Triumvirate Lords Of The Third Dimension

[TriggerGod]

...

 

blood and battle damage? Why, whats that supposed to be? I'm thinking that Manann place, then I thought Mon Calamari for some reason.

 

if by razor, you mean the Exile and his lightsaber, then probably...

[Quanon]

Mon Calamari?

 

Nah, its indeed closer to the Manaan affair.

 

Work continues, I've added some of my own made placeables to my "residential" area.

There still some quirks, mostly a bad UVW or bright glow effect missing, easly fixed.

 

What I struggle more with is the actuall placeable walkmesh. I've been following GloveMasters tutorial. I have like 0 errors or troubles while making the thing.

 

But when I use it in the game, my whole area becomes NON-walkable...

So far I'm a bit clueless on how I could fix it: perhaps its something simple; like lift the placeable up a few small inches. Dunno... its just annoying.

 

Anyway didn't stop from adding them and have a test run, so I proudly show you some results:

 

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And one with BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOODDD

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But its a dark area so its not that red or very visible in the shot

[disbeliever]

And you got that glow with the tutorial you just posted?

[disbeliever]

Q, with your lightmap tutorial for shadows, do you need to fast link the omni light you created to the aururabase for export? Does it get gemo exported out with the rest of your model?

[disbeliever]

Edit: when i try to fastlink the omni lights to the AB it links, but when I click export, i get an error for "diffusemap".

 

How do I get this in game with a scene that has an AB?

[disbeliever]

Here is the debug error that pops up

 

if (mat.diffusemap== undefined or mat.diffusemap.filename==undefined) then

(

return (mat.name)

)

 

return (getfilenamefile mat.diffusemap.filename)

)

 

* my steps were:

 

1. open my area buildings file that was already done and exported and put in game(this file has buildings and walkmesh).

2. Add 2 omni lights

3. follow your tutorial for setting up properties for the 2 lights, one light was set to max 1 the other .1. (I seelcted all geometry including my walkmesh)

4. Render to texture, add in all paremeters you said.

5. it renders out all textures and gives them all an automated flattened UV.

6. I select all objects and fastlink to AB

7. I click export geom and it fails due to this diffuse crap.

 

So what did I do wrong? I even deleted the omni lights and tried to export geom, and it failed with the above code.

[Quanon]

Oh No DIS! Hold your horses!

 

The Lightmap thing doesn't work yet, nor do you need the OMNI lights.

The omni lights are only need to render the lightmaps. After that they've done their job and can be scrapped out of the picture.

 

There like 2 ways to get a glow effect:

 

Set a Aurora Trimesh modifier on any mesh, preferably one that does the job as light tube or whatever

In there you should find Self Illum, next to that is like a black box/ rectangle.

Double click on it and a new window come up.

 

Its one where you can pick a colour: though the only thing you need to do is drag the black to white.

 

Thats about it.

 

Another option is to make a TXI file for a light texture.

 

This small text is in the TXI file (remember those are just notepad files saved as .TXI)

 

decal 1

envmaptexture CM_Bright

 

Though the stronger the Sun ambient and Sundiffuse values (in the .are file) are, the less you see of this glow.

It comes out strong in my areas, because its quite dark in there.

[disbeliever]

Q,

I am trying to get shadows in my area, not glowy textures:) Sorry if I mistyped my intentions.

 

I want shadows in my area. I set up the omni lights near where the sun is in my skybox.

 

Is this not the way to go about getting shadows in?

[Sithspecter]

We can't do the shadows until Magnus gets us the updated tools.

[Quanon]

Dis: Just like SS said.

 

At the moment we can't do shadows properly.

 

I've only posted that tutorial because a lot our peeps here didn't know where to look for all the lightmap stuff.

The minute MagnusII gives us a new Kaurora, we can start having shadows.

Though it'll be new for me aswell.

[disbeliever]

my mistake I liked the shading it gave all of my buildings and floor though in 3dsm

[magnusll]

Patience, will soon do those tests and with any luck you'll have a lightmap-enabled KAurora

[disbeliever]

How would that work with NWN for max? would that be updated too?

