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Posted by Preach [81.153.85.180] on 2009/05/17 18:52:10
It has always been difficult to get decent models for quake 1. So a thread where people can get advice on making models and post a work-in-progress for critiques is long overdue. Any requests for models may well get met with silence. Specific requests will likely stand a better chance; "I'd really like a knight but carrying a shield" might be better received than "we need a mdler to join our mod remaking counter-strike for darkplaces".

And A Post With Content...
#1 posted by Preach [81.153.85.180] on 2009/05/17 18:54:50
I tried to keep the title post nice and short in the hope that this thread is as long lived as the coding one. So here's a slightly longer one with more information (and also more of my opinions you've heard three times before)
The mdl format was one of the first 3D model formats for games, and naturally is a little less advanced than anything seen today. Here's a rundown of the most important mdl limits:
1000 vertices
2048 triangles
256 frames
The other important limitation of the mdl format is that the vertices are stored with a precision of 8 bits per coordinate axis. The vertices are in effect "snapped" to a grid of 256x256x256 points. This means you can't create intricate detail in your model without it being lost when it moves. It is worth noting that the origin and spacing of this grid can be specified, so the level of detail which can be retained is relative to the overall size of the model.
Editing
One of the greatest barriers to making models for Quake 1 is the lack of good tools. The best tool which works with .mdl format natively at the moment is QMe. You can grab the full 3.0 from:
http://www.fpsbanana.com/tools/254...
and you can upgrade it to version 3.1 with the patch in
http://www.xs4all.nl/~renep/quakem...
Although QMe is useful for this reason, I'd personally recommend working with the mdl as little as possible. It is generally easier(in my opinion) to create your model in another format entirely, preferably one with a powerful editor which saves the vertices at high precision. Then just export the model to mdl each time you want to test it, much like you compile a new copy of the BSP each time you add to a map.
QuArK ( http://quark.planetquake.gamespy.c... ) also handles .mdl format natively, as well as other more popular formats such as MD3. I've never been able to use it for any serious editing, but found it a useful tool for converting file formats. So it sits somewhere between working directly with the .mdl and just a waystation for converting files.
If you work in Maya, you are fortunate to have the most direct route to export to .mdl. Lunaren has written:http://lunaran.com/files/l...
One package which handles everything directly!
If you work in Blender, you can give a script for exporting to mdl directly a go:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
I wrote it a while ago, for blender 2.4.4, and I don't intend to ever revisit it. But it's written in python, so it should be straightforward for people to modify themselves. Alternatively, you can export your model to MD3, using either http://tremx.svn.sourceforge.net/v...
or http://cube.wikispaces.com/MD3+Exp...
Once you have an MD3 of your model, you can run it through QuArK to convert it to mdl. Alternatively (blowing my own trumpet here) you can use "MD3 to MDL"
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
This is my new work in progress, and I welcome any feedback on it. It's a simple command line tool, requiring only a short text file and an MD3 to work from. I'm planning on extending the control file format to include things like model flags, multiple skins, named frame ranges and stuff, so suggestions of what could be useful will not go ignored.
Since MD3 is so well supported amongst editors, you can use the above to get to .mdl format from most major 3d modelling packages. If you don't have any of the more expensive programs (like me), then you could do a lot worse than getting a copy of Gmax. It's a stripped down version of 3d studio max intended for making gaming models, and it's free. Official support for the idea ended a few years ago, and http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax took over distribution. Make sure you also download the Tempest Game Pack, to get the md3 export you will need. Personally, I can't do without gmax...
This thread is pretty much a continuation of http://www.celephais.net/board/vie... , a thread I'd forgotten about until I started researching for this post. Hopefully putting all this information at the top of the thread justifies starting a new one.
Finally, if the low polygon requirements of Q1 seem constraining, take a look at:
http://boards.polycount.net/showth...
The things some of those posters do with 500 polys are just amazing.
Good Thread
#2 posted by ijed [190.20.112.240] on 2009/05/17 19:03:35
I Like How My Browser Autocompletes Arrrgh As A Post Title
#3 posted by Preach [81.153.85.180] on 2009/05/17 20:05:06
Lunaren's mdl export is at http://lunaran.com/files/lunmodelg...
I previewed to check which links worked, and then messed up actually fixing that one.
Also, to get the ball rolling on actual models, here's a pair of screenshots of the ogre I made ages ago based off metlslime's drawing:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Last time I posted it, it didn't have any blood splatters, and that criticism has been answered. One of the reasons the first version lacked them was that the entire skinmap was mirrored, and so any blood splatter on the chest ended up looking like a rorschach blot. So I carefully unmirrored a few polys here to do the chest.
The other reason I hesitated to do it before is because quite a few of the original id models rely on excessive amounts of blood to mask horrible UV failures. I wanted to make sure this model didn't do that anywhere, which is why the blood is a bit restrained. Hopefully he still looks like a butcher!
I Must Say
#4 posted by meTch [69.183.71.111] on 2009/05/17 21:22:14
that ogre looks awesome,all it needs is a small amount of blood specks and splashes on its clean face and it will most likely be a widely used replacement
#5 posted by MadFox [84.26.168.11] on 2009/05/17 23:48:46
Thanks for the toppic.
After my own experience with quake models I must say you skinned the Orgue well. In the overall making of models I find the texture part the hardest.
I must admit that if i hadn't had Quark4.07 I couldn't change the dimensions of the model, nor manipulate groups of vertices.
One of my greatest concerns of QMLE is the texture part.
What do I do with tex triangles that are mirrored after imported in Qmle?
If I delete the triangle and patch the vertices again the triangle:
comes back with the same texture, so it's useless work
comes back with a extensive texture subdividing, so texturing can only be done by percisely following the lines untill they make squares.
Mirrored Trick
#6 posted by Preach [81.153.85.180] on 2009/05/18 00:37:22
Here's how I avoid the problems with the mirrored textures in qme: I don't use qme for that model - at all!
Now this is something I'd like you to try MadFox. Have a go at making a quake model without using qme, and see how it goes. If you don't like it, then that's fair enough. But based on the problems you've posted, I think you will like it.
Ha!
#7 posted by MadFox [84.26.168.11] on 2009/05/18 01:52:15
feels like asking how to learn riding a bike,
and then say don't use the bike. Start walking.
^^
I don't make the model with Qmle, I'm glad I can import them into Qmle with 3DS files. This goes with an animation programm which is more specificated. I have to change the export to one patch per polygon.
And as it only goes with squads, all triangles get doubled.
Then I'm confronted with importing the New Model from frame.
Saving this first frame also makes my skin frame.
Then I have the choise to turn this first 3DS frame by changing the skin adapture. According the import file it will be a front sight or a side one. So when a triangle gets mirrored I'm delivered to Qmle weary workarounds.
I already tried other ways, but the thing that knocked me out was the import/export to Max3D.
Everytime I seem to get two vertices more by exchanging.
Just Make Sure
#8 posted by inertia [69.135.215.146] on 2009/05/18 03:49:10
to put it under a restrictive license.
#9 posted by MadFox [84.26.168.11] on 2009/05/18 04:04:15
Do you mean Qmle or Max3d?
Here's a new version of my Granito monster.
The first one was rather blocky.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/grani...
#10 posted by Trinca [194.65.24.228] on 2009/05/18 12:27:56
still need many fixes but is looking great!
I Don't Wanna Be A Candidate For Vietnam Or Watergate...
#11 posted by Preach [81.153.85.180] on 2009/05/18 20:16:03
feels like asking how to learn riding a bike,
and then say don't use the bike. Start walking.
But the bike keeps crashing, mostly because it has bent wheels, no handlebars and a loose chain. Under those circumstances anyone would recommend you try walking!
I don't make the model with Qmle, I'm glad I can import them into Qmle with 3DS files. This goes with an animation programm which is more specificated. I have to change the export to one patch per polygon.
And as it only goes with squads, all triangles get doubled.
Yes! The point at which you start importing the frames into qme is the point where the problems arise. This is what I'm driving at. You can avoid that problem by creating an mdl with all the frames in first, and then open it in qme.
I'm not saying it's impossible to make a model importing it frame by frame in qme. But if you import frame 1 into QMe, then change the original model, then try to import frame 2 from it, then it's very likely to fail. The import system from QMe just isn't designed well enough to do that(if indeed such a thing could be made).
The only reliable method is to re-export all the frames from the latest version of the model, and import them into a fresh qme file. Since then you need to scale them all, reimport the texture each time, etc - EVERY TIME the source model changes, it becomes a huge hassle. But if you stick with just QMe for the conversion, it's what you must do.
Pro Tip: GLQuake Flood-fills Skins
#12 posted by metlslime [173.11.92.50] on 2009/05/19 00:19:43
this has bit me in the ass twice, once a few years ago, and then it happened again until i realized what was going on:
If you are modelling something like a laser or fireball or something, the temptation is to just fill the entire skin with the color or pattern that you want to use as a texture. The problem is, glquake and most variants will flood fill black into whatever color is in the top left corner of your skin. So if your blue laser has blue all the way to the corner, that blue will turn black and you will be saying WTF when you see it in the engine.
Fix: for solid-colored skins, put a single black pixel (or other un-used color) in the top left corner.
Errata
#13 posted by MadFox [84.26.168.11] on 2009/05/19 00:53:30
Trinca, thanks, but explain me the need of fixes.
Preach, don't care my foolish waistblam, it was just the first thing that came up to me. Being modelling so long on my own way made me more curious to other ways.
Hassling the first frame is because I want to have a good skin.bmp
When the basemodel is imported it can be on different sides. At that point my model is already done. So I can import them as one load, and the only problem I reach is some verticemeshes. The way I described it was somehow confusing. My fault.
Something else got my attention in trying to avoid the mirrored texture.
When I delete a triangle in Qml and add a new one the original count gets different. This seems odd as logically this shouldn't be so.
After that I can't add frames to the original.
But when the model is full of frames, these changes don't seem to bother.
Triangles And Verts
#14 posted by Preach [81.153.85.180] on 2009/05/19 01:36:41
The reason why you can change triangles like that is because the first frame you import to qme is given special treatment.
When the first frame is loaded, the program loads the triangles and the vertices. The vertices are assigned numbers as they are loaded, and the triangles are recorded as sets of three numbers, each number corresponding to one of the triangle's vertices.
For all the subsequent frames, the triangle information is entirely ignored. All QMe does is load the first vertex from the file, and move vertex 1 to it's location, then load the next one, and so on. The list of triangles from the existing model is always used. You could import a frame from an entirely different model, as long as it had the same number of vertices.
The obvious danger is that your modelling program might not always export the vertices in the same order, particularly if you change the model somehow between two exports. This is how triangles can start to go astray. There's no way to control this kind of thing, which is why the import process can get frustrating. As far as the exporting 3d package is concerned, one ordering of the vertices is as good as another. But for the import, it's the only important thing!
Clear
#15 posted by MadFox [84.26.168.11] on 2009/05/19 02:46:41
You could import a frame from an entirely different model
This reminds me to the moment I had the last death frame of granito,
and used the expand function in Milkshape to make all polyhedrons
wide out as an explosion.
It took me quiet some time to make sure I had the right count.
The frame imported the well, but when I closed qmle and reopened the old death frame came back again.
So it are the vertice count that need to match, not the triangles?
Frogman
#16 posted by MadFox [84.26.168.11] on 2009/05/21 19:58:16
In my search to new monsters I'm fixed upon the need of some danger in Quake waters. Only the hartbreaking code part stopped me from doing. This doesn't avoided me to try and I came up with this creature.
In Quake defs it outranges the limits as it goes up to 507 verts and 957 triangles. But I still see it appear in Quake so my greatest concern is to have it good skinned.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/frogm...
Ribbit
#17 posted by meTch [69.183.70.203] on 2009/05/21 21:24:31
;]
HE WILL LIVE!
#18 posted by ijed [200.111.70.236] on 2009/05/24 20:59:51
Texture Question
#19 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/06/18 23:51:21
I restarted the frogman again because the base frame had a bad texture error. By doing so I got messed up with vertice errors that went so far that now on my x-th frame I became a little nerd.
I wondered. If I look at the dragon.mdl of DOE it seems they have cut the whole monster flat on the texture frame. If I look at my base frame I get the picture of the monster front and back. If I cut the monster into pieces (sure, one day) Qmle gives me the well known error: vertices and triangles are not the same.
How do they do it?
Right
#20 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/06/20 22:39:19
found it. it has something to do with cheating qmle import and export abbilty's.
yes, this makes the texturing a lot more acurate.
Crossbow
#21 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/09/10 03:26:11
I plunged myself adding a new weapon in Quake1 and have come to the point I could compare it with the SuperNailgun. I added an arrow and add it to this weapon. Sofar sogood.
Then my perfektionistic habbits turned up and thought: how can I make this arrow fall to the ground instead of vanishing in space?
I'll stop because I want it's velocity not as fast as 1000 and I want it replaced by the axe and... so how make I fall it against a wall and it lies there for say a few seconds?
And post with content so here I go...
http://members.home.nl/gimli/cross...
#22 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/09/10 03:58:08
i did this for my stake gun a while back.
essentially, you're going to go into the projectile touch function and get rid of the the lines calling remove(self) or SUB_Remove().
now, it's a matter of changing the movetype, so where the remove lines were, you put it self.movetype = MOVETYPE_BOUNCE.
now, you don't want the thing to stay there forever, so we're gonna put SUB_Remove() back in, but in a different way.
put in self.nextthink = time + 4 and under that self.think = SUB_Remove. this will get rid of it 4 seconds after it hits.
finally, you can add in some extra stuff like making it spin around randomly with setting self.avelocity to some random values or you could spawn a TE_GUNSHOT for sparks or something else.
Thanks
#23 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/09/10 21:26:12
necros, I will try it out.
But I was thinking, what if the arrow doesn't hit a wall but a monster?
Then it should disappear immediate.
#24 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/09/10 21:33:22
you're quite right.
luckily, it's very easy to do so.
simply make a check:
if (other.flags & FL_MONSTER)
remove(self);
this will check if other (whatever it hit) is a monster, and if so, remove itself.
Mf
#25 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2009/09/10 21:48:10
Look in the RQ code for nails.
What The...
#26 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/09/11 09:30:01
apparently you can have skin groups on models. o.o
#27 posted by Willem [24.199.192.130] on 2009/09/11 13:48:41
Yeah, I discovered that when fooling around with my model editor. Some cool stuff could be done like blinking lights on enforcer suits and blinking, glowing eyes on monsters.
Yep
#28 posted by ijed [190.20.113.119] on 2009/09/11 13:52:09
Animated monster and weapon skins. You remember the 'talking' skins in Seal of Nehahra?
Max 4 Though
#29 posted by ijed [190.20.113.119] on 2009/09/11 13:52:22
Necros
#30 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/09/11 16:24:49
I renewed the download with my additions.
Although I altered the weapons.qc with your advice on #22 the arrow seems to stick in the wall and slightly turn to left untill it meets the corner. Then it disappears.
I also added the grenade tumble but it doesn't append.
I only had one time it started raining arrows.
You can cheque it on the same download.
#31 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/09/11 20:17:13
you put all the stuff in the if statement that checks if it hits sky, that's why.
Statements
#32 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/09/12 02:11:38
It was the first calling remove(self) in arrow_touch I came to.
I didn't realize it had to be the second one on the end of the script.
It's working well now, thanks!
Am I Wrong
#33 posted by ijed [190.20.64.211] on 2009/09/12 02:18:05
But shouldn't just adding 'nextthink X' and leaving SUB_remove have this work?
The projectiles would still do damage while waiting to be removed, but not if their touch was changed / removed.
Argh. The definition of complex - lots of simple.
G-Rail Gun
#34 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/09/20 15:10:29
I followed the code of Dr.Shadowborgh to make a new weapon in Quake1. I added the Q2 g_rail gun and assigned it to the double shotgun.
So far so good.
Now my concern is starting a game with the g_rail.mdl.
Although this weapon is coded on the doubleshotgun (3) it loses its touch when I switch to the shotgun.
So when I still have enough cells to shoot, the game only offers me the railgun again when I collect the DS.
So stop shooting is gone gun.
I am forced to add a double shotgun too before I can acces the railgun again.
Is there a model-code to solve this?.
example:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/grail...
Erratum
#35 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/09/20 15:16:06
assignement is 8
replacement thunderbolt.
Coverting Q1 Mdl File Into Some Format Readable By 3ds Max
#36 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/13 00:27:45
normally, i would just do a dxf export from qme and import that into 3ds, but for what i want to do, i need a fully animated model (with all it's frames in order).
i have a .mdl converter (mdl.exe) but it's about the dumbest thing i've ever seen as the program outputs all the frames as seperate meshes into the .3ds file it outputs. so when you import it, you get like 150~ duplicate meshes, all different frames.
am i sol for this? any utilities i'm unaware of?
If You Find One
#37 posted by ijed [190.20.104.33] on 2009/10/13 01:58:45
Post it.
I've been hunting but have drawn a blank so far.
Necros
#38 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/10/13 20:39:31
Don't you have the Q2MDLR9B, I searched for it but it's one old Q2 mdl converter with also Q1 models. It exports into 3DS very easily compatible toMax3D.
Here's a linkhttp://members.home.nl/gimli/q...
Oopsh...
#39 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/10/13 20:40:07
http://members.home.nl/gimli/q2mdl...
Thanks, But
#40 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/13 20:45:29
no luck, sadly. q2mdlr exports each frame seperately as well. :S
#41 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/13 20:54:50
i think maybe the solution is in 3dsmax and not the exporters... there might be some way to create a vertex animation out of multiple copies of a mesh as long as the vertex # are consistent.
the thing that jumps out immediately would be to use the morph modifier with 1 channel for each frame, and to incrementally toggle each one on and off on the appropriate frames, but that would be extremely annoying and there might be a limit to how many morph targets you can have.
