Uru With an Artist's Eye

[belford]

Last week I started making a series of web pages, attempting to analyze the artistic techniques in Uru's Ages. What features make them look good?

The goal is not to rip off Cyan's work. (And certainly not to take textures or models from existing Ages.) I intend to observe and analyze the techniques Cyan has used. These ideas should be just as applicable to new Ages, using freshly-created textures and models.

(I have *not* been decompiling Uru Ages or Plasma files in any way. I'm working purely from in-game observation and screenshots.)

This will be very elementary stuff for long-time Blender geeks. But I hope it will be useful for modelling newbies -- and people who can't imagine where to start. :)

http://www.eblong.com/zarf/uru/build/

[belford]

I guess I'll list the pages I have up in the series so far:

Fade Into the Mist

Relto's Changing Sky

Shadows in Corners

The Light Turns

[Paradox]

Cool!

Those really do show a lot of the techniques used to make things look complicated, while actually keeping them fairly simple.

The best news is that Transparency (fading), Vertex painting (painted shadows), and ViewFaceModifiers (rotating sprites) are all implemented in the Alcugs PyPRP Blender plugin

[JulyForToday]

Really? I didn't know transparency worked. Not for fades anyway. I know you can make any object somewhat see-through, but fades are different, and something I'm very interested in using.

[Whilyam]

The best news is that Transparency (fading), Vertex painting (painted shadows), and ViewFaceModifiers (rotating sprites) are all implemented in the Alcugs PyPRP Blender plugin

The vertex painting can make the shadows like under the Tsogahl rock? If so, any link to where I can learn how?

[belford]

Two notes, by the way --

- I'm not trademarking this idea. Other people are welcome to post observations about Uru techniques. Or suggest techniques for me to post about. (I've got "forced perspective" on the list somewhere.)

- As I get into Blender and Huru, I plan to update my posts to give the tool-relevant commands and labels. Maybe point to appropriate documentation. This has not happened yet, obviously. :)

[Nadnerb]

uhmmm.... as far as I know, you can't vertex paint to the alpha channel in blender, (plasma vertex colors include an alpha channel) so how, exactly, does use 'fading'? (I suspect that you can't, which is why I'm asking. feature request!)

[Kato]

Obviously I haven't observed as much as you have, but I don't think the shadow on that Tsogahl rock is accomplished by vertex painting.

I think it's a regular polygon textured with a "shadow texture" and placed under the rock. The Cleft volcano--that might be vertex painting, it's a very smooth transition. But I'm almost positive that the Tsogahl rock just uses a shadow texture.

-Kato

[Paradox]

Actually that would be Vertex painting. A lot of the colours in Uru are handled by Vertex Painting, instead of colouring the texture or using lights.

Shadows themselves are a different beast altogether >.>

[Kato]

That's some good looking vertex painting, in that case!

-Kato