almost not visible when looking at water from top-down.
Like so:

That being said, I'm currently occupied by making small doodads (dozens of varying foliage) I'll return to watery stuff later.

My eyes hurt when see it!! @.@
Next B2M, oh no, even more @.@
Looking up for this
Nominated!!

 

[tobyfat50]

I like what you did with the bump and it's the exact same thing I thought about myself, actually testing it out. It's not as convincing as the real thing but it's still better than nothing.
The animated shadows, not worth it. I made a whole room (Check out my thread) with 128px shadow maps and the result is 2 full days of rendering, 10mb in size, and with only 8 frames per object + 177 textures. I think it's not acceptable in a playable map. However it's fine for a single object or a simple scene, the water caustics you made is a good example of putting it to good use. I wanted to upload the demonstration video but youtube doesn't seem to be working.
Placing geometry like mountains in a sky box is definitely something I didn't take in account, guess I'll test that as well.

Found this picture on a website somewhere and I thought it resembles the type of environment you were trying to make. I don't know what game it's from.

Terrain

 

[Talavaj]

Yeah, I'm aiming for very similar environment just more grim.
Looking at your updates, loving it !

 

[tobyfat50]

Reduces my room size from 10 mb to 4mb.
Im currently experimenting with cloth simulation, encountered some problems myself.
I like the way your rocks turned out, remember to buzz me when you finish the first level, can't wait to try it.

 

[Talavaj]

The bake isn't the best, it only wrapped on the top side for some reason. Also the rocks weren't that good either I should make them more fractal so the shading would be more defined.
I also tried projection texture baking but ran into the same problem as the usual, tiny texture limitations.

I'm working on the linearly animated shadows, they look good on smaller objects but a bit weird on big flat surfaces.
Like on these wip trees.

 

[Talavaj]

BUMPDATE.

I have been messing around with projection mapping further (texture baking technique that projects rendered maps from high poly objects onto low poly objects commonly used in gaming design)
The problem is wc3 texture limitation for that reason I used it only for ambient occlusion and specular maps applied as modulate and additive layers overlaid over the diffuse.

I'm working on the linearly animated shadows, they look good on smaller objects but a bit weird on big flat surfaces.
Like on these wip trees.

 

[BallisticTerrain]

Very nice rocks, but they're a little too shiny.

 

[Talavaj]

Yeah... for some reason they are a lot brighter in game than they are in magos.

 

[BallisticTerrain]

Both Magos and MDLVIS seem to have slightly different lighting conditions then warcraft 3.

 

[Talavaj]

So, I have been messing around with the container/object interaction system while working on random tiny doodads modeled after the ones on the streets of LA. (the one on picture is LA times newspaper vending machine and also is one of the first objects I made with full occlusion using photometric lighting in mental ray, much the same way that Toby uses radiosity to produce lighting, it is also made in a slightly different way and it is a lot more "HD" than the doodads I've shown so far)
Many object will be interactive, be it containers (that contain loot) or objects that can be interacted with to gain passage elsewhere for example fire escapes, those can be shot with shotguns to potentially destroy the hinges and make the ladders collapse onto the street below.
Containers like this newspaper vending machine (where you can loot newspapers from and subsequently use them as fuel for fire) can be interacted with to loot its contents, most will require a tool or a firearm to break into however.
The last kind of interactive objects are random furniture that can be knocked over in combat to delay the enemies.

When the player comes up close to such an object it will "light up" the color of the aura depends on the action the player can do.
Blue stands for interactive objects or containers that player can interact with, yellow stands for objects that can only be examined but not interacted with because the requirements are not met (such as a locked container) and finally red stands for objects available to be knocked over/attacked when the player is in combat.
Apart from that a billboarded blinking text appears next to the object displaying the appropriate hotkey and name of the possible action, eg. [E] - Examine.

Interactive objects range from doors, car trunks, vending machines, freezers, shelves, cupboards to random furniture such as chairs.
The design of the system is about finalized as I feel it works fine enough.
There won't be any clicking on objects, one reason being that I'm aiming for very fluid and responsive keyboard control using qwerty hotkeys and mouse control being required only for movement.
The second reason being that it prevents "clicking exploits" eg, players clicking something they should not be able to reach at the point potentially exploiting the mechanic or worse, bugging it up.
I'll be showing it away in a small portion of the playable area in near future, along with some other mechanics.

Thoughts ? Feedback ?

Also, forgot to add.
Thank you for your tremendous support in the recent project spotlight !

