Anaheim Stadium - The Protest Version...The work ends!

[The H]

Sent me a PM and we'll discuss it. I'm really SERIOUS about it .

[pens]

GREAT work Halofan

[HaloFan]

Here's one more lighting effect, the turned on Big A. I gave it an internal glow, as that's pretty much what it does in real life. It's not as impressive as some of the other lights, but not too bad.

[kumala]

great job halo, can't wait for the release.

[eohx21]

halofan, any estimated release date?

[HaloFan]

So it begins again, my latest attempt to complete a night version of Angel Stadium Of Anaheim for MVP. No timetable of course, as it's a fairly different beast than the day version.

[HaloFan]

I've run into something of a stumbling block in the night version.

The design of the dugout tops is done differently in this version, making it very difficult to recreate what I was able to accomplish in the day version. In the screen above you might see one of my problems. Those two parts that say Anaheim Angels 2005 are supposed to show the entire image. It's set up properly in OEdit, but in the game part of those verticies are rendered invisible. I'm going to try and use those two images to make one complete image, but it's just a mess that I didn't have to worry about in the day version.

So I went and did some photoshop work instead:

I went through and changed the out of town scoreboard to feature all new games and scores. The matchups are actually taken from the weekend of May 6-8, with the new opposing team being the Detroit Tigers and their starting pitcher Jason Johnson. Garret Anderson is now at the plate.

Also on the out of town scoreboard I've replaced the Albertsons ad in the middle with one for Majestic, as they rotate during the game.

[The H]

Dude... it looks really good... excellent job!

We have to talk about 'business' (cough, GBA contract, cough)

[HaloFan]

The project moves forward. I found a way to get the dugout top in there finally, so I won't have to sacrifice anything from the day version.

Those other pieces you see there are the failed vertices I tried to use as the dugout top. I even tried to combine them into one, but the results were pretty bad. So I tried something else and was finally successful.

I may have some use for these bad parts yet, we'll see.

[five]

I like the way you're posting some of the hiccups along the way.

[HaloFan]

I like the way you're posting some of the hiccups along the way.

I think it's important to show that there is a process to all of this. Last year since I was starting from scratch, it was more of a drastic process, where every little change was groundbreaking. So I got into the habit of showing these little milestones.

It also helped that all us stadium modders were just getting to know OEdit and were trying to help eachother out with this new tool.

If these pictures do nothing else, they show new modders just getting into this that not everything will go smoothly, you will have to try and try again if you're going to do an OEdit stadium. But as long as you backup, or are good at cleaning up a mess, you can play around in Oedit and cme up with some really good results.

It also shows some of those anxious folks that wonder why it takes so long that sometimes things don't go according to plan, and sometimes things aren't as easy as they seem.

[five]

Exactly, once I finish with my shea outfield grass, I plan on posting some of the pics along the way. It's been a journey, that's for sure.

[HaloFan]

Here we go with another wave of pics, now that I've finished the OEdit work for the dugout tops:

Here is the dugout top, now in place. It was a little more difficult to do in the night version, but it turned out just as good. I've also put in a new ad for the behind the plate area. If you look closely at the dugout suite on the far right you can see my final texture used for the netting on the suites not covered by the game's net. It's pretty hard to tell one from the other, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

I did this Coors Light ad a few days ago, this is the first time I've shown it close up. It has lighting effects on it, including purple neon running along the rocky mountains in the ad. The game doesn't really pick it up to well, but it's there.

Here's Left Field, where I flipped the vertex used on the scoreboard so that the brighter are is now at the top, while the dark end is at the bottom. It now fits in with the light from above as it should.

I still need to do some work on the building, as I can't put it in the same place as I usually do because of a weird problem with it and the A in the night version.

I've also removed the Paul's TV ad from the night version, and replaced the ribbon with a few healthy shots of Jack Daniel's.

And of course that means the King of Big Screens is off the right field scoreboard, with Jack taking his place. And yes, Jack Daniels is a real sponsor, and those are what the ads looked like.

[kumala]

looks great Halo, as usual

[crowe1]

Halo-

Probably your best work, IMO. Thanks for do this despite your reservations. Amazing stuff...

Vince

[Dan]

Great Job. You need to remember, though, and this is why photorealism is great - lighting. If you are doing a night stadium, make sure you use night photos and not day. If you have to make your own, try to duplicate the lighting as best you can. Day, shadows are importaint. Other than that, great job!

[five]

Have you read any of the posts in the thread? A lot of Halo's posts are about the lighting and getting it just right.

[OCMr_B]

Here we go with another wave of pics......

I've also removed the Paul's TV ad from the night version, and replaced the ribbon with a few healthy shots of Jack Daniel's.

And of course that means the King of Big Screens is off the right field scoreboard, with Jack taking his place. And yes, Jack Daniels is a real sponsor, and those are what the ads looked like.

