Using Max for .dif creation?
by Jedive · in Artist Corner · 03/25/2005 (7:33 am) · 59 replies
Well, my team has been working with some engines to power the game Myths of Leindar: Century. We are 4 people working on the game: one coder (me), one 3D artist, one 2D artist, and one music composer. The webpage of the game is http://www.century-game.tk/ The first 4 screenshots have been taken with the OGRE engine, the rest of them with Cipher.
We have been making different demos to try the engines, and won the Best Graphics award on the ArtFutura'04 show: http://www.artfutura.org/AF04/en/index.php. The version shown @ ArtFutura was made in Blitz3D, as it was mainly a fast prototype of the game we made in one week.
We tried OGRE, as it is one of the most powerful graphics engines we have seen, but discarded it as it was not a complete game engine, and we prefer to concentrate on game development that in making an engine.
After that, we came to the Cipher and Torque engines. While I love to work in Cipher, and it has an awesome integration with 3DS Max, for outdoor scenes, we have to export everyting as a mesh: terrains, buildings, grass... which is not very optimized for fast rendering.
Torque, on the other hand, provides an awesome outdoor rendering, with support for weather effects like rain and snow, water, multilayered clouds, etc. Our outdoor scenes would look awesome with it.
But the problem is that the 3D artist refuses to use those BSP-like crappy editors (like he calls them), and wants to do all the modelling in Max. It's not a problem for .dts shapes, but it definitely is for .dif constructions. Exporting a .map file from Max seems to give a lot of errors (obvious, as 3DS MAX is not a convex-like modeller).
After some searching, we came across this Max plugin: http://www.maple3d.com/GLB3Page.htm. It has a "Convex Corrector" tool which can correct invalid geometry for map generation. As it is not free, we would like to know if somebody here has been sucessfull in using Max for making Torque interiors before purchasing the plugin. After correcting the geometry to make it map compliant, will the .map be exported correctly?
Does anybody have more ideas on how to export a .dif from Max?
Thanks in advance :)
We have been making different demos to try the engines, and won the Best Graphics award on the ArtFutura'04 show: http://www.artfutura.org/AF04/en/index.php. The version shown @ ArtFutura was made in Blitz3D, as it was mainly a fast prototype of the game we made in one week.
We tried OGRE, as it is one of the most powerful graphics engines we have seen, but discarded it as it was not a complete game engine, and we prefer to concentrate on game development that in making an engine.
After that, we came to the Cipher and Torque engines. While I love to work in Cipher, and it has an awesome integration with 3DS Max, for outdoor scenes, we have to export everyting as a mesh: terrains, buildings, grass... which is not very optimized for fast rendering.
Torque, on the other hand, provides an awesome outdoor rendering, with support for weather effects like rain and snow, water, multilayered clouds, etc. Our outdoor scenes would look awesome with it.
But the problem is that the 3D artist refuses to use those BSP-like crappy editors (like he calls them), and wants to do all the modelling in Max. It's not a problem for .dts shapes, but it definitely is for .dif constructions. Exporting a .map file from Max seems to give a lot of errors (obvious, as 3DS MAX is not a convex-like modeller).
After some searching, we came across this Max plugin: http://www.maple3d.com/GLB3Page.htm. It has a "Convex Corrector" tool which can correct invalid geometry for map generation. As it is not free, we would like to know if somebody here has been sucessfull in using Max for making Torque interiors before purchasing the plugin. After correcting the geometry to make it map compliant, will the .map be exported correctly?
Does anybody have more ideas on how to export a .dif from Max?
Thanks in advance :)
#2
You should use quark instead.
03/25/2005 (8:06 am)
Max2map doesnt work, DONT USE IT, its weird and crazy and really crap stuff.You should use quark instead.
#3
He has worked on commercial games before, like this one: http://www.eidosinteractive.com/gss/legacy/commandos2/main.html
If we can't use Max for all the modelling in Century, then we'll have to leave Torque and stay with Cipher.
