Modeling tips: tuts For Gmax and 3DSMax 4 KotOR

[svösh]

Modeling tips: For Gmax and 3DstudoMax

 

Here are Tools you will need to make your own models.

 

3d Modeling programs

 

Gmax:- http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax

3dsmax :- http://www4.discreet.com/3dsmax/#

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Side plug in suite that allows you to import and export in ascii-mdl format

 

Nwnmax :- http://nwmax.dladventures.com/

 

For gmax:- http://nwmax.dladventures.com/download/NWmax-gmax-v0_7setup.exe

For max:- http://nwmax.dladventures.com/download/NWmax-3ds6-v0_7setup.exe

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Model compiler / decompiler

 

Mdlops:- http://home.comcast.net/~cchargin/kotor/

==============================================

 

 

And of course KotOR....

 

If you download Gmax take the time to download the help file it’s invaluable to any level of 3d artist from newbie, to 3d Guru, it’s full of helpful tricks and tips and know how.

 

Max and gmax work great with a 3 button wheel mouse

The wheel is used for zooming in and out of the selected view port Right click brings up the QUAD menu any of the default and most commonly used tools move, scale, rotate, extrude edge, extrude poly, and is completely customizable so if you select group of poly’s are selected and you wanted to scale them by right clicking them you could chose and scale and use left click to do the scaling right click again and choose move and keep right on going making work, quicker and smoother.

 

When viewing the model in the perspective view port or all view ports. Right click the name of the view port and turn on edged faces this enables you to see any possible mistakes and allows you to see your wire frame over your smooth shaded model. Simple but very effective I turn this on before I even convert my model to editable mesh

 

When building your model over an image or an existing model you would like to maintain the look of. Go to the material editor click new > chose standard > apply a default material by dragging and dropping the white sphere to your model and turn the opacity down to 20 or 40 so this will help line things up.. a mask for example over an existing pc head or the image of a sword or gun so you can see where thing are supposed to line up.

 

Always check all of your view ports when modeling don’t concentrate on modeling in the perspective view port, it leads to trouble. Something may look lined up in it but when you see it in the front view port it’s miles away. Using your orthographic views top / left / front will help. Arc rotate in the perspective to see all sides of your model

 

Box modeling goes along way ! Using extrude, scale, and rotate, and move you can model almost anything from a simple box as your starting primitive. Take a look at the default saber hilts they started with a 5 sided NGon extruded poly, scaled, extruded poly, rotated, scaled, extruded poly, scaled, extruded poly, scaled, and that just about does it. The final touch make 2 buttons and the world worst ever uv map

 

Spline modeling is also a great way to start but be careful not to add to many anchor points. There is not a lot of support for this type of modeling in gmax , unless you use the surface tools , spline cage method.

 

When using the lathe modifier in the front / back or left / right view ports turn your segments down, 16 is default in gmax and 32 is default in 3dsmax this is way to high, aim for 6 to 10 segments maximum I keep with even numbers my self it makes for a better looking model . As well as one that can easily be sliced in to and half on the Y axis In some cases your smooth mesh will look funny almost half inside out, you may have to flip normals. There is a small check box on the right in the creation roll out. click to do this you can also check on cap start or end this will create a capped end on you model or ends try all of the 3 settings min / max / center to see your shape most likely your saber hilt or sword handle trying the X, Y, Z, axis will give you different results.

 

A general rule in game design is keep your poly count DOWN

Look at what the poly count is on the game models to give you a better idea. A standard character model has fewer than 2000 polys. An item, mask, or weapon should really not exceed 500, 1000 should be a max number to work with. Not everyone has a high-end system to chug along rendering your 20 000 poly model so keep this in mind.

 

When modeling save your self a lot of trouble by modeling one half only! Tweaking it to you’re liking and then clone / mirror the other half, weld both sides together avoid instance mirroring as it will cause problem when compiling.