I was noticing something here....Jack Daniels....Red Sox. You shoulda tied these two things together by taking that last screenie with Kevin Millar at bat.... The effect would have been quite humourous...

I'm just waiting for a home game this year, where Kevin lines one into the bullpens in right field...I can imagine the call on NESN;

Orsillo: There's a shot by Millar.....into the bullpen...

Remy: As long as he's not DRINKING shots in the bullpen....

Great work on the stadium, BTW...looks great. :wink:

[HaloFan]

Great Job. You need to remember, though, and this is why photorealism is great - lighting. If you are doing a night stadium, make sure you use night photos and not day. If you have to make your own, try to duplicate the lighting as best you can. Day, shadows are importaint. Other than that, great job!

Those rules of thumb don't work all the time, especially when the game applies it's own lighting effects to the game on a per vertex basis, and on a per location basis. When I get this done, unpack it and look at the images as they are before the game does a number on some of them and you'll see what I mean.

Nighttime photos are almost always worthless for modding. They're too dark and grainy to get a good image. Why would I want something like that in my mod? That's not how it would look to your eyes if you were there, it's how the camera caught it. They're good as a guide, but putting them in a mod straight from a picture usually looks like crap.

Making ads is ALWAYS the best method. If you can make an ad, it will look better than just about any picture you take. Out of everything in my mods, only five things came straight from pictures: The pepsi ad, the hooters ad, the Pond shot, the building outside the ballpark, and the wall of buildings in left field. That's it. Everything else is done in photoshop.

My advice to modders is don't get caught up in photorealism. Make it look like it would if you were actually at the ballpark, not how it looks in a photograph. Learn to make your ads so you're not limited by low res images. If you have access to the stadium and a good camera, then hey, photos can be a good help. But you can usually make things look alot better.

That being said, here's one more screen shot, of the completed visitors dugout:

I wasn't sure I'd find a way to do it, but I got the ad strip along the front in there using those screwed up verticies from a couple days ago. They still do not display the whole image, but for this area all I had to do was extend them down into space I didn't need to see anyway. It also allowed me to put FSN logos on the side walls of the camera well, and not just the back. Now I just need to do this to the home dugout.

Up above you can see my backlit Organic Milk and Coors Light ads. That is the one that hasa vertex that properly renders it, while the one in Left is dark. Just one of those limitations you have to work around when putting images where the game doesn't think they belong.

[AgentQ16]

<wipes tear from eyes> As Tony Bruno would say, "Beauuuuutiful" :D

[endeavor]

Thx for the interesting explanation HaloFan, I know you'll flinch now :oops: , but it's as good as done, right? :roll: Fantastic job my man! I mean really outstanding!! 8)

[tigersfan05]

Is anybody else having the same problem as me?

When I put up new sponsers all over the stadium they are transparent and the old ones seep through.

[HaloFan]

Thx for the interesting explanation HaloFan, I know you'll flinch now :oops: , but it's as good as done, right? :roll: Fantastic job my man! I mean really outstanding!!

I would say it's close to done. I still have to do the home dugout front, and I want to work on te outside of the stadium, try and get that to look a bit better.

I've been trying to get a hi-res sky texture in there, as the default night sky is starting to bug me. But sadly the game has crashed every time I've tried to use it.

[endeavor]

thx for the update! wow, a new sky, that would've been interesting to see. It is sad indeed. :cry:

[HaloFan]

OK, I may have found a way to get the sky in there to work. I'm also starting to understand why the stadium crashes: I'm pushing MVP to the limits.

Basically my images are so large that I'm putting pressure on the game in order to keep everything working. Add in hi-res uniforms and whatnot, and you can find the game unable to handle it and thus, crash.

This is why it couldn't handle hi-res sky. My cram32.fsh file is so large, the game chokes if I put in the sky. So I went back and tried the sky in the default version and it worked. Then I put everything else in the default version, except cram32, and it worked. Put in cram32, and boom, crash.

So I went in and lowered the resolution of a couple images. That worked, and now the sky is there. The image I cut was the one with the Jack Daniels ribbon boards, and I wasn't happy with how it looked, so now I'm going to try and cut the image's height (there's lots of blank space in the file to get rid of), while keeping the width.

Hopefully that will work. Also, I will probably offer the sky as an optional component, due to the fact that even if it works for me, it may not work for everyone. If you have been having crash problems, this is all probably the reason why. MVP just can't hack it

Edit: Success:

Taking the 1024X1024 image I had originally, and recomposing it to fit in a 1024X512 frame was successful. It reduced the size of cram32.fsh enough to fit in the hi res sky. No, the sky texture is not my own, it's from the site. I wanted to use that image as a test before attempting to make my own. This one has far too many stars for an Anaheim night ;)