Nope
#42 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2009/10/13 21:48:43
Morph would do it, but be very time consuming.
A nastier problem would be that each model would be its own object, and so have the verticies number individually - there's no way to manage this in max.
Normally with morph you use instances of the same object so that the verts have the same numbers - different objects would most likely get interpolated all over the place.
Bones is the way to go - but that means recreating all the monsters as such :P
In Fact
#43 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2009/10/13 21:52:05
It wouldn't take much time really - what's needed is a decent morph plugin that allows more vert control - morphing via position as opposed to number.
Will be looking around.
Two-Step
#44 posted by Preach [94.192.82.29] on 2009/10/13 21:53:16
My usual route is to convert it to md2 format using QMe, and then importing that with an import script(this is gmax, but I'm pretty sure that the same script can be found for 3dsmax). I do worry that some animation quality is lost in the conversion. It is potentially avoidable, by choosing the scale to be the same in each frame of the md2 you can get a lossless conversion, however I suspect that QMe does not do that.
If the fidelity of the animation proves to be a problem, then I might be able to knock up a python script or something which does mdl->md2 lossless conversion(modulo the skin, which would just get mapped index for index).
#45 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/13 22:12:53
the gmax md2 importer script here: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/... works with 3ds max 9. i was able to import some stock q2 models in with full animations in.
next i'll try converting to q2 from q1 format.
...annnndddd
#46 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/13 22:15:24
success! thanks for the help! ^_^
Great, Just Great
#47 posted by spy [92.46.24.221] on 2009/10/13 22:20:30
Will Give It A Try
#48 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2009/10/13 22:46:35
If it works with 9 and gmax then in theory it'll work with all versions since gmax was discontinued a few years ago (?) so it should be alongside the .3ds format - one of the few things they don't fuck about with on a version by version basis.
Amphibian
#49 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/10/25 19:36:23
I have come this far with my amphibian monster.
It stands on land and in water and starts its attack as soon as the player is in vieuw. The landmonster will start shooting and follows it into the water where it turns into swim behaviour.
The watermonster will go into swim position vieuwing the player, but only starts its attack when agitated. Also it hardly shoots as its position is somehow dull.
Point is I can't get it out of the water.
I'm trying to see with my hard-egged qc cramp what's going on but must admit I'm a dumbass.
Here's an example of the model:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/harpi...
#50 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/26 02:44:31
didn't look at the code, but for the (uncompleted) monster that was supposed to do what you are describing, i settled on making special monster jump triggers.
essentially, you would make your trigger in the area you wanted the monster to jump out of the water and you'd just set speed and height just like a normal jump trigger.
the only differences were that:
1. it didn't affect any other monsters
2. if it was a 'get out of water' trigger, it would do nothing if the monster was on land (and if it was in the water, 'get in the water' triggers would similarly do nothing).
it makes coding it a lot easier, but it kind of takes away from the monster by making it dependent on the mapper. (imagine if fiends only jumped where mappers put triggers, for example).
you could take a look at the code that makes the player jump out of the water. this could work but it could be troublesome.
the player code is run every frame, so it doesn't miss chances to jump out of the water.
but a monster not only is running it's code slower (0.1 seconds) because of movetogoal, it will never really be flush with walls unless it gets lucky.
otoh, if all you mean is you can't get the monster to walk out of the water on, say, a ramp, the trick is to take off the FL_SWIM flag early.
every frame of your swim function, run a test of the pointcontents over the monster's head (say 16 units over the monster's origin) and use that point to determine when to swim or walk.
Btw Madfox
#51 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/30 09:34:31
i wanted to ask you how you combined the legs, torso and head of the skeleton from quake3 when you converted it to quake1. i can't think of a way to do that in 3ds max while preserving the animation. :S
Well..
#52 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/10/31 09:56:41
I must admit I have only converted one frame of the deathscene,
where it stands straight with all limbs in line.
From there I made a 3ds file of it, which I used as baseframe.
Then in am2000 it is possible to make the model act with sepperated limbs and export the 3ds.
Then I bunched against the 1000 verts limits of Qmle, and had to substitute the torso with all the fine parts for a much simpeler one,
and then I could import the 3ds into QMLE.
It sounds simple, but I tried the knight in Max3d and must say the way it handles bones is much more specific I could give my patience.
Which programm do you use to convert the model?
I searched, as it was in answer of my question
how to convert q3 maps to Q1.
Something like Q3map2 :
http://shaderlab.com/q3map2
Bspc
#53 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/10/31 10:27:00
mapping help #6458
#54 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/31 19:37:47
after 2 days of trial and error, i figured out a way to do it.
http://necros.quaddicted.com/temp/...
(hunter was always my favourite ^_^ )
the process is roundabout and exceedingly headache inducing. :P
also, if you want to do this, read my whole post first.
step 1: we need to get the 3 q3 md3 files (head, torso and legs) into 3ds max (in my case).
for this, i used this script: http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/...
surprisingly, it worked in 3ds max 9 (usually most scripts this old would never have worked).
if you follow the instructions on that web page, it will work properly: use the script to import upper.md3 first, then lower, then head. this will make sure the tags link up with the body parts.
(pre) step 2: involved transfering the animation key frames from the torso tag onto the torso mesh itself.
the torso doesn't actually move, it only has vertex animation; it uses the tag to make sure the torso is properly oriented with the legs but in order to export the animation, both the translation and rotation must be on the torso mesh object.
step 2: select your torso tag and go to file -> save animation.
save the file with a name of your choosing some place convenient.
now, select your torso mesh and unbind the mesh from the tag.
go to file -> load animation and select the file you saved earlier.
you will get a message box "No tracks are mapped. Create map file?" and click yes.
you'll see 3 list boxes, two on the sides with the middle one empty. Ctrl+Click on both the sides the item that says "Exposed World Transform" then click the button with the arrow "<-"
this tells max to use the world transform from the save file on the selected object. Click the "save mapping" button on the bottom and save it somewhere (not really important, it just doesn't let you load the animation without saving first) then click "load motion".
if everything was successful, your torso should now be moving on it's own, without being linked to the torso tag.
step 3: redo step2 except for the head.
step 4: now you need to rearrange the uv mapping. originally, head textures take up the same spot on uv maps as the body does, but when you are combining all of this into 1 model, you will have overlapping uvs for the head on the body area.
for a quake3 player model, the body is 256x256 and the head (in the case of hunter) comprised of 2 128x128 textures (the face + the feather hat).
i chose to make a 512x256 texture, with the body on the left, and the face+hat stacked on top of each other right next to the body. this leaves a 128x256 empty area we can use for the weapon.
step 5: before we can export, there is one final step to do. the thing that drove me crazy for the longest time was that the head would never export any frames, even though it had keyframes.
the problem is that the tool i had to use to convert the 3ds max models back to md3s (http://www.quakeunity.com/file=48... only looks at *vertex* animation when deciding if there's a key frame there or not. so what you need to do is go into the head at vertex sub-object level and add a key frame to any 1 vertex at the end of the animation. (i just move a vertex an incredibly small amount).
step 6: delete all the tags (they aren't needed) and export the whole model as an ase file. make sure you have it set to export keyframes every frame.
step 7: open up npherno's md3 compiler (http://www.quakeunity.com/file=48... import the ase file but only select 1 component. export the single component back into md3. close, reopen the program and do the same for the torso and head.
step 8: use preach's md3tomdl converter (http://www.btinternet.com/~chapte... to convert the 3 pieces into mdls.
step 9: (these next steps are the 'dumb' parts) open qme and open up the legs. then, using import object, import the torso.
qme, annoyingly, has no options with what to do with incoming object's skin mapping, so although the nice uvw maps were preserved from the original md3 files, they will be placed next to each other.
Haha, Ran Out Of Characters......
#55 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/31 19:37:59
step 10: open quark 4.07 (yes, really). load your combined model. you'll notice your actual skin now is absolutely massive (i think it was 1536x256) because qme just kept adding stuff on the sides.
what you need to do in quark 4.07 is select the torso verts on the skin mapping editing window and slide them way over to the left (where the legs verts are).
for the head verts, i wasn't able to slide them over next to the body verts because they were considered 'on the other side' and so werent' allowed past the mid-point of the skinmap.
so i slide them just to the right of the mid-point.
finally, (still in quark) go into the edit -> model properties menu. change the width to 512 (make sure the 'right' radio button is selected so it will remove stuff from the right side, not the left).
this should place the head verts right next to the body verts and everything should be perfect. if not, the gods have not smiled uopn you and you are SOL, sorry.
Save.
step 11: now all that's left to do is to name your frames which you can do easily in qme.
yay, you have a q3 player model in quake with uvw and animations preserved. :P
note 1: i'm not sure if you could skip the 3dsmax process for the legs and torso, since the only real modification we had to do was with the head (regarding the uv mapping change).
note 2: there may be a way to collapse all 3 components into a single mesh object. the problem is that simply attaching the mesh objects together discards their vertex animation with no way of reclaiming them.
the other method involves using boolean with unify operations but you can't export frames that way because the key frames of the boolean operands don't count and the md3 compiler will only see 1 or 2 frames. (although this method does at least preserve the vertex animation)
so yeah, anyway, in most ways, it's probably better to do it the way you did madfox, import a single frame, combine it all into a single mesh, re-weight the vertices with new bones and animate it again yourself. this is the more logical way, i suppose, but i really wanted the original animations as well. :P
Bah. Links Broke.
#56 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/10/31 19:41:21
npherno's md3 compiler: http://www.quakeunity.com/file=481
preach's md3tomdl: http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Md3tomdl Improvements
#57 posted by Preach [94.192.82.29] on 2009/11/01 02:00:38
The handling of multi-component models in md3tomdl isn't very sophisticated, but could be improved fairly easily. Once you've parsed the md3, you can grab all the components, and there are only two barriers to just shoving them all into the mdl.
The first barrier is accounting for separate components possibly having different skin files. Since this is rubbing up against a technical limitation in quake, I think the solution I'd advocate is to just bung all components into the same space on the skinmap. So you'd need to prepare your md3 in advance to ensure those parts don't overlap. Still, anyone making a quake mdl has to do that at some point. You might as well do it in your md3 editor, since it's probably more capable than any tool for an mdl.
The second barrier is that different components may have completely unrelated animations. This could be overcome with the same blasé approach as the first barrier: We assume that the md3 has already been edited so that for each frame on the torso, the corresponding animation desired for the legs has the same frame index. This certainly would be easiest to code!
However, I would be open to maybe in the future allowing the controlling text file to define sequences of frames from each component. For example:
component_1: 1-36
component_2: 1-6,1-6,7-18,7-18
would use all the frames in component_1 in order, but repeat component_2 sequences. This might be to match the sequences in the torso with running/standing loops in the legs.
Although this would be more work to create, it would be useful outside just converting multi-component models, as you could grab subsets of the full animations on models with only one component. So it is of wide enough use to be worth attempting.
I might try doing the blasé approach in the next few days though, because it should be straight forward to add, and sounds like it would save a lot of pain...
#58 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2009/11/01 02:22:19
I.m convinced necros you're aproach leads to the most pure way to extract a Q3monster to Q1!
In my case I more felt out of choice because I didn't expect three animations for one model.
Then the fact Q3models contain much more verts than A Q1 model made my plan for converting a rather silly idea.
As I have only Max3d 4.3 I'm furious looking to get the 9th version to check your method.
Suburp model, hunter!
Re: Md3tomdl
#59 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/11/01 03:08:45
the whole process i followed was so convoluted, i lost track of why i did certain things.
i do remember having problems when i originally had all 3 mesh components exported into an md3 with md3tomdl crashing.
also, it would be more useful to be able to control frame naming.
like:
name_frame_0 "stand"
name_frame_8 "walk"
name_frame_20 "run"
just name the frames in incrementing order until it gets to a new label, then switch to the new one.
The first barrier is accounting for separate components possibly having different skin files. Since this is rubbing up against a technical limitation in quake, I think the solution I'd advocate is to just bung all components into the same space on the skinmap. So you'd need to prepare your md3 in advance to ensure those parts don't overlap. Still, anyone making a quake mdl has to do that at some point. You might as well do it in your md3 editor, since it's probably more capable than any tool for an mdl.
i knew going in that i'd only have 1 skin file, and so adjusted my uv mapping accordingly. this is something i'd say you can pretty much assume. unless you wanted to try something fancy like auto combining pcx files next to each other for each different skin and then offsetting the uv coordinate appropriately. i mean, that would be pretty awesome, but it's not like you can't do that in 3ds max.
The second barrier is that different components may have completely unrelated animations. This could be overcome with the same blasé approach as the first barrier: We assume that the md3 has already been edited so that for each frame on the torso, the corresponding animation desired for the legs has the same frame index. This certainly would be easiest to code!
in my case, at least, i didn't even think about it: i automatically aligned the proper head/torso animations with the leg animations. honestly, unless there's some reason i'm not thinking about, i'd say you can pretty much assume if a multi-object mesh is being converted that the frames have been properly aligned.
ps: madfox:
if your only purpose is to work on old games stuff, i'd actually recommend you try version 6, 7 or 8.
there were a lot of good plugins and scripts made that haven't been upgraded to run in version 9+.
if you use version 6-8, you can use pop_n_fresh's md3 exporter which is a lot easier than using the damn md3 compiler by npherno. :P
Autocombining Skins
#60 posted by Preach [94.192.82.29] on 2009/11/01 13:52:03
I know necros is in agreement with me here, but thought I'd say this:
Autocombining skins can be done. Automatic combination which is nice - low skin wastage, power of 2 skin dimensions, scale preservation - is almost impossible except when it is trivial. If you have two 256x256 skins then putting them side by side is straightforward, but if you have a 128x128 head as well, you're in trouble. And I know that quake can take irregular skin dimensions, but the reasons no other games do that still apply to hardware quake rendering.
On naming frames: it is something I'll probably include in the end, since the hardest part of coding that is writing c++ which will parse the list out of the text file. The reason it's low priority is that the engine doesn't use frame names for anything. Possibly when I add support for framegroups, there will be more reason to have this. You would define the frame sequence names, then have a second list of which of those frames should be framegroups.
Wild though for the day: Since I'm the person so in love with the edicts command, I invented another feature for it. When you get edicts info for an entity with a model, the value listed in "frame" should be the name of the frame pulled from the model, with the actual frame number in brackets.
Mulit-mesh Progress
#61 posted by Preach [94.192.82.29] on 2009/11/02 10:20:42
I had a look at the code last night, and was a little surprised to see that the code already iterates over all of the components during the mdl export process, in the manner I suggested above (mapping everything to one skin and presuming the frames align). So far, so good.
The problem actually appears to be in the md3 loading code, which fails in the case of 3 or more components, although I believe it should work with 2. Hopefully I will be able to fix this very quickly and then release version 2 as a bug fix which enables many features...
"arrgh" Still Autocompletes As A Func_ Post Title
#62 posted by Preach [94.192.82.29] on 2009/11/03 23:23:32
So I think I may have discovered one of the contributing factors to the bug. While reading the header for the MD3, I skip over the number of tags that the model has, since they aren't used in Q1. You can get away with ignoring some data when parsing an MD3, because it helpfully gives you offsets within the file to the various frame/tag/surface chunks. Unfortunately I forgot to do the corresponding code to skip the bytes representing the tags offset in the header, and so was reading that value into the surfaces_offset instead.
The only reason I ever got away with this is because usually I use the program on models with no tags, since there's no point adding them to models for Q1. Any time you try to import a model with tags, it chokes by trying to use tag data as vertex counts, which often end up being negative values. So hopefully with that fixed, I can close in on the bugs with multiple surfaces instead...
4 Posts In A Row
#63 posted by Preach [94.192.82.29] on 2009/11/04 12:19:57
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Version 0.2 with proper support for multiple surfaces. As it turned out, not one character was wrong with the mdl exporting code from v0.1 with regards to multiple surfaces. It was all errors in the md3 loader which I think are now squashed. Comments welcome!
#64 posted by necros [99.227.133.158] on 2009/11/04 22:48:36
don't think it's unappreciated! :) i will see how it goes with klesk tonight.
Serpent
#65 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2010/02/22 19:56:55
When I saw the serpent in the Qtest map I thought it looked like a bad imported dxf file. One that appears after bad im/exporting.
So I decided it could look better, but after my first attempts I realized how difficult it is to import a good dxf/3ds file into QMLE.
Always the skinfile looks damaged with triangles appearing mirrored. When I finnaly had a good one I thought to be right.
Obviously the skinfile tends to keep its mirrored habbit.
What to do about it?
http://members.home.nl/gimli/Base....
Well..,
#66 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2010/02/23 01:01:27
after replacing all distorted triangles I ended up with a meshed skinfile.
Then I loaded the model into q2mdlr9b and imported the skinfile in pcx.
It loaded well in qmle after redrawing the verts on the skinfile.
I had to know this before, after all the time I spend in QMLE correcting skinfiles.
So
#67 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2010/02/23 06:35:09
here's my result of the serpent.
I only construct the model, the skin is one of androidart.com I lately saw here on the board.
Sure is a fine skin texture piece.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/serp0...
#68 posted by metlslime [173.11.92.50] on 2010/02/23 06:36:47
pretty nice... it'd be cool to see a flock of these swarming around a map.