[Quanon]

Yes, MagnusII had to rewrite some code in NWmax to.

 

I guess to avoid the error you encountered on the Diffuse thing.

 

A note on the lights: I only used 2 lights just to show the very basics.

You can add many more lights, as many as you need or like to have.

 

It all depends on what you're creating. But once you got the lightmaps it might be good to hide or just delete the Omni Lights. Bring me to another point. Omnis are not the only kind of lights

 

There are a few other kinds in there, which might proof usefull.

But no need start running, before we can walk... crawll

[disbeliever]

Sounds good, cant wait. I liked the lighting texture my buildings and floor got after rendering in max. Cant wait to see it in game itll bring a allot more depth

[Quanon]

Indeed it does. I believe this will really make our areas works of "art".

 

I still find it weird that the Aurora Engine doesn't have lights that are used like the omni lights in 3Ds Max.

 

Going back to my Unreal and Jedi Academy level building, you had lights in those editors the game used. You did need to build/compile/render the VIS data in the level editors.

 

Which I guess anwsers my question

Seeing as those engines have actually a level editing tool build for them using, I guess the same engine.

 

Bioware seems to have skipped this part and used some heavy altered 3Ds Max or Maya( can't be sure what they actually used.)

It seems to be habbit to change once in awhile for devellopers. Once read an interview with one of the guys of Relic, creators of Homeworld and Dawn of War, they like to give another software package a change.

[disbeliever]

patiently waiting

[disbeliever]

Question for you guys:

 

Why is it that everytime I try to open up an ascii file from an existing area, taris (m02ab_02j) for example, why can I not reexport it out and use it?

 

Or why can I not cut out pieces I want to use and put it in my model file?

[TriggerGod]

Bioware seems to have skipped this part and used some heavy altered 3Ds Max or Maya( can't be sure what they actually used.)

After looking at some of the textures that Obsidian left in the assets, it looks like Bioware used some kind of GMax (or the 3ds Max version that GMax is based off of. What version is that? 3ds 4?) to model (or at least UV Map). If you look at either the space suit texture or the Iridonian suit texture (I can't remember which..), there are the white boxes reminescent of GMax's UV Map set up. After going through more textures, it looks like Obsidian took a step up and used the latest version of 3ds (at the time) to model/map. I think it was Terena Adare's head texture that had the lines of 3ds Max's map set up.

[Quanon]

@Dis: Reexporting should work, well kind off. Most game areas have a lot of info that MDLops doesn't translate to ASCII or ignores and f*cks up.

 

Certainly on walkmeshes, lights and lots of dummy objects. So when your reexport you mostly get a broken model.

 

You can use re use parts of area models, just reset x form them heavily and relink them to a new Aurorabase. Expect to remap them aswell.

 

But you'll never be able, at this point in time, to re-use a walkmesh, these always get broken somehow.

[disbeliever]

I have decided I want my area to truly be an extension of the upper city and to truly look like it belongs sitting below the upper city.

 

I have extracted m02_ab which is upper city north.

 

I am trying to take buildings from these models, and put them in my area. I delete all helpers, walkmeshes etc. So all i am left with is the models. however I seem to still get errors on putting it in game.

 

I have been going through every aspect of the upper city north files trying to learn more about how bioware modeled things. I am curious about a few things:

 

1. I notice when I import a model of theirs(for example m02_ab_02j) it is nowhere near coords x,y,z 0,0,0 but is WAYYYY off the grid. I know when we model areas, at least according to your tutorial, its best to start everything on 0,0,0. Why did bioware not do things this way?

 

2. I know discussions of lightmaps have een going on lately. My question is, how did bioware export them from 3dsm and get them in game? Does anyone really know, or are we just trying to "get it to work" with the tools we are using?

 

3. What specifically about animations causes issues for us to get in game? What specifically is the problems in being able to make our own animations? For example, i open up the model of flying ships. I delete out all buildings and things I do not need, leaving only the flying ship animations. I reposition the animation, use the same aururabase, epxport our geom and animation, go to put it in game and it crashes a horrid death. Is this just as you said, the tools were using leaving things out on conversion using mdlops?

