WIP troll town hall

[Cuore]

Here's a few WIP pics of basic, untextured static meshes for three tiers of a town hall for the troll race, made in adherence to concept pictures made some years ago by the user @HandCLAW, that unfortunately have seen no follow-up resulting in a model development by the author.
I share with you these pictures of a really early stage because I'm looking for opinions, tips and suggestions on how to make this better.
Questions that have arisen regard:

• whether to use the orc town hall base geosets to make a base for this, or rather make something different
• whether a perimetral wall woud be desirable
• which, among the ingame textures available, would be the best for each part of the buildings. (edit: the troll faction of choice here is the jungle trolls/Gurubashi. Thanks @Mister_Haudrauf for pointing that out)
• how to optimize the vertex count

Please share your thoughts!

Spoiler: Tier 1

Spoiler: Tier 2

Spoiler: Tier 3

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

whether to use the orc town hall base geosets to make a base for this, or rather make something different

Well this could be used, because the troll building style (I mean the style which is used to build the Building) is a bit like the Orcs.

how to optimize the vertex count

In Mdlvis is an Option called 'Optimization'. I think you get the Idea.

which, among the ingame textures available, would be the best for each part of the buildings.

My first response would be to just experiment with the Building textures.
My second response is this: What textures you use depends on what troll faction you make.

• Zandalar trolls: The progenitor race from which all other trolls came.[12]
• Forest trolls: The Amani Empire, living in the northern mountain forests of the Hinterlands and Quel'Thalas (Amani tribe).
• Jungle trolls: The Gurubashi Empire and its break-away tribes, the Bloodscalp, Skullsplitter, Darkspear, and Shatterspear.
• Island trolls - Subclass and/or offshoot of jungle trolls, the Darkspears.
• Dark trolls: (aka dark forest trolls) Dark-skinned trolls who live on Mount Hyjal, never held an empire (WC3/RPG). May be a subclass or offshoot of forest trolls (rather than its own type), includes Shadowtooth tribe.
• Ice trolls: Blue and (occasionally) white-skinned trolls, held cities in Dun Morogh (Frostmane tribe) and Northrend (Drakkari tribe).
• Sandfury trolls (aka desert trolls or sand trolls): The Sandfury tribe in Zul'Farrak live in the desert wastelands of Tanaris.
• Steppe trolls: Said to live on the steppes and grasslands of Azeroth. Maybe a subclass or offshoot of forest trolls or jungle trolls. (RPG)

(Source: Troll)

 

[Cuore]

Thank you for your comments Mister_ !
Beside the automatic vertex optimization, i mean to ask which geometries can be further simplified or outright deleted to lower the vertex count

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

Thank you for your comments Mister_ !
Beside the automatic vertex optimization, i mean to ask which geometries can be further simplified or outright deleted to lower the vertex count

The Question now would be: How big is the Poly(Vertex) count?

 

[Cuore]

The Question now would be: How big is the Poly(Vertex) count?

Ah these separate meshes amount to 1781 vertices, but the final model wil have some more (the parts of the building that appear only during construction, the decorations, and base will be surely added in the end)
The number slightly worries me.

Edit: I just compared with orc great hall and human town hall. They've got double and 4 times these vertices, respectively. I feel safer now :3

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

Ah these separate meshes amount to 1781 vertices, but the final model wil have some more (the parts of the building that appear only during construction, the decorations, and base will be surely added in the end)
The number slightly worries me

As long as the Number doesn't go above/reach 100000 Polies then you can be relieved.

But if you are really worried then i recommend to look at other Town Hall models here on Hive or ingame.

Here are Examples:
Elven Fort (Poly count in total: 6792 )
Tauren Great Hall (Poly count in total: 1944 )
Haunted Castle (Poly count in total: 2227 )
Arabian Palace (Poly count in total: 3517 )
Great Hall and Derivatives (more than one) (Poly count in total: 1714 (lowest) --> 2501 (highest) )

Just look at all these numbers and try to get something similar to these.

