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Tutorial: Saber Modelling for Poor Noobs


snakeeyesa27

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snakeeyesa27, I think you've done a good job with writing up all this info and I think you should definately compile it into a document and get it hosted / pimped.

I was going to write a saber tute myself, but it looks as if a model construction/uvw mapping tutorial is more in demand. I think I might make a video tutorial of a quick lightsaber construction, uvw mapping and exporting.

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Madjai, as explained earlier (read everything first), the way i did this is to do a print screen while editing my uv map in gmax. then paste it into paint and resize it. It's complicated, so just work with it.

 

Master Shawn, I believe i said that exact thing several times over the week it took me to figure it all out. If you are frustrated, by all means leave it alone for a while. (sometimes i'd take a break, and then an hour later be like, duh, apply the texture, THEN export it)

 

Bio Warrior, Yes! this is ANNOYING. I don't know why raven made it so some things are named w_saber and others saber_w.

 

Spacermonkey, i would love to just post this somewhere, but there are two problems. I know about jack squat about hosting ( i can't even post pictures) and this way, people get to ask me questions that everyone can see the answers to. It (hopefully) will keep me from having to answer the same questions over and over. But, if someone else wants to put together a tutorial, perhaps using excerpts from this forum, i would be happy to send them pictures to illustrate.

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ya thats what i ment ingame it seems to be merged with the saber i made and ravens saber without the extra things i added to it i can tell since i didnt texture it and some white shows up on the saber ingame and the saber is up in the are a lil bit and its pointing straight to the right if you want i can send you my saber file so you can see whats wrong with it maybe its the way i did the tags

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to SNAKE EYES

thanks for replying i checked in at poly and now almost have this going ( i think ) i got the wire frame shot to unwrap and is showing up fine the next steps i am a shaking about hehe

but thanks for replying its nice to know people are willing to help

i will give you a shout when i get to the part of putting it in the game if i get stuck

 

and if you were saying right on about my name - lol-

i just hope lucas will kill that annoying bastard in the next one!

 

may the force be with you -

jedi david :jawa

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well i got my saber working ingame!!! thanks to all you guys out here who helped me out! but.. err... i don't know how to do the uvw stuff.. it looks horrible ingame.. hahaha but the positioning of everything is correct though.. the blade, etc etc..=) any good uvw tutorials?

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Well, I got the tag flash thing in there, lets let you be th judge to see if I got it right.tag_flash.jpg ive used arrows to point to where the tag is, although you cant see it in one of the views, the tag is on the y axis. I did attempt to add a skin, but lets just say that it didnt work to well :D

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The tag looks textbook, Master Shawn. Eh, what'd i tell ya? We just can't leave it alone. Thanks for posting a pic of what it should look like.

 

Methuselah, right on brother! That's the best part, even better than when it's skinned. I think madjai can point you to some uvw mapping stuff.

 

death2jarjar, man there's nothing that would warm my heart more than seeing that sorry waste of space's eyes sliced off with my lightsaber. sorry, was that going too far? Impossible! On a kinder note, this tutorial is made by the noob for the noob ( i know what it's like when it seems like everyone else knows how to model and you feel like an idiot and nobody will help because ooooh, they NEVER had to learn to model, and it takes SOOO long to post an answer! but i digress ) like i said, i downloaded gmax, like 2 weeks ago, never having modelled a thing. By the way, just sent some pics to King Jezuz Pie to be posted, thanks in advance to him, so soon you'll be able to see what this "saber" nonsense is i've been going on about.

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Bio Warrior, just took a look at your model (you got guts, my friend, that is going to SUCK to skin. My saber was very simple and it still drove me nuts) and i found the problem (at least i think) and it's my fault, i think i left this out ( i didn't know if it would matter, but i think it does) your tags looked good, right shape, right positions, except they were created with boxes, not planes. This is my fault for not specifying, i'm sorry. I've included a functional tag with your model (which i'm sending back). It is created with a PLANE. It should have one side visible. I only included the tag_flash, because i'm not sure where you want tag_parent to go. Just clone tag_flash and rename and reposition it. That should work. NOTE: i did NOT export your model, pak it up and test in game (i am frankly quite lazy, and would rather let you try it) but i see no reason it should not work, everything looked fine. Cool hilt, btw. I made mine very utilitarian for simplicity. (if you get frustrated skinning it, i suggest trying to make it with multiple skins. To do this (in theory) break your model into skinnable parts, like 1 skin for the knobs, 1 skin for the vanes, and one for the cylinders. then to get it in game, apply all the skins and export all the different frames "w_saber w_knobs w_vanes, etc. I HAVE NEVER TRIED THIS AND HAVE NO IDEA IF IT WILL WORK SO DON'T POST AND SAY HOW DO I DO IT, BECAUSE I DON'T KNOW. (disclaimer) side note: (do i use parenthesis too much?):)

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Yes, i'm sorry sir, you must now... skin it. DUN DUN DUNNNN. This is always the hardest part of the job...

Once you have your .jpg with all the nice white lines on it, it's time for slooow, painful WORK. Open your saber.jpg in your image editing program ( the po'noob prefers paint shop pro for its freeness). The lines pretty much tell you where things are, so start out with just colors until they're lined up right (keep checking it in gmax), then add details. Mine was easy, i just scanned my real saber. HOWEVER, if it looks good in gmax it will only look good in the game UP CLOSE. I had to totally reskin my saber when i loaded it in game and found the middle section just blended to gray when viewed from normal 3rd person view. The game will BLUR your texture at distance. Keep this in mind and don't get married to your skin. i.e. a fine black/white check will just look gray. Well, there. I said i wasn't going to do skinning and now i have, i hope you're happy.

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Master Shawn, just open the model, click your Unwrap modifier, click Edit. Now it should open up your unwrap'ed model, which is a bunch of lines with vertices. Now press "Print Screen", then open up any graphics program like paint shop pro or the program that comes with windows. Now Paste the image and delete everything but the window that has the lines and vertices in it and save.

 

Use that as your template to draw on, simply draw over the lines and vertices.

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Whoah... I inteded to post the pictures snakeeyes sent me a few hours earlier.. but the forum did not work, so I'll do it now :D

 

detail.jpg

 

game.jpg

 

ingame.jpg

 

ingame2.jpg

 

saber25.bmp

 

If the picture should not work, just copy the link and paste it into your browser window...

 

I think he did a good job on the saber :D

Btw. the last picture shows the saber in real life, so I suppose it is a hilt he created himself...

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