 

[Binsu]

So, I have been messing around with the container/object interaction system while working on random tiny doodads modeled after the ones on the streets of LA. (the one on picture is LA times newspaper vending machine)
Many object will be interactive, be it containers (that contain loot) or objects that can be interacted with to gain passage elsewhere for example fire escapes, those can be shot with shotguns to potentially destroy the hinges and make the ladders collapse onto the street below.
Containers like this newspaper vending machine (where you can loot newspapers from and subsequently use them as fuel for fire) can be interacted with to loot its contents, most will require a tool or a firearm to break into however.
The last kind of interactive objects are random furniture that can be knocked over in combat to delay the enemies.

When the player comes up close to such an object it will "light up" the color of the aura depends on the action the player can do.
Blue stands for interactive objects or containers that player can interact with, yellow stands for objects that can only be examined but not interacted with because the requirements are not met (such as a locked container) and finally red stands for objects available to be knocked over/attacked when the player is in combat.
Apart from that a billboarded blinking text appears next to the object displaying the appropriate hotkey and name of the possible action, eg. [E] - Examine.

Interactive objects range from doors, car trunks, vending machines, freezers, shelves, cupboards to random furniture such as chairs.
The design of the system is about finalized as I feel it works fine enough.
There won't be any clicking on objects, one reason being that I'm aiming for very fluid and responsive keyboard control using qwerty hotkeys and mouse control being required only for movement.
The second reason being that it prevents "clicking exploits" eg, players clicking something they should not be able to reach at the point potentially exploiting the mechanic or worse, bugging it up.
I'll be showing it away in a small portion of the playable area in near future, along with some other mechanics.

Thoughts ? Feedback ?

Looks very awesome again!

~+3 REP~

 

[Talavaj]

The above is what I mean under interactive objects "glowing" when player characters comes near them, the glow art is unique to every object and hints at what kind of interaction can be done with it.
The art displaying hotkey and tooltip is not finalized yet.

 

[Binsu]

The above is what I mean under interactive objects "glowing" when player characters comes near them, the glow art is unique to every object and hints at what kind of interaction can be done with it.
The art displaying hotkey and tooltip is not finalized yet.

Looks really great. But may I ask, with ths cool and HQ models, what is the map size of the map of now?

 

[Talavaj]

165 MB at the moment, mind you there are some unoptimized parts (obsolete textures that are no longer used or simply texture duplicates because I was lazy to replace the slight variations) assets just for the first level are nowhere near being done still.
That being said, the majority of those are animated textures (with 30~ frames) which will be reused along with some more textures so the size shouldn't climb that rapidly past certain point.

The newspaper vending machine model with textures (and doodads of similar complexity) has about 1.6mb, buildings have about 6+mb depending on size and animated textures such as water caustics and refraction have about 24mb per sequence (30~ frames) which cause the biggest hit.

Some things are pretty rough and ugly at this point, as I'm still ironing out the mechanics. I figured it would be better to set the mechanics in stone before finishing the assets that because it is easier to have clear idea how it is gonna work and then make assets suited for that, rather than make assets and optimize their functions afterwards.
On the other hand... I need some assets to work with the mechanics to begin with, it is a little bit mixed up.

 

[BallisticTerrain]

Nice job again! That looks amazing. I don't know how you keep warcraft 3's "smooth" "shading" from messing up your models. I've been making it less destructive by not using mdlvis for mdl-mdx, and not using tons of small objects, but it's still tough.

 

[Talavaj]

It is messed up to an extent (the back of the vending box appears ridiculously dark but that is how it is pre-rendered so it doesn't look too wrong), another thing is blend textures behaving erratically.
Problem is the depth perception of blend materials that makes the distant ones pop up appearing to be in front of the foreground, this can be seen in the vid at second 12 where the foreground cracked glass seemingly disappears in the left upper corner.

 

[tobyfat50]

Nice job on the bumpy rocks, the color and shininess closely resemble some of my own rocks I was experimenting the projection map on. Correct me if I'm wrong but you darkend the modulate or brighten the add to make the bump more visible right? One thing I noticed is that the diffuse takes away a bit of the bump from the add and modulate.
The vending machine scene looks so convincing, great job as always.
I am trying to make animated characters with the help of autodesk bipeds rather than triggering the units animations. This will be the final update after I'll just have to finish the cinematic and post it. There won't be any more updates from this point. I encountered a tone of problems with the envelope and skinning on the charactes and also the physics simulation for cloth objects breaks and decomposes, not even art tools works correctly and I'm even trying neodex.

 

[Felipe Gormadoc]

Perfect Graphics.
congratulations on winning Projects Spotlight.