03/25/2005 (8:11 am)
Quark is good for people like me, who don't know anything about modelling, but my 3D artist is very talented in Max and completely refuses to use those kind of map-making tools.He has worked on commercial games before, like this one: http://www.eidosinteractive.com/gss/legacy/commandos2/main.html
If we can't use Max for all the modelling in Century, then we'll have to leave Torque and stay with Cipher.
#4
You could try getting your artist to try out stuff like Cartography shop - but if he really can't stand working in a BSP editor, it might be best to stick with Cipher for now.
03/25/2005 (8:14 am)
It's /possible/ to get .difs to export with MAX, but it's not really advisable. At all.You could try getting your artist to try out stuff like Cartography shop - but if he really can't stand working in a BSP editor, it might be best to stick with Cipher for now.
#5
03/25/2005 (8:19 am)
Are the .dif format specifications documented somewhere, or just in Torque's source code? 
#6
03/25/2005 (8:25 am)
I have CShop and GLB3. bought both about 4 days ago.I havent used GLB3 yet , but im confident it will work. Just the only issue "might" be converting the .map export from 3DSmax to a .dif. But again I dont think that will be a problem either as the .map format is supported by the map2dif program. (If anyone knows more about it than me please correct or clerify me). I am using CShop right now and is working great with Toms beta2 torque plugin. and for anything that requires detail I use max and export to .dts shape. And CShop is real easy to use and the next version (5) is a huge improvement over the current. Anyway thats my $.02.
#7
03/25/2005 (8:29 am)
Oh and as for GLB3 I just havent had time to learn it yet. I think there will be a lot of trial and error , but I "think" it will work.
#8
03/25/2005 (8:44 am)
Yes I know Cartography Shop, I've had long talking sessions with his author on MSN Messenger, but it's still not what we are looking for. I am more interested in the GLB3 route. If someone tries it, please confirm me if it does work :) If not, I think we'll buy it to give it a try, as it is not too expensive.
#9
I model my interiors using convex shapes in Max, then fire up the GLB, export to .map then add things like lighting and portals in QuArK. Gets the job done fairly quickly and you can use Max's modelling tools.
GLB does come with it's own modelling tools but I prefer to just make the shapes myself. You just model everything in blocks, or you can model normally then brake the mesh up if you really wanted. Just a way round it if your interested.
Here's the download for 2.22, I've been making interiors for a while with it.
03/25/2005 (9:42 am)
I use Max 6 and GLB 2 ( that ones free, and works fine )I model my interiors using convex shapes in Max, then fire up the GLB, export to .map then add things like lighting and portals in QuArK. Gets the job done fairly quickly and you can use Max's modelling tools.
GLB does come with it's own modelling tools but I prefer to just make the shapes myself. You just model everything in blocks, or you can model normally then brake the mesh up if you really wanted. Just a way round it if your interested.
Here's the download for 2.22, I've been making interiors for a while with it.
#10
03/25/2005 (9:46 am)
Thx Chris! That's just what I was waiting to hear! Now I just have to wait till my modeller come back from his hollydays and start playing with this. I hope Torque to be our definitive engine of choice :)
#11
One problem that turned up for me was the scale issues between DIF and regular geometry exported from 3d aplications. I'd recommend using Map2dif and building a scale object (like a human size box or some other reference objects in quark. And using Map to 3ds to load the object into your favourite 3d app of choice. that way everything you build in DIF will be to the correct scale with your DTS meshes.
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=5909
Eventualy I may make some videos to complement the artpath tools I'm working on.
05/27/2005 (7:59 am)
Hey Jedive, how did you get on with this? I had the same dilema but found it's actually really easy to model DIF geometry in 3DSmax. When the new art pipeline comes along, I'm considering creating some max BSP friendly modeling tutorials.One problem that turned up for me was the scale issues between DIF and regular geometry exported from 3d aplications. I'd recommend using Map2dif and building a scale object (like a human size box or some other reference objects in quark. And using Map to 3ds to load the object into your favourite 3d app of choice. that way everything you build in DIF will be to the correct scale with your DTS meshes.
http://www.garagegames.com/index.php?sec=mg&mod=resource&page=view&qid=5909
Eventualy I may make some videos to complement the artpath tools I'm working on.
#12
Anyway, we'll continue work in Century as soon as he has more free time, and we'll try the GLB plugin.
