Topic: Peardian's map projects in progress and planned

[TerraEsperZ]

YES!

[Rew]

Excellent!

[Peardian]

The first Majora's Mask map is up! This time around, I'm trying out using filtered textures rather than having them be pixelly. I finally found out how to make the filtered textures look proper (I had to use SAT rather than MIP) so I can make it look close to what the game really looks like. However, I am still not going to bother with getting the vertex shading 100% accurate.

The next map could take a while because it's Clock Town. Since there's a lot of time-based changes that happen in this town, I may end up either only using the 1st Day NPC layout or leave out the changing NPCs altogether.

[TerraEsperZ]

That looks great

The extreme pixelation is the only reason why I wasn't really fond of your Ocarina of Time maps and that's not even your fault; rather, it's the N64's pathetically small texture memory and the extreme filtering used to mask that fact.

It would be really cool if you were to update those with filtering as well but I guess it would entail far more work than just checking a little "Filter all textures" option box. In any case, I'm really looking forward to seeing more.

[Revned]

Agreed, it looks really nice! The filtering is much more accurate looking. It would be nice if you could find the time someday to rerender the OOT maps like that. Can't wait to see more!

[JonLeung]

Question for Peardian...since you seem to be quite experienced with 3D modeling, what do you think of the whole 3D printing craze (which, hopefully, will be a normal thing one day)?  Have you ever taken any of your 3D models and gotten them printed?  Would you ever make any files (.OBJ, .STL, etc.) available for anyone to print 3D models of the stuff you've made?

[Peardian]

I actually have 3D-printed Brawl trophies of some of my creations, including the Axem Rangers, the Blade, and the Terrapin statue from Bowser's Keep. Also Brrr Bit from Super Mario Galaxy, just because. You can actually buy prints for yourself from my Shapeways shop. However, the shop will only ever contain my own creations. I may on occasion print a ripped model for my own personal enjoyment, but would never try to sell ripped game models. If only more of my creations were physically possible to print out...

Status report on Majora's Mask: I haven't made any additional progress yet due to me being stretched thin over multiple projects. I was hoping to get back to it earlier this week, but I got caught up in finishing the OoT gallery.

[JonLeung]

*facepalm* Duh!  I remember that you shared images of the Axem Rangers over SwapNote.  Silly me.

I discovered Shapeways a few weeks ago (so sue me, I'm slow) and I've been wondering what the material feels like.  Seems like sandstone is a popular material type.  Is it light?  Is it fragile?

[Peardian]

Full-Color Sandstone is (currently) the only material that supports textures, hence it's popularity. Yes, it is light, and it is somewhat fragile, but not so fragile that it's useless. To give you an idea, the Terrapin's hammer broke in the mail, as did the raised arm of Axem Yellow that I sent someone, but my own Axem Yellow did not break and Vivian squiggly tail survived just fine. It's good enough if you want to make a colored model to put on display, but I'd jump on multi-colored plastic as soon as they offer it because of durability. Otherwise, there's no way I'd be able to have figures of characters like Yaridovich and Bowyer.


Maybe in the future I'll have some map-related models for sale, but if I do, they won't be from 3D games.

[Peardian]

I made some more progress on Clock Town. You can definitely tell they went all out when they were designing it, because there are all kinds of complex texture things going on throughout the town. With all the little ornate shops in town and the boatload of NPCs, this map will probably take me the longest out of anything else in the game, so please bare with me. A nice little plus, though, is that all the different sections of Clock Town fit together perfectly. I'll be sure to take advantage of this fact when producing the top-down view map.


Also, here's a little detail in the game I never noticed before: in the Laundry Pool, there's a group of three fish. On the first day, one is purple and two are gold. On the second day, two are purple, and on the final day, all three are purple.

[Trop]

Clock Town does feel like a special jewel in the Zelda crown but I'll bet it's not the only area you find in this game with better design then the OOT maps.  Neat find in the laundry pool, absolutely cannot wait to see Clock Town.  Speaking to top down, how the hell are you going to do Snowhead?

[TerraEsperZ]

If I remember correctly, the Snowhead Temple's central chamber could be divided in slices corresponding to the various floors of the dungeon. I'm looking forward to the side map where it'll look as impressive as the Water Temple map from Ocarina.

[JonLeung]

Wow, I don't even remember much of the Snowhead Temple.  I'm more interested in the last main dungeon, the one that flips upside-down.  It will be neat to see if the upside-up and the upside-down maps are actually flips of each other.  And if not, what differences there are.  I seem to recall something right at the start like the number of blocks to hop across before the entrance was different.

[TerraEsperZ]

I'm curious as well. My limited mapping experience has shown that more often than not, when an area changes in a global way (even if just a little) you actually end up in a separate map. When you actually compare these maps side-by-side, you tend to find a number of tiny differences that most people would miss but that you, as a mapper, can notice.

[Peardian]

You'll be glad to hear that I finally finished ripping all of Clock Town's exterior areas! (I still need to fix them up to look accurate and whatnot.) I would have been done with this sooner, but I really wanted to finish my Antasma model.

Also, I wasn't able to locate my own copy of the Player's Guide, so I just found an online scan of it. It's not super-high-res, but good enough for me to read it and locate secrets I would otherwise miss.


Edit: The shops in Clock Town are so detailed! Just wait until you see them in the maps. It's just a shame that the smaller details will be lost due to the scale.