 

[Talavaj]

@Toby
Yeah, I raised contrast of the additive so only the highlights would show obviously not enough cause the stones are still too bright in game.
The diffuse is a bit too dark so it makes the fine bumpy detail disappear, I guess I'll use brighter ones kinda like semi sandy bright kind of stone so it shows better.
I was thinking of baking complete maps with projection mapping but the texture quality at 512p is real shit.
Also the renderer I used to create the stones with is not even mental ray, it's just scanline without advanced lights, radiosity or raytracing lol.
So yeah, the newer ones may be better.
Looking forward to your bipeds !

@Felipe Gormadoc
Thank you !

 

[tobyfat50]

Yeah, I used the same color intensity for some of my rock model tests and congratulations for the Projects Spotlight.

 

[iChaos]

w-wtf...

 

[Ragon.Slear]

you must be a pro gamer
and you play Warcraft?!?
THIS IS EPIC!!!

 

[Talavaj]

@tobyfat50,
@iChaos,
@Ragon.Slear,

Thanks ! I have been less productive in the past two weeks because I was spending more time with other matters. Hence the lack of updates.
I have redesigned the water again, the caustics were ok but the water horribly lacked in refractions. I have decided to create some high quality water textures using photoshop magic on a per-model-basis. The caustics will still be there but only on the objects outside of water.
Unfortunately, the water may end up draining a lot of video ram. For that reason I'm thinking of creating alternate animation for it that would have only one lower quality texture animated with linear translation. That will be able to be switched in between if the player desires so.

Likewise, I've finalized the shadow mapping of objects (casted shadows) that mostly concludes how they are gonna be made. I'm happy with that and not planning to mess around with that anymore.

As for gameplay related stuff. How would you think of hunting for food ? I have been against it since I started working on the project, for obvious reasons being that it could impact the "survival" immersion of desperately searching for resources.
Reasoning behind it's absence would be that despite the metropolis is plentiful with its creatures the protagonist would be reluctant to eat them because of their grotesque appearance and from the fear of getting some sort of poisoning. (It could be radiation poisoning for all he cares, seeing how he does not know what happened and why everything is so twisted)
That would rule out the possibility of eating hostile creatures because that would be silly, you still will be able to distract enemies with their meat however.
But later on I thought of the possibility of including fairly normal looking fish that could be caught and eaten, if it was just as scarce and hard to get as normal food then why not ? (and likely also very hazardous, hint hint: the first teaser poster) You would however have to eat it very quick because of the very humid and generally hostile environment it would be difficult to preserve it for long.

I most probably won't implement that, but hey the staggering amounts of water in the environment just ask for it.
Any feedback appreciated !

 

[BallisticTerrain]

First of all, that water looks very, very impressive. I am awed.
Second, hunting. This is kinda tough, you have to be very careful with this as you said. If hunting is easier than scavenging, people will hunt instead of scavenge. However, hunting is also a very fun thing in games that get it right. Dead animals can drop both food and bones and hides that would add a really cool survival aspect assuming you could make stuff out of them. Fish are also fun when you can catch them and such.
You should remember that you aren't alone in the city. There are monstrosities all over. I'm sure they would love to eat a deer or a rabbit, so the player would have to compete with them for food. If you make hunting much more risky because of the other hunters, but make the reward substantial, things would balance out pretty well.

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

I would prefer scavenging instead, since I find looking for goods much easier than killing them cooking something. I agree with BallisticTerrain on the drops and competition part, but where would you find them, since you are at a urban city, not a rural place? Rabbits are understandable, but deers might not be. Perhaps you could add a cannibalism feature?

 

[BallisticTerrain]

Well keep in mind that said city is completely overgrown. I doubt there would be deer, but wolves (Maybe), dogs, rabbits, raccoons, foxes, etc would all be there.

 

[Talavaj]

Yeah the environment is very much a jungle growing through concrete. That being said there are some limitations tied to the plot. (spoilers ahead)

Spoiler

One being that all people are dead prior to the start of the game, while I'd love cannibalism to be an option as it would add intriguing survival/desperation aspect the people you will find are far past what you'd consider palatable.

As for real life animals, there most likely won't be any. There will be creatures resembling animals but once again they won't look like something you'd like to eat.