05/27/2005 (10:12 am)
Well, the artist behind Century is currently working on a professional game which has been shown @ the E3, and will be busy with that for some time, so there are no news about this :(Anyway, we'll continue work in Century as soon as he has more free time, and we'll try the GLB plugin.
#14
and I use Max 7.0
I try to use 3ds max exclusively.
My whole goal for Torque is to do everything
in max. I think its one of the best pieces of software out there.
Im having nothing but great results in general.But there
are some down falls.
You simply draw the floor plan of what you want
adjust all the wall floor and ceiling spinners and BAMN!!!
its all made. Then with other niffty scripts you can place
in doors and windows, it even allows you to add in torque specific lighting
entities.
My only issue with this is I have to texture in QuArk and export to dif there.
I also use all the doors and windows and Subtract them from the walls in QuArk.
For Me Quark is a little old school. Im really wating for CONSTRUCTOR to land.
I hated the idea of useing QuArk too, because I had been useing
max since version 2.5 But sometimes you have to bite the bullet if you
want results, and this seems to be the only way for now.
Hope this helped
Surge
05/27/2005 (1:22 pm)
I have purcahsed GLB3and I use Max 7.0
I try to use 3ds max exclusively.
My whole goal for Torque is to do everything
in max. I think its one of the best pieces of software out there.
Im having nothing but great results in general.But there
are some down falls.
You simply draw the floor plan of what you want
adjust all the wall floor and ceiling spinners and BAMN!!!
its all made. Then with other niffty scripts you can place
in doors and windows, it even allows you to add in torque specific lighting
entities.
My only issue with this is I have to texture in QuArk and export to dif there.
I also use all the doors and windows and Subtract them from the walls in QuArk.
For Me Quark is a little old school. Im really wating for CONSTRUCTOR to land.
I hated the idea of useing QuArk too, because I had been useing
max since version 2.5 But sometimes you have to bite the bullet if you
want results, and this seems to be the only way for now.
Hope this helped
Surge
#15
05/27/2005 (5:50 pm)
Nice to hear that Surge. The only thing that my modeller has told me to choose an engine is that he must be able to do everything in Max. I went to Cipher at first, and I really love it (I am using it for another project), but for an outdoor action / adventure game, nothing can beat the quality and performance of Torque environments. 
#16
The team leader (i assume you are) needs to get him to put away his emotional prejudices against BSP editors for a few hours and spend a little time with the Cartshop demo. If he really tries to use it he'll find it extremely easy to use. Unfortunately you'll need to buy Cartshop before you can use our DIF exporter plugin, but i can assure you building DIFs in 3DSMax will never be easier than using Cartshop+Pipeline.
05/28/2005 (10:52 am)
@Jedive - Hear me out for a second.... your artist needs to be using a BSP tool like Cartshop. He will not get any more flexibility or diversity in the types of geometry he can create using any of the Max to DIF art paths. In the end he can only create things that the DIF format supports and the DIF format doesn't support 99.9% of what Max can do. If anything he'll see nothing but limitations and be even more frustrated. In the past he's probably experienced a bad BSP modeler like QuArK and given up on anything BSP.The team leader (i assume you are) needs to get him to put away his emotional prejudices against BSP editors for a few hours and spend a little time with the Cartshop demo. If he really tries to use it he'll find it extremely easy to use. Unfortunately you'll need to buy Cartshop before you can use our DIF exporter plugin, but i can assure you building DIFs in 3DSMax will never be easier than using Cartshop+Pipeline.
#17
You can get far nicer looking visuals with less BSP unless you want perfect collision on all your polygons. That just isn't neccessary for the vast majority of games. Infact there are some benefits of working the other way. modern GPU's can draw 100,s of thousands of polys per frame, and giving artists the flexibility with their materials and UV's doesn't stifle their creativity half as much. I've found that you only need about 1/30th of the collision polys for collision as you do visuals for a fairly detailed scene and BSP is often wasting polys on doing calculations on geometry the gamer never sees or interacts with.