 

Save often as your model progresses. I try to save every half hour but if I make any major changes to the model I will rename it by adding a number to it so sv_blaster becomes sv_blaster2 , I do this because if my idea for sv_blaster2 doesn’t pan out I can revert to sv_blaster and continue from there.

 

Don’t model in the dark. Import a model of similar type to model yours after. This helps for two reasons 1 you can constantly check proportions and 2 there is already a base for masks and swords and for blasters this is a must because the bullet hook is already there. [The helper object that tells the game engine where the muzzle of the gun is.]

Using images as a guide on the view port backgrounds helps a lot as well most useful in the left / right if you have a profile image or in the front / back if you have a front view or the image.

 

With masks import some of the pc heads to check for size use an existing mask to place yours is the same place and the last step is delete the original one.

 

For helmets.. Heads will clip the hair on females and head tails. So good luck getting a helmet that is proportioned right that will work on females or aliens…not much of a problem on males but not all players characters are male and the same goes for the gamers

 

Delete whatever extra geometry in your scene except for the Aurora base, Ngon, bullet hook in some cases, and of course your new model before exporting.

To delete any geometry make sure you are out of any sub objects editing, verts, faces, polys, ect.. Select the extra geometry and hit Delete on your keyboard.

 

Before attempting a radical change to you model, a Boolean operand or slicing it in 2 Make a copy of it by selecting the model mesh. Not the sub objects and holding down Shift and dragging it on either X or Y axis. I like to do this in my left or right view port and drag up on the Y axis this way the clone is not in the way of any of your other views apart from top. In the clone options box simply hit ok. Now go nuts on the clone and if it turns out like you want, then go ahead and do the same to your model. Or if you want SAVE drag the clone down then delete the original model, and continue using it in place where the original was.

 

 

Restrictions for models in Kotor:

 

 

 

Use mdlops click [read and write] on your freshly Extracted mdl from Kotor tools

In order to make the ASCII file both original mdl and mdx file must be in the same directory

 

Importing on the NWNMAX speed bar under MDL Loading click the radio button Import Geom Only then hit browse now find your ASCII mdl and hit import on the speed bar.

 

I use my meshes folder in gmax to extract my final ASCII mdl to you can change this before extracting of course if you click the name of the Aurora base you will see that the base is name of the model and not the model it’s self change the name from ex: w_HvyBlstr_004 to w_HvyBlstr_048 just something that will not override any of the other models in the game.

 

You must start Gmax by the NWNMAX icon The GREEN & BLACK one Not the gmax one you or will never export your final ASCII mdl. When you click the NWNMAX icon you will see the snoop running in the system task bar

*{A personal note I can not test my models in Kotor with gmax still running or the snoop, THE GAME CRASHES I have to right click the snoop in the system task bar to turn it off even if gmax is already closed the snoop still runs}

 

If you use 3dsmax start it normally the NWNMAX snoop doesn’t appear in your system task bar but you will see the NWNMAX speed bar in the left when the program starts

 

Use the NWNMAX speed bar in the mdl to import section your ASCII mdl model to begin Notice that the back is the front and front is back do not change this

And don’t’ move the Aurora base or NGon

 

All models must have the Aurora base and Ngon [ bullet hook only when making gun models ]

 

Diffusion colour of the shader material must be set to white or the model appears far to dark in the game. Especially in the lower city of Taris and under city Use a metal shader setting change the default to metal in the dropdown on the left or use blinn

The two important slots are diffuse: and Ambient: when you set diffuse to white ambient fallows suite.

 

Like any file name for Kotor and NwN file names must be shorter then 16 characters or they get truncated, and any other files that depend on them will not work.

 

Add an AuroraTrimesh to the top of you modifier stack for each piece of your model. You really should only have one fully welded model but in some cases using different shader types and materials all the pieces will require there own AuroraTrimesh modifier.