 

[stein123]

subscribing *w*

 

[Cuore]

Texturing a wooden arch, I find that the UV show discontinuities at the seams, that confer an unnatural, segmented appearance to the curved log. Looking for suggestions to make this arch look a little better than it does now.

Spoiler: picture1

Spoiler: picture2

Spoiler: picture3

 

[Alethos]

Oh hey look what I found >_> Kybri0 <_<

Actually, I know/care 0% about lore and I'm the biggest noob in modeling so you should just ignore what I'm about to say...
Aesthetically I would venture to say you're definitely using the wrong texture for the wood arch. I'd go with net-wrapped wood for the arch (like the second WoW screenshot posted), and something much darker. Maybe repeating the pole found in BarrensDoodads.blp or layering on BatTroll wraps or something.

I love the meso-american look. Actually I think the transition from tent > meso-american pyramids should be stressed more (1st- tent, 2nd- transition, 3rd - pyramid with accenting hints of the 1st style). I think instead of going for the bland perimeter towers that just grow up- the first one can have giant tusks, the second can have a hint of towers/both, and the third form is fine as it is but with small accenting tusks. I love the feel of the Tuskar(r) skin too for tusks if you were to go that route and to distinguish from orc.

Edit: clarification edits
Edit edit: I'm clearly in love with the artistic style done by @Epimetheus but I guess that's more the purple people Draenei than trolls right?

 

[Cuore]

Hey Alethos thanks a lot for the suggestions!

I just reply to point a small thing out. I see the same picture I used as reference in the external thread from some years ago you just linked; just so that nobody jumps to wrong conclusions I would like to share my collection of dev pics from when I started this model: https://www.hiveworkshop.com/pastebin/0d9d980dce59af57df2dc0977185a3c111622/.
I would like to present it as proof of my work, and I will keep on updating it with the newest modifications I apply to the models.
I made everything you see in there on my own with the goal of bringing it as close as possible to that picture. My main guidance and inspiration beside the picture was the troll village architecture from wow because of its originality and overall beauty (I argue this is easily understandable by looking at my wips).

 

[Cuore]

Slowly going on texturing.

Spoiler: Picture texturing in progress

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

Slowly going on texturing.

Spoiler: Picture texturing in progress

Looking good. Remember to apply team-color to the building.

 

[Kyrbi0]

In order to keep my thoughts organized, I'll maintain model-talks in our PM... However, I just had to post in this thread & say "Thanks". I've been looking forward to this for a few years now, and I'm really excited by this progress (and at such speed!).

More to come, folks.

 

[Cuore]

First attempt at wrapping the static mesh of tier 1 finished

Spoiler: Wrapped tier 1 static pic

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

First attempt at wrapping the static mesh of tier 1 finished

Spoiler: Wrapped tier 1 static pic

Look's really good. I am looking forward to the other two.

 

[stein123]

looking cool!

 

[Cuore]

The objective has now become to give the impression that this isn't a hut with a log roof, but more like two large tree logs intersected (like the vanilla forest troll hut).
I tried with textures but it migh just not be enough, and roof extrusion with walls deletion could be required. What do you think?
I also colored the arches a little in red to be different from the roof and to avoid using darker textures (depending on how it looks, retexturing with a darker one might be required)

Spoiler: pic

To see how it would look and make comparisons, here below is a version that has extended the roof to replace the walls.

Spoiler: Picture

And here is how it looks with a darker texture for the arches

Spoiler: picture

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

And here is how it looks with a darker texture for the arches

Spoiler: picture

This Version is better. It is not monotone this way.

 

[Cuore]

Thank you mister!

Trying to arrange sketchy ideas for tier 2. Suggestions would be super sweet because I don't have a lot of ideas. Here's a possible setup that i have hastily put together.

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

Thank you mister!

