Ducati 916

Community Forums/Graphic Chat/Ducati 916

Vorderman(Posted 2004) [#1]
Following on from my ragdoll bike test, and needing a motorbike to crash, I decided to build a Ducati 916. Took about 4 or 5 hours and has - including the wheels - around 900 polys (quads).

It's missing a few small features like wingmirrors and indicators, but I only want to crash it using Tokamak so no worries about that.

Any (nice) comments welcome. Please excuse the large images.








GfK(Posted 2004) [#2]
Generally OK... I'd maybe invest a few more polys in the wheels though.


puki(Posted 2004) [#3]
Hey, that's good "Carol". "GfK"'ster is right about the wheels.

Nice bike.


Vorderman(Posted 2004) [#4]
OK, doubled the polys in the wheels and noticed that the tyre texture was tiled wrong, so sorted that out also -





GfK(Posted 2004) [#5]
Maybe you could edit the texture to turn it into a race/track bike? That way you get out of having to model the indicators and wing mirrors - because they don't have 'em. :)


Vorderman(Posted 2004) [#6]
Ah, but if all my plans fall into place (mwuuhaha) then this bike will be racing amongst heavy traffic on a road, Burnout-style.

Unfortunately I have to model the ragdoll rider next...modelling people - my favourite :(


skn3(Posted 2004) [#7]
Looks cool :D, looks better with the new wheels.


wizzlefish(Posted 2004) [#8]
even the first version was better than anything I could ever do. I'm really looking for a 3D artist.... :(


jfk EO-11110(Posted 2004) [#9]
It's real cool. For a still image I agree, the polycount on the weels is now much better, but when animated it wouldn't be that bad even with the first version since if they once rotate quickly, you won't notice the low poly ness.

Q: is that all only diffuse mapping, or is there some kind of reflection mapping? Are you planing to use something like an additional spherical or cubic map to give the impression of a very polished (reflective) surface, or are going to use a high EntityShininess only?


MSW(Posted 2004) [#10]
Very nice! Damn sweet actualy :D

I've got one major request though:

I've been rideing motorcycles, specificly sportbikes, for over a decade now (Ducks are too rich for my blood, but my little Yamaha YZF-R6 is still quite the sport). And I generaly can't stand motorcycle raceing games as nearly every one I've tried leans the camera over along with the bike in turns.

Yes, the bikes must lean over to navigate turns (quite fun too)...but riders twist thier heads so they don't experience that disorianteing "whole world leaned over" view such games all to often present...there are countless photos and video clearly showing this all over the net, TV, magazines, races on TV, movies, etc...yet time and time again game developers (whom maybe don't ride, I suppose) tack that goofy leaned over camera effect on....please...please! DO NOT include it!

It's cheap, shallow, and completely unrealistic...rideing, especialy at the viscural edge of performance is an organic experience...man meshing with machine, you don't even think about how to control the bike you just do...your eyes are looking at where you want to go (not 20-30 feet infront of you) and your body through the mechanicals of the bike gets you there...at full out knee scrapeing lean delecate and absolute throttle control keeps you going, your hands keeping the front wheel from wedgeing you into the pavement, your feet and legs stearing your path of travel aided by your body effecting the bikes balance...it is so far from the very mechanical experience that games present...you can be within a thousands of a millimeter in your physics engine reproduceing the performance of these bikes...but if the feel is off, it's all for nothing....and the quickest way to screw it up is that damn "lean the bike, lean the world" camera trick.


...sorry just had to vent a bit, this irks me to no end :P


...sorry, just had to vent a bit, this irks me to no end :P


Vorderman(Posted 2004) [#11]
Thanks everyone for your comments.

jfk : It's just a single tpage, although with an alpha channel for transparency. There's no other visual stuff in those images.

I've got it rendering in Blitz3d using a simple refmap and it does look quite nice - the problem is trying to make only certain bits of the bike shiny, which involves either splitting the mesh up or using a multi-sub material tree with a few sub materials.

Also, all my tries at reflection maps have been quick splodges of colour (ie. crap) - does anyone have any suggestions as to what makes a good , subtle metal refmap or cubic map?

No Enemies - what are you looking to have modelled?


MSW(Posted 2004) [#12]
subtle metal cube map...I've tried a number of things for this, mostly looking to get normal mapping working...so this might help:

I've got a number of small greyscale cube maps...by small I mean each side is 4 by 4 pixels...so the overall image is 4 pixels tall by 24 wide...the edge pixels of each side (left, front,right, back, top, bottom) must be the exact same color of the pixels of the other side that meets it to hide the fect it is a cube map (else you get a little "edge" poping up where the sides meet in the reflections it generates...which might be a good this if you want such sharp edges...

anyway I found a nice subtle lighting and reflection technique useing these...the model can be rendered fullbright with the cubemap multiplied (or even x2) in layer 0...the diffuse texture can then be X2 atop this in layer 1...pretty subtle but does give a nice metal effect especialy in motion.

You can then have a second, slightly larger cube map (maybe each side 16 by 16 pixels...again the edge pixels of each side that meet need to be the same exact color to hide the cubemap seams) just kinda a random noise type thing...but keep scale the colors way down into almost blackness (maybe nothing brighter then 16,16,16 or less) then set this atop the diffuse texture in layer 2 with the add flag to give it some nice subtle specular highlighing...the closer to black (0,0,0) you get with the colors the more subtle the effect.


Braincell(Posted 2004) [#13]
Yeah i was just testing out this spherical and cubic mapping and i also had a lot of brighty messy colours or the model was too dark. I actually just tried using spherical. But youre saying if you make the texture dark, it will be more subtle?

And how the heck can you get anything other than blurry reflections if you make each side 4x4 pixels? What about if you want a nice detailed reflection where you can maybe even make out something? Or what about even animated reflection maps!

Maybe you could start a new thread with this, or anyone that can give us an example. I didnt find anything else around the forums.


Vorderman(Posted 2004) [#14]
MSW: can you post up a small example or ZIP file or something please? It sounds like a really interesting method and not one I've tried before.


MSW(Posted 2004) [#15]
Lenn - the little 4 by 4 pixel cube map is suppost to be blurry...it's not about reflecting sharp detail, rather it reflects subtle lighting characteristics...and with such small cubemaps you have far fewer pixels to writepixel fast with...so you can animate them at runtime down to the pixel level without too much of a speed hit.

remember you have 8 texture layers to play around with along with vector/surface coloring...which can produce tons of effects.

Vorderman - I don't have any webspace at the moment...no place to store any ZIP files.

I suggest you go download Gile[s] - the lightmapping application...it works great as a model viewer...just load a model in and experiment with it's material settings (no need to mess with the lightmapping functions to do this) then just keep a log of what looked good, how you got certain effects and such, then apply them in code to your game...

If I get a chance tonight after work I'll try to post something in here in the Blitz gallery


Braincell(Posted 2004) [#16]
You can email me a zip and i will put it up here. My email is in my account details.


Mustang(Posted 2004) [#17]
Hey, quite nice model! My wife had a brand new Ducati ST2 when she was 20 years old - looked exatctly like the current ST4:



Shame that she don't have it anymore... pretty blond like my wife driving around a big bike is... well... sexy!


Red Ocktober(Posted 2004) [#18]
WOW!!! SMOKIN'!!!

yeah... a lil rounder wheels and it will be perfect...

... but at speed, i supose you'll hardly notice :)

--Mike


Rob(Posted 2004) [#19]
cor! a bird on a bike! you'd need to fight off gfk with a sharp stick.