Like the cartography shop cathedral. 1400 polys for a room that with polysoup can be easily less than half that ammount. All the back faces, underfaces on walls, pillars, benches, some top faces and interior triangles on the arches and details can be removed. And less than 60 polys or aproximtely 14 Dif rectangular blocks are all that would be needed for decent collision in that particular scene.
Drawing is still going to be fast, and there are various methods of occlusion that can be implemented into the engine for occluding poly soup geometry. the 1400 polys used in that room, and the relatively poor lighting seems like a waste of resources, when the same result can be produced within a tiny fraction of the time and computer resources or enhanced using regular tools.
I'm looking forward to introducing a new art pipeline for torque that gives artists the opportunity to work with either way, depending on what better suits their game, and tools that their artists are acustomed to.
If you were an artist that had worked in the industry and poured over the many artist positions avaliable, you would be amazed at how few developers actualy use any of the big name engines, and a large portion use 3ds max, maya and lightwave exclusively for level editing and environments.
05/28/2005 (12:28 pm)
I don't agree Tom, there are simply 2 popular ways to produce game art assets, BSP tends to be most popular for shooters its true. But a large portion of developers use a combination of high polygon visuals and low poly proxy collisions for all kinds of games. top dowm/isometric games, racing games, vehicle combat games, 3rd person RPG's, some shooters, Adventure games. You can get far nicer looking visuals with less BSP unless you want perfect collision on all your polygons. That just isn't neccessary for the vast majority of games. Infact there are some benefits of working the other way. modern GPU's can draw 100,s of thousands of polys per frame, and giving artists the flexibility with their materials and UV's doesn't stifle their creativity half as much. I've found that you only need about 1/30th of the collision polys for collision as you do visuals for a fairly detailed scene and BSP is often wasting polys on doing calculations on geometry the gamer never sees or interacts with.
Like the cartography shop cathedral. 1400 polys for a room that with polysoup can be easily less than half that ammount. All the back faces, underfaces on walls, pillars, benches, some top faces and interior triangles on the arches and details can be removed. And less than 60 polys or aproximtely 14 Dif rectangular blocks are all that would be needed for decent collision in that particular scene.
Drawing is still going to be fast, and there are various methods of occlusion that can be implemented into the engine for occluding poly soup geometry. the 1400 polys used in that room, and the relatively poor lighting seems like a waste of resources, when the same result can be produced within a tiny fraction of the time and computer resources or enhanced using regular tools.
I'm looking forward to introducing a new art pipeline for torque that gives artists the opportunity to work with either way, depending on what better suits their game, and tools that their artists are acustomed to.
If you were an artist that had worked in the industry and poured over the many artist positions avaliable, you would be amazed at how few developers actualy use any of the big name engines, and a large portion use 3ds max, maya and lightwave exclusively for level editing and environments.
#18
We have only been working on the project in our spare time over the last month, and already have some pretty good results. So I can't tell you if (or when) it will be out, unfortunately.
There are 2 parts to our pipeline for TGE, one implements a popular 3D format that has some benefits particularly as regards visual eye candy.
We have material support for multiple UV channels, 8 layers of multitexture layers per material, Maerial Alpha and shinyness, so your meshes recieve per vertex specular highlights from your dynamic lights. Various blend modes, both at the material level and the texture level. So you can blend eperate multitexture layers together, or use them per mesh with multipass rendering for all manner of effects. This includes Additive, Subtractive, multiply, modulate2X, alpha, and Dot3.
Also various flags that allow some extra functionality to artists like fullbright, env maps, force 16bit, ignore fog etc.
One benefit of multiUV's and multiple texture layers is the ability to mask between texture layers with a greyscale image, or multipass between duplicate geometry layers with different texure combinations. So you can mask matte grass materials with shiny mud materials using a greyscale mask texture in much the same way you might use an alpha for transparency.
One added benefit of the pipeline is that it introduces the possible support for several 3rd party game development tools, like Gile[s] global illumination lighting editor.
Here's an example scene in torque using lightmaps created with giles, 2 UV channels, using the cartographyshop/Darkbasic cathedral loaded into giles and havinga single direct light aimed through the window, and a 512x512 lightmap assigned to the geometry in the scene.