Trying to arrange sketchy ideas for tier 2. Suggestions would be super sweet because I don't have a lot of ideas. Here's a possible setup that i have hastily put together.

Actually. This is not so bad. Maybe add firepits on top of the pillars of the outer wall to make it better.

 

[Naze]

Trying to arrange sketchy ideas for tier 2. Suggestions would be super sweet because I don't have a lot of ideas. Here's a possible setup that i have hastily put together.

I think it looks good, but may also look too fortified and stone-y for tier 2. Idk what you're planning for the next step, but maybe you could leave all these thick stone walls for tier 3? Anyway I trust you'll handle making it look awesome whatever direction you're taking =P

 

[stein123]

maybe replace them with tusks or masks? XD, looks pretty gurubashi, but i like it a lot ♥, it reminds me of the transition of the WC2 Orc great hall (from generic orcs to blackrock orcs)
Edit.: maybe something like this?
Edit2: forget this concept lol, I did not see that this wip is meant for a gurubashi faction, my mistake XD (i thought that this was a darkspear/island troll building)

 

[Cuore]

I'm definitely considering more tusks, thank you for the beautiful sketch @stein123 !!

And thanks @Naze for the observation. You're absolutely right and I'll try to find ways to add more wood to tier 2.

Here is an equally sketchy basic (no decorations yet: fires, masks etc) 3d idea for tier 3: the all-stony, mesoamerican ziggurat-temple.
Don't mind too much the horrifyingly stretched textures (they'll need to be remapped) and the elongated base of the 4 towers (it's meant to get all the way down to the "base" of the building, not yet added here).

 

[stein123]

love it! it really feels like a gurubashi base, i can see a shadow priest sacrificing kyrbi0 in the name of hakkar on top of that , looks great, also for the second tier i think it's really great as it is, the stone structures are consistent with the gurubashi, and marks a distance with the regular island trolls.

 

[Cuore]

Here a compund image that summarizes what has been done so far in terms of basic shapes and colors for the three tiers, one next to the other

And images showing a suggestion for the base of the building when it's made of stone.

Spoiler: Pictures

 

[General Frank]

Looks amazing! Keep it up.

 

[Devine]

Spoiler: Pictures

Looks super sweet!
Don't you think that conceptually it would make more sense to keep using the woody voodoo lounge textures even in the third tier? It looks like a completely different building now. And that way you could also give it some team color. Great first and second tier. But the third looks more like a naga doodad than an actual part of the series.

 

[stein123]

Looks super sweet!
Don't you think that conceptually it would make more sense to keep using the woody voodoo lounge textures even in the third tier? It looks like a completely different building now. And that way you could also give it some team color. Great first and second tier. But the third looks more like a naga doodad than an actual part of the series.

Looks like that because it follows the gurubashi trolls concept, wich is more mesoamerican-like, and the ruins style make a lot of sense, check this reference images:
http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2483/3934453859_0468cfb86b_z.jpg
Imgur: The most awesome images on the Internet

 

[Alethos]

So cool! You work so fast! Love it.

Edit: For the 3rd tier, I'd remove at least the backmost wooden arch. Also, I think it'll look sick with fire

Edit edit: I prefer the darker/yellower texture over the whiter one for the stones in Tiers 2/3 but that's just me.

Edit edit edit: (last one I swear) I think the tier one base can be more like the other two.

 

[Cuore]

Thanks General Sir!

Looks super sweet!
Don't you think that conceptually it would make more sense to keep using the woody voodoo lounge textures even in the third tier? It looks like a completely different building now. And that way you could also give it some team color. Great first and second tier. But the third looks more like a naga doodad than an actual part of the series.

@Devine First of all thanks for commenting! I admit I have intentionally made the tiers progressively more stony, following the reference of Zul'Gurub in WoW. This does not exclude the possibility of using more wood and less stone, because your suggestion is completely valid. I would also like to hear Kyrbi0's opinion over this.