I'm undecided about the extent of what you will be able to loot from creatures. As much as I like crafting things from animal stuff (kind of like in monster hunter) I'm not sure if it would be feasible thing to do in here. Or what exactly the things would be used for.
Another thing is that I'm trying to de-emphasize combat and adding essential loot to creatures would be counterproductive as it would emphasize combat more and it would cause the hunted (the protagonist) to become the hunter and hunt the creatures he is supposed to run away from and those who would still stick to the stealthy approach would miss out on the loot.
That and there will be plenty of junk around (wires, cardboard, scrap metal) to craft things from.
Meat ? yes. Probably most living creatures will be able to be looted for meat but the protagonist will be reluctant to eat it. (and may cause harm if force fed ?) It will still play a big role in stealth.

There will however be some loot mechanics on creatures present. These will probably be unique to each kind of creature. There are some canine creatures (resembling hyenas in looks and behavior) they actively attack and ransack the neighborhoods killing other creatures and are often seen carrying limbs of other creatures in their jaws or even some other curious stuff. They also attack each other within their packs if one is carrying such treat. Baiting meat will come the most handy in a situation like that as it will not only direct attention away it may also cause creatures to attack each other.
Another example is a creature that uses the environment to disguise itself with, which can afterwards be looted.

Spoiler

(so better be cautious when searching curious piles of garbage)

Its a bit early to decide though, I may add it at some point to see how it plays out.

 

[saphiree]

The modelling makes me horny

 

[~DARK~]

Holy Shit This Is Fu**ing Awesome! I Want to play it faster

 

[Talavaj]

Content of the last reply

Heh thank you for your feedback ! I started placing down blueprints of the stuff on the actual map now.
Made loads of doodads for extra variation. I plan to pretty much model the vast majority of those placed the same way you'd see on the streets of LA.
They are not too many after all, a bunch of newspaper machines, mailboxes, parking meters and signs which are mostly uniform.
I've also started working on the JACCC plaza (the central area of the first level), it took me huge effort to map the area and find enough material to model the environment from because the google street view did not extend there.
I've had to read comments and information on random websites to find about the surrounding buildings.
It took me ages to find images of this building.

Until I figured out it is a theatre (that I found thanks to a website of the nearby community center)
I'm pleased with the location I chose, it is saturated with unique environment all over the place. It even has a Japanese garden next to the theatre. (modeling which in a post apocalyptic state will be a challenge..)

Also, because I tend to make random resources that I don't really end up using. I was thinking of releasing those on my website as soon as the mod's page is up.

LE BUMPAGE !
First off, sorry for being random.
I was being overly productive, unfortunately I have got burned out making modern stuff for today so I ended up doing unrelated stuff that will probably make it into the resource list here on thw though.
I desperately needed a break to make something simple and cartoonesque. I've got this idea of a "modular manor", it would be a model of a building dissected into parts.
I've seen many high quality doodads such as b2m's houses but I've often ended up thinking that the filesize does not quite equal the variety you get.
And ultimately, no matter how the resources are used they always end up looking kinda the same.
So this "model pack" would be a compilation of models you could use to terrain your own structures with. It would have floor tiles, roofs, walls, windows, parapets, pillars, beams and all that stuff.
They would also have some random features such as the windows that have "stand alternate" animation which turns them bright gives them a glow and turns an omni light on.
You could for example trigger the windows to play doodad animation of them being lit up during night ?
Secondly the filesize is low so it is perfectly multiplayer friendly, the models use a very small but heavily tiled "HD cartoon" texture set and have a little bit more polys to make the tiling texture look not so obviously, tiled.
To save space further the models have multiple textures and you can choose which one you want by playing a doodad animation. (eg in stand alternate the floor tiles are cobblestone instead of chiseled stone)
The whole thing would have like 300~400kb but you could build whatever style and whatever shape structure you want.
If you are a good terrainer you could easily build both wooden shacks and castles using the set, while keeping the overall style consistent as the textures are shared.
So, would you like to use a resource like that ?

 

[Drunken_Jackal]

I bet any mapper would love this pack.

 

[Binsu]

Beautiful! I love the pack!

 

[tobyfat50]

Man that water is beautiful, getting close to perfection. Your work is inspiring me everytime I look at it. One more thing I forgot to mention is that the animated shadows look good despite ther evident glitches. Still looks great in wc3, should be a reason for delight to a wc3 player.
About the pack. Yes, do upload, the people would be pleased. That is a nice pack you got ther and it's nice to see something different. I don`t have to tell you that some of the people here had a orgasm over some simple rocks Iuploaded a long time a go. Before long I noticed my rocks been used in all sorts of maps.
I understand how you feel, sometimes I feel the need to take breaks from what I do a nd just do something different. Don't consider everything you do here a waste of time. Consider it a way to polish your skills , learn new stuff and make art. I`l have to say that a large percentage of what I know now I acquired making over the hills, I started reading the 3ds max help a lot this last year I just don't believe it myself.
About the over 512px textures, I used 1024 and sliced them to 4 - read the message, Too bad I don't have the time to up a model to show you how it looks.

