misfit modeler

by sloppytaco on 02/19/2006 05:22, 53 messages, last message: 02/23/2006 01:54, 39720 views, last view: 05/04/2024 22:19

Hi,

I have gotten some static meshes imported into sauerbraten md2 format from 100% free software.

would you like a tutorial to inlclude with your saurbraten game engine?

I start with wings3d or blender 2.41, export to .OBJ ,
and export texture (skin.jpg) to the saurbraten/models/myfolder
then use misfit modeler...misfit modeler is a bit tricky...
it does not like the materials that are included in the OBJ file format, I delete the material info from the .mtl file with my trusty text editor....
import the OBJ into misfit modeler... (making sure that the texture is visible on the model).
then I add an animation to the model.... named _stop.... I add 1 frame to the animation (very important)
then save as tris.md2

add :
mapmodel 1 1 0 "myfolder"
to the mymapname.cfg file.

the tutorial I am planning will be in your choice of HTML or PDF.
the tutorial will be done with the "noobie" in mind, with lots of pictures...

also,
If you need any game content please let me know, I am a professional CG artist, and I donate stuff to various open source projects in my spare time.

thanks again for Sauerbraten, it is a very neat game engine!

have a nice day

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#34: DXF

by stinky taco on 02/20/2006 03:21

BTW,

the DXF importer and exporter you see in blender and other 3d applications is for HASH animation master, not autocad...

the autocad DXF are a 2d vector format...

the DWG file format is what you want to use...

Rhino 3d is designed just for that purpouse... to go hand and hand with popular cad packages (especialy autocad).

anyways...
thought I would add that

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#35: one last thing...

by stinky taco on 02/20/2006 03:38

If you are learning how to model, I highly suggest learning wings 3d first.

very clean interface, and made just for box modeling!

make a selection, rightclick, and every possible thing you can do with that selection is presented to you in the context menu!

Nothing is shown that you cant do! like most 3d apps!

you open most 3d applicaions, and you are flooded with buttons and gizmos, and neat interfaces that confuse the hell out of noobies. you have buttons visible for things you cannot do...

anyways... with wings it is impossible to not make a watertight mesh... if you want to make a hole, you must assign a special material to it.

watertight meshes are essential for useing rapid prototypeing tools... this is one reason Toyota uses Wings 3d for some of the car bodie designs.

well watertight meshes are also Verry nice for 3D game engines that utilize per poly physics engines. if you have a model made up of many small meshes it takes the some engins longer to make calculations.

anyways,
thought I would throw in a Wings 3d blurb :)

blender is cool for newbies too... they have extensive free video tutorials!

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#36: Re: one last thing...

by Wolf on 02/20/2006 03:58, refers to #35

if you like the wings interface but want more functionality (nearly everything can be accomplished by following the right steps but thats a different story) try modo. www.luxology.com It cannot handle animations (yet) but has very good box modelling tools and is cheap (at least the 'good student price')

btw - i love wings

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#37: ..

by makkE on 02/20/2006 04:02

Wow that uv mapping looks awesome.

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#38: Re: SILO

by MitaMAN in the cave on 02/20/2006 04:26, refers to #33

hey stinky taco! thanks for all the input about those apps. i'll look into them to see if they'll do what i want. Rhino, and Curvy 3d sounds like what i'm looking for.

i really love modelling in cad/inventor, so if any of those apps will let me import my "cad" stuff, then export to something that cube/sauer uses would be a great time saver.

the "process" i'm looking for is this:

1. model in cad (.dwg)
2. make the hi-poly model into lo-poly model
3. export to .md2 (or .md3)
4. skin the model

thanks again, sounds like you know your 3d apps.

mitaman

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#39: ..

by stinky taco on 02/20/2006 04:27

modo has been a Buzzwork around the Zbrush forums...

I might give it a shot, Glen Southern has been praising it quite a bit lately...
thanks for the info!

I am always in the market for new tools and goodies :)

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#40: ..

by makkE on 02/20/2006 04:30

Looks very good, but probably not affordable for me... but well, I don´t model much anymore anyways. Skinning is much more fun to me :P

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#41: np

by stinky taco on 02/20/2006 05:56

MitaMAN in the cave ,

no problem....

Rhino is more what you want I think...

Curvy has such a tool but is more geared twards the charictor modeler.

Silo is the same #*$&ing way...

If rhino is too pricey, try Truespace with the DWG importer..

you may be able to get a good deal on version 5 or 6...
the importer is a seperate plugin...
think each plugin is 49.00
I got mine in a package deal, when I was interested in Viewpoint exporting.

problem is that I did realize i also needed to own Shockwave and Viewpoint to do what they showed in the demo... they had verry misleading advertizements at the time.
they also took all the pictures out of the PDF manual when they started selling their tutorials, and memberships to the forums they actualy moderate.

after getting burned like that , I always try the Free, open source versions first :p

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#42: Sweet sucess!!

by stinky taco on 02/20/2006 08:44

..

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#43: sweet sucess!

by stinky taco on 02/20/2006 08:51

WOW!

i just exported an OBJ file from Saurbraten,
opened the OBJ file in misfit modeler,

deleted the extra vertexes (easy they are all in 1 group)

and was able to export to OBJ again, and open it in Blender!!!