UV 1 has a standard diffuse texture. UV2 has the lightmap, which also has a modulate2X blendmode which enhances torque's default lighting.
And here's the same scene in giles, this time with a 1024x1024 rendered lightmap.
The cathedral was coverted from a cartography shop cathedral demo in .x format, loaded into Giles and lightmapped, converted to 3dsmax via a giles import script, and exported to the b3d format. Loaded inot both torque and BLitz3d.
Here's a screenshot of the same scene in the Blitz3D B3dpipeline viewer
Our loader is integrated into the existing TGE tools and can be combined with DIF and DTS shapes seamlessly.
This is the first part of the art pipeline.
--------------------------
05/28/2005 (1:24 pm)
I recently started colaborating on a new Torque art path with a very talented coder, introducing a new file format to TGE which will allow many artists that want an alternative to DTS for scenery to create poly soup visuals. Whether this will be extended with collisions etc or not hasn't been decided. Currently it looks like we will be creating dif collisions in 3dsmax. We have only been working on the project in our spare time over the last month, and already have some pretty good results. So I can't tell you if (or when) it will be out, unfortunately.
There are 2 parts to our pipeline for TGE, one implements a popular 3D format that has some benefits particularly as regards visual eye candy.
We have material support for multiple UV channels, 8 layers of multitexture layers per material, Maerial Alpha and shinyness, so your meshes recieve per vertex specular highlights from your dynamic lights. Various blend modes, both at the material level and the texture level. So you can blend eperate multitexture layers together, or use them per mesh with multipass rendering for all manner of effects. This includes Additive, Subtractive, multiply, modulate2X, alpha, and Dot3.
Also various flags that allow some extra functionality to artists like fullbright, env maps, force 16bit, ignore fog etc.
One benefit of multiUV's and multiple texture layers is the ability to mask between texture layers with a greyscale image, or multipass between duplicate geometry layers with different texure combinations. So you can mask matte grass materials with shiny mud materials using a greyscale mask texture in much the same way you might use an alpha for transparency.
One added benefit of the pipeline is that it introduces the possible support for several 3rd party game development tools, like Gile[s] global illumination lighting editor.
Here's an example scene in torque using lightmaps created with giles, 2 UV channels, using the cartographyshop/Darkbasic cathedral loaded into giles and havinga single direct light aimed through the window, and a 512x512 lightmap assigned to the geometry in the scene.
UV 1 has a standard diffuse texture. UV2 has the lightmap, which also has a modulate2X blendmode which enhances torque's default lighting.
And here's the same scene in giles, this time with a 1024x1024 rendered lightmap.
The cathedral was coverted from a cartography shop cathedral demo in .x format, loaded into Giles and lightmapped, converted to 3dsmax via a giles import script, and exported to the b3d format. Loaded inot both torque and BLitz3d.
Here's a screenshot of the same scene in the Blitz3D B3dpipeline viewer
Our loader is integrated into the existing TGE tools and can be combined with DIF and DTS shapes seamlessly.
This is the first part of the art pipeline.
--------------------------
#19
At its most basic it provides the ability to import animated lights, cameras, global ambient light, and cameras (all animatable) animated using standard 3dsmax animation tools. So you have full animated controls of light range, colour, position, spot cone angles and direction. Camera transforms and FOV etc. So you can create in engine cut scenes in 3dsmax and play them back WYSIWYG fashion.
Instanced geometry, so multiple identical objects in your scene are only exported once, the rest are exported as nodes with transform information. So, much like in the mission editor, all the same objects reference the first instance. (Which is great if you're not using lightmapping :)
Will allow for the positioning of culling shapes that block the camera from rendering objects that these shapes obscure. Ability to export splines, that can be used as AI paths, with points along the spline exported as path nodes. Simpler things like billboards, and vertical bilboards, locking 3d assets to a parent (exported) camera position and/or rotation, and setting zbuffer sort order for meshes, so that you can set up 3D huds and menus easily in a WYSIWYG fashion within 3dsmax viewports.
One of the most exciting for me will be the planned support for 3dsmax Xrefs, where you can set up Xref scenes and objects which can be exported seperately and have them stream directly from the HD whilst playing through levels of your game.
