Hey, UV mapping the second human-like figure took me much less time than the first one! This one took about 1 hour, again in Blender (and again, marking seam edges, LSCM that and just arranging resulting pieces rocks).

That said, making the low-poly mesh from the high-poly one took much longer than UV mapping; something like 4 hrs. A good artist would probably make a new mesh from scratch in shorter time, but hey, I’m not an artist :)

Really. Three hours for a model at 1024x1024 and 5x supersampling!

Now I’m using ATI’s NormalMapper to compute normal/AO maps (Previously was using nVidia’s Melody, but switched for no obvious reason). The good thing with NormalMapper is that it comes with sourcecode; I’ve already sped up AO computation about 20% by capping octree traversal distances (that took less than an hour). I suspect with some thought it could be optimized even more.

Previously I was using a hacked solution - compute normal map with either tool (that doesn’t take long), then use my custom small tool that does low-order GPU PRT simulation on low-poly normalmapped model with D3DX. Get the first term of results, scale it and there you have ambient occlusion. I was thinking it produces good results, but in the truth is that ‘real’ AO maps look somewhat better, especially for small ornaments that aren’t captured in low-poly geometry.

The good thing about this hacked approach is that it takes ~10 seconds for a model (compare to 3hrs). Using it as a quick preview is great, and the differences between hacked-AO and real-AO aren’t that much visible once you add textures and conventional lighting.

I’m thinking about doing GPU-based AO simulation on the high poly model, with quick-n-dirty UV parametrization; then just fetching the resulting texture in normal map computation tool (afaik, Melody can do that natively; for NormalMapper it would be easy to add I think). With recent DX9 SDK such tool should not take more than 200-300 lines of code (D3DX has both UVAtlas and GPU PRT simulation now). On the other hand, I know that nVidia guys are preparing something similar :)

Update: added image - on the left is hacked-n-fast AO, on the right is real-AO. Ornaments inside aren’t present in low-poly model (only in normal map). Differences are less visible when the model is textured and other stuff is added.

Sometimes I work for 8 hours with almost no results. Sometimes, I can do much more in 3 hours.

Things that help me (examples from IC05 demo): write down a detailed, roughly prioretized task list. If I don’t write it down and keep tasks in my head, I often spend too much time polishing not-so-important features. With task list, I update it constantly; at the same time I get sort of ‘summary’ of remaining work.

Another one: really concentrate. Turn off music (for some reason I can’t work while music is playing… especially if the music is good, I start listening to it), close the doors, tell the child ‘go play with mom instead’ :), etc.

More: disconnect from the net while working :)

An interesting problem: I’m writing my Master’s thesis and have tough time translating smoothie (from Rendering Fake Soft Shadows with Smoothies) and skirt (Smooth Penumbra Transitions with Shadow Maps).

Both thanslate into weird stuff!

Writing thesis at the university is weird, you have to write 50 pages of poo just to present 5 pages of useful information. Introductions, overviews, previous works, aims, hopes, discussions, explanations of unrelated stuff etc.

I have a temptation to put a small picture of some dragon (or worse) somewhere inside just to test if anyone really reads that crap.