From finished model to torque

#21 ye you are thinking teh wrong way
only one file is the actual model
the rest are animations that get - defined by the .cs file
working together

its a bit more complex and pointless to break it down here as u would clearly miss the important parts and sooner or later get stuck
take for example the .dae model is not even gettin used after u start the game/ T3D generates cached versions taht are much smaller in size and optimized to load quicker
you see at the end even our .dae models that we export are only used to close the gap between T3D and whatever 3d modelling app you use

my puppet is not going to be only Thirdperson
there will be a FPS Model aswell
that is goin to enable other users to use it as a base

i have added enough mount points so that stuff such as holstering weapons would be possible later
(ofc that has to be scripted = uc its not that easy and it involves more then u expected)

especially if u wish to have some kind of modernwarfare/ battlefiled or whatever customization system
that is why i pointed you in the first place
here
docs.garagegames.com/torque-3d/reference/classTSShapeConstructor.html
the stuff that is covered here might just give u
a idea how todo things like hosltering weapons on mount points
along with player/ outfit customization
its between the lines

and if i would have it layed out i would share but like i said
currently the puppet is what i do

#22 You can also bake all animations into one animation and separate them later, but separated its easier to handle.

#23 Oh, I know. I'm just wondering what all of those are for and how they were made, I haven't actually done anything beyond making the weapon meshes for my guns. That's why I'm asking questions now before blindly jumping into it.

I'm trying to get an idea of a "process", more or less a how to get there kind of written tutorial in order for me to figure it out. From there, I can simplify the process in a way that everyone can understand.

#24 You animate your player model with the gun in the hand with one animation sequence and then you export the animation with the needed bones, so in the case of the weapon only the arms and a piece of torso.
In blender you will create one animation sequence, delete the model and unnecessary bones and export as dae, this will be your animation file.

But so far I did not manage to do that, I only put them all in one animation and split them later.
The weapon will work static with no animation also, many games did it this way.

#25 About that texture thing. I did some digging, and I don't see how this code imposes a strict 9 skin limit. Perhaps there isn't one? Has anyone tested this to see if you can go beyond 9.

void TSStatic::setSkinName( const char *name )
{
   if ( !isGhost() )
   {
      if ( name[0] != '\0' )
      {
         // Use tags for better network performance
         // Should be a tag, but we'll convert to one if it isn't.
         if ( name[0] == StringTagPrefixByte )
            mSkinNameHandle = NetStringHandle( U32(dAtoi(name + 1)) );
         else
            mSkinNameHandle = NetStringHandle( name );
      }
      else
         mSkinNameHandle = NetStringHandle();

      setMaskBits( SkinMask );
   }
}

If I'm wrong again (I usually am, lol), please let me know and point me in the direction to remove this limit, or at least up the number to something more reasonable like 128 (thinking powers of 2 here).

#26 So I've discovered I'm horrible at texturing lol, but the good news is I've got a model in game and textured.

Funny Image

A little oversized, but nothing a little bit of scaling can fix. I've also figured out how to do node hierarchies in Blender, so another win for me! After playing around a bit, I got here.

I think I've pretty much gotten most of the tricky stuff figured out now. Just waiting on J0linar's work to be completed so I can focus on getting the first person stuff figured out and from there, I'll make some video tutorials on making guns in blender for T3D.

Not much more I can think of for now, thanks for all the help. I'll ask if I run in to any roadblocks in the future (which is probably likely). :P

#27 Giving a bump to this thread since it's relevant enough to be in the same one.

Normal and Specular maps. Exactly what are they, and how do you make them in blender? And then on the animating side, are there any animations that are recommended making with the third person weapon models? or are those usually just handled by the FP models and you see something different?

#28 @Robert,
I have a comment on baking textures in Blender. It can be done. I don't know if it requires a plugin anymore though. You will have to search for the latest on how to bake textures with a UV map and everything. This is something I looked into a lot in the past. I used to have a baking rig setup for an older version of Blender. I could literally put an object in a dome like structure (found instructions somewhere on the webs) and it would do shadowing and everything. My goal was to have Blender generate my textures and bake them into a texture compatible with the UV map of the object. I don't know about the latest version of Blender though. You will have to research this.

Here is an old link:
www.garagegames.com/community/forums/viewthread/48080
If I remember right this was a very early attempt and it required a plugin. 2.65 and later may not require that. I know a lot of that type of stuff got sucked into Blender at one time. It may not be called bake as the jargon for art changes so fast.

#29 I would not start with baking normals, since this is a complicated and work intensive job. You need to model a very high poly version and a low poly version then you bake down the high poly version as a texture and normal map on the low poly version.
I would just build a low poly version, texture it and generate the normals from the texture, generating normals from a texture is just one or a few clicks, they are not that exact like modeled normals, but they are quite good for the job.