Yep Looks Good
#69 posted by nitin [124.168.7.215] on 2010/02/23 13:26:56
Wow Very Nice
#70 posted by sock [78.131.32.151] on 2010/02/23 14:13:39
Madfox, that is very good stuff :) You should really use that as a new monster type. Would look awesome as a flock swirling around high above the player before attacking.
Or...
#71 posted by generic [67.233.178.130] on 2010/02/23 14:25:00
just as ambient creatures that fly about.
Very nice, indeed!
C'mon
#72 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2010/02/23 14:43:37
It's Quake - they should be trying to kill you.
Manta
#73 posted by MadFox [84.26.170.230] on 2010/02/23 20:02:33
Thanks for your attend.
While I'm learning to understand what makes monster developement so hard I'm mostly surprised by the way I'm struggling with QMLE.
I've spent months on Bones trying to correkt verticemeshes. Thing is: QMLE imports from the baseframe. If this baseframe is allready in the model.mdl the program tends to import dxf/3ds files corrupted.
Me being glad to have the model in Qmle didn't mind to go frame by frame updating all corrupted vertices, with the habbit Qmle always picks up the wrong one.
Untill I found out when importing the fresh baseframe and then at one stroke all frames importing delivered a clean model.
My god... !
Then the skinproblem appeared.
When an imported basefram is in QMLE, and not all trianles are visible (which is always the cause) the imported skinfile will be partly mirrored on the unseen triangles.
It took me almost ten years to conclude this.
Now looking back it comes to me as if the serpent model in Qtest is a kind of distorted imported model. Although they (ID) had to take of as less verts as possible they made some good models with these limits.
The Qtest-serpent has 90 verts and 178 tris.
Mine ended up with 95 verts and 190 tris.
Can't help seeing the reminisence with the later dragon models.
MadFox
#74 posted by spy [92.46.19.181] on 2010/02/23 20:45:04
congrats dude, its very cool model :)
Qme Source
#75 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2010/03/18 21:41:32
Anyone know if this was ever released?
basically I want to remove the 'helpful' auto-UV map feature that breaks my UV's and makes them shitty Quake front/back projection when importing non .mdl stuff.
I realise having the source might not help me still so am going to try the model exporter from Spirit's bounty as well.
Doubt that'll work either though since Qme only imports frames in .dxf - importing udner two distinct formats will probably renumber the verticies and corrupt the mesh.
Qme And Texmex...
#76 posted by metlslime [173.11.92.50] on 2010/03/18 23:38:02
two apps that would be nice to be open sourced.
Baker Will Be Back Soon
#77 posted by meTch [69.183.34.100] on 2010/03/18 23:46:37
so he can go on a rant on how all of quakes stuff should be open sourced, at least form this point forward.
and then ill be back later to agree with what he said
I'm Proud
#78 posted by ijed [190.20.98.208] on 2010/03/19 04:38:42
to be part of Baker's army on that front.
Non-open is death. Even the most dedicated are only human. A binary is a slow death.
An Easier One:
#79 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2010/03/19 13:20:04
What's a decent way to convert to the Quake palette from full colour in Photoshop?
Metslime, what are the changes that you'd make to TexMex? It seems to do pretty much everything needed, for me. Just curious.
Ijed --
#80 posted by metlslime [173.11.92.50] on 2010/03/19 20:24:19
there's at least one crash bug that i hit periodically, plus it doesn't remember folder names from previous export/open/save operations, also, maybe some better fullbright handling.
Fullbright Management
#81 posted by ijed [216.241.20.2] on 2010/03/19 20:48:26
Would be nice.
#82 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2010/03/19 21:44:21
ijed, are you asking what will yield the best conversion result?
the only thing i'd say is to check each of the different dithering options. some types of textures will look better with one type of dithering pattern, and others will look awful.
also, unless you want fullbrights, make sure the palette you're using to convert has the fullbright colours blacked out.
Pretty Much Yeah
#83 posted by ijed [190.20.119.160] on 2010/03/20 00:52:00
Thanks for the info.
Further Conversion Tips
#84 posted by Preach [94.171.242.186] on 2010/03/20 03:09:09
If you find the image you're converting has different "textures" within it, you may notices that a type of dithering works well on some parts but not others. In quake, this can be particularly apparent when converting an image with colours outside the usual range - often a less dithered conversion will alter the colours more significantly.
In this case, I've found it useful to do each type of dithering on copies of the original image, all moved to different layers. You can then use one as a base and create a hard-edged mask on the other layers. This way you can get the best of both conversions fairly quickly.
#85 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2010/03/20 03:53:36
hadn't run into a case where multiple dithering methods were needed, but this is a good thing to remember, thanks ^_^
Will
#86 posted by ijed [190.20.119.160] on 2010/03/20 11:35:46
Be trying these out today - my skins are typically pretty ugly thanks to bad conversion.
Skin Group Animation
#87 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/01/10 07:40:04
limited to like 6 or 7 frames? i have a 12 frame skingroup but it seems to loop before playing the whole thing. T_T
option to manually animate is available, of course, but i finally found something to use that stupid skingroup thing and it's broken. :P
Correction
#88 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/01/10 07:57:25
DP has this bug fixed, or was it a limitation in the original glquake?
i can't run that engine to check. :S i'm using quakespasm.
it's not an actual frame thing-- manually animating the 12 frames works fine.
I Think It's Totally Broken On Glquake
#89 posted by metlslime [67.188.81.46] on 2011/01/10 08:00:49
and might only accept 1, 2, or 4 skins in a framegroup. Or maybe even worse than that. I'm pretty sure 4 works.
Fun fact: fitzquake probably hasn't fixed this.
Model Of The Week: Waterfall
#90 posted by Preach [62.30.197.42] on 2011/07/25 21:17:32
Today I'm launching a bi-annual feature called "Model of the Week" where I offer a new quake model for use in maps. This week: waterfall.mdl
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
This model comes with a demonstration map, which uses quoth's mapobject_custom to add the model to the map*. Extract the map into quake\quoth\maps and the model into quake\quoth\progs. I recommend viewing in winquake first, and then in stock fitzquake to see the "progressive enhancement".
Usage:
waterfall.mdl is a 32 polygon model, measuring 64 units wide and ~192 units tall. The origin lies dead centre of the bottom of the waterfall. Place it in your map accordingly, with angles facing outwards, and set the frame to 6 for the loop animation. The model comes with 5 skins:
Freshwater(0)
Effluent(1)
Molten(2)
Blood(3)
Toxichem(4)
This covers the main fluids in quake maps, but if you need something unusual or a better match for your water texture, the model is easy to customise. Simply inserting the desired water texture as a skin will create a reasonable effect, although adding "waves" to the top and bottom is strongly recommended so that the flow can be read easily.
Care has been taken to ensure that no visual artifacts can be seen behind the waterfall, but if you want to let players get behind the waterfall you may want to look at the flowflat sequence, which is not as tall as well as being flattened, so that it can be used for the back-face.
Advanced usage:
If you poke around the model you'll probably notice the spring and dryup sequences. These two animations were actually a happy accident, they were a byproduct of creating the main loop which I realised could be useful about half way through modelling.
If you want to use them to create a waterfall that starts and/or stops you will need to tweak the model a little bit. The important thing to do is to ungroup the flow animation. This lets you line up the frames so that the interpolation and waves move consistantly. To make the animation smooth always transition from spring7 to flow1 and from either flow8 or flow16 to dryup1.
So Preach, I don't want a 3 page diatribe on how you made this thing work but...would it be possible to make a custom-designed waterfall model with a more complex flow within a static model?
We really shouldn't be talking here, but I know somewhere more private - e-mail me.
*Just to note use of quoth is just me doing the laziest thing that would work - the quoth mod is not doing any clever behind-the-scenes stuff to enhance the effect. It simply precaches the model and displays it in the map.
#91 posted by ZealousQuakeFan [81.141.94.126] on 2011/07/25 22:46:54
wtb Quoth 3 with emitters for steam and splashes and things :P
Also, looks neat to me :)
#92 posted by Trinca [89.154.57.89] on 2011/07/25 23:06:19
love the blue one... the rest not that much...
blue is fucking awesome!
Usefull!
#93 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/07/25 23:43:08
My last map has green water, so for a waterfall I exchanged all "+fall6" blue pix into green. A rather dull experience, thanks!
Ooh
#94 posted by rj [82.10.220.211] on 2011/07/26 00:27:31
that is brilliant. do they stack easily? could one theoretically use lots of them together to create a kind of niagara falls type wall of water?
and yes, needs splash sprites!
Rub 2
#95 posted by jt_ [174.252.240.41] on 2011/07/26 01:02:33
Has splash sprites. or particles.
Splashes And Stacks
#96 posted by Preach [62.30.197.42] on 2011/07/26 01:44:00
Yeah, I actually messed around using a func_togglewall with particles to create a spray effect at once point. It looked very cool, but I took it back out to keep the focus on what the new model can do and not the existing features of quoth(if used in a novel way). Certainly something for people to experiment with in proper maps.
I'm not sure that stacking horizontally would work too well for a few reasons, although tweaks to the model may overcome these. The first is that the random sync flag is set on the models so the waves would not come down together on adjacent falls. Even if they were in sync, the fact that the waves sweep diagonally means that they wouldn't align. Finally the texture itself does not tile in any direction so you'd see a seam without changing it.
Stacking vertically would be ok, but I'd warn against anyone who was intending to carefully tile the flat waterfall effect end-to-end to build a long one. Firstly you'd again not be able to tile the waves correctly because they hit the bottom 2-3 frames before emerging at the top. Secondly the animation is supposed to have faster falling water at the base than the top. Tiling would create a stop-start effect.
A better plan would be to create a stepped waterfall with simply two or three regular falls feeding one another. You could create height variation by having one intersect a second somewhat(although the wave-splash would be somewhat lost) or by duplicating and scaling the animation.
Can I just add how nice it is to get feedback like ^^^^^. I've been tweaking the model on-and-off for a week to the point where it didn't do that for me, and I was worried I'd overworked it and lost what was so great about it at first. So thanks to all you guys for casting fresh eyes on it. Sounds like nobody's cracked out their model editor to find the easter egg though...
Preach
#97 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/07/26 01:46:06
that is surprisingly effective! i think i prefer that than fading in water falls like i did before. especially since it has a proper start/stop animation.
Ooh, One More Thing
#98 posted by Preach [62.30.197.42] on 2011/07/26 10:58:22
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
If you edit and save the model with QMe or similar you might notice that the model starts looking odd and flickery in-game. This is because the vertices are disconnected on the face edges, and so the normals don't always point the same way, even if the faces appear adjacent.
The above perl script fixes this by setting all the vertex normals to the same direction in every frame. The script is lazy to the point of hard-coding the model name but it does work. Turning it into a better designed generic perl script is on the cards...
Rub 2
#99 posted by [128.243.253.103] on 2011/07/26 17:04:01
just used standard blue particles, yeah. they looked kind of cute i guess, but would be much better if replaced with proper animated droplet sprites (they'd start as a single blue drop, then separate into multiple smaller droplets and eventually single pixels, fading to white) and then thrown out of an emitter entity in a similar fashion
to be fair it doesn't sound like a taxing task and is something i've been meaning to take a stab at for a while (although i have zero experience in sprite editing)
as for the falls themselves, i'll see how i get on with stepping and whatnot; it might entail a slight design change. but there is a chance i may drop you an email at some point preach :)
^me Obviously
#100 posted by rj [82.10.220.211] on 2011/07/26 18:27:20
Nice
#101 posted by ijed [190.22.17.70] on 2011/07/27 02:32:20
That works great.
Slimeflows coming up.
Wanted: New Animations For Player .mdl
#102 posted by OneManClan [58.168.229.115] on 2011/08/01 11:17:17
Hi all.
If you would like to create something that will be seen (and appreciated) every week by a bunch of TF maniacs, I have two requests:
1. A new animation for player.mdl, where he has his arms outstretched, kind of like this:
http://images.sodahead.com/polls/0...
I need 1 Standing, 1 walking, and 1 pain.
2. A new player .mdl which is a giant, deformed version of the normal player.mdl. Twice as tall, with a deformed head, as seen at 0:23 at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4f7...
He needs: giant_stand, giant_walk, giant_swing_a_club, giant_pain, and giant_die.
I'm not sure how this forum works, it seems to be one long thread(?), please contact me at adonis_paradise@yahoo.com if you can help
thanks,
OneManClan
ps, quick ad: BIG TF games every Sunday at 22:00 GMT, check it out:
www.attackersgored.com
#103 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/08/03 02:56:22
where is that baron.mdl model that is in nehahra from? i seem to recall it was a converted q3 model or something? is there any way to get the original version to be re-converted? the nehahra version has massive amounts of vertex dancing; more than there should be.
Converted Q2 Model
#104 posted by nitin [203.214.42.184] on 2011/08/03 03:29:27
by evilbastard.
http://planetquake.gamespy.com/Vie...
http://www.fileplanet.com/8427/0/f...
Although
#105 posted by nitin [203.214.42.184] on 2011/08/03 04:12:05
I've always thought his TheForgottenOne model would also work well in quake.
Fantastic
#106 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/08/03 05:29:56
and thanks for pointing me towards theforgottenone as well!
i can also see exactly why there's so much vertex dancing in the neh version: there's a sequence where he shoots a laser out of his eye which they probably deleted after it was converted.
interestingly, i can see that the main improvement of md2 over mdl is that the vertex 'resolution' is per frame, not per model hence why evilbastard could get away with the eye laser animation in q2.
My 2 Cents
#107 posted by spy [92.47.253.63] on 2011/08/03 14:54:59
its seems that the infantry dude from q2 and modified to bastion by kinn is extremely underrated . hes so awesome. and fits the base theme very well
Hm
#108 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/08/03 21:19:02
looks like evilbastard did some extra frames for the nehahra mod as the original ddz baron model lacks those. hmmm not as useful as i had hoped....
it's too bad we didn't know as much about mdl format and vertex resolution that we know now. simply deleting the 'eye laser' frames before converting to .mdl would have increased fidelity by like 400% :(
Necros
#109 posted by nitin [180.149.192.133] on 2011/08/04 03:13:28
theforgottenone (at leats the non-winged version) has the same torso as the ddz model. Although the animations may be diffeerent, might be worth looking into that md2.
#110 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/08/04 04:15:19
i'm currently looking into what options i have atm...
i considering just re-rigging the q2 model and doing my own animations, since i enjoy doing that. first, it would allow me to just add a sword (which the q2 model is lacking) and do some proper melee swings and such.
i figure i can just use the nice uv mapped q2 model and then try out preach's method of going through the md3 format on the way to mdl and if i can't figure that out, at least i can go to md2->mdl instead.
i'm a little wary of trying to do theforgottenone since the wingspan of that model is fairly large at times. might result is pretty bad vertex dancing and i'd still need to add a melee weapon and melee animations.
when i saw the baron model, i kind of assumed that the sword was part of the original model and that he just held it in his offhand like that q3 model that looks like a crazy hellknight.
Dark Knight?
#111 posted by nitin [203.214.42.184] on 2011/08/04 15:28:56
love that model.
#112 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/08/04 19:25:50
yeah, it's awesome. seems like no matter which model i choose, i'm still going to have to end up re-rigging and then re-animating them.
#113 posted by ZealousQuakeFan [81.141.88.35] on 2011/08/07 02:20:29
Are there any models of trees around I could use? Preferably via quoth custom objects :E
#114 posted by ZealousQuakeFan [81.141.88.35] on 2011/08/07 02:20:30
Are there any models of trees around I could use? Preferably via quoth custom objects :E
#115 posted by ZealousQuakeFan [81.141.88.35] on 2011/08/07 02:20:52
argh sorry :(
Hexen 2
#116 posted by jt_ [68.42.82.10] on 2011/08/07 03:23:32
Has one or two tee models, so does soul of evil iirc. I think quoth might even come with a tree model, you might want to check the pack.
Definitely Does
#117 posted by Drew [76.75.125.184] on 2011/08/07 16:47:47
It's Back
#118 posted by Preach [94.171.245.254] on 2011/09/07 01:15:25
So model of the week took a big hit when I lost internet for the first half of August. Still, I didn't waste all of those hours idly, so here's a non-model "model of the week" with modelling applications:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
It's the threatened perl script for manipulating mdl files. Details on how to use are in the readme.
The future:
Future goals include:
• Adding some code for handling the mysterious vertex normals - including the vertex normal table and finding the index that best approximates a given normal.
• Creating a companion to mdl::list_framedata which provides a list of skindata which ignores whether a skin is in a group or not.
• Including more example scripts.
• Creating a companion module which will load MD3 (then maybe MD2) models into a similar perl structure. Then include example scripts for loading an MD3 and outputting a MDL.
The last one ought to be useful in practice. I was at one point working on a new version of md3tomdl with expanded options for how the conversion would be performed. I abandoned this when the challenge became parsing the config file rather than performing the conversion. Instead I began looking for a scripting language which handled binary files and there perl was...
Anyway, the plan is NOT to have all three model formats load into a single common structure. The thinking is that how you resolve the differences between the structures is the most important part of the conversion, and there's no one-size-fits-all solution (especially when it comes to combining multiple segment MD3s with independent animations). Instead the plan is to start from a basic conversion script each time and customise it in all the relevant places to suit the model in question.
Waterfalls
#119 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/09/12 08:37:30
Rather intrigued by Preach I tried the waterfall model. I opened it in qmle and saw it were all film files. As it is a one patch line I couldn't use it in normal Quake. It just disappears.
So I decided to make one that turned round frames like a coil, so it can be used to simulate waterfalls or taintracks.
The screenrecorder went chunky so I made a gif to illustrate the principle.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/wfall...
...and now I'm on it I might as well turn you the file, maybe you get texturing inspirations for a praxinoscope like me.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/rotaf...