Because these are simple models you can link the model up to the Aurora base bullet hook and NGon by selecting everything in your scene and in the NWNMAX speed bar under General Utils you see a button called Fast linker hit it and now you are just about ready to export click the Aurora base and on the right side under the modifier stack you will see Export Geom only Click that and providing all went well there would not be any sanity check box come up.

 

NWNMAX site’s are more then helpful a must book mark for any one getting in to modeling although they are porting their at the moment many of the links relevant to modeling for NWN still work so the same for KotOR

 

Bioware's own NWN developers site has some great tid bits as well. You better think twice before adding cast shadows to your models, trust me on that

 

http://ccg.dladventures.com/index.php/Shadows

 

http://ccg.dladventures.com/index.php/Main_Page All file formats for NWN tuts explanations 3d modeling and more NWNMAX documentation

 

http://nwmax.dladventures.com/documentation/index.html NWNMAX documentation

 

NEW:

 

These movies are all very helpful for modeling texturing ect.. but the down side is they are around 45 mb each not to bad for high speed dsl / cable but bad news for 56k users. Anyways for the best of the best check these out. http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/movies/data/Danmar2.shtml

 

 

Here are some tutorial links to help you they range from beginner to expert

 

GMAX tuts

 

http://gmax.web1000.com/tute/tutorials.html

 

http://gmax.web1000.com/tute/tutorial5.html [ spline modeling a sword ]

 

http://dfast.gmaxsupport.com/web/tutorials.htm

 

http://www.fsalpha.com/tutorials/tutorials.shtml

 

http://www.freeflightdesign.com/tutorials.html

 

http://www.turbosquid.com/MessageBoard/index.cfm [official gmax forum]

 

http://www.gmaxforum.com/ Lots of helpful stuff here

 

3DSMAX

 

http://www.net4allahabad.com/max6/lessons.html LEARN to grasp the very basics of 3d modeling short lessons

 

http://www.3dcafe.com/asp/tutorial.asp

 

http://www.3dlinks.com/links.cfm?categoryid=13&subcategoryid=105

 

http://www.3dluvr.com/content/maxedout.php

 

http://www.3d-station.com/Tutoriaux/tutoriaux.php [FRENCH web site]

 

http://www.3dsmax-dgdt.fr.st/ [FRENCH web site]

 

http://www.3dmaxer.dk/tutorial.asp?ak=1 [ Danish + English site with 140+ tutorials ]

 

 

Now you know your XYZ….. and here are a few for UV ………..mapping

 

http://www.waylon-art.com/uvw_tutorial/uvwtut_01.html this is the normal method for uv mapping however to get a uv map that will not stitch it self back together you MUST segment your model up in the exact same way as you lay out your uv map.

 

NEW: http://www.chilliweb.co.uk/chilliskinner/index.htm

 

For online tutorials http://www.chilliweb.co.uk/chilliskinner/SkinningHowTo.htm

 

This is the preferred technique used for nwn uv mapping check out danmars video tutorial for the best explanation on how to uv map your models. http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/movies/data/1033914103656.shtml

 

I will add to this thread as we progress past simple item models.

 

I hope this info helps all of you, and may the force be with you

 

svösh

[Nodakrattler]

You just keep going and helping don't you. Thanks

[RedHawke]

Thanks for the modeling tutorial svösh!

[Darth Dex]

Dude, svosh thank you. This is awsome. I bet we will be seeing more good models in the game thanks to you.

[PrtyLizardJedi]

AMAZING SVÖSH!!! YOU AMAZE US YET AGAIN!!!

[Darth333]

Great work svösh ! I think many people here were waiting for such a tutorial

 

I am adding a link to this thread in the guide for the Newbie

[Mono_Giganto]

Cool. Thanks svosh you're my hero.

[svösh]

Thanks everyone I’m just trying to help out, share my knowledge and helpful tricks.

