Well, I've been familiarizing myself with XSI and finally managed to produce something I considered worthy of releasing.

It's a covered well for DoD Source, modelled after this picture (http://www.pfalzbild.de/galerie/annweiler/04.jpg). Might fit in some French or German village based map. If you want to use it, go ahead...

It includes a complex collision model, but no normal maps or specular. XSI says it's got about 650 triangles.



Download here. (http://www.ricochet.at/upload/rc_well.zip)

Like I said, it's the first model I've ever made, so if you have any comments, suggestions or constructive criticism, please speak up.

Looking good :) Thanks for sharing, I might find a use for it someday

well (pun), it looks pretty damn good to me!

Originally posted by Ricochet

It includes a complex collision model, but no normal maps or specular.

does that mean its not ready to use? sorry, I'm model dense.

Originally posted by josh_u[RR]
well (pun), it looks pretty damn good to me!

does that mean its not ready to use? sorry, I'm model dense.

In the Source engine you can give your textures bump maps (normal maps) and specular maps (for shiny reflective effects) to make things look more realistic. I haven't done this, because it didn't seem necessary for this type of model. Besides this means less work for the rendering engine during play.

It's ready to use alright (provided, I didn't forget to pack any crucial files in the .zip)

It looks good! Thanks.

excellent work :)

By the way, is it easy to make and manipulate primitives in XSI?

Thank you for sharing ricochet, looks good. Much appreciated.

First off, thanks to everyone for the nice feedback :)

Originally posted by Watchtower
excellent work :)

By the way, is it easy to make and manipulate primitives in XSI?

XSI takes some getting used to. I chose it because it's free (for HL2 users). At first you're pretty much overwhelmed by all the buttons and tools; and things don't work like they do in Hammer when it comes to constructing geometry.

But after reading a few tutorials and playing around a bit, I kind of got the hang of it. It takes a bit of patience, getting to know the hotkeys and the toolbars, but after some practice I found it very nice to use.

XSI has a few quirks, like having to "freeze" your mesh manipulations every once in a while, but apart from that I found it easier to use than Milkshape.

If you're thinking about learning to model, then I'd recommend reading tutorials on basic interaction and concepts of XSI. Once you've got the basics figured out, I recommend Desty's 12 part video tutorial on modelling a Colt 1911. It's very comprehensive and easy to follow.

Here's the link, though at the moment, it seems to be down...:


Colt 1911 XSI Video Tutorials (http://www.hl2modcentral.com/tutorial.php?id=27&cat=0)

looks very nice