:D
Seeing Double
#120 posted by Preach [94.171.245.254] on 2011/09/14 00:33:53
Glad to see it getting used MadFox, certainly the watery realm in your map looks like the perfect home. To bind that model in with the perl stuff above, here's a quick script I just cooked up which offers another way to solve your problem.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
It takes an input model and makes all the polygons in it double-sided, so you can see it from front and back. Here's the output when you run it on waterfall.mdl:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Just remains to say that I didn't write the script just to help with the waterfall, it should also come in handy with the next model in the pipeline. You heard that right - this isn't even model of the week! (what an ugly tease...)
A Vine Model
#121 posted by Preach [94.171.245.254] on 2011/09/19 23:22:02
It's time for Model Of The Week, only a day late. Or if you prefer, bright and early at the start of this week!
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Time to plant some vegetation in your map! This model will decorate bare surfaces in your map, making your medieval walls look vibrant or your base maps overgrow and abandoned. And at just a shade over 40 triangles per model, why not add two!
The model comes with 7 poses for the vine, and the following 4 skins:
Tropical Vine
Poison Ivy
Desiccated
Autumnal Tips
The model is designed to tightly hug a wall in your map, and so the polygons only face in one direction. To get the right placement, position the origin of the model 8 units away from the wall it will be rooted to. In the case of the 'limp' frames, the origin should be 64 units from the ground, and in the case of the 'creep' frame 32 units from the second wall that it wraps around.
The script in the previous handful of posts in this thread would also be useful here, if you would rather create free-hanging vines which you need to see from both sides. Bonus points if you can adapt the script to make it instead clone the triangles in the model and make a single vine model with multiple creepers. You'll save entities!
Turbulence Waterfall
#122 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/09/21 01:23:08
Fine piece of artwork there, Preach. Wish I had these when making my venividifuzi level.
Roman art would like that, as well as the vine texture.
I wanted to add some turbulence to the waterfall, as it is a bit strange to see so much water falling in a peacefull water.
Also made the length somewhat longer.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/hfall...
Yup
#123 posted by roblot [216.106.107.248] on 2011/09/21 01:48:09
Those vines isa useful, thanks man.
Big Wave
#124 posted by Preach [94.171.245.254] on 2011/09/22 01:05:51
I had worried about the bottom of the water in the same way, but decided to go in a different direction for the next models and return to it later, so I've been beaten there! I hope you plan to share the model once it's finished. It probably could stand to have some particles along with it in a map to add noise to it, but it certainly creates turbulence.
At the base of the splash you have a wave washing over, which makes me wonder if you could make the entire splash section loop around in the way that the main waterfall does, and so create a series of waves. The problem I can anticipate is that it forces the waves out in just one direction, but it might still be worth exploring.
#125 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/09/22 02:37:06
Glad you like it.
Not a case of beaten, just an idea involving by cherrishing it up! I also was thinking for a sprite with buble but that changes in view.
Fog also would do, but that's kind of hazzard trying shaders.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/water...
Two models, the starting one as in the gif file, and another one I tried to make the wave bigger and more floating off. Funny to see the waterbulb go under the normal wayer surface.
I already tried to make the vertices change directions, but you can make a try by dobbling the vertical one and change it in front of it.
lol
Puf Statics
#126 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/10/03 22:45:15
my own cell generator.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/plug....
#127 posted by gb [46.142.27.9] on 2011/10/03 23:12:28
Ahaha, awesome!
Skip For Models?
#128 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/10/13 22:23:31
The idea just came up to me if it would be possible to use skip on model.mdl files?
The way it is done with mapping is clear to me.
How About...
#129 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2011/10/13 22:35:10
just delete the triangle if you don't want it to be rendered.
#130 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/10/13 22:51:28
models and BSPs are totally different. i don't think there's any way to reconcile the two systems.
but metl's right, deleting the triangles is the only way to make faces not appear.
Quoth had (iirc) 3 seperate models for the polyp stealth activation where Kell went and deleted successively more and more tris.
Greebles
#131 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/10/14 01:18:42
Yes, I was suspecting something like that.
I understand deleting the triangle creates an opening, but there's no way to make it look transparent, than by texturing a blooming surface.
Ah
#132 posted by ijed [190.22.68.248] on 2011/10/16 16:58:08
Gradual transparency.
I don't think there exists a method for that in Quake, although DP has some stuff that does it.
Spritely
#133 posted by Preach [94.171.245.254] on 2011/10/19 22:06:54
I was gonna ask some advice on using sprites in quake but instead I'm just gonna moan. Fitzquake really spoils you with it's proper support for sprites. I had a model-sprite combination working beautifully in fitz, and then tested it in a few classic engines just to be sure. GLquake doesn't support "facing upright" sprites and just uses the facing code. Winquake is equally unsupportive in a different direction, shrinking the unusually large sprite down to about half the desired size.
I'm pretty much betting that there is nothing that can be done but if anyone knows a fix for one or the other it's gladly heard. Otherwise back to the drawing board...
Also
#134 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/10/20 00:15:09
the sprite offset stuff doesn't work at all in DP, so make sure, if your sprites animate, that they are centered in the image.
Model Of The ... Er ... Quarter I Guess
#135 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2011/12/10 02:44:43
So yeah, not really putting out a model every week. Which isn't to say I've not been making them at that kinda rate. But I've made a few that I don't think are worth releasing, or are ready for show just yet, and had that tree project which got eaten up by technical hitches. After that I started making a series of models in a theme, more about that later.
Today though I took inspiration from the explosion effects in TF2 and tried my hand at making a particle effect, which was good practice in using all the gmax animation controls I'd learnt about for the aborted models above.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
The file contains the model and a quick test mod plus full details on how it works, but give it a quick spin and let me know what you think.
So back to the series of models I mentioned at the top. I was thinking if the best way to handle a pack like that would be to post individual models here as soon as they are working - beta quality if you like. Then I can tweak them based on any feedback offered and release the pack with all the refined versions at the end. Sound alright?
Great Sparks!
#136 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/12/13 01:04:58
I noticed them only with the GL, but as closer to the wall the appearance get better.
This way it's easier to add emitters like the extra-mod.
Are you making a new pakfile with monsters like I did in The Hangar?
Gomjabber
#137 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2011/12/13 01:08:33
http://members.home.nl/gimli/gomja...
Stop, Grenadetime
#138 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2011/12/13 16:50:13
Are you use you don't mean the Rocket Launcher, the mod uses stock effects on the grenade! I'm not working on any new monsters right now, mostly my new models are mapobjects (and now special effects) that other people might want to incorporate into maps. Expect a few more particle systems soon because they're quite fun to make!
#139 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/12/13 19:46:57
meant to comment earlier but forgot.
the effect looks quite good. hexen2 has a few good examples of ways to make effects out of models too, if you are looking for inspiration.
Super-duper-multishotgun
#140 posted by Ghd Fladjern Tilbud [178.70.202.160] on 2011/12/18 00:17:33
Got the idea from ne_ruins mod, and blocked some models. Im not really sure how to setup a camera to simulate 1st person view.
http://i.imgur.com/p091p.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/qlPcq.jpg
One is just random, and another one based on this concept http://gamersblock.net/gamefluid/w...
#141 posted by necros [99.227.131.204] on 2011/12/18 01:08:19
those are pretty cool man... should try to get them skinned and such.
for positioning, just grab one of the regular gun models and export it as a dxf file. then, in your editing software, just import the dxf and match your gun to it and then get rid of it when you've got the right position.
Well
#142 posted by Ghd Fladjern Tilbud [178.70.207.84] on 2011/12/19 08:21:10
something like this
http://i.imgur.com/MgS2q.jpg
Nice One
#143 posted by negke [31.18.185.172] on 2011/12/19 10:58:54
Time for an all-shotgun Quake with single- up to eight-barreled shotguns.
#144 posted by gb [46.142.44.190] on 2011/12/19 12:25:35
pretty cool, relatively hi-poly for Quake though. Compare to vanilla shotguns.
Really Quick Hackjob
#145 posted by Ghd Fladjern Tilbud [178.70.207.84] on 2011/12/19 12:26:55
but wizmet never fails
http://i.imgur.com/HSHTZ.jpg
#146 posted by Ghd Fladjern Tilbud [178.70.207.84] on 2011/12/19 12:28:52
tripple ss is ~760 poly
#145
#147 posted by rj [128.243.253.118] on 2011/12/19 13:51:10
i want one!!!
@ 147
#148 posted by ijed [186.107.134.181] on 2011/12/19 22:07:54
I fight you for it!
That looks great.
Lightmill
#149 posted by gb [46.142.30.207] on 2011/12/20 10:36:52
A scrag is only about 150 tris :)
#150 posted by Ghd Fladjern Tilbud [178.70.196.108] on 2011/12/20 23:27:51
You don't make small maps with 200 r_speeds only because id's levels are like that.
#151 posted by necros [71.99.4.38] on 2011/12/23 16:15:43
that tri-barrel looks great! i'm not a fan of the skin though. i'd rather see it match with the other guns (brown and blue metal).
nice mesh though!
#152 posted by gb [46.142.38.11] on 2011/12/23 17:07:25
What my comment was trying to get at is:
If you want to use it together with the vanilla weapons, there will be a visible difference in polycount.
Maybe that is more understandable.
Static Entity
#153 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/16 22:57:03
I made a fuel chunk, and I'm a little surprised about it's behaviour. In Qmle it appears alright, but I'm doing something wrong I think. Although its returning state looks well damaged, I ment something like its last frame would participate on the first one.
So what in Qmle looks like:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/plug....
shouldn't behave like:
http://members.home.nl/gimli/plog....
Maybe I'm not keen with qc.
$frame 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
void() plug_stand1 =[ $1, plug_stand2 ]{};
void() plug_stand2 =[ $2, plug_stand3 ]{};
void() plug_stand3 =[ $3, plug_stand4 ]{};
void() plug_stand4 =[ $4, plug_stand5 ]{};
void() plug_stand5 =[ $5, plug_stand6 ]{};
void() plug_stand6 =[ $6, plug_stand7 ]{};
void() plug_stand7 =[ $7, plug_stand8 ]{};
void() plug_stand8 =[ $8, plug_stand9 ]{};
void() plug_stand9 =[ $9, plug_stand10 ]{};
void() plug_stand10 =[ $10, plug_stand1 ]{};
//void() plug_stand11 =[ $11, plug_stand12 ]{};
//void() plug_stand12 =[ $12, plug_stand13 ]{};
//void() plug_stand13 =[ $13, plug_stand1 ]{};
void() info_plug =
{
precache_model ("progs/plug.mdl");
self.solid = SOLID_BBOX;
self.movetype = MOVETYPE_NONE;
setmodel (self, "progs/plug.mdl");
setsize (self, '16 16 16', '24 24 24');
self.think = plug_stand1;
self.nextthink = time + 0.1;
};
#154 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/17 00:20:26
first, i noticed you aliased the frames to numbers.
the point of aliasing is to assign a name to a frame number, so in this case, you don't need to do anything at all:
void() plug_stand1 =[ $1, plug_stand2 ]{};
becomes:
void() plug_stand1 =[ 1, plug_stand2 ]{};
but on to your actual question, this is the frame interpolation happening.
to fix this, you will need to create an animation where the gears complete a full rotation in order to get around the problem.
Oh
#155 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/17 00:22:34
also, if you're just going to animate frames in a loop this way, you may find it easier to do this:
void() info_plug_think =
{
self.frame = self.frame + 1;
if (self.frame > 9)
self.frame = 0;
self.nextthink = time + 0.1;
};
void() info_plug =
{
precache_model ("progs/plug.mdl");
self.solid = SOLID_BBOX;
self.movetype = MOVETYPE_NONE;
setmodel (self, "progs/plug.mdl");
setsize (self, '16 16 16', '24 24 24');
self.think = info_plug_think;
self.nextthink = time + 0.1;
};
does the same thing without needing the big frame macros.
Also....
#156 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/02/17 02:31:43
if it's just going to loop forever with no state change or reaction to game events, then just make it a static entity and use a framegroup to cycle the frames.
Quink
#157 posted by [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/17 05:30:57
I aliased the frames to numbers, because I have also a waterfall static entity.
Earlier I encountered problems when I had two of them with only framenumbers.
The shorter script gave an error in proqcc.
*** r0ta.qc:10:info_plug redeclared
@metlslime- you said earlier on Inside 3D. Still I'm such a noob I would type staticentity in the console and ask myself how.
Qmle or FimG don't support framegroups.
Maybe I should take the oppertunity to leave it this way. Frame interpolation, learned something new.
How To Diagnose Compiler Errors
#158 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/02/17 10:19:06
The shorter script gave an error in proqcc.
*** r0ta.qc:10:info_plug redeclared
This error message means that the function info_plug has more than one definition. Look through your code and remove the original one, leaving just the one necros wrote.
Also if you right click on an animation in Qme there's the option to "group frames for scene". This turns the animation into a framegroup.
#159 posted by Willem [174.109.109.171] on 2012/02/17 12:50:15
OK, so I downloaded QMe but I can't install it on Windows 7. The installer tells me it's not compatible with this version of windows and my dog is ugly and some other things.
I tried setting compatibility mode to Windows 95 but it sees through that ruse.
How do you install QMe on a modern computer?
I'd Like
#160 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/02/17 13:12:48
To know that as well...
I've heard that you can install it on an older machine, then just copy across the files.
#161 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/17 16:50:41
that must be it, because i have qme working on win7 here.
here's qme pre-installed: http://necros.slipgateconstruct.co...
Madfox:
#162 posted by metlslime [67.188.81.46] on 2012/02/17 16:51:12
This is the recipe for what you want:
void() info_plug =
{
precache_model ("progs/plug.mdl");
setmodel (self, "progs/plug.mdl");
makestatic (self);
};
This will implicitly set it to frame "0", which, if you use a framegroup, will actually loop through all frames in the group on the client.
The only downside to this is that the object is not solid, but you can put a clip brush there if you want.
To make a framegroup in QME, right-click on the "scene" in the frame list, and choose "group frames for scene", The camcoreder icon will change and now be a camcorder with a tiny clock on it. This will now look like a single "frame" for quakec, and if it's the first thing in the file will be frame number 0.
#163 posted by Willem [199.255.40.36] on 2012/02/17 18:02:16
Thanks necros, that works!
Yes
#164 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/17 21:52:55
I had three scripts for models, but I'm surprised there are so many different ways to do it.
The second script indeed was my typo, as Preach suggested.
But the last one from metslime really does the job. Thanks!
I think my perception still tends to cinamatics than the maths of quakeframes.
I made an new animation with the weels turning round, but I remain with the outcome of a returning, blocking wheel.
Ah, my praxinosopic tention.
#165 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/18 00:49:16
even with the full revolution of the gear, it still jumps?
hm.. well, you can see about adding it to fitzquake's nolerp list (which i think all FQ variants have) but apart from that, not sure what else to do. :\
Bumpy Wheels
#166 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/18 02:55:40
I already gave up, when I tried in Quark4.7 for a quick try in Quake, and then it runs on.
Have a look for yourself, I think I strayed.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/plug....
#167 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/18 06:16:25
well, you didn't actually do what i said. you need to make the gears do a full rotation, that should fix the jumping problem.
Yes, I Husselt Them
#168 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/18 07:01:24
A few moments later I realized I posted the wrong plug. Sorry for that, I corrected it, so the same link has now the round turning one.
As I see it in game, it looks as if it takes the first 9 frames, and then just jumps to 0, insyead if 10.
#169 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/18 07:19:21
that's the same thing as before..?
when i say 'full rotation', i mean 360 degrees around. you need to animate the gear so that it rotates 360 degrees. right now, you have it rotating only a few degrees.
Btw
#170 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/18 07:21:34
for future reference, you would want to do this even if you were not getting any problems with interpolating because you would see a very obvious jump on the skin of the gear as it reset to the first frame.
right now, it is not very apparent because it is still using the wireframe skin.
Hey
#171 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/18 08:07:34
Did it double wrong, indeed.
I kept trying untill I saw it was just the animation, not the qc.
Now the link is right.
I thought to be snappy and delete all even files which became a mesh.
It rolls fine now, thanks for the hints!
Problem
#172 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/02/18 10:25:06
Now I expect the problem is just that you haven't updated your QC code to use frames 0-23, and so you're still resetting the animation when it gets to 10. Make that change in necros code and you'll be set.
Otherwise you could right click the animation in QMe and select "Group Frames for Scene", then use metlslime's code.
Finally you might want to look for backwards faces on your model. The wheel rims, gas cylinder and some of the bolts are all inside out and need you to flip their triangles around.
(Needless to say this is a really cool model which is I imagine while we're all so keen to pitch in about it!)
Right
#173 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/19 01:20:20
I've got it rolling now.
Always with code, tempts to get so messy.
How do I see those backwards facing.
After importing I have to patch all vertices, otherwise they are empty space in game. Same goes for texture.
A good thing is I can give a static entity angles, which before needed turning round the model.
Backfacing
#174 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/02/19 02:02:45
You can try to spot backfacing triangles by just rotating the model around lots and seeing which parts move strangely. But the easiest way to do it is select this option from the toolbar in QMe:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
When you turn on the "Triangle back sides shown" option, the model looks like this
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
So it's easy to see which are backwards.
Please think about using a modelling program that doesn't break your model so much when you export it! The learning cost of using something like gmax will easily be repaid by the amount of time saved on this type of glitch.
Animaton Master
#175 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/19 20:37:56
Thanks Preach.
I have Gmax installed, but haven't use it much, as much further than converting I don't come.
