Quanon Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 The tutorial thread can be found here: CLICK Hello again! What a bump and thread necromancy! Har har har! I'm back with a new set of tutorials about area modelling and everything envolved around it. Looking back these old vids just don't do it anymore. As to be expected my own skill has grown a bit and I discovered a lot more about area modelling. Therefore I decided to make some new vids about the whole thing. Hopefully this will help people or give more experienced modders some tips. Mind this tutorial thing, just shows how I do things. Its my own personal style on how to handle the area modelling... eh.. thing What I want to say is that, this isn't what you MUST do. It just worked ok for me so far. If by chance you know better ways of doing this, then by all means enlighten me and your fellow modders! This is all made to send you on your merry way and create awesome new areas to explore in the game. Anyway to business; I'll keep the links to my old tutorial vids untill everything is covered again in the new vids. After that I'll "kill" them off, so no one can get confused. Cause, well, I'm quiet chaotic Well, here's the first new batch of vids; these first six parts deal with making and setting up a walkmesh. Now six parts sounds a lot, well there's a lot to show and talk about, cause walkmeshes are a very important part of your model. Just watch Walkmesh tutorial: First 4 parts are in 3Ds Max, how to create your walkmesh and how to work with it in Kaurora. PART I PART II PART III PART IV Last 2 parts are about several key files: .vis and .lyt files and the .are, .git and .ifo files. PART V PART VI => This one is now uploaded! Texturing and UVWmapping: Vid-tutorial in 4 parts, all about how to UVWmap and texture your area. PARTI PARTII PARTIII PARTIV -------------- OLD STUFF -------------- EDIT: This where you ask questions about my tutorial. Hello, The last few days I've been writing down a tutorial on how to model a new area. This thread is also made to put all the info together I made on this subject. Last year I made some videos about this aswell. You'll find them all here. Though these vids are a bit older they should still be very usefull and should complement my writen tutorial. Though my new written tutorial overrules, there some silly thing I do in my video, mainly about converting the Editable Poly to Editable Mesh as one of the last steps. That was wrong, convert to editable mesh before you start texturing is my advice now. You'll have less trouble with stretched and ugly textures. The videos are perhaps more detailed all the way. So if you feel you need to know more look up a video part on that subject. If there is any Now the written tutorial also comes with a .mod and a .lyt file. This is so you can quickly test out your own modelled results. For more and better detailed info on .mod files for an area have look at this tutorial by my friend Marius Fett:Custome Module After that peek into my .mod file and laugh Okay the link to my tutorial: CLICK Links to my videos about modelling an area: Part 1-4: Starting and all about modelling: PART1 PART2 PART3 PART4 Part 5-8: Texturing the model: PART5 PART6 PART7 PART8 Part 9-11: Aurorabase, AuroraLight and exporting. PART9 PART10 PART11 Part 12: The .mod file: PART12 Part 13: Last details and test run: PART13 Have fun and good luck with the modding Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HK-42 Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 Nice I'll be checking it out. By the way is it 3ds max only? Or can you use gmax? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Fett Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 ^Half and half. It's alot easier to do in Max, but as Sithspecter demonstrated in the past, it's possible to come with some pretty nice results in GMax too... It's just a matter of adapting the instructions you receive to fit GMax... GMax is just a heavily edited version of Max 4 (it had a lot of features removed) but it's still possible to most things that you'll need for KotOR. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HK-42 Posted January 27, 2009 Share Posted January 27, 2009 ^Half and half. It's alot easier to do in Max, but as Sithspecter demonstrated in the past, it's possible to come with some pretty nice results in GMax too... It's just a matter of adapting the instructions you receive to fit GMax... GMax is just a heavily edited version of Max 4 (it had a lot of features removed) but it's still possible to most things that you'll need for KotOR. Is there any way to do rings around the poly(room) in gmax as the option isnt there unlike 3ds Max. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quanon Posted January 27, 2009 Author Share Posted January 27, 2009 Is there any way to do rings around the poly(room) in gmax as the option isnt there unlike 3ds Max. I fear this one of those things that got implemented in later versions of Max. Gmax users will have to do some thinking as you don't have the options to easly change things on the fly. I'll be honest, newer Max versions will give more speed, though it should be possible to do same stuff. Though I can't really show you myself, I've been pampered by these modern 3D modelling stuff. It'll require practice to get something out of GMax. And lately I'm real lazy Still the important parts, about the Walkmesh, Aurorabase... etc are the same regardless of what program you use. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Silveredge9 Posted February 1, 2009 Share Posted February 1, 2009 Nice of you to document all this. I've been meaning for a while now to get into modeling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sketch42 Posted February 2, 2009 Share Posted February 2, 2009 sweet!!!! cant wait to see what you got when i get home from work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miltiades Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I have a question, Q. I worked out a little room, using your tutorial, and everything went well until I warped to it in the game. It's all dark, I can only see the PC. I, personally, think it's something to do with the .lyt file. The fact that I've created a new .mod file means I need a new .lyt file (right?). Changing the name of the .lyt file to the name of my .mod file doesn't work. I tried HEX editing, but I'm not sure I did it right. When I do, though, the game crashes when loading the module. I must say I haven't textured anything. I skipped that part for now, just to see a first result. Don't think that should've been a problem. Any idea what's wrong here? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth InSidious Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Milt, did you set a SunAmbientColor in the .are? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quanon Posted February 23, 2009 Author Share Posted February 23, 2009 I, personally, think it's something to do with the .lyt file. The fact that I've created a new .mod file means I need a new .lyt file (right?). Changing the name of the .lyt file to the name of my .mod file doesn't work. I tried HEX editing, but I'm not sure I did it right. When I do, though, the game crashes when loading the module. Euh.. hexedit ??? the .lyt file is just a textfile, you can open it with notepad. There isn't much info in the file. Milt, did you set a SunAmbientColor in the .are? Yes, setting the SunAmbientColor and Diffuse in the .are might help To get good numbers for the color use Glovemasters 3 Byte RGB Code Calculator: v1.6 Though it is possible to light the area without setting those. I did it all the time, but SilverEdge had troubles aswell to light the area... odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miltiades Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Milt, did you set a SunAmbientColor in the .are? *sigh* No, I didn't. Euh.. hexedit ??? the .lyt file is just a textfile, you can open it with notepad. Doesn't really matter what program I open it with, I think. Since I used your .lyt file, it has a reference to your module. But maybe editing it with notepad will give better results. But I should first try to set the SubAmbientColor... Thanks, both. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apocc Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 hello everyone I have another question... when I want to model more than one room/area, what must I put inside the .lyt and .vis files for the module to work... it's kinda confusing and I'm german... so ignore all mistakes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quanon Posted February 23, 2009 Author Share Posted February 23, 2009 I have another question... when I want to model more than one room/area, what must I put inside the .lyt and .vis files for the module to work... it's kinda confusing Welcom to the forums ! To answer you're question. I guess the whole room/ area thing is confusing. An area is made out of several rooms most of the times, in my tutorial its just 1 room. As I just want to show the basics how to create such a thing. Now lets say, we have an area made out of 3 rooms: - Left room (1) - Corridor/ hallway (2) - Right room (3) Its best to model this in one go, then cut your model up. Then export each part out seperatly, so that you would have 3 rooms. To let the game now, you're using 3 models/rooms you need to mention that in the .lyt file. An example: the comments inbetween the brackets shouldn't be in the real .lyt. #MAXLAYOUT ASCII filedependancy QGMTest.max beginlayout roomcount 3 ( this here says, how many rooms make up the area) QGMTest_01a 0.0 0.0 0.0 ( Rightroom) QGMTest_01b 0.0 0.0 0.0 (corridor) QGMTest_01c 0.0 0.0 0.0 ( Leftroom) trackcount 0 obstaclecount 0 doorhookcount 0 donelayout On the .vis; honestly I never bothered and used this file. Most of my areas are small compared to Biowares and Obsidians. The .vis tells the game what is visible from where. example: In the Righroom you can only see the corridor. In the corridor you can see both rooms. In the Lefroom you only see the corridor. That is, very simply said, what a .vis does. Again I never used one... so its still a bit of a mystery for me to Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apocc Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Ok... no .vis file... thing less to care about... and thx for the quick reply I'll try it and maybe ask some more silly questions... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferc Kast Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Out of curiousity, is there an easy way to make a hole in a wall for a doorway or door? Other than that, it seems like a great tutorial. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Fett Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Ferc, what I usually do, (which is probably the long, hard way knowing my luck) is import the door model I want to use, get rid of everything except the bits you see ingame, position it where I would want my doorway to be on a wall, and do the boolean object thing to make she shape.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sharen Thrawn Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Fantastic tutorial Q! I checked it, and I think it's great and very noob-friendly! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferc Kast Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 Ferc, what I usually do, (which is probably the long, hard way knowing my luck) is import the door model I want to use, get rid of everything except the bits you see ingame, position it where I would want my doorway to be on a wall, and do the boolean object thing to make the shape.. In layman's terms, please? (Sorry; I don't understand the bolded phrase.) I understood what to do up until that point, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marius Fett Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I don't have Max on this machine atm, so I can't give you any screenshots or anything i'm afraid... Hmmz, you use GMax, right? I'm not sure if you can use Booleans in GMax.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Darth InSidious Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 In layman's terms, please? (Sorry; I don't understand the bolded phrase.) I understood what to do up until that point, though. Boolean object is a function in Max. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ferc Kast Posted February 23, 2009 Share Posted February 23, 2009 I don't have Max on this machine atm, so I can't give you any screenshots or anything i'm afraid... Hmmz, you use GMax, right? I'm not sure if you can use Booleans in GMax.. I'm using a trial version of Max at the moment and have GMax also. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quanon Posted February 24, 2009 Author Share Posted February 24, 2009 Ahem, Boolean is a somewhat EVIL function. You'll be able to use like twice before you'll get crap. Let me try to explain how I do it. First get a door from the game you would like to use. Lets say a door model from Nar Shaddaa. You'll need to get that model out of KotorTools. Then using the import of NWmax bring the door in a new empty scene. One door model of Kotor is made out of lots of parts, just select the whole bunch. Then in the top menu, go to Group. Save that scene with door. Open your room model, then in the top menu, go to File=> Merge... Look up your saved scene with the door. Pick that one and hit open, you'll get a new window: listing all the 3D objects in that scene. There should only be one: Group 1 == your door. Hit OK and the door should now be in your scene with your room model. Position that door where you want it. Then its a matter of connecting edges to setup the "hole" where the door needs to go. Hmmz... I better put this in a tutorial aswell, guess some helpfull tips are in order for the bigger more complicated models Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quanon Posted February 24, 2009 Author Share Posted February 24, 2009 Okay you chumps, I recorded a piece, on how I do holes for doors... most of the times tha link: CLICK MEH YEAAAAAAAAHH Its without audio, I've added some text pop-ups here and there, just look, m'kay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
apocc Posted February 25, 2009 Share Posted February 25, 2009 just a question to area lighting... my problem: a new module with 3 rooms - each with a different lightcolour (just for testing ) when I set SunAmbientColor and Diffuse to 0 then it's all dark and else the whole area has one lightcolour... is it possible to change that so each "room" got a different colour as it's set in gmax?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quanon Posted February 25, 2009 Author Share Posted February 25, 2009 just a question to area lighting... my problem: a new module with 3 rooms - each with a different lightcolour (just for testing ) when I set SunAmbientColor and Diffuse to 0 then it's all dark and else the whole area has one lightcolour... is it possible to change that so each "room" got a different colour as it's set in gmax?? Hmmm, how weird you guys get dark areas... without setting the Sunambient/ diffuse thing... Thought to anwser you're question, try to put on the Ambient flag in the AuroraDlight. So you need to put "on" three things: Fading Light Ambient and last one; Is Dynamic light. Let me know if that works I'll have to do some tests to see where this odd problem of darkness comes from... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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