#30 You can get a higher poly version by subsurfing as well. At least that is what I have seen done. I seem to remember there was a way to bake and target any of the lower poly LODs, but it has been a while since I messed with that.

The reason I really liked the idea of baking was you could generate very nice textures and in many cases eliminate the texture editing stage. This way you could also tweak one color and make a new texture. I am sure there is a lot more that could be done with this.

One thing I always wanted to pursue was to figure out how to bake higher level geometry to a texture and have it mapped on simpler geometry. I don't know if anyone has ever tried something like that though. Usually it takes a skilled texture artist for that kind of thing.

@Duion,
I think it may be a standard part of Blender now:
wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:2.6/Manual/Render/Bake
I think they are talking about what you were saying.

#31 Oh, I forgot to mention. You can use Blender to render to any kind of texture. Not just the diffuse texture. I have experimented with alpha maps and others as well. So you could use it to create other shader related textures.

Here is a tutorial on these other textures (it does not cover baking however):
www.blenderguru.com/videos/the-secrets-of-realistic-texturing/

Edit:
Baking specific link:
www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/baking-normal-maps-from-models-advanced.php

#32 Bake higher level geometry to texture is already the normal map baking and for normal map baking you actually need exclusive detail that can be mapped down as fake geometry on the normal, subdividing will just make it rounder. For example some little switches and screws on the weapon can be modeled and then baked down as normals, so it looks like they are there.

Geometry to texture would be rendering it down to a picture/texture.

There is different ways to model something, but I would not start with the expert version.

#33 Alright, well. I'm still kind of curious to exactly what the normal maps and specular maps are in terms of models. Can you explain that for me so I have an understanding of what they are?

There's that LOD term again, I'm know what it is, I just don't know how to start making different LODs for my models, are there any step by step tutorials on this for me to experiment with?

Lastly, When it actually comes to me starting work on the first-person models (all of my work has been third person so far), exactly what will be different when doing those? How much detail should I put into a first person model versus a third person, and what kind of other work will be needed?

Thanks so far, this is quite informative and it will help me alot when I get to making those tutorials.

#34 @LOD,
You can try a decimator in Blender. Generally it "should" maintain a proper UV map for each level of detail. Always decimate from the most complicated version so it can maintain features of the full shape rather than decimating a previously decimated mesh. It may require some effort to tweak each smaller shape.

#35 In Blender creating LODs is now pretty easy with the decimator, but when I started this feature was not working.

Lets say you called your base high poly model "Gun300" (your first stage), then dublicate it in object mode --> add modifier --> reduce to 50% and call it "Gun200", then do this again with the Lod you created before or start with the base model again and call the next result "Gun100" after that you can to it once again and call it "Gun2"
For example your stating mesh was 6000 polys, then Gun200 will be 3000 polys, Gun100 will be 1500 polys and Gun2 would be something like 750 (just as much as you can bring it down without destroying the shape totally).
Basically that is it, the problem starts where it is not directly possible to just reduce the mesh without destroying the shape.

#36 Got bored and didn't want to bug J0linar to hurry up his character puppet, so I made this:

http://staff.phantomdev.net/phantom139/images/LegaciesPlayer_WIP.png

Very basic and... beginner-ish, lol.. But I'm proud of it. Besides doing rigging & animating, what would be the step after that for doing FP weapons? This would probably be the last thing I need to put together a tutorial series on making weapon models, so please help. :D

#37 @Duion: Question regarding #14. How did you get the texture maps to be like that (IE: Only 3 parts, and 3 really.. easy to do parts) like that? My route almost always ends in a huge mess of UV Islands everywhere and then me spending hours trying to find out what island goes with what piece.

#38 There is a lot of different ways you can do it. I just selected all the faces I wanted to have in one UV-island and pressed unwrap.

#39 Robert, I see you're still wondering what normal and spec maps are.
Well, this is the easiest way to explain it. Normal maps are used to fake details on a low-poly mesh. Typically, you would generate these from a high-poly mesh to be used on your low-poly mesh. When you're modeling organic stuff, you should preferably start by making a high-poly mesh (sculpting it), retopologizing that mesh, and then baking the normal maps from the high-poly to the low-poly mesh so that you can get that extra bit of detail. You should also bake the ambient occlusion, as it is a good starting point for texturing. Too much talk, not enough pictures, so here's one that demonstrates what I just wrote.



And specular maps are basically just black and white images that define where the object is shiny, and where it isn't. White = super shiny, black = not shiny.