Models I design in AM2005, and from there I can export to *.3DS, *.PLY and *.AV2.
So I usually take 3DS, and I don't know where the vertices count go when I import and export a Quake model.
Let's say I take the quake player.
Converting it to 3DS QMLE tells me it has 212 verts and 408 tris.
If I import this 3DS in AM2005 and export it back, it has 203 verts and 704 tris.
Rather chunky, and I have no idea what the cause is.
I did the same with MAx3D but then the count stays the same.
For some reason all vertices are almost twice as high, although I don't see more triangles.
The version of QMLE I use is the lightversion 3.
So I was looking for the radiobutton that wasn't there.
Did you buy the commercial version?
Or is the same one to be downloaded somewhere?
http://members.home.nl/gimli/qmle....
Once Again
#176 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/02/19 21:08:46
Rather chunky, and I have no idea what the cause is.
I'm gonna say it until I sound like a broken record, it's AM2005 that's to blame for this and the backwards triangles, and the only fix is to stop using it.
Chunks
#177 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/02/19 23:11:54
Right, but for what its worth, I won't compare programs.
Max3d I have on a ceracked version and it maybe more relayable than AM2005.
On the other hand I bought last one and I am more familiar with. For other purposes it has a splendid outcome.
Watch me in the early 99 internet searching for a program that uses Quake *.mdl files I bought the program. Then the extentions were not suitable, but behalve of that miscount I made fine things with it.
All I did for Quake comes from it so stopping using it will stop my Quake model contribute.
What is that Qmle version you use?
Blast From The Past
#178 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/02/28 18:29:36
Ok, i'm looking for Kenneth Scott's old quakeworld skins.
I found a page here: http://web.archive.org/web/2002021...
that has some of the skin images still loading but most are gone. Does anyone have the full collection?
Never Mind
#179 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/02/28 18:35:08
I found the bloody things by googling "bnchskns.zip"
Thanks For The Qme Copy Necros
#180 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/02/28 23:08:35
#181 posted by necros [99.227.132.108] on 2012/02/28 23:31:49
np
Weaponmodel Oddness
#182 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/03/06 21:34:52
does quake render first-person weaponmodels at a slightly smaller scale than a normal model?
Looking at the nailgun model; in-game you can see the nails appearing outside the barrels of the weapon, as if they are being spawned too far to the left (or right) - this side offset is 4 units in the QuakeC - but when you check the nailgun model in QME - 4 units looks spot-on for the nails to be emitted from the correct place...
anyone know what's going on?
#183 posted by ijed [186.37.202.206] on 2012/03/07 01:40:39
sounds like framerate. Quake only thinks every 0.1 seconds. Would say more but my phone's buttons are tiny.
#184 posted by ijed [186.37.202.206] on 2012/03/07 01:42:09
could just be bad offset in qc\qme of course.
#185 posted by ijed [186.37.202.206] on 2012/03/07 02:03:37
sounds like framerate. Quake only thinks every 0.1 seconds. Would say more but my phone's buttons are tiny.
Ijed
#186 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/03/07 02:38:58
i can't see how it can be those things. Here is a nice picture illustrating exactly what i'm on about:
http://i.imgur.com/2DWjt.jpg
It is a mystery.
Oh And
#187 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/03/07 02:42:15
pretend in that picture of the model in QME that there is a helpful grid or something, but trust me it's 4 units to the side to the barrel centres, from the middle.
#188 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/03/07 02:47:38
i don't think the scale of the weaponmodel and the world is the same at all.
turn on noclip and move into a wall. you have to be nearly inside the wall before your weapon starts clipping, but if you look at the model, it's quite large and should have started clipping almost immediately.
the best you can hope for is to eyeball it.
Yeah
#189 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/03/07 02:57:34
i did another test - i imported the spike mesh into the nailgun model in QME and put them side by side to compare their relative sizes in QME with their relative sizes ingame.
And yes, that seemed to prove that the weaponmodels ingame are scaled down compared to normal models.
Can anyone who knows their way around the engine find out what the scaling factor is? That would be super helpful :)
Weapon Scale
#190 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/03/07 03:00:29
i think the weapons are the correct scale in the world, but they are drawn on top of everything else and don't clip into anything -- this means that, for example, you can get really close to a wall and the gun looks tiny because it sorts on top of the wall (even though physically it should be clipping through it.)
With the nails, i think the nails are actually closer than the gun, but they sort behind it so it looks like they are big and too far apart. If they were spawned lower and farther forward, they might look correct at the current lateral spread.
Metl
#191 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/03/07 03:06:06
dunno about that - like necros said, the gun will clip if you noclip into the world.
also, i changed the nail spawn points to be further forward and all that, but the side problem was still clear and present.
Perspective Trick
#192 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/03/07 09:29:52
I think it's possible that the misalignment is on the z axis, that the weapon model is actually several units lower than the nails are being spawned. What metl says about the weapon always being last in the draw order is what makes the image deceptive, it makes the model clip in front of the nails when the order ought to be reversed.
A good test of this theory would be to move the nailgun up by 22 units (the view offset) or launch the nails from 22 units below their current position and see if the alignment improves.
Interesting Stuff
#193 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/03/07 13:24:01
Aha
#194 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.190] on 2012/03/07 14:20:15
yes metl and preach are right - the nails are actually too high above the gun, and the sort order totally threw me off.
Also I am a retard for not reading metl's post correctly.
Hell
#195 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/03/08 23:05:09
Although this is entirely unfair to Kinn:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vb...
Modelling Pipeline
#196 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/05 19:29:22
I seem to be going round in circles and I not sure what which package I should be using. I want to make a small test Q1 monster with a couple of test animation frames and I am not sure which model package / conversion tools I should be using.
I download the Qme3_1 and it seems broken in so many ways. It is handy for extracting stuff and seeing how the mdl fit together but not much use for a good workflow on creating a model.
I download gmax and preach's md3tomdl convertor and it seems like a good solution I can work with, but I have a ton of questions about what things go where. So bare with me while I ask lots of stupid questions!
I can't import a md3 model into gmax? I want to look at the structure of the md3 in gmax (what stuff goes where) and the importer does not appear in the import menu? I have downloaded the file (q3-md3.ms) but I am not sure where it is suppose to go in the gmax file structure. I tried plugins but nothing changes on the import menu.
The md3 format supports head/torso/feet layout (aka q3) but I assume q1 is a single format (all model) is this correct? Should I be building my models as one mesh?
In Gmax I create the model/uv unwrap/etc then how do I setup the animations? Do I create bones and tweak each frame? How do I store the different frames? Do you work from a T pose model first and then tweak everything? (If I had an example in gmax I could see how it works, but I can't load preach's example ogre)
Any help or pointers on what I should do would be awesome. Thanks
Do You Use Maya?
#197 posted by Kinn [86.128.113.123] on 2012/04/05 20:00:05
If so, give Lunaran a shout: he has written a maya -> .mdl tool
Gmaximum
#198 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/05 20:25:34
The MD3 import is a pain to figure out, it's written in maxscript.
Put q3-md3.ms in D:\gmax\Scripts\Startup
Then if you click the hammer icon in the right hand panel (tab 6), then press the MAXScript button. MD3 import should then appear in the Utilities dropdown.
md3tomdl will combine multiple Q3 meshes into a single MDL file, but not very intelligently. The skin vertices of each mesh will be laid on top of each other in order to reduce down to a single skin. Similarly the animations are constructed by taking frame 1 from each mesh and combining those poses to make frame 1 of the mdl, all the frame 2s into frame 2, etc. I don't think I respected tags at all when combining either.*
If you're building your own model it makes sense to keep everything in one mesh because that's what the end product will be.
The standard way to animate in gmax is using the Skin modifier. You construct a set of bones for your mesh, then apply the skin modifier to the mesh. In the panel for the skin modifier you can add bones as controllers, assign vertices to them either by setting envelopes for the bones or by painting weights - google for "gmax skin modifier" and I'm sure a suitable tutorial will be there.
I've packaged up the latest version of the ogre, along with all the other bits of the pipeline (the skin, the batch file, the script for md3tomdl, the md3 output). It's at
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
If you can't get that to load, let me know what kind of error you get and I can try to diagnose it. I expect the skin won't work straight off because gmax stores an absolute path for it...
*The problem is that you can't make the conversion more intelligent automatically. The number of decisions you need to send to the conversion tool is so great I'd spend most of the time writing a parser in C++ to read the config file. It seems smarter to write the tool in a scripting language, but I'm aborting my attempt with perl because even I find it awkward to work with and I wrote the damn thing. Python or Lua next...
Gmax
#199 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/05 22:33:00
@Kinn, I don't have maya I only have LW9 which is too new for all the MD3 plugins to work. It does seem to connect well with Qme (3.1 version) but I prefer to try the max route for the moment.
@Preach, thanks :) That does make perfect sense now, I was wondering how you fit the ogre together. I will experiment with a single frame for the moment and see if I can the process working before attempting any proper monster model. Also is there a hotkey in gmax to bring up the UV edit screen? I can't find an easy way to get to the UV screen.
Shortcuts
#200 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/05 23:03:45
I'm sure there's a shortcut for it, or a way to create one, there's a dialog box that lets you change all the shortcuts to your liking. Personally I just click the button on the modifier, it's not so bad.
Broken Models
#201 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/06 23:43:26
I can't believe how anyone has the patience to create models for Q1. I created a model and UV mapped in LW 9 (I like the interface and tools) and cannot get it into Q1.
Qme (3.0 & 3.1)
LWO import only takes mesh, totally ignores all UV data.
DXF import, mesh only but format does not support UV.
3DS import, mesh only. I can't get the UV data to be accepted. It could be the shitty exporter in LW but I did get the 3DS file imported back into LW (not really a good proof format is right) I tried importing the 3ds file into gmax and mesh only.
So I am totally stumped how anyone can get any UV stuff into Qme. The package and pipeline seem broken to me.
Any hints on how other people create models with Qme? Is this why preach wrote the md3 route ignoring qme?
#202 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/06 23:57:54
ah ok, so this was the process you were talking about in your mail. :)
first, qme cannot accept standard uvw data.
what you would need to do is to split the mesh up the same way it is split up in your uvw.
if you could export a dxf with uvw and import it into gmax, then use a gmax md3 exporter to export an md3 which you can then use preach's converter on, you could create a mdl file with the single frame BUT with your uvw mapping preserved.
after this, you could export the rest of the frames as lwos and IMPORT (not open) them into your existing model.
#203 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/07 00:03:25
sorry, first, i forgot dxf doesn't support uvw.
so you'd use 3ds format.
the above long process is only needed for the initial frame to set up the skin mapping.
once that's done, the rest will go in fairly easily. just write a script (lightwave can do this? i'm not sure, but i am assuming so since it's a high end 3d editing suite) to export all your frames as seperate lwo files.
the only danger is that during all the importing and exporting, the vertex order could get rearranged which will prevent you from importing the rest of the frames.
Finally
#204 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/07 00:07:13
I did it! I got my model from LW to Q1! Now I can plan getting all the bones and animation sorted.
LW 3DS exporter
Gmax Special 3DS importer (should be default)
Save in MD3 format (special plugin again)
Use preach md3tomdl
(can't get Photoshop to save in the right PCX skin format for preach tool, have to replace in Qme)
Open in QMe and it looks good :P
FINALLY!!! :D:D
Got several options for animations, DXF import into Qme or setup bones in Gmax not sure which at this point, will have to experiment. At least I can create all the meshes and UV stuff in LW.
Without Endorsement
#205 posted by Preach [86.136.150.139] on 2012/04/07 00:23:42
I don't have lightwave so I can't test it but this claims to be a md3 export plugin for lightwave. This would let you skip the gmax stages of that process.
http://members.bellatlantic.net/~m...
PS: if you export the skin from QMe you should be able to get it into the required 8 bit format for md3tomdl.
PPS: if you can cut QMe out of the process you get to keep nice vertex normals for your model!
Yeah
#206 posted by Kinn [86.128.113.123] on 2012/04/07 00:33:28
PPS: if you can cut QMe out of the process you get to keep nice vertex normals for your model!
This is what was the final nail in the coffin for QME for me.
Burning Qme
#207 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/07 00:38:01
Cool idea on the skin PCX format, I don't need to touch the package anymore. :)
The downside of the 3DS format is that the UV verts have to be un-welded before export. Is there an easy way in gmax to weld all UV verts together?
Well
#208 posted by Preach [86.136.150.139] on 2012/04/07 00:57:51
I think the best you can do is apply the unwrap uvw modifier, select all the vertices manually and click the weld selected button. It's probably automatable with the maxscript stuff but it's not that much work by hand. Don't forget that the vertices do often get separated in the final mdl file as well, so do check if welding is helping the final output.
Too Many Verts
#209 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/07 01:09:05
For some reason I have 1200 skin/frame verts in my model for something that started with @160 (used the standard ogre model as a test) Not sure why, maybe it is the export 3DS process not sure.
The LW->MD3 exporter plugin is too old, won't load in the current version. (typical for LW TBH) I did find a LW to MD3 external program converter but the documentation is gone (website link dead) Might experiment with it. The 3DS route seems to be causing problems.
#210 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/07 01:17:03
when you are exporting, make sure you only export the mesh, and not any bones, helpers or anything else.
bones (at least in max) count as mesh objects when exported in some formats.
Ouch
#211 posted by Preach [86.136.150.139] on 2012/04/07 01:17:04
That is too many vertices, 1000 is the number you need to get models down to in order for them to load in glquake...
To check if you can fix it you may want to try a weld on the mesh vertices as well as the skin vertices in gmax. Obviously though if you can pin down what's splitting the vertices and avoid it that's best in the long run.
#212 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/07 01:19:16
actually yeah, thinking about it... that's sounds way too high for just bones/helpers. not sure what else it could be aside from what preach just said.
Fixed
#213 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/07 01:40:02
http://wiki.beyondunreal.com/Legac...
"The reason is a limitation of the 3ds format not supporting discontinuous uv coordinants"
Just got to weld all the stuff together in GMAX and now I have a model with 402 verts and 410 triangles :D My very first ogre, just got to test it in game, sort out animations, write ogre script and fix the skin and .. way too many things to do!
#214 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/07 01:53:29
have you tried importing additional frames after that first one?
#215 posted by Spirit [80.171.157.50] on 2012/04/07 11:35:01
Don't forget about http://www.icculus.org/qshed/qwalk...
#216 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/07 18:56:22
i still haven't had a chance to try that out.
#217 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/07 20:41:43
@necros, I was planning to animate the model with bones in gmax or maybe LW. This is something I have not done before and I am curious to see the process. I have not decided yet which route to take, I need to test which is easier. I tried a couple of frame imports with Qme and the mesh was all warped. I really want to avoid using Qme at all because of the vertex problems.
#218 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/07 21:22:02
the nice thing about doing a model for quake is that when you animate it, you can use absolutely ANYTHING you want.
from basic IK to crazy scripted constraints/controllers.
you can use any modifiers that don't change vertex# or order (ie: you couldn't use boolean operations).
but you can use morphs (scripted morphs!), lookats, you can follow a specific vertex, etc...
or you can just use biped and get everything you need for normal animation and add onto that.
Shame Is...
#219 posted by than [182.164.28.33] on 2012/04/08 01:56:08
that after you import it into Q1 all the animation will be at 10fps and the vertices will be wobbling all over the place due to them being rounded to fixed point numbers, so even if you have plenty of flexibility, it doesn't exactly allow you to go to town :)
#220 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/08 03:10:13
sure, but my point wasn't that you'd be making better looking animations than a AAA title, only that animating it is not a painful process at all (and, i find, quite fun).
Frame Rate
#221 posted by Preach [86.136.150.139] on 2012/04/08 03:21:38
There's no reason you have to keep animations at 10fps.
Well, there are a few things you have to consider. First is that 256 frames gives you 25 seconds of animation at 10fps. Can you get an entire monster into 12 seconds of animation? Perhaps the thing to do would be to keep slow movements like standing animations at low fps and keep the higher rates for the big/fast things.
Secondly there's the QC support. There's a special instruction built into the QC instruction set for 10fps animation, with special notation and all. So to step outside that confers a minor performance penalty (though clearly it was significant in 1996) along with more verbose, messy code.
Finally I'd worry about how interpolation is handled in all the engines out there. I know that fitzquake takes a lot of care to interpolate well in a variety of situations and ought to handle high fps, but I don't know that all engines do.
Still, I'd like to see someone try!
#222 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/08 03:55:11
you must also halve .yaw_speed because movetogoal will be called twice as fast and so turn twice as fast.
256 Frame Limit
#223 posted by Kinn [81.159.47.7] on 2012/04/09 00:18:02
probably not a huge issue if you don't mind splitting your anims over multiple models if you need more frames, and swapping the models when appropriate.
On a related note it usually makes sense to spread anims over different models if the creature varies size substantially - i've seen models where the vertex accuracy is totally trashed because of just a few frames where the dimensions of the model is large compared to the rest of the frames - moving these "large frames" into a seperate .mdl would have fixed that. The super-hell-knight thing from Nehahra is an example of how not to do it, and ironically the "large frames" that fucked the vert accuracy over in that weren't even used in the end - they were removed from the model after it had been converted to .mdl >_<
#224 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/09 00:23:56
yeah, that really pissed me off. :P
but tbh, i never considered splitting different bounds of a mdl into seperate files. that's a pretty good idea.
Good Point...
#225 posted by metlslime [67.188.81.46] on 2012/04/09 05:12:19
I should have done that with my large and small banners in rubicon 2...
