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Modelling an new area!


Quanon

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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 :lol:

 

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 :lol:

 

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

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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 :lol:

 

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 :lol:

 

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 ;)

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^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. :)

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^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.

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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 :lol:

 

Still the important parts, about the Walkmesh, Aurorabase... etc are the same regardless of what program you use.

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  • 3 weeks later...

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?

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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 :lol:

 

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.

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Milt, did you set a SunAmbientColor in the .are?
*sigh* No, I didn't. :p

 

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.

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hello everyone

:waive1::waive1:

 

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 :nut:

 

and I'm german... so ignore all mistakes... :D:D

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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 :nut:

 

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 :)

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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. :)

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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 :p

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just a question to area lighting...

my problem:

a new module with 3 rooms - each with a different lightcolour (just for testing :D)

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??

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just a question to area lighting...

my problem:

a new module with 3 rooms - each with a different lightcolour (just for testing :D)

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...

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