Sneak peak on my currently developing

[strange wharf]

wow, i'd love to hear/see the process behind creating that windmill 👀

[golden bough]

Oh, I’m glad to share. give me some time, i will summarize my process in google docs.

[twin remnant]

I am loving that tree too

[lunar dove]

The perspective is wrong. It looks really weird.

[maiden tide]

looks fine to me

[golden bough]

i use 45 degree ortho camera, is it not correct?

[plain trout]

I think it might have to do with how the inserter arms and windmill sails are layering, and that with the orthographic effect the windmill sails look larger than the windmill is

A taller building, or the windmill transfer shaft poking out of that roof with a smaller cap covering it, would let you move the sails higher and mitigate the effect a little (I think)

[lunar dove]

I'm not sure what is causing it, it could also be due to the shadows or trees.
But the vanes clip through the capstone of the entrance, and go behind the inserters. The vanes also have different lengths, one is much longer when at the bottom.
Also, if I kind of unfocus my eyes, I can see that the vanes are just being stretched and squished as they turn - this might be the main cause? - but to avoid this you would need to make a 3d model of the vanes and then rotate to make the sprites.

[golden bough]

Is there a way to make the vanes draw above inserter?
The vanes is not stretching, I use 3d rotation, maybe because of ortho camera doesn't work well with tall building.

[twin remnant]

maybe with sprite priority "high"
there is also numbering for layer orders somewhere,
https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/prototypes/AnimationPrototype.html#priority

[golden bough]

Sprite priority is memory loading priority. Correct one is render_layer, I will try it.

[twin remnant]

This is what needs to be higher than inserters:
https://lua-api.factorio.com/latest/types/WorkingVisualisation.html#secondary_draw_order

Or at least worth a try

or what you said

[strange wharf]

and if the entity doesn't support it, there's still stateless visualization that has access to render layers

[lapis barn]

i think that large rotating objects might just always look weird in ortho

yeah I'm really curious about those assets too! they don't look like prefabs (although maybe they're 3d kitbashed?) and they're quite impressive for someone who just joined

[golden bough]

You may disappoint, but it mostly AI

[maiden tide]

3d Assets by ai?

[shrewd trail]

I think it's not disappointing that it's AI , it's great that you says so openly, it doesn't affect my curiosity for (further) explanations if you don't mind sharing. I was mind blown by the purple trees, if it's AI you must have come up a lot of them and you choose those, that i find looks great in the game and made me click and read and write all this x) , i'm less impressed by the other tree the resolution seem a bit off, like it was meant to be smaller for the level of details to match the fruits of the purple trees, but i like the windmill, it seemed sureal to me, i couldn't pinpoint like the others the details on it, i like the aesthetic a lot, and think it fit really well the game, i don't mind the little glitches on it, but i noticed the purple tree immediatly left of it isn't animated like the others, and that's what i found the most puzzling in there, i want to check in game now 🙂

[lunar dove]

Huh, yeah. That one purple tree is not moving.

[strange wharf]

wheeping angel trees

[lunar dove]

It also seems like the lower of the two green trees at the edge of the screen on the right is also not moving.

[golden bough]

weird, maybe it the game bug?

[golden bough]

Here's summarize of my processes, I hope this helpful.
https://www.notion.so/3D-model-to-Factorio-sprites-2b36be37c4c08009a8c0deeea1b82904?source=copy_link

[strange wharf]

oh wow that's comperhensive, i suggest dropping it in #mod-dev-graphics 👀

though you'd probably get 1-2 comments about sourcing from ai, but its a god tier tutorial

no one can deny it's value 👌

[strange wharf]

its genuinly worthy of being pinned there imo

[lapis barn]

oh neat! i had no idea it was ai

[shrewd trail]

no idea if it's a game bug, i still want to see in game if the tree animation is a spritesheet or the shader from the game, some kind of effect i'm not aware of, or maybe just a trick for the video presentation ^^
Thank you for the tutorial / explanations on how you did it, i made a bookmark for it and now i want to try something x) The process sounds really interesting as it offers lots of control on the result at many intermediate step of the "ai work" , a bit similar than if you were using public 3D asset from an infinite workshop. I'm no 3D artist, but i imagine when one has the 3D model made by the AI, 3D skills are not made useless suddenly or replaced, to build upon the material, combine or polish, so i see the AI as a tool here, i'm not disappointed all the contrary , although i'm very biaised, because i feel like i use ai for music in a similar way

[golden bough]

all tree animation is from game shader, so i confuse why some work and some not

i didnt happen now anymore though, maybe my potato pc cant process all shader?

[shrewd trail]

i don't know much about the game shader, i don't know, i think it can also be during the making of the video, if there is an undesired synchronisation or maybe a bounding box thing but don't quote me on that x)

[shrewd trail]

hey do you mind saying if you used meshy version 6 or the free version 4 ? i only tried on the 4 and result on image => 3D were disapointing, the 6 gave good a bit better result, but one can't download the model, overall i had better luck with text=>3D model, but it was still not to my liking / beyond my skill to fix the output for something nice in game

[golden bough]

I use 6, it only 8$/month with thank giving coupon + yearly plan

[shrewd trail]

duuuh, i got baited into the ranking for 200 free credit but you gotta turn pro for it, and i don't think my blender skill justify the investment x), it was fun to try though, have a lot of isometric asset, it was funny to see some take shape and the other side of them, but the definition it looked like a draft for a sculpture without the detailing, version 4 could produce "decent" 3D model from text, without too many artifacts but i was unable to prompt something that looked interesting, it was more "pieces" of machines than a building

[golden bough]

It much better to create a reference image from other site first.
I also just learning blender, I think it not that hard if you have some art skills

[shrewd trail]

Hey i saw the mod is public now, congrats for release ! it loaded fine for me, will try to reach the planet to give feedback 🙂

[golden bough]

@shrewd trail hey, I saw you create some musics which are pretty good. Consider create or choose some for my planet?

[shrewd trail]

oh thanks, i used AI for many of them , got some negative feedback about it, thought you may want to know before including anything x), but otherwise they are public domain, you can do what you want with those you liked, not sure which music genre you think fit best, i need to know what you like to try and make something for the planet so i'm sending friend request.:) , i haven't reached it yet, just gotten my first few gleba science, so i'm hoping this WE i have better idea

[golden bough]

I think it not bad, but i can see that some people may find electronic punk annoying especially if listen to it 5 hours straight.

Just play the planet first, you may have some idea

[strange wharf]

wait, there's a mod link now? 👀

[golden bough]

my mod is out for like 2 weeks now lol

[strange wharf]

link?