-------------------
I'm sure that the second part will be particularly exciting to 3dsmax users, as we have a lot of nice features that can be integrated into torque. At the moment we are still concentrating on Part one, the new format shape loader, and testing compatibility and that everything works as it should in comparrison to other renders that carry the same features.
I'm not sure whether the loader will be released at an earlier date, or whether we will complete the max integration first. As I said earlier, we are working on this in our spare time only.
Also please note that this art pipieline project is not in anyway affiliated to Garage Games, and anyone that shows interest should not approach GG for further information. As the pipeline gets closer to completion we will be approaching garage games in regards to releasing the product, and if yey are OK with it, I'll be posting snapshots from a perceived furture tech demo showing off the pipelines features sometime later this year.
05/28/2005 (1:24 pm)
The second part integrates a 3dsmax specific set of artist tools using a set of torque extensions that helps torque interface with many of 3dsmax's advanced features, providing some advantages over regular game level editors.At its most basic it provides the ability to import animated lights, cameras, global ambient light, and cameras (all animatable) animated using standard 3dsmax animation tools. So you have full animated controls of light range, colour, position, spot cone angles and direction. Camera transforms and FOV etc. So you can create in engine cut scenes in 3dsmax and play them back WYSIWYG fashion.
Instanced geometry, so multiple identical objects in your scene are only exported once, the rest are exported as nodes with transform information. So, much like in the mission editor, all the same objects reference the first instance. (Which is great if you're not using lightmapping :)
Will allow for the positioning of culling shapes that block the camera from rendering objects that these shapes obscure. Ability to export splines, that can be used as AI paths, with points along the spline exported as path nodes. Simpler things like billboards, and vertical bilboards, locking 3d assets to a parent (exported) camera position and/or rotation, and setting zbuffer sort order for meshes, so that you can set up 3D huds and menus easily in a WYSIWYG fashion within 3dsmax viewports.
One of the most exciting for me will be the planned support for 3dsmax Xrefs, where you can set up Xref scenes and objects which can be exported seperately and have them stream directly from the HD whilst playing through levels of your game.
-------------------
I'm sure that the second part will be particularly exciting to 3dsmax users, as we have a lot of nice features that can be integrated into torque. At the moment we are still concentrating on Part one, the new format shape loader, and testing compatibility and that everything works as it should in comparrison to other renders that carry the same features.
I'm not sure whether the loader will be released at an earlier date, or whether we will complete the max integration first. As I said earlier, we are working on this in our spare time only.
Also please note that this art pipieline project is not in anyway affiliated to Garage Games, and anyone that shows interest should not approach GG for further information. As the pipeline gets closer to completion we will be approaching garage games in regards to releasing the product, and if yey are OK with it, I'll be posting snapshots from a perceived furture tech demo showing off the pipelines features sometime later this year.
#20
I am a professional game developer. In my last job we used Maya for all our level editing (these were racing games). Our engine which was a mix of NDL and an in-house solution. We had our own collision system which was not based on BSP geometry at all. The rendering geometry was copied and partitioned out into a a large grid which accelerated triangle lookups. It was fairly fast for our needs and still had lots of room for improvements.
So could Torque in the future create a new interior system other than the current DIF system that doesn't depend on BSP geometry? Absolutely. Will this help Jedive on his current project? No.
05/28/2005 (1:39 pm)
@Adrian - You missed my point entirely which was about building DIFs for Torque TODAY. A DIF can only be made from BSP based geometry. A DIF cannot be an arbitrary poly soup. A DIF doesn't have to be used in isolation and can be combined with DTS shapes.I am a professional game developer. In my last job we used Maya for all our level editing (these were racing games). Our engine which was a mix of NDL and an in-house solution. We had our own collision system which was not based on BSP geometry at all. The rendering geometry was copied and partitioned out into a a large grid which accelerated triangle lookups. It was fairly fast for our needs and still had lots of room for improvements.
So could Torque in the future create a new interior system other than the current DIF system that doesn't depend on BSP geometry? Absolutely. Will this help Jedive on his current project? No.
Torque Owner Desmond Fletcher
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