Links to modeling weapons in maya

#1 Content packs are an EXCELLENT way to learn from people in the know. Just like video tutorials or DVD training are excellent resources. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it's "retarded".

Anyway, have you looked at the node reference? Pages 8-10 or so should have the nodes you need.

#2 Possibly, but it is not a replacement for solid documentation that should be provided by Garage Games. If you can learn that way and want to pay for it, fine, but I prefer a step-by-step tutorials that explain common pit falls, errors, ect. Any yes I do believe it is retarded to ask someone to pay for content packs when all they need them for is to find out how to build your own models, which, the content packs will not even show you anyways.

#3 @Mike, buy a book huh...I guess the 50 or so odd books from design to engine programming I already own are just my imagination. I own 3DPAI1, and well as the Programmer's guide to torque both are full of bugs and both are outdated already not to mention do not cover alot of the intricacies on the art pipeline, do not believe me, check out the fourms dedicated to those book. I do not want someone to do the work for me, far from it, I want the documentation on the TDN finished, you know the section on item/weapon/character set-up that are blank there where there was supposed to be info months ago. I am not asking anyone to do anything and if your negative attitude is a representation of the GG community then you can keep it. If you had half a clue YOU would realize that although I may know how to model, rig, and animate a character, it will not work unless specifically set up to work for torque. The indie community is about helping each other out not attacking each other, so if you do not have anything positive to say, go troll elsewhere.

The good news is I have found other people who are actually helpful to the point of explaining model and node set-up even providing examples and did not have a negative comment to say, other than they understood how difficult it was to find specific information detailing those steps.

Peace and good luck where ever your travels take you.

#4 I don't use Maya, but didn't have any problems with this tutorial (which is for Maya). There's also a Lightwave tutorial for making weapons (LW2DTS examples (which I noticed and read afterwards even though I had downloaded the exporter from that very site! Shows what I get for looking. That plus the node reference should get you going strong as long as you know Maya well. One of my problems when I was starting out in creating assets (pre-TGE) was that I was attempting to learn Lightwave at the same time I was learning to model and animate. I don't know if you're in the same situation, but it took me a long time to bear down and learn LW very well so that I actually had a workflow so that I could adjust it.

Have you gotten your other issues fixed? I think you said you got the PNG problem working (though I still can't figure out why no application other than paint would open it because I tried on Macs, XP, and Vista machines with no problems). Did you get your map2dif_plus issues worked out?

But if you can't learn from content packs, then don't learn from them (or free models that are setup and rigged correctly ala the LW examples at Gnometech). Some people can't learn from books either. It just depends on how people learn.

#5 @Mike, my comments were from general frustration due to the lack of available official resources that were supposed to be updated around six months ago, Access to said information was closed before purchase, which left me to believe it was there, however once getting access it was not, do I have a right to be upset, sure, do I have the right to think that asking someone to shell out more money because said documentation is not up to date, again yes. If that offends you, then why post in the first place, that I do not know, your attacks were directed at me where as mine were justifiably based on verifiable data.

@David, I did follow that tutorial and yes it works for really basic stuff, but multi-piece weapons with animations, that is more of a difficult area to find, which I could never find, I did, hack my way through it, which took a lot of development time which I could have put elsewhere, but what ya gonna do. The node listing is okay, but the process of properly getting them out of maya is tricky and also poorly documented. Not to mention whether you can add other mount nodes for other things such as particle effects or are you limited to the ones listed, still wondering on that one.

The png support problem was a photoshop png issue, I had to completely delete the built in plug-in and put in the super png one and then test some different export ways as you can see eveyone has a differing opinions on how to get it to work with their version of photoshop, some work better than others, some do not work at all as far a maya is concerned so you have to do trial and error through photoshop, then trial and error through maya.

I do not have lightwave, but have seen gnometech stuff. I am not a new person to modeling and animating, but getting everything the way torque likes it is difficult, especially difs. As to map2dif &map2dif_plus, no, they will not work with 3DWS they crash on a basic cube, these are the ones that come with the afx version. It has been documented elsewhere the many issues with them, mirror support not working in _plus ect ect. I just use older exporters until the current ones are fixed.

#6 To figure out what to name animations, just look in crossbow.cs for an example. Personally, I use Blender, so I wouldn't know about exporting, creating animations and other maya-specific stuff. That can be found in the documentation for maya and the dts exporter.

P.S. Forget 3DWS. QuArk is much more intuitive, once you've set it up. It also exports directly to dif (with quark4torque).

#7 @dan, the sections on maya DTS FAQ and maya modelling do not exist other than for a character and it is sadly deficient, created by a community member due to the lack of documentation, in alot of areas including rigging set-up and animation set-up for ease of integration with torque, it is however a good place to go for general information. The 3dsmax ones are far better, but max and maya's workflow and ways of doing things are completely different.

#8 Know this is a bit late but might help somebody. There is a company called Digital Tutors http://www.digitaltutors.com/ which provide a variety of useful services for a variety of products. Video tutorials with audio. They are very well put together and well thought out, for the most part and definitely compared to anything else I've seen. The premium ones are commercial products. They also provide many free smaller video tutorials, lost of resources for the free downloading to use with various apps. And of course a forum full of helpful people.

Cheers,.