Now I can make maps in Sauerbraten, and port the map geometry to blender for use in the game engine (or whatever!)

neat!!

In blender I dida Tris to Quad scrip to make the polys all quad polys... :)

Eerything works great!! all faces are in the right direction!

this also means that when creating my Saurbraten map decorations, I can just take the map OBJ dump, and have everything scaled perfectly 8)

Sauerbraten Rules! never before have i ported anything from a game to a 3d app!

too cool, going to go and Email all my modeler friends with this new ,neat tool!

Sauerbraten really is a neat tool!

thanks Sauerbraten team!

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#44: Re: sweet sucess!

by Aardappel_ on 02/20/2006 09:11, refers to #43

it is a cool possibility, but the meshes coming out of sauer are not exactly optimal, nor do they have the advantage of texturing and lightmaps, so feeding them back into sauer in the form of md2s is kinda pointless. It was more for those people who like sauer editing but need to create geometry for other apps.

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#45: indeed

by stinky taco on 02/20/2006 09:38

Yes,

i was not going to port the map model back into the map.... rather use it as a scale....


the geometry works great in the blender game engine :)

but as you said, no textureing, or lightmaps...

you also get cracks/sparklies, where one grid meets another.

I love the posibilitys, tho... Saurbraten gets cooler every time I open it and learn something new :)


I have it on my pendrive now! i take my customized Saurbraten everywhere with me!
(plus the Zipped-full version so i can share it with friends )

Have a nice night :)

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#46: Re: indeed

by tentus on 02/21/2006 04:06, refers to #45

That is one of the nicest things about cube and sauer, just carrying them around in your pocket, ready to play wherever you have USB support (because most computers with USB will play cube, heh heh.) I've introduced a lot of people to cube trhough my jumpdrive.

I personally use q2modeler all the time, to the exclusion of everything else but the occasional 3dmax. I end up making a .3ds file every once a blue moon, when i need something high poly, and then do further work on it in *surprise surprise* q2modeler. I don't know why, I'm just soooo used to the interface and I like having the per-vertex control. Heh, I don't even use the newest version of q2modeler, I use 8.3 (but that's because of display bugs in 9.11... kind of hard to argue with what works).

Doesn't terragen have a terrain export format? Does anyone know if anything else uses that format, such as blender? I've looked at using some of the terragen plugins (i want to do some very specific terrain editting that the terragen brushes don't naturally allow), but trying to use photoshop to make 3D terrain is more headache than I'm willing to put up with.

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#47: Terragen

by stinky taco on 02/21/2006 04:36

Yea,

Blender and Max both have teragen plugins

http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/resources.shtml

I have never used them tho...

I have a program called Texturemaker, that has a module like terragen that i use for rendering cubemaps..

At one time I had a blender plugin for creating cubemaps in blender, but I lost the link :0


as for creating 3d heightmaps.... the best I have found was a program called View De Espirit

it allowed you to draw your heightmap on a 3d terrain model then export the bitmaps...
the nice thing about View is that it is Teragen like, you can render your cubemaps.... plus you can have it Poop out all the materials used and your mixmaps...

this is verry nice, you can match your terain colors and textures Exactly to the skybox textures and colors..
(Terragen might do this too)

I have also used Zbrush to model terrain meshes, then flood it on the screen, and use the MRGBZ grabber tool to rip your heightmap...

another neat way to do it is to buy unreal 2003 or 2004...
you can make the terrain mesh in unreal, and then export the heightmap and your texture mix alpha to PCX, DXT 5, or DXT 7. (might do bitmaps too)

anyways, hope that helped :)

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#48: heh!

by stinky taco on 02/21/2006 04:43

For learning Purpouses only!::

you could get the learning version of Zbrush also... do your terrain mesh... flood on scrren and use MRGBZ tool to grab the canvas...

press the MAKE TEXTURE button in the alpha pallett...
now press Control F to flood teh Heightmap on screen....

Now just take your Trusty GIMP or photoshop and press Pint screen to do a screeen rip...

cut and paste your nice new alpha!

if it works good for you, be sure to buy Zbrush... it really is a great tool :p

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#49: re: modeling

by SpuriousGrowth on 02/21/2006 23:51

In the code listing:

mapmodel 1 1 0 "myfolder"

What does the "1 1 0" stand for? is this origin, scale, or bounding box? Or something else?

Thanks.

Spurious

By the way, I use Phillip Martin's Q2 Modeler and Blender.

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#50: Re: modeling

by tentus on 02/22/2006 02:29, refers to #49

1st value is collision radius, 2nd is collision height, 3rd is vertical position, and 4th is snap value (mostly useless). or at least, that's how it works for cube, i think it's different for sauer. bleh, i can't remember ATM

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#51: hmm

by Passa on 02/22/2006 10:05

so its not the actual model which defines if it is solid or not.

cos if you look in the rpg map you can walk through beds in the houses.

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#52: collision hulls

by stinky taco on 02/22/2006 15:26

..

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#53: clip

by stinky taco on 02/23/2006 01:54

Hi

insted of useing the model collision, I use Clip blocks to make invisible barriors around my model sometimes....

i typed this this morning, sorry it did not post correctly

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