[Quanon]

1. Devellopers have a few rounds of meetings: in there they must discuss what the pipeline will be. This just a guide on how things get done and made. If you're working with lots of people you need a sort of procedure. Else things will bog down, due to its size.

 

No doubt they've looked into on how to setup their 3D programmes, had people wiht the skills to write plugins and other niffty handy things. To get the job done more fluently.

 

I do know about they don't follow the 0, 0, 0 method like I do. I just do it because it was more simple for me to do it this way. My tutorial gives an insight on how I like to do things. Doesn't mean its the only way or that it is even the smartest.

 

2. Just like I said above: Bioware might have had special tools for this or adepted Max to go and work perfectly with their engine. Saddly we have no idea, so for us its a real quest to find our own way of doing it. No doubt it might end up close to what Bioware did. But yeah, its kind of guessing the way in a maze in the pitch black night.

 

3. For animations I just lack the knowledge on the whole technicale thing... I have no idea why it doesn't work. Though its clear there is a big differance between objects that do animations and those that get used in animations.

 

Take a sword model, the thing isn't animated on its self, but gets used in lots of animations.

 

Lightsabers seem to be a mix, a switch on and off anim and being swirled around.

 

It seems the dummy objects are important, to get things in the right place and stuff... and this is a pain point in MDLops.

 

 

Really no clue on this

[TriggerGod]

1. After taking some cursory looks at some of the module models, it looks like they placed them that way so that they can get coordinates for the files easier. Its been a while, but try importing all the area models from one specific module and see if they all align up, similar/exactly to what the room looks like in game. No doubt that they had to do some editing to get them perfect in game.

 

2. Still trying to figure that out. Probably works the way that Quanon said it did in his tut. Now we just have to wait for the next version of KA to actually do it.

 

3. @Q: I'm working on a model for the lightsaber, based on the sword that Travis Touchdown has in the game No More Heroes. His sword is mysteriously similar to the lightsaber, as it has a beam that cuts through basically everything. I think they called it the Beamsaber. It has this attachment on the side that, when its activated, extends while the blade emits from the hilt. As I said, I am working on that model, and I am looking into how the lightsaber animations work. So far, from what I'm seeing, the dummy ends up doing more work then the planes do. It looks like the planes don't extend at all, it looks like when it starts, the planes are invisible, (equivalent to an all black texture, which I'm sure I have seen in KTool) and the saber that comes from the dummy under the planes is animated. After its all activated, the planes get the texture in the standard files/override folder.

 

I doubt any of that crock is correct at all.

[magnusll]

1) Bioware used another program (whose name I can't remember now) to create the overall area maps, subsequently importing the files produced by that program into 3dsmax for the heavy-duty modeling work. This is most likely the reason why you won't find them at (0; 0; 0): the original program placed the various area parts into their final positions relative to the overall zone design.

 

2) I know perfectly well how Bioware used lightmaps in the game engine. It is not really difficult, as they used them just the same way they used the main textures, so once those were figured out the lightmaps followed in a pretty obvious way. The only missing piece of info is how to "rebuild" the original vertex structure of the lightmap texture, because the Kotor engine (and thus the export scripts Bioware used) doesn't like having model, texture and lightmap having a different number of vertices (which is the result you get whenever you use the 3dsmax model optimization functions which are on by default). This is the only doubt left and one which I will solve soon enough.

The other problem (now solved) was to modify the NWN export scripts to allow them to export lightmap data along with everything else. The modifications I wrote do just that, allowing KAurora to read the lightmap info and record it into its proper place in the .mdl and .mdx files. All you need is then to include the .tga texture itself (or themselves if more than one) into the module package, as you already do with the main textures.

 

3) Animations (especially for characters) require the ability to handle much more node types (like skinmeshes) which are currently outside the capability of Kaurora. MDLops went just a little bit further than the [what was at the time of its last release] state of the art knowledge about the data structure you can find in model files. I have been able to go much beyond and would indeed be able to code functions to properly handle things like the bone weights structure which have never been properly decoded before. Unfortunately writing that code takes a big amount of spare time, of which I have few at the moment. So... you'll have to wait

[disbeliever]

Interesting Information guys