Gmax
#226 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/10 00:09:01
@Preach, I am trying to understand what you did with your ogre model in Gmax. (workflow) The chainsaw and grenade launcher objects both have blue boxes. They look like some attachment tag, what are they? How did you create them? I assume this lines up with a bone in the hand?
The bone structure for your ogre has a tail bone, what was that for? When you were creating the bone structure, did you start with the spine? Did you mirror the left and right bones?
The ogre is one complete mesh, is that done for a reason? animation etc
Do you know of any good gmax bone/animation tutorials you used?
Thanks for all your help
Gmax Tutorials
#227 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/10 03:05:12
So far I have only found this:
http://world-editor-tutorials.theh...
Most forums seem to point at this. The bone arrangement in this article is a bit goofy plus the spine is not connected. The article does talk about helpers (your blue box attachment) I assuming this is the same system?
#228 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/10 04:08:11
i don't really know how much experience you have in this area, but this tutorial: http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutoria... covers everything from start to finish. you'll want to check out the last section for rigging.
it was written for 3ds max, but a much older version, so likely there is very little (if any) information that can't be brought over to gmax.
also, for more general information, 3dtotal is one of the best sites i know, with a higher concentration of max users than other places.
Naming
#229 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/10 12:32:15
Seems like you've got a handle on how it all works, but I thought I'd add that the blue boxes are a type of helper called a "dummy". They're just like a simpler version of a bone, which is all you really need for something like a gun. You make them animate with the model by applying a "follow constrain" from the dummy to the hand bone.
Just Saw These
#230 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/10 14:00:28
And loath as you may be to change the pipeline you got to Sock, give this a look:
http://oasis.xentax.com/index.php?...
I post this about once every two weeks or so.
Its a multi-multi platform / game model converter, very well maintained (found a problem in BMP format and it took a day or so to fix) and now supports IQM (boned models in Quake with proper UVs).
I use 3dsMax but I know a couple of people go direct from Blender - Noesis - Quake without additional steps.
So what they see in Blender is what they see in the engine.
->
#231 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/10 14:02:52
And, Blender is free and up to date as well, though it'll need learning. There are lots of youtube tuts etc.
And, Necros, I remember that tutorial from uni :)
#232 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/10 16:09:39
@Preach, thanks I was not sure if you used a dummy or point helper, it is hard to tell the difference. Gmax is not really helpful on showing what things are what.
One thing I would like to request of your md3 to md1 converter is the ability to specify a list of animation names. At the moment they are just a long list of (from 3dsmax). Can a list (comma delimited strings) be specified in the text file you use for the compiler?
- Unfortunately I still need to use Qme to setup the animation names so they can work with the QC file.
@necros, that is a very cool link, thank you. The English in that tutorial is strange, but I guess that is because it was translated.
@ijed, I am close to finishing my model and the pipeline I have at the moment works! All the plugin and converters produce a result which works in Q1. If gmax bone animation drives me nuts, I will check out this other pipeline. Thanks for the link.
Animation Names
#233 posted by [142.55.125.10] on 2012/04/10 17:13:06
you actually do not have to do that.
in your QC, when you alias the frames with $frame nameofframe1 nameofframe2 etc...
they do not have to match at all. only the order matters.
so if you have 'frame1' 'frame2' 'frame3' in your model, if frame1 and 2 are walk anims and frame3 is a run then you need to alias in order:
$frame walk1 walk2 run1
all the qc compiler does it look at the order the aliases appear in and assign a number to them, so $walk1 = 0, $walk2 = 1.
you can just reference the frame numbers directly in the function macros (and you can use the aliases in if checks and such (if (self.frame > $walk2))
also, check out my qc starter vb program.
it will set up all your frame aliases along with the function macros after you enter the number of frames and such: http://necros.slipgateconstruct.co...
Naming
#234 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/10 18:02:50
Oh I see! Ok I will just write the QC file assuming the frame order in the file then.
Max
#235 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/11 03:17:12
Using max feels like I am editing a map and the editor is not drawing the links between entities!
Is there a way to show the object links in the viewports? I know you can see the tree structure with the selection (H) window, just wondered if there was something else more visual?
#236 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/11 03:43:51
not that i know of, sorry.
you can always set helpers/bones different colours to tell significant groups apart (like left/right side limbs so you can tell easily when viewing from the side).
i suppose you could looking into connecting splines to objects with follow constraints to make your own visual representation of links, but that would mean doing it yourself.
sorry, that's the best i've got. :S
Thanks
#237 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/11 04:02:09
I thought it was me not being able to find the visual switch for displaying links between objects. It really makes understanding bone structures difficult, I am surprised there is no visuals.
Making Links
#238 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/11 12:15:59
It is a bit annoying, it is supposed to be an option which you can enable on a per object basis (so you could choose to just display the links for the chainsaw but not the bones). The option you're meant to tick is in the display panel, which is the 5th panel along on the right hand side. Down at the bottom is a "Link Display" rollout with a tickbox called "Display Links".
It doesn't seem to work though, so unless you can fiddle with it and get something, I think it's a feature of 3ds max that is broken in gmax and nobody ever tested...
Addendum
#239 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/11 12:19:55
I was trying to enable the option on my ogre and that didn't work, but creating a simple test scene I was able to create two boxes, enable the option, then link them and see the link. So give that a try.
Links Are Showing
#240 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/11 17:00:18
Thanks, I found the option and it certainly works on some bones and meshes.
I am at the final hurdle exporting all my frames and mesh into MD3 format and the Gmax exporter wants to UV map all the bones and place them in all the frames. Does not make any sense as usual. I also tried preach's ogre model and gmax exported all those bones as well. Any suggestions why the exporter wants to UV map bones?
Blender
#241 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/11 19:28:03
loath as you may be to change the pipeline you got to Sock, I know a couple of people go direct from Blender - Noesis - Quake without additional steps.
If I was to try and create a model in blender, animate it and then convert with Noesis to Q1 format, what versions and plugins do you recommend for blender?
Mesh Selection
#242 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/11 20:22:33
To get exports to work you have to use the Only Objects Whose Names Starts With option to filter out the bones from the mesh. Bit of a pain, but as long as the mesh starts with a letter other than 'b' it's only one keystroke. I am going to get round to replying to your e-mail as well...
Well,
#243 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/11 20:23:22
Noesis supports lots of stuff, so any 3d package can output files to it, which then get passed to any game format you like, including .mdl.
Personally I'm still using Max, and exporting to Collada. I can't remember which version off the top of my head (at the office just now) but in the past I've used various other formats such as FBX.
Should really document the process and put it up on the site when I get time - your comments here got me thinking along those lines the other day.
#244 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/11 20:53:42
sock: try out blender first to make sure you don't mind it.
if you are familiar with mainstream editing packages, it could be painful.
Finally!
#245 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/11 20:55:28
I keep saying Finally too much, but I think I have my first rough (extremely crap) ogre model animated. Probably the most painful thing I have done in my games life and I after playing red777 yesterday I can't believe the monsters in quoth and how much effort it must of taken to animate them.
http://www.simonoc.com/images/desi...
My ogre is suppose to be a similar (style wise) to the Hell Knight. These ogres make the armour for the Hell Knights and they like it so much they have adapted parts to their own needs.
Process:
1. Create model in LW and skin in PS
2. Skin/UV in LW
3. Break model down into mesh/uv triangles
4. Export 3DS format
5. Import to Gmax
6. Weld all mesh/uv triangles
7. Setup bones and weights (borrowed heavily from preach model)
8. Export to MD3 (with object name filter)
9. Compiled it with utility from Preach.
10. Fixed skin with Qme
@Preach, thank you for all the help, I am sure I asked too many stupid questions. No worries on email, I assumed you were busy.
@ijed, that utility you linked is amazing! I just did a quick test from LW scene manager, exported with FBX format and straight to MDL format! one step for animations, mesh and UVs!
My next trip into Q1 modelling is to try a pure LW pipeline with Noesis. I am sure something is bound to go wrong but at least I will get the chance to learn another modelling package animation system.
Blender
#246 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/11 21:01:22
@necros, at this point I only know bits of different packages and every application is new to me. I have never done animation stuff before, always done static mesh. The whole process is just one big painful learning curve, but it will get better. I sort of understand animation/bone systems (Max version) now I am going to torture myself by learning LW animation system next!
245
#247 posted by Drew [216.252.87.248] on 2012/04/11 21:36:38
That looks fucking awesome!
The Nice Thing
#248 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/11 21:38:01
About Quake animation is that it's practically pose to pose, you don't have to worry as much about timing.
I'm pretty useless at animation, but a lot of cell animation tutorials have helped - like this one http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02...
Nothing special, although I wouldn't want to do it outside my comfort zone of 3dsMax :)
#249 posted by necros [174.113.119.133] on 2012/04/11 21:59:47
thanks for posting that ijed. i was going to mentioned traditional animation because it's very relevant (probably even more with quake due to 10fps).
it can even help to do the movements yourself in a mirror to get an idea of where you want your keyframes to be (close your blinds so you neighbours don't think you're insane).
it's about expressiveness. speaking about quoth, the drole was the first monster i animated, and i find his movements are not expressive enough. it's hard to tell what he is doing between running and swinging for melee attacks.
also, regarding death animations, make sure that when they die, they keel over immediatly. again, the drole's death animation is cool, but slow and when watching demos, i almost always see players continue to shoot at droles that are playing their death animations.
it's important to communicate that the monster is dead as quickly as possible.
be expressive, but don't go overboard. if you can communicate what you want in 4 frames, don't take 12 to do it.
#250 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/11 22:48:32
The thing I like about Quake animation is that it does not need to be perfect AAA quality and can have some goofy poses and body movements. The monsters also don't have to follow exact anatomy guidelines and have some funny shapes like crazy fat arms.
The hardest thing about modelling Q1 monsters for me is knowing how to setup the skeleton. Example layouts of bone structures was something I struggled with for a long while and had to do a bit of research with gmax tutorial examples.
I also can't believe after all this time how little information or tutorials exists on the whole pipeline for creating a monster in quake. I know writing articles is time consuming and painful but there is so much cool information people here know and it is not easy to access.
Quake
#251 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/11 23:18:20
Is kind of cartoony at its core. The art is excellent for its time, and many studios now don't have that kind of focus when doing assets.
For example I showed the fiend to someone in the office and they were very impressed at how precise every single vertex was - no waste in the movements, even though looking at it in a 3d package makes it look like a deforming box kite, or even more apt, a papercraft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi3...
And good advice about the death - I'd add that make sure the monster has a unique death scream sound, that is fired in its first frame of death animation and not easily confused with its other sounds.
Going nonsolid in the same frame is desirable as well.
As to dev documentation, its almost a lost art because of the age of a lot of the processes. I will get round to writing something sooner or later - every now and again I have to bang out a few pages on something just to keep the goals and backstory in mind, might as well be some how-to's for the next one.
At least tools like Noesis open things up a bit and give various routes to getting things right, as opposed to a single one that only works after hours of trial and error.
Here's
#252 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/11 23:20:27
A link to the rest of the guy's paper models:
http://cow.mooh.org/paper/
All taken from the original meshes of the monsters.
I think this is called nerdcore :)
Hm
#253 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/11 23:21:54
Seems like the links are 404
FYI
#254 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/16 01:25:56
or anyone else (stupid enough) modelling q1 monsters in gmax!
Problem 1 - Stationary objects having strange movement between frames
Solution - Double frames
Frame / Description
-2 T Pose
-1 Duplicate of Frame -2 (This extra frame makes sure no 'loose' object movement
0 Standing Pose
1 Duplicate of Frame 0
All frames are affected by previous frames and the double static frame prevents previous movement from affecting new frames. This may well be fixed in modern day versions of max, but gmax is v4 (very old)
Problem 2 - Objects do random 360 rotations between frames
example - http://www.simonoc.com/images/desi...
Solution - Use local rotation ONLY
This one had me going round in circles for ages, the default in gmax is view rotation which screws *most* animations. I thought I had some bones rotated/setup wrong and re-created them several times in different ways and it made no difference. It was just the default rotation mode is fuckin useless. (wasted days of time on this stupid default)
Once I used local rotation mode, the animations worked perfectly.
Another Rotation / Flip Bug
#255 posted by ijed [190.22.80.54] on 2012/04/16 04:23:32
There's a common problem in regular max when flipping bones, usually to make the right/left side arms/legs.
The flipped versions get a negative scale which breaks most exporters. This can be fixed by using animation/bone tools/mirror mode from the panel.
No idea if Gmax has this panel :)
Rotation Bug
#256 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/16 08:34:12
I still get the rotation bug almost every time I rotate a bone with gmax. I have rebuilt all the bones every way I can think of, not used mirror and still get constant rotation lock problem. There must be a way to prevent this, otherwise I will never finish animating anything.
After two weeks I finally have an idle animation, I feel like I want to jump up and down with glee, but I know it is just an idle animation, probably the easiest thing to make! (it should be)
http://www.simonoc.com/images/desi...
http://www.simonoc.com/images/desi... (Alternative)
OMG !
#257 posted by JPL [82.227.229.44] on 2012/04/16 08:52:37
Armored Ogre ! Very nice !
Rotation
#258 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/16 09:47:14
There are ways to avoid using the double frame trick, by setting the tangent type to linear or step. This link is a brief outline, better resources are probably out there:
http://billysalisbury.com/Learn_Ma...
The way I try and avoid the random 360 degree rotations is where possible to never rotate the bones! Instead if you move the bone below the target bone in the heirarchy then the IK seems to always perform the shortest rotation.
The track viewer is also sometimes useful to diagnose weird problems, although it's quite overwhelming at first.
Animation
#259 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/16 16:46:27
@Preach, thanks for the link, that is very cool explanation of the transitions. I will save that off to my MD. I looked at your ogre and I could not see any IK bone setup? How did you move all the bones while avoiding rotation? It is hard to tell at this point if it is my setup of the bones that is the problem or gmax! :P
IK Freely
#260 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/16 20:08:57
There's no IK or angle constraints because I'm lazy about that kind of thing. However, the bones are connected parent-to-child in the default way, which creates a constraint. When you move a child bone, the parent bone rotates to match it it, but the generated motion is more friendly to rotation interpolation (I assume that it's calculating the relative motion in the keys automatically).
The main difference between this and IK is that it only extends to the immmediate parent, and so the child is locked to the radius of the parent bone. If it was IK then you could move the hand away from the torso and both the forearm and upper-arm bones would straighten to allow the motion. Without IK only the forearm would move, so to get the hand further away you'd have to move the forearm first, then the hand.
As a last tip, sometimes you do need to rotate things directly. In those cases I've found that what usually provokes the wild backwards rotations is inserting a rotation between two existing rotations. Wish I knew how to fix it, but better to know what to avoid than nothing at all...
Rotation Problems
#261 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/17 19:32:25
@Preach, I can't believe you animated your ogre model without any IK solvers or constraints! The rotation issues on bones are extreme without any rotation helpers and not using rotation is not really an option.
I think I found a workable solution for Gmax (3dMax people get biped auto-magic bone setup, so this post is pointless to them).
I setup legs, arms, neck, back and chainsaw with IK solvers, added constraints to top arms/legs and tweaked various inherit rotation blockers to shoulders, pelvis and hand/weapons. In order to maintain rotation on hands and feet I added a dummy_helper into the chain and linked the IK solver to the helper instead of the end bone. The helper is linked to the end bone and the IK solver still thinks it is a valid connection. To make sure the solver bends the bones in the correct direction I added a slight bone twist to the middle joint.
As far as I can tell most rotation issues come from bone inheritance, with child bones doing full 360 rotation to re-sync with parent bones.
Probably the sadest thing about this whole gmax route is that I found out yesterday that I can download the latest version of 3dmax (ex pro/student license deal) and use the auto-magic biped bone system instead. I am assuming I can use Noesis to export to q1 model format?
The silver lining to this whole Q1 model process, I sort of know my way around 3dmax now! :)
Sock
#262 posted by Bal [83.204.221.140] on 2012/04/17 20:23:29
You're usually better off rigging yourself than using Biped, and it's fun to learn! ;)
You should look into the swivel angle stuff if you have any problems with your knees rotating weirdly.
Also, not quite sure if it's what you described, but if you want your feet bone to stay in the proper bone hierarchy, and not have it rotate when you lift the IK controller, you can create a second IK from the ankle to the end of the foot, and parent it to your foot controller (the dummy), so when you lift the dummy your foot will stay aligned to the floor.
This should give you the same result as what you described (if I understood it right), but it's cleaner cause you're not mixing your bone hierarchy and your controller hierarchy (which is good, cause ideally you're only placing animation keys on the controllers, so you can always change your skeleton, and as long as the controllers are the same your animations will always be good).
#263 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/17 21:30:18
bal, i think i know what you're saying about biped vs your own rig.
i learnt originally from building my own rigs too, but i remember the first time i used biped and how much it takes care of on it's own.
i guess the real barrier to using biped is just the massive amount of stuff you get, some of it not at all useful for quake animation.
otoh, using an up to date max means there will be lots of relevant tutorials.
Foot First
#264 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/17 21:52:36
@Bal, I did that for the back and neck, two IK solvers in a row. I did not realize it could be done and create my wacky foot setup first. Then when I realized you got to use controllers on bones otherwise you get crazy rotation time, I experimented more and saw you could chain the solvers together. It is very cool what you can do, I just wish there was a way to play with the joint between the two bones, like it had a handle you could drag around as well.
I imagine the biped magic button in 3dmax 10+ has its own problems with setup, but at least it is a good starting point. I just wish I found more help earlier on when I was creating the bone setup for gmax. From all the internet searching I did, not many people talk about it.
Layers
#265 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/17 22:47:11
When you create a walk or run animation do you create it in layers? like move feet first, then torso and finally arms? Or try to move all of it at once frame by frame?
