Posts by michi.be

  • CE2 - Visualisation

    Well althought the polish fraction doesnt like my map I will go into some critics/suggestions.

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    did you used "sharpen" in Photoshop? Grass looks to sharp and it's really big or the point of view is on little kids eyes height

    Yes i did.

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    weird road material, no road sides, shadows and leaves on road looks like someone vomits there, cool water color but weird shore - water edge is to clean - check for some lake photos for references

    It's Crysis stock material. Will be changed in the next "crysis-free" contents. But I doubt my streets will look better.

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    building is to small or grass is to big, that object is unnaturally clean, compare flower size to doors - that flower is oversized, ivy on the building need some "start point" - you need to check how ivy grows to make it look natural

    read first post. Reason is hidden in the text.

    Theres nothing wrong with the scale. Most tree groups had to be a certain high to make sure the viewing angle of the terrain is giving a good impression of what can be seen from the solarpark if you wander over the terrain.

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    dark

    Get rid of your black/white screen.

    Seriously, I got a Spectraview TFT and another semi-professionel TFT here so I doubt the screens are to dark.

    If you mean the contrast of sun and ground, you are right.

    The general problem with such visualisations based on special client requests is it just doesn't meet the "rules" of art or gamedesign in every case. Plus you have deadlines and need to calculate a price for such a visualisation.

    Last but not least I like posts like "wow". it makes my pen..s feel bigger. ;)

    But I like all kind ofcritics too. It makes myself getting better as an artist.

  • CE2 - Visualisation

    thanks steppenwolf. i used a little daker color palette to make it looking good for a beamer presentation.

    i will update the leveld designer typo. I read booth variations on the internet. so i was confused hehe.

  • CE2 - Visualisation

    Thanks for the feedback guys especially Sentura for the constructive critics.

    Some words about it:

    The main objective of this visualisation is to show the citizens near this upcoming solar parc on a public demonstration what it would like if they agree to build a parc which is bigger than their village.

    some citizens think a solar panel is about 7meters high and will destroy the landscape.

    So my task was (shortend in a few sentences):

    Do a shiny summer setting with a new build in solar parc. It has to consist of several switchable vegetation layers based on architectural plans to show the final looking of the parc. And show it new. Not 20 years old! It has to be a realistic rebuild of the landscape (based on references from local government and google earth plus dozents of films and photos delivered by the contractor) but do it a way to influence the citizens to agree in building a (huge) solar parc.

    I personally know it would never ever look like this vanilla skies version in reality with all this beautiful flowers and shiny objects.

    Plus I love old grundged building and abandoned industrial buildings. But it was simply not the task. Its a illusion. Take it like a commercial.

    Unfortunatly I cant show a video at this time or tell you which exact location it is in Bavaria.

  • CE2 - Visualisation

    Althought it's silent about me and my procjets I'm happy to be able to share some of my latest contract work with you.

    Currently I'm working for an upcoming Cryngine² licensee on realtime visualisation for solar technology.

    There's no NDA and I'm allowed to share some stuff.

    This level is a prototype I did to iron out a concept and workflow of doing such a visualisation for a public presentation. Its a complete 2 square kilometers rebuild of a place in Bavaria Germany.

    This work is a bit different from game-developing since you fly around it on a high of around 5-8 metres and you have to see the whole level but with reasonably frames.

    So most techniques for culling geometry into fog or just fading it out by adjusting the viewdistance doesn't apply here. It has to be a sunny athmosphere.

    Last but not least the geometry has to be as photorealistic as possible which usally means performance impacts for complex shaders.

    There are over 750.000 vegetation objects in the level plus nearly 6.000 solarpanel models which needed to be alligned mostly "by hand" to fit the shape of the terrain.

    I got around some performance problems with intensive use of LoD models. The solarpanel for example reaches from 1600 tris to 133tris.

    Secondly I used a short spriteviewdistance for my fields. Sprites cover a good volume of screenspace. So a low values was better here.