I can absolutely understand why the third tier that uses textures from Sunken Ruins is looking like naga to you. After all it was the tileset chosen to represent the Broken isles in TfT, which were presented to the player as somewhat similar to the "naga homeland terrain", also taking into account the strong similarities that the naga buildings textures have to this tileset.
In WoW (where the broken isles are a very recent addition, furthermore expanded waay beyond the environment presented in TfT), the naga haven't seen much development for a very long time, and a very similar architectural style to that of the TfT_broken isles was chosen for Zul'Gurub, that is the "civilization" of trolls that I'm trying to evoke and mimic here.

@Alethos : that's a very useful suggestion and I'll do it for sure. Thanks buddy!

 

[Devine]

Thanks General Sir!


@Devine First of all thanks for commenting! I admit I have intentionally made the tiers progressively more stony, following the reference of Zul'Gurub in WoW. This does not exclude the possibility of using more wood and less stone, because your suggestion is completely valid. I would also like to hear Kyrbi0's opinion over this.

I can absolutely understand why the third tier that uses textures from Sunken Ruins is looking like naga to you. After all it was the tileset chosen to represent the Broken isles in TfT, which were presented to the player as somewhat similar to the "naga homeland terrain", also taking into account the strong similarities that the naga buildings textures have to this tileset.
In WoW (where the broken isles are a very recent addition, furthermore expanded waay beyond the environment presented in TfT), the naga haven't seen much development for a very long time, and a very similar architectural style to that of the TfT_broken isles was chosen for Zul'Gurub, that is the "civilization" of trolls that I'm trying to evoke and mimic here.

Okay! I didn't know that. My only concern is that any warcraft player will see the wooden shack on top and associate that with trolls. The stony ruin texture maybe not so much.
I'm not saying that I think you should skip the ruin textures altogether, I think it's a great idea. But adding some of those classic wc3 troll elements could really shift the visual message this model has, and make it instantly clear to everyone. It'll also make your building look warmer, rounder and friendlier which will make it blend better with all other town-halls (except for the undead and naga).
It would also make your color scheme a lot more interesting on this third tier, and give it some more contrast.

The third tier also doesn't look very "fortified" yet. It looks more like an altar than a fortress right now. Maybe adding some extra defensive artifacts could really change the tone of this building.
Metal plates, reinforcements etc... The thing with the ruin textures I don't really associate it with a more advanced civilization of trolls than the other town-halls you have prepared. I would expect some more "recent" engineering and trinkets. Signs of life, you know, on top of the ruins.

 

[Cuore]

Excellent suggestions. Thanks a lot!

 

[Kyrbi0]

@Devine @Cuore No time to elaborate & I know I said I'd keep it to PMs, but I'm loving this 3rd tier. Definitely want to see what it looks like, sticking the t1-2 hut in top though.

Does anyone know of better stone texture? I don't love the color but also don't want the "doodad/terrain" look...

//EDIT//

lol it's wonderful (Scaling Value = 1.00)



That's better. (Scaling Value = 0.60)

 

[Cuore]

Z, rotation and scale will be set later in development. It's normal that they're not fine now.

Here's how T3 looks with the shack on top. I strongly suggest that if you want this kind of setup you delete the top floor of the ziggurat because this is too tall of a construction, and of course remove the wooden staircase at the entrance of the shack.

thanks to Stein123 and Alethos for the suggestions. I placed tusks at the sides of the buildings' roof and deleted the back arch in tier 3 (not shown here below).

Spoiler: images

 

[Kyrbi0]

@Ujimasa Hojo
@-Grendel
@PROXY
@General Frank
(and anyone else you can think of)

I/we need a bit of help & you guys are some of the creme de la creme at this: What is a good texture for the stony portions? I agree with Devine & others with the "doodad-ness" of it, and I feel it has to do with using Sunken Ruins textures (great textures, but made for terrains/doodads); it lacks the 'pop' & saturation, the high-contrast cartooniness of other textures (specifically, VoodooLounge.blp that sits on top of it).