#266 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/17 22:57:42
are you talking about animation layers, which is making animations in layers like in photoshop (allowing very similar things to what you can do with layers in photoshop) and combining them after?
or just which parts to animate first?
for the former, i don't know :P
for the latter, i like to start with feet/legs first. once i have the rhythm i'm happy with, i start in on the hips and the continue working up.
at the same time, i don't do feet/legs 100% then hips 100% etc... i like to iteratively tweak it because it's hard to judge what's a good movement if you can't see the whole thing at once.
Passes
#267 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/17 23:07:48
I mean passes, like which bits to work on first and what to do next. Working on the model from the feet up makes sense, just was not sure if I was doing it right or not.
I am assuming it is feet, hips, torso, shoulders, head and finally swinging arms? (layers of stuff to do during a walk animation)
#268 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/17 23:38:55
yeah, i usually do arms last because they're basically secondary movement (movement as a result of).
hips and spine i do all at once, i found the upper spine depends on the hips (how much they sway vs how much upper body is compensating for the sway).
A Little More Detailed...
#269 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/17 23:47:03
step by step...
basically i start out and do my leg movements.
this is very rough, little more than the foot going up, then down and pushing backwards.
then, (with IK), i get a little bobbing motion going with the entire body.
at this point, the bobbing up and down is pretty silly and exaggerated.
now i'll try to position the spine in a static pose (for now) in how i generally want the upper body positioned. so if it's a full tilt running, then i bend the spine way forward, otherwise, i mostly just get it into a decent walking position. (maybe hunched over if it's an evil ogre)
at this point, i start to smooth out the feet so that they look as good as i can make it. with IK, hips won't affect it, and i can always tweak later if i have to anyway.
next up will be to get to side to side motion of the COG/center of gravity done and to make the up and down motion more realistic as well.
the side to side motion is important. without it, the animation can look wooden but not immediately obvious why.
now that the COG movement is done, i do the hip tilting and then the spine sway/compensation stuff.
afterwards, assuming everything looks ok, i'll do the upper body rotation (lots for running, very little/none for walking)
finally, i do the arms.
i do the arms last because otherwise, i'll have to keep going back and tweaking them every time i change something in the torso, or anything that affects the torso. (i rarely do IK on hands, although biped has the option to toggle it on and off).
Yikes Third Post...
#270 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/17 23:51:53
if you have ne_ruins, open up pak0.pak and open the zombie2.mdl in qme.
i left the oldrun animation sequence in there for some reason. compare oldrun and run for hips/COG swaying.
Tutorial Time
#271 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/18 01:01:30
I don't have a method of my own, but I do remember learning quite a bit from a tutorial by Paul Steed. Although Paul is probably most fondly remembered for being the driving force behind the Start-To-Crate rating system, archive.org hosts the tutorial:
http://web.archive.org/web/2003062...
It's a shame the videos are missing but all the images are preservered
#272 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/18 01:28:49
that's pretty cool. shame about the missing animations as i imagine they would really illustrate his points.
i didn't mention it, but his tutorial does on page2: make sure the feet (when on the ground) are on the center line of motion, not just moving forward and back. the overall motion of the foot is more of a very wide arc instead of a line.
Static Entity
#273 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/20 06:11:45
Having a skeletal rig is a good tool for animating models. Takes some time to construckt though.
Made some dynamic turbulence in the waterfall.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/farl....
Beautiful!
#274 posted by RickyT23 [217.42.134.93] on 2012/04/20 17:57:31
MadFox
#275 posted by Mike Woodham [87.127.250.2] on 2012/04/20 18:37:02
Brilliant!
What's it like with a texture: water, lava, b-l-o-o-d...
*v*
#276 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/20 20:02:10
http://members.home.nl/gimli/farlo...
Nice!
#277 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/04/20 20:03:26
Very Cool Indeed
#278 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/04/20 20:43:18
/\ What They Said
#279 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/20 21:46:49
that looks better than i thought it would with the texture; even the bottom scrolls. good job.
MadFox
#280 posted by Mike Woodham [86.174.73.229] on 2012/04/20 23:13:47
That's good, really good.
My Cells Are Drained...
#281 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/21 01:52:19
http://members.home.nl/gimli/claw....
MadFox
#282 posted by JPL [207.194.223.3] on 2012/04/21 16:08:39
The water fall is indeed really nice ! Good job !
And the latest one: I'd like to see it textured too ;)
Fyi
#283 posted by Spirit [80.171.95.76] on 2012/04/21 20:53:43
taniwha of Quakeforge is working on a new mdl exporter for Blender
Good Luck To Him
#284 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/21 21:54:24
I remember writing the last exporter for blender, but abandoned it after the first release as breaking changes left it inoperative in a later version. I suppose abandoned software has stability as it's sole advantage...
Thanks!
#285 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/21 21:59:06
I am trying something like a cell generator, that implies empty cell packs going in and out a machine after having an energy injection.
Fact is I need to translate the cell dimensions, which was 32x32 I thought. The way qmle translates units looks like cm.
Energycells are removeable, while these are solid, which means they have to stay out of reach of the player.
Robotl Ever
#286 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/22 01:05:22
Shame for the lost triverse in the cell pack.
I have to change the scale anyway.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/clue....
Madfox
#287 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/22 01:16:54
If you want a mdl with scale reference for a cell, dig into the pak2.pak file from quoth and open the pickup.mdl file. It is build to scale.
Great!
#288 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/22 14:09:26
I have an example I had from Lunaran, but I lost it somewhere. Thanks for pointing the direction.
I was measuring the frame of qmle into my animation editor, and found that the units compared to centimeters. So for taking 64 x 64 I had my format. When I import a model though it is a giant. I have to scale it ten times before it is usable.
When I modelled the monster in the wall I met the same difficulty.
Also
#289 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/22 15:06:39
It's worth noting that 1 unit in the map editor always corresponds to 1 unit in the QMe editor, which corresponds to 1 unit in the QC, if that is any help for scaling. Most conversion tools just translate one unit in their editor to 1 unit in quake as well, for example the gmax->md3->mdl pathway preserves 1 unit scale at each step.
More Static Entities!
#290 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/22 22:29:35
Good to know, preach.
I often tried a cube into qmle, but it always fails ingames.
I made a whirlpool, or something in the way.
It could also be udsed as tornado.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/torna...
Nice Stuff
#291 posted by wakey [194.166.154.151] on 2012/04/24 00:39:16
The waterfall is realy gorgeous!
Statics & Movement
#292 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 00:04:13
Is it possible to make a static entity move?
I have a sphere as a mdl, used as static entity and I want to make it turn slowly.
I remember the spikemines., but my aim is more something like a turning sky.
Calculating on framerates of 0.1 sec it isn't difficult to make it roll once in a second, but turning it slowly, like a rotal movement of 60 sec may be something beyond model dimensions.
I thought I can use 256 frames, so that would be 25.6 sec to go. That isn't a skybox turning, so I wondered if it would be possible with qc, or a hiher frame maximum.
What's the limit?
Static Entities
#293 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/04/28 00:22:36
can only move two ways:
1. they can have the rotate flag set in the model, like weapon/armor models do.
2. they can have a framegroup which contains the animation, and the client will automatically cycle frames at 10Hz.
QuakeC cannot do anything with a static entity, once it is static it is purely a client-side object with no physics and no think functions.
#294 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/28 00:23:37
if you mean an entity that has had the makestatic() function run on it, then no.
of course, just remove that function call and you can move it as much as you want.
you can use .avelocity to give it constant rotation, so like .avelocity = '0 1 0'; will rotate 1 degree per second around y axis.
this will look like shit unless you are using an engine with high precision angles.
Thanks
#295 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 00:26:12
Right.
So when I want to move a globe I can only make it roll like a grenadelauncher,
or
add as many frames as the engine can load.
How far can I match? 256 frames ~ 512?
#296 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/28 00:27:14
well, know, my example was like the weapon rotation, but you can rotate it however you want...
'1 0 0' is rotation around x axis, and '0 0 1' is z axis.
and you can use any number you want. even decimals.
Madfox:
#297 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/04/28 00:34:35
256 frames is the max in protocol 15. Other network protocols (which require custom engines) support more.
Cross+over
#298 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 00:43:27
Thanks, mertlslime that's what I was looking for! Then it will be 256 frames ~ 25.6 sec ~ comes to me like 1.5 minute a cycle.
I didn't see your post ,necros.
Also thanks for the info.
Why do you think it would look strange? 1.5 degree cycling with high resolution tex would make it look acceptable.
I don't know, maybe I'm just the next stupid noob who wants to make a turning skybox in Quake1.
:P
Orbit Interuptus
#299 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 03:34:16
Well, I succeeded to blow up Qmle, as I suspected.
After splitting the 240 frames into parts of 40 it worked out after kicking the expected error.
I won't add a gif file as my homepage gets truncked, so here's the file.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/azimu...
My zipfile came back corrupted.
Hope this one will do.
Hr Model Skin
#300 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 08:31:16
How can I use high resolution texture on models?
I placed them in the id directory with the others
but it don't appear in game.
Brush texture are 256x256, but how does it go for the skinfile for a model?
I tried model.mdl_0.tga on 256x256 but it hust glidges.
Skin Limits
#301 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/28 10:07:57
Is there a desired format for the dimension of a Q1 MDL skin? Are they suppose to be powers of 2? I looked through some of the ID skins and they are all strange sizes, does it matter the size of the skin?
Skinsize
#302 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 10:18:41
What Qmle concerns the skinfile compares to the first imported file from base. Sometimes it is square or rectangle. General is the with that considders to go to limits like 308 x 264.
I always scale this up to a factor 480 x (>480), as this is the maximum skinsize before Fitzquake stops the game.
There are other ways to obtain a larger file, which is just the same problem I'm struggling with.
I'm accostumed to qmle, and sadly this has bad UV wrappers, in fact not.
So as long as you use 480 x (the desired compare) you are safe.
Skinsize
#303 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/28 10:50:27
The ID skins are bad examples to follow, as they were created before graphics accelerators existed. Graphics cards expect power-of-2 skin sizes. The way that GLquake copes with this is to rescale all the skins to the nearest power-of-2 size first, which causes some distortion/smearing.
Fitzquake does the more sensible thing and pads the skin with blank space to increase its size to the next power-of-2, but that's still a waste of texture memory you could have used for your own skin. So stick to the standard powers-of-2 approach for best quality.
Footnote: DOSquake has an extra restriction on skins, that they can't be more than 200 pixels high (although they can be as wide as you like). Since that would constrain you to 128 height, I'd advise just not caring that DOSquake can't load the file, I don't think it's bothered anyone else this side of the millenium...
Madfox
#304 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/28 19:03:37
external model textures go in the progs directory. make sure the engine you use supports external model textures, of course.
FYI
#305 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/28 20:29:44
If you are using noesis for model conversion, I found that if you have UV points on the edge of the skin they are corrupted when converting to Q1 MDL format. I have tried to contact the author to see if the program can be changed but not much luck.
#306 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/28 20:42:00
speaking of edges on the skin, and someone please correct me if i'm wrong:
make sure the top left pixel of the skin texture is not a colour that is used on the visible parts of the skin itself or black.
some engines replace the colour of the pixel in the top left corner with black and every other pixel that shared that colour.
or something like that.
Yup
#307 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/28 20:55:56
It's like a bucket fill in 'paint', replaces the top left corner and all the pixels of the same colour which form a contiguous block. This has caused me a great deal of pain trying to figure out why a model I rendered with a single-colour skin was coming out solid black...
HR Resolution On Models
#308 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 21:11:08
I can't make it fit. I have the HR texture pak in ID1/textures and the brushes appear well in Fitzquake085.
Now I have the model.mdl that I want to give a high resolution texture.
First of all the skinfile in QMLE is bound to 480x126 and 256 colours and named model.bmp.
I'm looking for a way to add the HR skinfile.
Placing the same skinfile on 16M colours in the texture directory won't help as I keep getting the old 256 skinfile.
I can change the name to model.mdl_0.tga with no effect
I can't change that as my knowhow of Max Gmax doesn't supply.
RTFM won't help a lot as I tried all I could.
What am I dong wrong?
#309 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/28 21:21:17
read post 304 again, model replacement textures go in the progs directory.
model.mdl_0.tga is the correct naming convention.
Wait
#310 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 22:14:08
Let's explain more,
C:\Quake\ID1\textures is my HR dir, I changed it into
C:\Quake\ID1\progs\model.mdl_0.tga with all other HR tex.
My model.mdl is in C:\Quake\TmpQuark\progs with the progs.dat
In Quark6.3 I can go into game with the normal HR brushes but the model itself stays in the same 256 mode.
I know I'm going astray somewhere, but this problem holds me for a long time now.
#311 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/28 22:17:42
first, if you're working in a mod directory, you should put all your assets into that directory. you should never be adding mod assets into the id1 directory.
that said, what engine are you using? i know FQ and QS do not support external model textures.
#312 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 23:02:08
In post #299 is a download model of a globe.
I use this mdl to create a turning skybox.
The model isn't perfekt as I still have the two poles having glidges.
So I'm restraining 2x 240 frames to get a perfekt turning skybox.
It's a bit fast, but almost compares the animating sky.
*v*
So it´s not excakt a mod, more an addon.
I´m using Fitzquake0.85 and in my ID1 is only the 2 Pak files.
C:\Quake\maps
.\textures
.\gfx
.\glquake
For this kind of work I compile in a subdirectory and place all atributes to the TmpQuark directory.
TmpQuark\maps
.\progs\
.\sounds
the recompiled progs.dat goes into the TmpQuark directory so I can test it from Quark6.3.So I wonder where I could place the model texture.
#313 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/28 23:46:10
I´m using Fitzquake0.85
That is your problem. FQ doesn't support external textures on models.
#314 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/28 23:59:40
How do I obtain that?
DarkPlaces, JoeQuake, or what engine then?
No complain about Fitzquake, but I thought there might be a hack.
#315 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/29 01:35:58
i'm sure DP does, and i know rmqe does.
Fine
#316 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/04/29 06:25:21
Thanks for your explain, it was usefull.
Me big ever smoking bluf for working in RemakeQuake and oversee that last one.
Sock
#317 posted by Spirit [80.171.159.17] on 2012/04/29 11:32:16
I asked the Noesis author:
UV points aren't "corrupted" on the edge of the skin
The format just doesn't support wrapping
On Wrapping
#318 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/29 12:35:59
Incidently, quake mdl format supports wrapping as long as you are willing to forego support for the winquake version! In winquake you get lots of random noise anywhere that the skin UVs leave the bounds, presumably because it's dumping random memory onto the screen. Probably if you abused it enough you would segfault the whole thing. So not the best of ideas but certainly possible...
@spirit
#319 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/29 18:08:45
Wow thanks, I tried to contact the author of noesis but I could not find any email address (none with documentation or website). I eventually found a forum site he uses but that is never speedy for responses. It certainly makes sense now that I know the MDL does not really like UV points on the edge, I just wish Noesis said something instead of just creating a mess!
Re: Neosis
#320 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/29 19:40:35
ijed, or anyone else using it: how are you exporting to fbx format? i'm trying to get it going with max9 -> .fbx and importing into neosis, but the mesh becomes all jumbled and the triangle count shoots way up for some reason.
Medieval Ammo
#321 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/29 20:21:46
Some new ammo pickup models I created because my new map is a medieval theme and I do not want tech style stuff hanging around. I know I am stepping on holy ground by redesigning the original models but I wanted something different.
Each pickup has an unique design profile so it can be recognized easily and I tried to keep the original colours as much as possible. The new models certainly have a higher triangle count, but I kept the original texture density. (I like the old style pixel way best)
http://www.simonoc.com/images/desi...
Any likes or dislikes?
#322 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/29 20:31:46
mossy rock on top of the nails box is kind of weird? or at least it looks like mossy rock.
Like, +1 Etc.
#323 posted by Kinn [86.182.45.251] on 2012/04/29 20:39:19
I'm a fan. I'd prefer them in gl_texturemode 3 tho ;}
#324 posted by scar3crow [98.246.219.66] on 2012/04/29 20:39:45
I typically hate "new stuff" to Quake's look like that, but I oddly enough rather like those ammo pickups sock. I enjoy the use of the id1 textures as part of what is encasing them, makes them feel like more a part of the game world rather than items simply inserted by the mapper.
To Be Honest
#325 posted by Kinn [86.182.45.251] on 2012/04/29 20:45:45
Changing quake's ammos from the fullbright bsp boxes to mdls that take level lighting, is one of the few changes that I would actually make to quake's original look.
I'd probably add some tasteful fullbright elements to the textures though, so that you can place them in dark areas and they don't get lost. Easier to do that with tech-themed stuff though...
#326 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/29 20:48:53
@Necros, yeah good point. The original texture design was a stone box but I switched to wood later on. I will convert it all to wood.
@Kinn, oh yeah! I love it, you know it is all your fault that I now make assets designed for the original pixel resolution! :)
Kinn
#327 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/29 21:29:34
mdl ammo boxes is a feature in quoth, although it's done there to save on model precaches instead!
Also
#328 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/29 21:29:47
Sock, those look awesome.
Flasks
#329 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/30 09:15:31
Things are going a bit faster now that I have a working pipeline for creating models. So here is my attempt at replacing the medipacks with something more medieval. I have maintained the original footprint/height and tried to create something different in profile shape.
Original pixel vision thanks to Kinn!
http://www.simonoc.com/images/desi...
Any dislikes?