If any one has some tips or trick to add don’t hesitate to add them here, I have come across some fantastic stuff today and added to the list, after a bit of testing it appears the uv mapping problem was due to the standard way or mapping in 3D , unfortunately this is not the case with the game engine and I have been using the chilly skinner soft wear that comes with NWNMAX going to test this on my models and see how the mapping comes out in the game. For online tutorials for this check out http://www.chilliweb.co.uk/chilliskinner/SkinningHowTo.htm

 

For an 25 min. long .Avi video of a 45 mb download , the nice thing with this you can pause it and fallow along at the same time in Gmax to see it visually explained to you http://nwvault.ign.com/Files/movies/data/1033914103656.shtml

 

svösh

[shosey]

Oh my goodness! Its massive ;-)

 

Thank you very much for this. It will helps a buch when I deciede to try out modeling!

 

Thanks again!

[abcdow]

Thanks svosh this is just what I was hoping to see, it will be of great help.

Any interest in mentoring a noob with what he thinks could be an interesting project, involving the combination of different masks to create a new "jedi warrior" helmet?

If not, do you mind if I PM you once in awhile if I get stuck despite all the resources provided

[svösh]

@ Xavier2

 

Heads will not work because the animation must be stored in the head and so far that is not fully supported.

 

 

I’ll try to help you with these problems your having, and I have tested what you want just before writing this up I have good new it works

 

For my example I extracted: pfbfl.mdl and pfbfl.mdl from KT > Bif’s > player.bif > Aurora Model and the mdx From player.bif > mdx

 

Right now skin mesh is a bit tricky, basically you extract the mdl and mdx of your choice hit read and write in mdlops.

 

Import it in NWNMAX geom. only. When the mesh is in gmax you will see the model is on a base this is the Aurora base and there is triangle pointing to the front just leave it this is the Ngon.

 

So you edit the model in sub objects mode of editable mesh, verts, edges , faces polys. Element

 

By left click + dragging the selection over the vert

Holding ALT will subtract verts from your selection holding Ctrl will add

 

My first step was, I Turned on Edged faces on every view and smooth and highlight.

The way I set mine up was: TOP view port changed to the LEFT view port FRONT in Kotor modeling is BACK but I changed it to RIGHT and used PERSPECTIVE to help with my selection of verts. I moved verts on the X axis back towards the abdomen , in the right or left view port. Then manually tweaking a few verts at the same time. I moved a few verts at a time using the left or right view port to select carefully but do both at the same time.

 

Be careful not to select verts on the back side of the model in some cases it good to check on ignore back

 

Facing in the verts fly out right under the modifier stack. Not in this case the pocket as made up of multiple verts some corners have 4 verts that just look like one.

 

When you get it as flat as you can

Click the editable mesh to exit vertex subobjects

 

Everything is linked up already and ready to export

 

Now click on the base on the right Side panel you will see your options to export the model

 

One is geom.+ anim

One is geom. Only we are using this because the animation is stored elsewhere

 

When you export this model by default it goes to the same directory it was imported from and will overwrite the original ascii mdl so set a new dir to export to I use the meshes folder in gmax. to save my self typing I open the folder in win explorer the copy the address and paste it in gmax saves time and I know it will go to the dir \ I want, ok so no hit export on the right side skin mesh model has a lot of checks to run through as it scans all the weigh points helpers ect.. if all goes well there will be an model in

your meshes directory .

 

Ok now the trickiest part. Rename the freshly exported example:

pfbfl.mdl to pfbfl-ascii.mdl Now copy our

 

original mdl and mdx that you extracted to your meshes dir \ or wherever you exported your edited model to.

 

The reason you have to rename you new model is when you export out of max it’s the same name as your original game one In order to even compile a skin mesh you have to have both the original mdl and mdx in the same dir \ now open up mdlops un check the box if it’s set to convert skin mesh to trimesh brows to your pfbfl ascii-.mdl hit read and write I always switch to the dos window to see the progress if everything is successful then the model will compile and you will have 2 new files PFBFL-ascii-bin.mdl, PFBFL-ascii-bin.mdx

 

Copy these to your override dir new rename them by removing the -ascii-bin so the names will be simply PFBFL.mdl and PFBFL.mdx

 

Fire up you game cross your fingers and if you are lucky like me you will get something like this.

