sithlord-II Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 ok guys, i'll start up this thread for anyone asking questions, etc we can try and compile some info here until spacemonkey's tutorials are available until then i'll be glad to try and help out in any way possible, and i'm sure the other guys will try too Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 ok this is my main problem: its an error message that occurs when i'm trying to create the glm... it says it cant process because of cubic scale keys... my model is the default kyle model + new textures and a trenchcoat i imported it.. added the trenchcoat and weighted the vertices (in the laziest way there is... all to one bone) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sithlord-II Posted May 11, 2002 Author Share Posted May 11, 2002 ok for cubic scale errors... this seems to be happening to people in europe Bloodriot told me of this fix: it is because of the way windows handles decimals and commas in the european setup for windows. The cubic error is because as 3d studio 4's xsi import/export is trying to write some temp files, instead of using decimals windows forces it to use commas, causing the cubic scale error to fix this, you need to set your number system up to US, not EU try this out, and see how it works Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Cloak Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 Okay...I don't know if this really counts as a modeling question, but it's an import question of sorts. I tried to replace the reborn model in single player with a different one (Aurra), and...well, what I did was I renamed the aurra folder in the pk3 to reborn...and it used the REBORN model and the AURRA skin...any way to get it to use the model? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sithlord-II Posted May 11, 2002 Author Share Posted May 11, 2002 actually i noticed that spacemonkey posted this fix that is pretty wierd, i haven't seen that must have something to do with the skin files, take a look back thru there - since there are several different reborn models, they may all reference the same GLM file, and use different skin files.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeepFish><>J Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 crap, sorry, i didnt see THIS thread when i posted mine.... this a copy/paste of that "Body Parts Question" *** im at the stage where my model is complete, and im disecting it into parts for animation and hierarchy structre.... now which parts of the body are ABSOLUTELY necessary? i mean i know torso, hips, head, arms, hands are necessary, but what about wrist? in kyle's model, all it does is hide a part of hand's mesh, kind of combining hand and upper arm... but in stormtrooper i didnt find any wrist... so im kinda confused, which parts are necessary for hierarchy, and whic parts are model specific, ex: shoulder pads, knee pads, wrists?, etc. also, tag placement.... so far i just selected all the tag all at once, and moved them over to my mesh, but how do i exactly place them? as i understand, tags serve a purpose of detecting where body was hit with a lightsaber... for decapitation. so far my tags dont line up with body part, so do i move them over to where the objects meet each other, example, hand meets arm, or do i just leave them where they are right now, which dont seem to be quite accurate for my model, since its a bit different from the kyle's or stormtrooper. hope all of the above makes any sence for someone to explain P.S. my model turned out to be a whooping 3086 polys... thats after the optimisation... is this too much? should i chop off a bit more polys? im not gonna include any lods for it, since i have no idea on how to do them, without actually remodeling the whole thing all over again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madjai Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 what program do you use? if your using gmax or 3ds max you can simply copy your model and fool around with the optimize setting under the modifier list or just select all the vertices and weld them together at larger distances. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sithlord-II Posted May 11, 2002 Author Share Posted May 11, 2002 the wrists, shoulders, etc are not necessary what you should have though are the arms, legs, hips, etc, torso, head and for tags, you can actually get the models ingame without any tags... but if you want them to actually hold a weapon, you need at the very least bolt_r_hand and for collision, you need the rest that is what the tags are for, i believe, since you have different tags for front, right, left, back, etc of the head, as well as for the torso, shoulders, elbows, wrist all the tags go back into each respective body part basically, wherever the tags are located, they link to that part of the skeleton, as well as linking to the respective mesh body part.ie elbow to arm, anything torso to torso, etc but one different thing, is the 6 pelvis tags go to torso and the tags for the caps, they go to the body part they are in front of - ie arrow pointing up, for the hips_cap_torso_off cap, links to the torso, and the arrow pointing down, for torso_cap_hips_off, links to the pelvis/hips all body parts link back to the hips hand to arm, arm to torso, torso to hips etc legs to hips then hips go to the tag stupidtriangle_off and 3000 isn't too much... but... i'm playing around with LOD models right now, i would recommend looking into lower detail versions for the model, because if we have all user created models running at 3000 polys each, that will start to choke some systems... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DeepFish><>J Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 Sithlord, thank you SO MUCH !!!! any tips on how to create lods from an existing model? im using MAX4.2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaberPro Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 I'm new at modeling and skinning. How do you even get ModView and MD3View to work? I just simply opened them up, tried to open the files with the same extension as required (from asset0/model/...) This should be an easy one Thanks in advance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sithlord-II Posted May 11, 2002 Author Share Posted May 11, 2002 ok to get those to work, all you really have to do is extract them to a directory... thats all it took for me i know some people have had problems with getting 'unspecified system call' or something along those lines but those are basically just model viewing tools, not for creation or anything... i just extracted those tools to a folder c:\base\ nothing too complicated... altho i know some other people have had troubles if i hear anything about this i'll post Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord -=[FBF]=- Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 ok, this has been buggin me for a while now, and i cant find an answer, so ill ask you guys: skinmapping. in gmax. how? im guessing from some 3dsmax tutorials that its called UV Wrapping, but how do you do it? and is this even the right thing? all i want is to be able to tell my model what image files to get the skin from, and which part of the image coresponds to which bit of model, cos all i get ingame currently is white. this is probably really simple, but if anyone can help i would apreciate it. thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacermonkey Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 theres a tutorial on uvw mapping here; its too much to explain in a single post so read the tute that should help explain things. http://www.coronaleonis.com/hyptut.htm#3D%20Studio%20Max:%20Skinmapping%20Part%204 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord -=[FBF]=- Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 thanks, spacermonkey. 1 question tho: where are the UV Wrap and UVW Unwrap buttons in gmax? should i be looking in the modifiers list, or elsewhere? (damn i wish i could afford 3dsmax!!) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Madjai Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 yes its under the modifiers list, near the bottom Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 woot! it works... created a GLM .. wheeeee! hehe but how do i create the skin files? when i try to load it in modviev then it says: missing animation file _humanoid for mesh model.glm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacermonkey Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 Assimilate This is the program that we use to convert our models in to glm files. It attaches the humanoid.gla , the animation file that Raven use to our own models. Firstly our models must be segmented, uvwmapped, all the verts must be weighted and the hierarchy must setup before we can successfully export to be assimilated. You have to export your model from max using the xsi exporter that Raven included in the first tool release. Now we need to extract the humanoid.gla file from our assets0.pk3. You can find it in your base folder,C:\Program Files\LucasArts\Star Wars JK II Jedi Outcast\GameData\base\asset0.pk3 I chose to unzip the full contents onto my harddisc, this was so that I could view the file structure they used and also because I'm nosey and like to have a look at all the things included. If you go to models/players/humanoid directory you will find the humanoid.gla .Dont move it, you need for it to be in this folder because when you compile your model the game engine will look to the humanoid folder to get the animations. Basically this was done so that all the characters could share the same animations without the need of bulking up the game contents by adding 19megs of animations for each character. Now we have our folder structure and we can export our model (xsi format) into the humanoid folder. Open assimilate - the front end program for the compiler carcass. Select the add file option and add the humanoid gla. Go to the control panel and press B - for build and assimilate will ask you what you want to save your .car file as. You can save it as anything you like, but I recomend you save it as model.car . save it to the same folder so you know where it is but its not important. Then carcass will compile everything. If theres an error it will tell you so that you can fix the problems. Ok now you should have succesfully compiled a glm. This glm will be called model.glm or whatever you called the .car file. when you come to actually putting it in game it needs to be called model.glm but for now it can be called anything. Open Modview and load your new glm. Now you will see your model animated in modview. This is a good time to check that you have got the hierarchy setup and also check that your model is deforming well. Getting a skin on your model But wait your model wont show any skins. What you need to do is copy a default.skin file from another player characters folder. Inside it (open it with notepad) you will see lines like this; hips,models/players/desann/legs.tga r_leg,models/players/desann/legs.tga r_leg_cap_hips_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga l_leg,models/players/desann/legs.tga l_leg_cap_hips_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga hips_cap_l_leg_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga hips_cap_torso_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga hips_cap_r_leg_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga hips_armor,models/players/desann/tunic.tga torso,models/players/desann/torso.tga l_arm,models/players/desann/torso.tga l_hand,models/players/desann/hand_right.tga l_hand_cap_l_arm_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga l_arm_cap_l_hand_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga l_arm_cap_torso_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga r_arm,models/players/desann/torso.tga r_hand,models/players/desann/hand_right.tga r_hand_cap_r_arm_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga r_arm_cap_r_hand_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga r_arm_cap_torso_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga r_arm_pad,models/players/desann/tunic.tga torso_cap_head_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga torso_cap_hips_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga torso_cap_l_arm_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga torso_cap_r_arm_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga torso_armor,models/players/desann/tunic.tga head,models/players/desann/neck_mouth.tga head_cap_torso_off,models/players/stormtrooper/caps.tga head_face,models/players/desann/face.tga This is taken from Desann's defualt skin file. Basically its a list of directories telling the game engine where to find all the skins for the model. Each line in it refers to a single segment of the mesh. As you may have grasped the majority of the files are all in the models/players/desann directory. This is because its convienant, however this also allows we, the people making custom models to have our own skins for our own models. So create a new folder in your players dir called mymodel. copy your model.glm into it and then alter the default skin file so that it links all of your mesh to your skins. Now copy your skins into the same folder and your away. If you have created red and blue skins then you can also create .skin files for them also. Except instead of being called model_default.skin they would be called model_blue.skin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 thx alot.. i now have a working glm... but when i want to start a server and test it.. then the game crashes... erm just noticed that i didnt replace the fade.tga file.. its still the old one... and i'm using greyscale textures.. might that be a problem? it works fin in modview .. but... dunno.... everything else should be set up properly... i've got all required skin files.. all textures.. the model...and the animsound.cfg file any ideas? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 hm.. kay i managed to get into the game and started a server.. but when i wanted to choose my new kyle it told me that the model was missing a bone or animation sequence and it switched to the normal kyle... so what am i doing wrong?` bones are all in there... but i weighted all vertices to the pelvis bone.. might this be the prob? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacermonkey Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 try weighting the model more seriously, I remember I had that error once but I cant remember how I overcame it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 hm whats the 'main' bone? i think its the pelvis.. seems to be the parent of all lil kiddy bones (the others) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 grxflx--- mkay i'm sorry for spamming this thread but.... i think i can model well but i'm still a beginner with the technicals i've never used the skin modifier before... i'm going to weigth the legs, the arms, the pelvis/torso and the head... but what happens if some vertices are double weighted? is there a way to weight all unweighted vertices to a bone? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 11, 2002 Share Posted May 11, 2002 gaaawd i feel so stupid... lol damn skin modifier totally confuses me.. need to find some tuts about them.. but at least it works in some kind of weird way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacermonkey Posted May 12, 2002 Share Posted May 12, 2002 you can have multiple weights on each vert - but jk2 will only allow you to have upto 4 different weights per vert. Click the verts tab in the skin modifier and select a vert manually then u can type in a manuel weight value, 1 being full - 0.5 being half. This will only work if you have already got it assigned to more than one bone tho. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BacMeth Posted May 12, 2002 Share Posted May 12, 2002 boah fu*k i cant handle that... messing around with the envelopes... extreemly slow and time consuming...grrr what a pain....tried that paint weight function.. made max crash.. lost more time... had to start over anyway... why is this running so slow?as soon as i go to envelope mode i get like 3 frames... wtf? *yawns* i'll start over again.. tomorrow! playing morrowind now...if anyone knows a link for a skin modifier tutorial then plz tell me thx in advance... /me worships spacemonkey for the great help! thx monkay .. keep up the great work... cant hardly wait for your tut EDIT sorry for sounding that .... impolite.. i'm tired Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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