Modular Universe news - [ook] Once I Owned a Kestrel

Until now I've been modeling in a free-form manor. While I have been trying to keep textures belonging to objects of the same race very similar, it's been slow going. Today I thought it over and decided to take a modular approach to content creation. What will happen is I will be creating building blocks for each part of a station. I will then texture them. In order to create a new station, I will simply have to import the modules into one document and arrange them accordingly.

What does this mean?

- Stations will be able to be built in less than half the time
- Less of a hit on the engine
- Texture space will be more efficiently utilized by the UV Map
- All stations of the same race will look similar
- All stations will be of consistent texture quality
- MORE REALISTIC! Factories do this in real life to cut cost.

Let me explain. First of all, as mentioned above, stations will be much quicker to create if I can simply import all the required modules and then assemble them. Despite the fact that this means that I will be having more textures in one map, the map should still run faster. Why? Because each texture is not only smaller but also because it is simpler the UV Map's resolution is maximized. There is no squeezing and squishing to try to organize things consistently.

Furthermore, because all the stations will be created from the same simple modules, they will all look like they belong to the same race. Of course there will be many different types of station layouts, so the player will not feel like the universe is repetitive. More on textures - They will be far more consistent in quality because I am not recreating them for each model. Instead they are the exact same textures.

So what might a module look like? Below is a picture of a module that was created following the creation of the Solar Station. Also below is an example of how the Solar Station will be divided into four different modules within a few days.

Energy Station, Divided

Polis Module, 128x128 Texture

Love and Peace,
Ryan