So we need a good "stone" texture, especially if it has Team Color on it somewhere. I don't care if it's not yellow (in fact, I'd kinda rather it wasn't); just some kind of good stone that isn't already over-used elsewhere (i.e. Human town hall/barracks, or Orc great hall/tauren totem).

 

[General Frank]

The texture of the altar of depths seems good and has serviceable team colour.

 

[Ujimasa Hojo]

@Ujimasa Hojo
@-Grendel
@PROXY
@General Frank
(and anyone else you can think of)

I/we need a bit of help & you guys are some of the creme de la creme at this: What is a good texture for the stony portions? I agree with Devine & others with the "doodad-ness" of it, and I feel it has to do with using Sunken Ruins textures (great textures, but made for terrains/doodads); it lacks the 'pop' & saturation, the high-contrast cartooniness of other textures (specifically, VoodooLounge.blp that sits on top of it).

So we need a good "stone" texture, especially if it has Team Color on it somewhere. I don't care if it's not yellow (in fact, I'd kinda rather it wasn't); just some kind of good stone that isn't already over-used elsewhere (i.e. Human town hall/barracks, or Orc great hall/tauren totem).

Do you want it to be new-ish (Sunken Ruins textures) or ruined (Naga building textures)?

 

[Cuore]

I have tried to use the texture of the altar of the depths. It does add tc sure, but I personally think that the main issue here is that each ziggurat floor is a simple box with few triangles. I am convinced that it's the texture stretch and the resulting low resolution that gives the undesired doodad look here. I believe that a subdivision of the largest surfaces with more vertices will yield better results independently from the particular texture used. At the cost of an even higher vertex count.

I'll give it a try and make more polies ad attach images for comparison next.

 

[PROXY]

I just can advice you to look for stone textures of buildings and units that are generally not made out of (a lot) of stones. There are small gems hidden everywhere in the MPQ's but only small bits of the whole textures. I'm not home the next few days so I cant' reall redirect you.

 

[Cuore]

Do you want it to be new-ish (Sunken Ruins textures) or ruined (Naga building textures)?

Both could be fine

Problems start to get thicker when one wants to find textures that have TC on top of stone.

So we need a good "stone" texture, especially if it has Team Color on it somewhere.

There aren't many, Kyrbi0 already made a list with most of them:
Buildings\Other\MageTower\TowerOfTheSun.blp
Buildings\Other\Waygate\WayGate1.blp
Buildings\Orc\AltarOfStorms\AltarofStorms.blp

I could add:
Naga buildings, particularly:
Buildings\Naga\AltarOfDepths\AltarOfDepths.blp (defintely the most useful one. Suggested by General Frank )
Buildings\Naga\SpawningGrounds\SpawningGrounds.blp

Buildings\NightElf\AncientOfWind\AncientoftheWind.blp
Buildings\NightElf\AncientOfWar\AncientOfWar1.blp (very small bit of TC+stone)

Buildings\Human\HumanTower\Tower.blp, and Buildings\Human\AltarOfKings\AltarOfKings.blp(a line of TC on a layer of stones)
Buildings\Human\GryphonAviary\GriffonAviary.blp


I tried a simplistic wrap of the naga altar texture on the margins of the ziggurat floors:

Spoiler: img

And here is how various stone textures with TC behave if I would cut a border of the ziggurat floor in 6 parts arranged a la ribbon and use them to replicate stone TC textures of limited width.
(Naga TC Altarofthedepths on top, ancient of the wind in the middle, orc altar at the bottom)

Spoiler: img2

I cannot shake the feeling like I'm trying to sip soup with a pair of chopsticks.

 

[Cuore]

Here are some alternatives for the basic ziggurat floors. The original is at the top for comparison (no additional vertices added for now)

Spoiler: I could sell bathroom tiles for living

 

[MogulKahn]

Damn, this looks promising!