Sory for spelling errors if I make, I'm so tired red eyes tonight.

 

[Talavaj]

Yeah, indeed. I've noticed even simple flat shadows on a bunch of objects (like tree shadow) look great even when animated using regular wc3 texture animations.

I'm making random models for wc3 for that reason too, yeah. The way I modeled stuff prior to trying wc3 would not be appropriate in here.
I'm fairly new to low poly modeling and it gives me a headache sometimes. I often find myself like "I can't do this like that" when I realize that I cannot use many high poly modeling techniques to do stuff.
Another thing would be wrapping textures. Before I started with wc3 UVW mapping wasn't really a thing for me, I simply used materials or simple diffuse maps and sculpted the actual details manually.
When I came to wc3 wrapping was a nightmare lol, and it still is.
Another reason why I make things "on side" is because of the fact that I'm still finding stuff out about wc3 modeling and it's impacting my work on MM because I often find myself looking at the assets and realizing the older ones are really poor compared to the newer ones and I go back and remake a lot of stuff lol.

Still vacationing from MM, but the modular manor is progressing fast. The house on the pic is made out of the lowest material tier.
Essentially, it will be all split into material tiers. There is rough wood, wood, cobblestone and chiseled limestone. (logs are part of rough wood and wood sets) Each material type also has a slightly different mesh style. Eg regular wood is simple but mostly symmetrical, rough wood is a bit crooked at places, cobble is embossed and fairly rough and limestone is embossed but mostly consistent.
The textures are reused on most models and those models that have multiple textures like the flooring on the image. Will display them in different animations to save filesize.
All the textures of the wooden house in the pic have 35~kb and the parts have negligible filesize save for the roof part which has 10kb. Low quality textures have like 16 kb, and honestly, are very hard to tell from the high quality ones. If I'd go and reduce the amount of mip maps in blp lab the textures would be about 13kb together for the LQ texture. And probably about 80~90kb for all textures in the pack.
What I had on mind and what is currently done: Windows, Beams (inside of house and as parts of the roof), parapets, walls, roof shingles, door frames and doors, window shutters, flooring, pillars, chimneys and rooftop panels.
You people being terrainers, what else would you like to be part of the structures ?
I'm thinking of making window "tiles" that you could make your own windows with if you wish so. Stairs, arches and circular walls for towers was another thing I was thinking of. But what else could be there ?

Also did I mention that apart from basic materials, most models can be hued with moss, mold, mahogany and limestone ?

 

[Almia]

^ Wow!
Nice Lodge you got!

 

[BallisticTerrain]

Wow, that looks really good! You seem to be doing very good at low poly modeling!
That looks very, very good. Wow.
Maybe I should try something like that.
Btw, that second pic is a render of some sort, correct?

EDIT: One more compliment.
How you manage to get all of those textures to not look silly when put together is beyond me.
The one problem I have with my models it the textures just seem to look mismatched, even though I get most of them from the same source. (CGTextures)

 

[Talavaj]

Heh the thing is, that it is not really low poly. I was aiming for really small filesize so I raised the poly count a bit because I wanted to break up the texture tiling. Otherwise it would be very very obvious.
I also went and decided to make "performance" variants of the high poly parts that people will be able to swap. Those will include low poly meshes that will have about 70~90% less polys and textures half of the size.
HD textures are of 64x64 resolution some of them are 128x32 (which however equal their size although the ratio is different) the low quality textures will have half the size of HD textures.

Currently, ALL the textures combined for all the models have 35,840 pixels.
This is: wood, rough wood, log, log cut, window on and window off tile, cobble brick, cobble brick large, blue and plain limestone tile and finally clay shingle. You can see most of them in the pics.
For comparison, a 256x256p texture has 65,536 pixels and thus nearly double the filesize of all the textures from the above models combined.
Needless to say, mappers will get ridiculous amount of texture variety for ridiculously low filesize, albeit sacrificing some polygons. (or not, should they choose low poly meshes)

The comparison of low poly and high poly variants and a low quality texture in the corner(32x32 texture)
Low poly models are on the bottom and have about 5kb in mdx.
Also about textures, dunno I use about the same process in photoshop to make and edit them so that may unify them a bit.
And yep, the second picture is just a mental ray render that I rendered because I felt the unshaded mesh made a lot of the geometry details blend together.