What I have picked up so far

Again not much done in the tutorials, still need to find the line that is causing the XML to freeze up.  Hopefully the tutorial will fly after that.  Either way I am going to need to learn how to use the parser since I chose to use the one in the Advanced Framework rather than the one used in the tutorial.

And now on to the 3D modeling work.  As you can tell by the lack of pictures I did not finish anything.  Currently I am working on two tutorials, the mech mentioned in the previous post and a added a cartoonish haunted house.  Neither of these are great experience for modeling objects in video games since both look to be fairly high poly count, but many of the techniques should be applicable.  I have just started the house tutorial but it is more for a standard FPS than the one I am making.  Here is what I mean by that: In a normal FPS you can go in and out of buildings, and the use of creating buildings with wall thickness has a purpose.  Since this game revolves around a tank played character, most buildings will be shells like the low poly apartment tutorial I read.  I am not saying none of the buildings will be open, but those will be the exception not the rule.

Now the mech is coming along real well.  I hit a point where I need to alter the mech in such a way as to add detail.  This will probably take quite a bit of time as I toy around with various detail adding additions.  Once that is done, there is a small bit on how to texture and I think rig the mech so it is pose-able.  But that is not my focus at the moment.  I am going to go over a few things I have learned in the tutorial.  Probably the biggest is work in halves, the duplicate the half with a modifier to get the mirrored half.  Build the general shape and then fill in details based on how much they add, so larger detail first more minute detail last.  Once all of the detailing is done, insert a ton of edges.  Since most mech-type objects are metal and metal is straight and my tanks are unlikely to be an exception, at any point where the metal bends, add lines on both sides of the crease.  This will keep the line shaprer when the object is smoothed, keeping an edge desired to be sharp clean while allowing other areas to be rounded.  A final trick is to build the model by section, grouping the sections and then using layers to help control what you do and do not want to see or work on.

So while I do not have much done this time around, next time should have a few pretty pictures.  The haunted houes should be done, the low poly house I mentioned a while back should be finished and the mech should be well on its way, though that may or may not be finished.  I also have one big project I am working on, which I mentioned earlier, but that may still take a while to finish.  Hopefully my time frees up towards the end of the week, though this week will again be tough for any forward progress on Ogre tutorials.