 

[Cuore]

Thank you
I'm working on improving it a little bit more still.

For anyone interested in jungle troll architectural modeling, I found that the textures contained in the campaign intro model scene/glue of Maiev's Sentinel Campaign of TfT are very nice for precolumbian mesoamerican jungle trolls.

 

[Cuore]

Using the above mentioned textures, thanks to higher saturation the temple ziggurat doesn't look like a doodad as much as before.
This picture summarizes all the latest changes that I suggest to apply:

Spoiler: Image

 

[stein123]

Fuck*n awesome.

 

[Devine]

Using the above mentioned textures, thanks to higher saturation the temple ziggurat doesn't look like a doodad as much as before.
This picture summarizes all the latest changes that I suggest to apply:

Spoiler: Image

View attachment 271430

Looks really cool! Massive steps in the right direction!

If I had to give some feedback I would say that maybe the first tier seems a bit crowded or chaotic and I would say that that was due to those small, raised pillars. I have a feeling they would work better if they were leveled or lowered, to give the eye some rest between the strung cords, the brewing pot and the masks. Perhaps it's the dark green top texture that sort of kills the balance in the color scheme. The log texture for the stairs is also very stretched. The outer wall is also slightly stretched, which clashes with the very detailed pillars for instance. Perhaps you can wrap the texture on these elements twice, if you use some more polygons. That way the texture is halved in size and the top part of the wrap is essentially a mirror of the bottom part. Maybe it'll be visible on the walls, but it's worth the try. On the stairs I doubt it'll be visible.

The second tier looks super well done. Very balanced and clear model. I can't say a bad word about it.

The third tier still has a massive switch in the color scheme because you're not using any more wood textures. Perhaps adding some more troll masks to decorate the pillars or whatever will add some more continuity.
I'm also a bit confused as to why there's a naga emblem on the pillars on the outer wall. Perhaps that's the perfect spot to add in some color/traditional troll artifacts. And final remark is the wrapping on the building. I'll add a screenshot to clarify. I would suggest you find a more detailed stone-y texture, or perhaps, for the sake of experimenting, try out masking these parts with some embellishments.

Really loving the progress so far!

 

[Cuore]

Thank you for the critique just like before! Very helpful!!

 

[Cuore]

I manually reduced the vertex count of the latest meshes to a more reasonable number. Now I'm encountering a problem that slows me down significantly.
I have a very large number of geosets and materials to add to the final model, and I'm using magos to combine them.
After a while, detecting which one is the last imported geoset becomes tedious because I can't tell what is the geoset ID number of each one.
This kind of problem becomes more challenging when I have to add visibility animation through geosetanims.
I ask for counsel from more expert modelers. Would it be a better idea to assemble the three static tiers' meshes in another software, for example 3dsMax?
Thanks to anyone who would express his/her opinion.

 

[Mister_Haudrauf]

I manually reduced the vertex count of the latest meshes to a more reasonable number. Now I'm encountering a problem that slows me down significantly.
I have a very large number of geosets and materials to add to the final model, and I'm using magos to combine them.
After a while, detecting which one is the last imported geoset becomes tedious because I can't tell what is the geoset ID number of each one.
This kind of problem becomes more challenging when I have to add visibility animation through geosetanims.
I ask for counsel from more expert modelers. Would it be a better idea to assemble the three static tiers' meshes in another software, for example 3dsMax?
Thanks to anyone who would express his/her opinion.

Personally i would have done it the same way you currently do.

But on the other hand, if you combine all the Meshes/Models in 3dsMax, then you would save time and nerves. (At least i think you can save time).

I don't use 3dsMax therefore i can't tell much about it.

 

[Alethos]

After I've imported them/finished editing UVs I merge geosets that have the same material in the Matrix Eater and that makes things a little easier.

EDIT: Oops, I didn't read your post carefully. You probably do this too. But yeah- Magos renaming everything weird is real pain in the patootie.