Well, whatever I'm making, it's not very pretty to look at just yet >.< That being because I still need to make the Alpine skin and change the model up a bit...but either way, I guess the point of this forum is to show how the work in progress is coming along so, meh. Here are a few WIP pics:


Tis was my first version, but...I didn't like the rock in the middle at all -_-
So I trashed it. But anyway, this was just a distraction, onto the real WIP pic XD


Alright, well, obviously I have a bit of work cut out for me but it's nearly done. I think I spent a few 3 hours just getting here ;_; But I like it slow to get it to look the right way it's set in my so-called "brain". I still need to somehow magically create a decent looking skin for the model, the current one is just a temp. skin and is from the Alpine rocks from the game. I still want to add a few things to the fountain, maybe remove a few things (such as some water 'splashes' I suppose) The whole fountain base, which is the huge rock thing [around the smaller one, which the small one alone was taken from the Endangered Species fountain] that's meant to keep the water together was made from scratch in Blender. To tell you the truth, I'm not really satisfied with it and maybe judges won't either but I will stop playing with it before it turns into some kind of deformed inkblot...thing. The idea was to make it look mountainous and resemble the alpine mountains a bit. So far, I've gotten it to show up in-game and work functionally.


Hopefully you guys enjoyed reading my over-described WIP XD Going against Zooasaurus is going to be tough =[

I don't think I can beat that! That's amazing!

Looooking gooood! :D

Looks great - you guys are ahead of me, no fair :P :D JK I just dont want to show pics til i am done, but you and zooa's creations look amazing.

Wow great job catc very nice!

Thanks! I personally didn't like it at all. So I s.c.r.a.p.ped it. Again. (plus 4 other times to include the other sc.r.a.ps) I just couldn't think of anything alpine themed because my brain lacks that creativity part, and because I hardly found much info about the biome except that it is cold and it's landscape is rocky. Oh yes, I'm a terrible researcher. But anyway, back to the entry. Get ready for an essay.

Have you guys ever wanted a a canoe tour for the alpine theme, or maybe other themes? Yeah, me too.

Hope I didn't get your guys' hopes up, I was just dreaming. What I made is the following pic (It includes an educational fact on the top right corner):


This was probably the hardest thing I have ever done. The thing is, I had to figure out several things that I could not get help from and get them done correctly, and plus, the texture. I am terrible at textures. Talking literally, I took more time on the textures than the actual modelling/meshing/UV Mapping/NifSkope replacing data step/coding. Not put together, by the way. Every step listed took me at least 1-3 hours completing, except coding, that was only less than ten minutes =D (textures took more than 3 hours). I sc.r.a.pped a LOT of stuff and so wasted my time. So if I went one way, I most likely ended up turning another.

Modelling:
No, not meshing. Modelling. Meshing sounds as if I am taking BF's stuff and manipulating their model. Here's a list of models I made from scratch as you can see on the pic:
-The fountain base-It's a hexagon because squares and circles are so last expansion.
-The little waterfall coming from the Ibex's mouth-Only the model was made by me. The animation and texture with the alpha was all BF.
-The huge rock thing was 1/4 my work and 3/4 BF's (me being the 1/4). I took the alpine rock and deleted vertices, resized, 'squashed', created new vertices and faces, and remapped the UV. I tried making my own mountain, which is what it's supposed to be, but I kept using way too many vertices and would make too large of a download.

Meshing:
-Ibex head-Oh, don't tell me you don't know what I did to it. Just look at the poor thing.
-The rock thing.

UV Mapping:
Not much to say about this except that I completely remapped (or just 'mapped' if they were new models) everything in the fountain. Other than that, UV Mapping is UV Mapping.

NifSkope replacing data step:
This gave me headaches because for those of you have done this before, you'll know that most of the time you copy/paste vertice data onto another model, you have to move the whole model where it's supposed to go since it usually goes somewhere than where you want it to go, if that makes any sense at all. The point is, I stared at little numbers and arrows for 9 straight hours doing just that and a million other things. I need medicine =[

Coding:
Only thing I have to say for this is that words were replaced and files were saved =D!

Lastly, Textures:
-The base rock texture was made in Photoshop by using a lot of "Filter>Render clouds", channels, and burn tool. I also used the alpine rock texture as an "overlay" above my rock texture to let it blend in a little better in the game. Due to my rush with the textures, I only spent enough time working on this one than the others since I had already reached 12 AM. Personally, I think it came out terrible and now looks nonalpine-ish, despite my goal being for it to look dated. I overused the burn tool though.
-Ibex head and rock textures: I couldn't spend too much time on these, it was 12 AM, school night, and the entry was due the next day. So I picked up the clone tool and made a bigger version of the alpine rock texture and there we go. I don't like how it doesn't fit in with the base or vice versa. I might fix it whether lose or win.

All I could say now is that good luck to Zooasaurus and all the other contestants!

The fountain needs ripples. I will try to add them after the judges give their winners since I already submitted it. Too late.

I think this is really awesome :)

Well, it seems I am now doomed!

The meshing is really good, I got to work on my meshing myself which is why I chose something with a relatively simple mesh. The UVW mapping needs work though, and on the water comming out in the pic it looks like it follows the same plane. If you UV mapped it I think it would make the water come out directly from the mouth.

BTW, Catc, this is Creative, I don't know what you're talking about by lacking creativity.

Haha, it actually does follow the same plane, nice catch. It was done in a hurry and so some parts of it might seem odd, which is why I would like to fix mine before it's released. I did not like the result of the UV mapping I did with the rock, and so I will redo that as well, however, some of it is due to the texture itself (I don't think I saved it as the right DDS, DXT 1, 3, 5? I havn't designed in a long time, forgot what I was doing, so this was confusing). Thanks for the compliments!

DXT3 is for detail, so I always save as DXT3