    Occluders were used for the geometry, even the solarpanel got one.

    The problem of tiling textures from such a high perspective was solved by importing a heavily photoshoped satellite picture which blends smooth into the detail layer.

    Vegetation details like the flowers were archived by scaling them a little bit bigger as usualy. So you still notice them from 5 metres.

    We had a lot of other issues to sort out and I don't want to get into detail too much but the CryEngine has awesome possibilities here and did a great job althought I really pushed it hard to the limit.

    There's still some Crysis vegetation in it which is going to be changed until the license arrives. I'm working hard on my European Nature Set with specific vegetation for all the stuff so I decided to work out a working concept first and replace the crysis assets step-by-step.

    But for now I call it finished for the stuff I can show here.

    Thank for reading - now the pics.

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/projects/weitblick.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/projects/t%FCmpel.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/projects/tansformator.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/projects/zaun_detail.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/projects/verkehrsschild.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/projects/kamera.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/projects/panel_detail.jpg]

  • European Nature Set v0.7 "Ol' Oak" release

    Just ready for the weekend I finished my latest European Nature Set release for the crowds.

    This time I provide 4 new Oak models with several materials and variation. So you get 20 models at all to play around with. Not to mention the new textures which are selfmade again.

    For the people which are asking for v0.6: It was an internal release for a client and several mod-teams out there. So if you use still v0.5 enyoy the update!

    Content 0.7:

    20 Oak variations

    12 Birches

    1 Cropfield

    6 Pines (breakable)

    8 Flowers / Weeds

    2 Ground Branches

    Download:

    You can grab it there: http://%7boption%7d

    Catalogue with all models: http://%7boption%7d

    Changelog:

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/michimaps/treepack/ens-summer.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/michimaps/treepack/ens-winter.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://www.michaelbetke.net/michimaps/treepack/ens-fall.jpg]

    All textures are 100% self-made by me so you can use it for other games too without bothering EULA or copyright. The Pack is free for non-commercial use. Contact me for commercial use.

  • Quake 4 - Deathcity

    I'm a big fan of your strategy game levels but your FPS levels could use some more attention to detail and lighting. It looks a bit flat and would benefit with more lightimage usage and softer tones.

    The d3engine offers good possibilities to do awesome stuff.

    Cant judge on the gameplay but i think it must be funny.

  • Selling Assets for games online

    I'm thinking about seriuosly selling game-engine ready assets and training videos on the web.

    I browsed around a lot of sites but it seems there is a lot of low quality crap out there.

    Maybe some of you guys have some experience with this topic.

    Is there a good platform to sell stuff? Should I simply open up my own plattform for selling?

    I have several ideas for offering content with good quality for a fair price. But have not a good idea on how to get people on the site or find others which want to sell their stuff there.

  • [Various Engines] European Nature Set v0.5 - Birchy Seasons

    The nasty cold weather keeps me inside my home and working at the birch-set everyone desired.

    This time the package contains 4 birch types (seeds?) coming along with materials for summer, fall and winter. So its enought to do a nice forrest combined with other natural things.

    Scale them up to "2". They are a bit tiny with default size.

    In the next Nature Set update there will be touchbending and proper sizes.

    Content 0.5:

    12 Birches

    1 Cropfield

    6 Pines (breakable)

    8 Flowers / Weeds

    2 Ground Branches

    Download:

    You can grab it there: http://%7boption%7d

    Changelog:

    [Blocked Image: http://michi.be.hosted.dasprids.de/michimaps/treepack/europeanv05_summer.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://michi.be.hosted.dasprids.de/michimaps/treepack/europeanv05_fall.jpg]

    [Blocked Image: http://michi.be.hosted.dasprids.de/michimaps/treepack/europeanv05_winter.jpg]

    All textures are 100% self-made by me so you can use it for other games too without bothering EULA or copyright. The Pack is free for non-commercial use. Contact me for commercial use.