 

http://svoshsphotos.fotopic.net/p7563940.html http://svoshsphotos.fotopic.net/p7563941.html

 

Things you should not do , cut, slice, or delete. Verts, edges, faces, or polys There are lots of helper objects for the Armour models so don’t change anything else, don’t collapse verts or change the number of verts in anyway. IF you do then the entire model will need to be unwrped and you will have to add your new sections to the models weighted vertices in the envelopes for proper mesh deformation.

 

I hope you are successful in your skin mesh editing as well

 

svösh

[bneezy]

You're the man svosh! That completly answers my question to cchargin. I'll try this later for something I want to do. Would it be possible to add the jetpack to the back of the model?

 

By the way:

 

Does anyone know the names of the Class 9 .mdl and .mdx files?

 

Update:

 

I think I found the Class 9 model (pmbhs.mdl) but I can't convert it back into KotOR because Bioware's own model has overlapping vertices in the torso. Damn. I didn't do anything to the model. Just put it in and took it out. Didn't work. Crap.

[svösh]

Bneezy this is what your looking for

PMBH fallowed by s or m or L

 

found in KT > Bif’s > player.bif > Aurora Model and the mdx From player.bif > mdx

 

For females it will most often be with a S or M on the end

For males it’s it M or L it goes with there crazy class system in a way

 

S = scoundrel M = scout L = soldier but in this case the rules don’t apply

 

This thread will explain their crazy system better

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=126482post1496324

 

hope this helps

 

svösh

[bneezy]

The only ones I found were pmbhs and pmbh02.

 

I tried to add the pack to the jedi robe model and I got everything exported ok, but the pack didn't show up and the Endire Spire disappeared. All of it. I was fighting in space.

[svösh]

When making revans redemption robes I was playing with shaders I was working on making a custom shader work I used hl cloak works then it was a mater or the shader believe this or not in appearances I edited evnmap node to cm_barmetal2 I made a copy of cm baremetal and changed it’s hue a touch. Saved it as cm_barmetal2 Loaded up my game and as soon as my robes where equipped I was transformed in to a black female outcast with a sword and Trask transformed in to a walrus man one of the guys from the beck base with a blaster. I was blown away when I finally got control of my laughter I realized how touchy this game was, if a shader did that I can only imagine the sort of trouble we are going to run it to with skin mesh.

 

Just a question but did your back pack have cm_baremetal on it ? if so that could be why the jedi robes use default as the shader so having two model with a conflicting shader could cause crazy problems.

 

EDIT: This just came to me after posting I don’t know about all the aurora modeling limitations, but the player robes are in skinmesh so maybe the back pack should be in skin mesh as well, I don’t know, or is it possible you compiled it all as trimesh ?

 

svösh

[Xavier2]

Originally posted by svösh

@ Xavier2

I’ll try to help you with these problems your having, and I have tested what you want just before writing this up I have good new it works

 

Thank you very much Master svösh, i couldn't find the tricky conversion of the ansci.mdl to mdl anywhere else. Although it's a very simple move it is not that obvious.

 

Originally posted by svösh Heads will not work because the animation must be stored in the head and so far that is not fully supported. [/b]

Ok. I'll insist on this cuz its very important to my current project. How do you think Orsan did that changes in the Obi-Wan head? As i said before, that head, in the model, not just the .tga file, have thiner lips, bigger eyes, longer eyebrows, etc.

 

Thanks again you are a true starchip fighter:D

 

bad joke...

 

Xavier2

[Xavier2]

Originally posted by svösh

Ok now the trickiest part. Rename the freshly exported example: pfbfl.mdl to pfbfl ascii-.mdl Now copy our [/b]

I take you mean pfbfl-ascii.mdl , not pfbfl ascii-.mdl , right?

