Athanasios Posted May 19, 2006 Share Posted May 19, 2006 Well, Torpid did the trick again. He infiltrated into the artists' confidential area, took out 2 siths that were guarding the main gate with his 12-bullet magnum (he likes the old way......cowboy stuff...), but after this he noticed that he left the keys to his office (which is placed.......well, i dont know if he has an office, he might be given a P1 @10Hz laptop to work on knees ;D). So, he sneaked into the airways and got just above the artists' area........then, with a ninja-lightning move, he got down on the area (using a rope, you know, he was with the head down, copyright from Mission Impossible 2), passed gently a knife around their lead artist's neck and whispered him some sentences.........the conversation below is 1:1 transfer of the "chat": LA (lead artist): "What the.....WHO are you???" Torpid: "Your worst nightmare. Now, tell me some things our community asks, before all my blood comes to my head*...." (*He was in MI2 stance through-out the chat obviously...) LA: "I can't. It's classified. We have orders from abov...." Torpid pushing the knife a bit in LA's neck....In the meanwhile, the whole 501st Legion has been alerted and surrounded the "area".... LA: "Okey okey......you won't get away from this though!..." Torpid: "None of your business kitty. Now, tell me the 1. Maximum poly count. LA: "You dirty scu..." Torpid (pushing the knife more and 501st being stunned from the whole episode): "Tsk tsk tsk...." LA: "...we use VERTS instead of polys now so the polygon counts are lost on me anymore… depends on the scale of an object and it’s importance to your scene I guess. The Star Destroyer model without hardpoints attached is at about 10k verts. The Rebel Space Station without hardpoints attached is about 21k verts. On average a small rebel ship like an A-Wing is about 2500 verts – Y-Wing is 2100 verts – MFalcon is 4300 verts – TIE Fighter is 1700 verts..." Torpid: "Good boy. Now: 2. How bones are definded. " LA: "2. Bones are defined by whatever naming convention you want. This is because the names are input through XML entries that call to the names you specify. They use only transform information in the Alamo utility in max. If you turn on Geometry in the utility in max you will see the mesh in the game engine.........you......." Torpid: "I always knew we could cooperate. And: 3. Animations for skeleton are done with character studio or by key framing." LA: "Well....i don't know this....." (Torpid pushing the knife more, LA hardly can make any move more...)LA: "*cough cough* 3. Animation is done in max for just about all the anims you see in-game. I suppose you could use C Studio but you’d need to make sure the animation was in simple keyframed information when you export. We have had success with different controllers for various things… spline controlled stuff for animating chains and whips seems to work. " (In the meanwhile, Dark troopers eneter the "area"...) Torpid: "Hmm...we have more company....let's speed up, would we? 4. Texturing the model (format of textures and could standard unwrapping of model work)." LA: "4. Texturing is straight forward. We use 32X32 on up to 1024X1024 square textures. You can do any type of mapping method you want as far as I know. UVW Unwrapping and so forth." Torpid: "More detailed answers are preferred...5. Animations for other models such as ships and rotating turrets are don by simple pivot animation ? " LA: 5. Hierarchy -- Anything that uses a turret like an infantry turret is set up in XML through the engine. In max you need a small hierarchy of bones skinned into a mesh. B_Base -> B_Turret -> B_Barrel -> MuzzleA_00 B_Base is the parent of all the other children. B_Turret is the bone that rotates the top gun. B_Barrel is the bone that controls the up and down pivot of the muzzle of the turret. MuzzleA_00 us the firing bone that the laser or projectile comes out of… the pivot point always needs to have X axis facing toward the target. Torpid: "Good, you're advancing. And what about the: 6. LOD system how many do you have. " LA: "Nice humour you scum....6. LODs work with a simple naming convention in max. here is an example; EB_InfantryTurret_LOD2 (this being the highest level LOD) and so on… EB_InfantryTurret_LOD1 … EB_InfantryTurret_LOD0 (LOD0 the lowest vert number)" Torpid: "7. Shields are done in seperate file or are they the part of the model file." LA: "7. Shields are done inside the max file. It is a mesh that covers the outside of the ship and uses the DX9 shader called MeshShield.fx. The Alamo utility is set up with transform and geometry tuned on and hidden checked on. " (....Dark Troopers are loading their guns and sniping all over Torpid....) Torpid: "8. Does lighting need a lighting map or is it done automaticly by the engine." LA: "8. Lighting is done in the engine only. No vertex lighting is supported from max" Torpid: "And finally you low-IQ dude....9. Any other map is used such as bump map deffuse map specular map and so on ??" LA: "*evil laugh*.......your end is close but here it goes, the last words you'll ever hear! 9. If you have the max DX9 shaders for the game (not sure if they are in the patch) you can input normal maps and color maps through each type of shader; MeshBumpColorize.fx is an example of a shader used on a Star Destroyer!" Dark Troopers are loading up their guns and ready to fire........ Torpid makes a ninja-move, throws couple of gas grenades, pulls apart the rope and runs for the window........ Lasers are like the only atmospheric element at this moment all trying to hit Torpid (you know, stormies' accuracy *cough cough*)... Just about when a shot seems to hit Torpid, he breaks the windows and makes a free fall out of 2 klm height and......... .......he splashed in a very cool way on the ground (no grass, plain road), due to bad timing with Delphi-PG (he was supposed to be in an A-Wing outside of the window...) --------------------------------------- Well, out of the record, Torpid got in the rebel hospital (the lift for 501st legion and Dark troops wasnt fixed last week due to DS2 needs for cash...) and was make like a mummy, with only the eyes left free to look ;D. But hey, this guy deserves a big *WOOT* from the community! Now we all have all the info needed to get the models we want to see in the game!!! Enjoy! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildcat' Posted May 19, 2006 Share Posted May 19, 2006 Thanks! Darth Torpid go in there and take em out! The animation stuff really comes in handy. I animated my Bastila model and she wouldn't move ingame.....I forgot the transform option ('doh) Also Darth Torpid is a Sith Lord? Hence Darth...so he kills sith when he's the Sith Lord....awesome! Oh and can we get more info on the shaders? some seem not to work for me. So I have to use the gloss (only one that works for me other than additive) and have my human characters looks shiny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Master Nikolaos Posted May 19, 2006 Share Posted May 19, 2006 I also think this should be stickied. This information is useful to A LOT of modders. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whiteflash Posted May 19, 2006 Share Posted May 19, 2006 me 2 they stickied it over at pff and is useful to serious modders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PoiuyWired Posted May 20, 2006 Share Posted May 20, 2006 Ding!! Problem solved. Definitely need a Sticky. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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