 

Xavier2

[svösh]

yes sorry i'll edit my post now yes

 

pfbfl-ascii.mdl

 

svösh

[Lorden Darkblade]

Great job svösh, still modelling is a very hard thing to do, I'm trying it has like months now to make a model for Jedi Academy and one for KotOR and I had no success at all

[Xavier2]

Hello

 

About that head modeling subject, i wanted you to see this:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/Xavier2x/Jango_Fettface.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/Xavier2x/Jango_Fettface2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/Xavier2x/Jango_Fettface3.jpg

 

All i did to the model head was tighting the lips a little bit. The animation on the head works but is not in compass with the inner head (eyes and teeth) anim.

 

I guess that some how, before exporting from GMAX back to .mdl i should link all objects again or something. Any clues?

 

Xavier2

[svösh]

Humm strange where the eyes and mouth separated like that on the original head ? I know they are separated as in separate from the outer head mesh

 

Interesting I think I better import that head and take a look at it

 

svösh

[Xavier2]

Originally posted by svösh

Humm strange where the eyes and mouth separated like that on the original head ? I know they are separated as in separate from the outer head mesh

 

Interesting I think I better import that head and take a look at it

Yes. The inner head and the outer head are two diferent objects. I should add also, that i'm not sure all the vertex are linked and in place. Maybe when i was moving them in order to make the lips thiner i messed with the model. I actually saw a thin light line along the mouth. Problably the vertex in the lips corners are not in place.

 

The other thing is worth to mention is that the outer face is kinda fixed in the body. You can see by this pic that it is in fact moving along the body but it is not having its own animation as if the character was using a plaster mask. I guess its the base object (PMHA05), that is the link to the body movements.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/Xavier2x/Jango_Fettface4.jpg

[Xavier2]

I could fix the faces sincronicity. You can see it here:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/Xavier2x/Jango_Fettface5.jpg

 

The left side is my character and the right one is the original in the game.

 

There is a problem however. The head is still blocky. No lips, eyebrows and eyelid movements. Maybe thats the function of those little boxes around the face?

 

Xavier2

[svösh]

@Xavier2

 

Ok you have to open your pmbbl-ascii.mdl extracted from max in notepad.

 

When the dos prompt stops it will have the exact x y z cord you have to find those exact ones in notepad by hitting Ctrl +F typing the first set of digits, ex: 0.0128709003329277 next you make sure the next set is the same for Y, meaning if it starts with – it has to have the – or you will be editing the wrong set of verts , so make a tinny change to the number so if it ex:

 

0.0128709003329277 -0.0212466008961201 1.52754998207092

 

you would change only the last numbers up or down one like this..

 

0.0128709003329278 -0.0212466008961202 1.52754998207093

 

After each edit of the 3 sets of 3 line in notepad, hit save in notepad, leave notepad , the dos window, and mdlops, open . Back to mdlops hit read and write again. Keep doing these steps until the compile goes through.

 

I have done more then 25 to compile my first version of my spiked mask so I really edited 75. T7’s force pike had 18, I know it’s a real pain in the butt, trust me I have had my share of headaches from this

 

Hope this helps

 

svösh

[Xavier2]

Master svoch

 

Here is another curiosity in the heads modeling effort:

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v378/Xavier2x/Jango_Fettface9.jpg

 

Look its the Jedi Knight Quasímodo from Notredame...bad joke:anvil:

 

In this attempt i was sucessful to resolve the sincronism between the inner head and the blocky head alltogheter. The trade off is that the outer head isn't stucked to the aurora base object (PMHA05).

 

2 problems resolved, one new problem, and the lips, eyebrow, etc, ain't moving yet. My guess is the the problem is the outer head and its parental relation with objects, since everything else works, but that. If we could figure how to extract it correctly i think sky would be the limit.

 

Xavier2