Coolio
#330 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/04/30 20:47:15
I've actually got some constructive feedback, it's little things though:
Was skipping the usual red cross on heath items a design choice? I kinda miss it, perhaps if you added a cross-shaped strap over the lid it might have the right subconscious association without looking too anachronistic?
One of the things that I always get wrong with my models is not baking strong enough shading into them. Really make the lower surfaces dark. In fact, the best way to get that gemstone-like red bottle effect is to emphasis the dark colours over the light. I remember doing this years ago painting some High Elves, the closest I can find to the guide I had then is:
http://www.instructables.com/id/Ho...
Finally, I worry a bit about distinguishing the 25 and 15 health packs, although I can see the different shapes and heights when they are next to each other, I worry that if I came to one in isolation I'd be unsure of how much it was worth. A few ideas:
• Make the cap on the 15 health pack more discoloured/mouldy/rotten.
• Push the colour of the rotten bottle away from red and towards brown (difficult to do subtle colour changes in quake, I know...)
• Only apply the super-secret twinkle shader effect to the two large bottles.
I'll expand more on that third option later, but one other idea I've had which may or may not work is this:
Take the highlights on the edges of the bottles, and colour (only) the adjacent borders of the bottle with dark orange fullbright colour. The intended effect is that in bright lighting this fullbright appears just a natural part of the shaded bottle face. In dark lighting these new edges appear fullbright, as if they were dimmer but still visible edge highlights, while the original highlights disappear in the dark.
Those Are Good Points,
#331 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/04/30 21:04:23
hadn't thought about the relative heights vs heights in isolation, but i'd also like to see the cross symbol return.
that said, i kinda just don't like the way they look... like a jar of blood. sorry man, i much prefer the original kits over your new ones. :(
i think i'd rather see the original health kits but with the metal replaced with wood.
Re: Flasks
#332 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/04/30 21:47:54
@Preach, yeah I like those ideas, I will add a green/brown tint to the rotten health (15) and stamp a cross symbol on the top of the corks. I can certainly add some fake shadows on the bottom of the jars and some glint at the top.
@necros, I know you are not keen on me redesigning the original stuff, but I really want to get away from tech style boxes. I checked the existing q1 levels with my new items and they fit really well. The items don't look out of place and now have some character/style about them. I might create the originals as a separate pak file so people can have a choice if they are really against my items.
Health
#333 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.209] on 2012/04/30 21:51:26
Take the highlights on the edges of the bottles, and colour (only) the adjacent borders of the bottle with dark orange fullbright colour. The intended effect is that in bright lighting this fullbright appears just a natural part of the shaded bottle face. In dark lighting these new edges appear fullbright, as if they were dimmer but still visible edge highlights, while the original highlights disappear in the dark.
Not sure about this. I'd probably think it was just bad texturing, rather than a design choice to have fullbrights integrated like that. I only see fullbrights making sense when they create an obviously seperate glowy light element, like a rune or a gem.
As for the health packs - I like the shape, I think that's cool. I think it's "too red" though - i'd be inclined to make it a combination of metal and glass, rather than entirely glass - like a mostly metal frame with glass "windows" in.
As Teased Earlier
#334 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/01 00:28:20
Here's a few examples of the super-secret twinkle shader that's been hidden in quake for the past 16 years.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
You need to view then in game, QMe will not render the effect. I'd suggest whacking them in a progs directory and renaming each one g_rock2.mdl in turn. You can then look at a rocket launcher pickup in game to view them (use the flush console command to update after each file is renamed). Start with the flat one so you know what to expect.
Cookie for whoever can explain it!
Per-frame Vertex Normal Hackery?
#335 posted by Kinn [109.150.216.209] on 2012/05/01 00:50:13
<<<<cookie
#336 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/01 01:17:41
Someone took a bite already : -(
I think with a bit less laziness it would be possible to make something that looks a bit smoother as well. In the zip the effects are produced by
1) Randomising each vertex from the whole range of 162
2) Randomising over the first 15 vertex normals on a per vertex basis
3) Randomly selecting one vertex normal per frame and applying it to all vertices
4) Randomly selecting one of the first 15 vertex normals for all the vertices in a frame
They all rely on essentially random selection of vertices because I was too lazy to import the table and start doing dot product calculations. With a bit more work you could create effects that vary continuously through space and across frames.
#337 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/01 01:27:22
dude, that's awesome!
how are you randomising the normals like that? can it be applied to anything? i'd love to get that effect going on an fx model i'm using. way better than just flickering alpha!
Perlscript
#338 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/01 09:04:23
I've uploaded one of the 4 perlscripts I used to make these models at
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
It's a hacky thing I wrote when I was learning perl, there's at least one thing I do which is not best practice. It also hardcodes the filename it operates on(currently gem.mdl) because at the time I didn't know how to parse command lines. On the plus side it doesn't need the perl library I wrote for operating on models, it's stand-alone.
Soon I'll be recreating that library in python because it turns out that perl syntax isn't very readable. When that happens I'll try and create a more readable python script to do the same thing.
#339 posted by scar3crow [131.107.0.75] on 2012/05/01 18:35:04
Just a quick thought, when I see any container of red liquid which refills health, I myself tend to think of it as a potion and thus would be rather potent. With my mind coming from that angle, even the smallest healthkit looks like it would have the impact of a megahealth (with the largest looking like it could heal an entire party in coop like a mega). Essentially, all of these look like they would deliver a lot more health than they would running stock qc.
#340 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/01 18:44:16
hmm yes, i think i agree with that /\
what if the rotten and normal kits were closer to the size of the Hx2 flask? (this one: http://lparchive.org/Hexen-II/Imag... )
also: preach, that script works perfectly! should be noted (and in retrospect i should have realized) that you can't use fullbright colours on the skin otherwise the lighting effect isn't applied.
still, works well and looks very cool. thanks! :)
Tessla Coil
#341 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/01 22:19:39
That gem looks good n game, Preach although it's a mystery how you obtain the effekt.
Here is the tessla coil.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/tessl...
Don't get burned.
One More Caveat
#342 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/01 22:29:40
If you are using darkplaces then you will also notice the effect appears to cease working. Now we are sort-of performing a hack here so it isn't that surprising that response is mixed. It's also worth noting that what darkplaces is doing is not entirely terrible(tm).
Lets break down why in most quake engine we get varying brightness by changing vertex normals. I believe this is accurate but correct me if you know better...Quake has effectively a hack to make vertex normals work, by rendering as if there is a single bright source of light coming from a fixed direction. You get brightest light levels by having a normal directly facing that direction, and darkest by facing away from it. You can observe this by rotating 360 degrees on the spot and watching the shading vary on the viewmodel.
Darkplaces rejects this and instead uses all sources of dynamic light in the scene as origins for vertex normals to be evaluated against. This means that the twinkle effects are not visible most of the time, but if you run the quad cheat you can get them to render.
#343 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/01 23:33:20
yeah, that was the first thing i checked after seeing it work in QS. :)
of course, if you're running in DP, it's not much extra work to include a q3 shader script to take the place of the flickering vertices.
Something Interesting
#344 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/03 07:18:18
don't know if everyone knows this already; this is mainly useful if you're just modding an already made model:
if you convert a .mdl in a .md2 with q2mdlr9b and export a frame, you will be able to import the md2 into max (with http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/... ) whil preserving the original q1 skin mapping.
from there you can add to the uv map with normal max tools and then export following the md3 -> mdl route. nice not to have to start from scratch.
Wow
#345 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/05/03 22:12:55
Missed 30 odd posts there.
Did you get an FBX exporter or workaround Necros? As far as I can remember I'm using the default one from Max2010.
Those pickup models look great - we also did this, but ours are fairly un-artistic :(
#346 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/03 22:39:27
nah, couldn't figure it out.
i've since gotten an alternative method which works fine using npherno's md3 importer and preach's md3->mdl converter.
I Can
#347 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/05/03 22:44:48
Recheck my export method when I get home anyway, haven't looked at it in a while.
Robot Arm
#348 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/04 21:26:57
After adding the robot arm in my map I see this strange overlapping effekt of the cellbox.
In the framegroup there's nowhere a cellbox sliding diagonal, but in game there is.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/Cclaw...
http://members.home.nl/gimli/cclaw...
Whayt is it that makes the cellbox warp?
#349 posted by Willem [199.255.40.36] on 2012/05/04 21:54:09
Interpolation?
Could Be
#350 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/04 22:06:57
This example shows the effect, now the solution if there is.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/celbo...
#351 posted by Willem [199.255.40.36] on 2012/05/04 22:10:05
That looks like interpolation. :) Try turning interpolation off in your Quake engine and see what it looks like.
#352 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/04 22:33:07
looks fine to me? what am i missing? it picks the box up and moves it over, then drops it again. also looks cool.
Lerping From Last Frame To First Frame
#353 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/05/04 22:41:11
i see it in the video. How to fix it depends on how this animation will be integrated into the level -- obviously right now you have one box vanishing an another magically appearing, so this isn't a complete thing yet.
#354 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/04 22:43:29
oh the playback must be broken as it freezes half way for me.
you could try adding two frames, one at the end of the sequence where the boxes shrinks into itself into a single point, and one at the start where it grows from a single point. this way, it would lerp the movement of an invisible single point.
it'll still look goofy because you'll see the box grow and shrink really fast though.
My Silly Perfectionist
#355 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/04 22:58:29
The animation is a 30 frame static entity, that is a part of two combining conveyor belts.
In the middle there would be another one with an injector uploading the cellboxes.
For one animation the frames are too complicated so I make them in three parts.
The bad point is that I have to make them fit to eachother in place and time.
So the interpolation willem directed to is the cause. I tried to add interpolation 0 at the console but that's wrong ofcourse.
I keep hearing the word lerping.
In the gif file the last frame is the cellbox at the end.
There will be a counterpoint both boxes are on the same place, but I thought I could catch that by letting them drop down into a solid brush while they are moving backwards.
Frame Counts
#356 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/08 08:42:10
I found the fitzhack version to temper my intention to make the interpolation for the static entity. I just didn't knew it was the engine that had this limit.
The animation rolls much more shaky, but fills in the exact rotation.
The original fitzquake rolls much smoother, but then I keep the hazy frameshades.
I think I keep on to original Fitzquake, as for now only the wheels get creepy.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/vey00...
http://members.home.nl/gimli/vey01...
Cellbox
#357 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/08 08:48:52
http://members.home.nl/gimli/conve...
Jack In The Box
#358 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/11 08:14:53
It soon became clear to me that tuning two static entities is a real framejerk, so I combined them.
Reduced the interpolation effect of the conveybelt to the wheels, and then noticed the swing in the middle.
It had become a jolly cellbox.
In Qmle it won't show but in game it's hardly a count.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/conve...
http://youtu.be/OAi_Sj74BP4
#359 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/15 00:41:33
So is it 1000 verts, 2048 tris? I have a model with ~1700 verts loading just fine.
Verts
#360 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/15 01:08:30
The limits for verts is 2000 almost everywhere, including dos/winquake. The original glquake binary had a reduced vertex limit of 1000, but the released glquake source had this limit restored to 2000. Consequently every source-port has a limit of at least 2000, and there's no reason at all to keep models at 1000.
#361 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/15 01:10:35
Ah ok, I got confused by the first post in this thread.
Btw...
#362 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/16 03:28:43
Just thought I'd mention this: preach's md3 converter is awesome. Thanks for making that thing. :)
In The Background
#363 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/05/16 19:30:01
I am sure most new content would never see the light of day without the various coder utilities that work away in the background. I am sure preach would love to see what you have been up to with his model converter! :P
Well...
#364 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/16 22:05:20
I'm glad it's proving useful, and I'm sure you'll be glad to hear that the next generation of the md3 converter is almost half-done! By which I mean that I've written a module in python which loads and saves mdl format models. I'm just working on a few example models to go with it and then I'll put it out here.
Once that's done, all that remains is to clone the code, adapt it to load md3 files instead, then make the glue code for the conversion. The purpose of all this reinventing-the-wheel is that the glue code will hopefully be clear and easy to adapt, allowing for finer control of the md3 to mdl conversion. For example, if you're making a map object which needs to be aligned on the grid to meet the geometry in the map, you might want to specify the scale used in the conversion of the model coordinates.
Features
#365 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/05/16 22:32:19
I was wondering if you don't mind adding some more features:
* BMP skin support (8 bit) I can't get Photoshop to save in that wacky PCX format you use.
* Multiple skins (via the normal text file)
* Update special mdl keys (rotate etc)
* specify names and groups to animation sets (via the normal text file, a comma delimited list) It is awkward viewing stuff in Qme with just a huge list of numbers for frame names.
In Order
#366 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/17 00:37:04
Yes
Yes
Yes and
Yes
The first one will come from using another python library. The pcx thing was largely chosen because I didn't want the md3tomdl source to have any dependencies on external code, and 8bit pcx was just easy enough to hand-parse. I'll make sure that the examples include some that use the library.
Multiple skins and proper group frames are things that are easy to manipulate with a script and the module that I have now. It's the kind of thing that you'd have to write a whole difficult-to-parse syntax in the "config file" method of the existing tool, so I hope the omission thus far is understandable.
As an example, to set the rotate flag on a model would require the following line added to the script:
mymdl.flags = 8
If the requirement to know the numerical values of the flags is considered too taxing I might be persuaded to include them as constants!
Md3tomdl
#367 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/05/17 01:58:38
@preach, that would be awesome to have those features. It is the last things I use Qme for (multiple skins and model flags) and not having Qme in the pipeline will be awesome.
The config file flag of mymdl.flags is fine with me, is this parameter available in the current version?
I totally understand why the skin / animation names option is missing from the current version. Writing a config file parser is always time consuming.
Prerelease
#368 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/17 09:56:50
There seems no point keeping the module back when it would already be useful to you, so here it is:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Pop the qmdl folder in your python "Lib" folder. You can then put the following lines in a file called flag.py to add the flag to the mdl file md3tomdl produces.
from qmdl.mdl import Mdl
mymdl = Mdl()
infile = open(r"input.mdl", "rb")
mymdl.read(infile)
infile.close()
mymdl.flags = 8
outfile = open(r"output.mdl", "wb")
mymdl.write(outfile)
outfile.close()
I'd suggest having a short batch file that calls md3tomdl followed by this python script.
Let me know how it works, I've tested with python 3.2, but if you have an earlier version installed it might still work...
Supplimental
#369 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/17 10:39:13
Some helpful code for renaming frames:
def rename_range(frames, start, name, length):
for i in range(length):
frames[i + start].name = (name + str(i + 1)).encode("ascii")
def rename_frames(mdl, names):
i = 0
for name in names:
rename_range(mdl.frames, i, *(name))
i += name[1]
rename_frames(mymdl, [("walk", 8), ("run", 6), ("stand", 9)])
Essentially you write a list of tuples, where each tuple is the sequence name and length.
Snakeless
#370 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/05/17 23:32:40
@Preach, unfortunately I don't have python installed, but I can wait, honestly there is no hurry. :) Plus I am busy creating new skins at the moment, so it will be a while before I am back to exporting models again.
#371 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/18 03:28:41
rawr
Sock's mesh, uv and skin and I rigged and posed it.
Thanks again for the converter, preach. Wouldn't have bothered with this stuff without it.
Another Angle
#372 posted by sock [24.82.147.76] on 2012/05/18 03:45:57
http://www.simonoc.com/images/desi...
Nice!
#373 posted by ijed [190.22.105.115] on 2012/05/18 04:00:08
Hot
#374 posted by wakey [194.166.156.118] on 2012/05/18 04:30:29
When i look at this, i start to think the dragon monster would also fit neatly into socks map.
#375 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/05/18 05:12:36
wow, really nice.
Quake's monster skins tend to have a bit more blood and grime splattered on them; yours looks relatively clean by comparison.
#376 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/18 05:14:39
there's two skins, a clean one and a bloodied one. :)
Hell Knight Command
#377 posted by negke [31.18.185.232] on 2012/05/18 09:47:05
Very nice, indeed!
Sock
#378 posted by JPL [82.234.167.238] on 2012/05/18 10:37:21
Very nice ! Would love to see its behaviour ingame :) Go map !!
Awesome
#379 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/18 10:59:41
The knight with a shield has finally been realised.
Sock + Necros
#380 posted by onetruepurple [91.233.197.107] on 2012/05/18 11:40:51
All this new medieval stuff looks like taken from an alternate reality that also happened to just have Q1, it's that good.
#381 posted by Willem [174.109.109.171] on 2012/05/18 12:33:57
And it's an amazing looking shield! Nice work!
Nice, Indeed!
#382 posted by generic [67.235.217.43] on 2012/05/18 13:50:20
That's the best looking model I have seen in a while :)
Woot
#383 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/18 20:21:34
I like the way is has that humor on his face, while its shield looks so nasty.
Great model face lift!
In Fact
#384 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/05/18 22:03:37
It reminds me of John Blanche' illustrations:
http://taran.pagesperso-orange.fr/...
Especially those from Sorcery!
Cool Article
#385 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/20 01:29:15
Something I found on polycount today, linked from the low-poly-models thread
http://wiki.polycount.com/SphereTo...
It's a guide on how to save polys on spheres by collapsing edges that don't improve the silhouette of the shape. It's interesting in itself, but also as a starting point for how to optimise curved models generally.
Quad Post
#386 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/22 01:12:16
Okay, it's only a double post.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Whack it in progs and load a map with a quad.
It's basically a similar trick to the gem, but because I can write the scripts in python now, I can cope with doing directional calculations on normals. This means you can get coherent effects rather than the random ones seen earlier.
Not Sure
#387 posted by ijed [190.22.6.69] on 2012/05/22 03:27:08
I see the difference. Is it engine dependent?
And yeah, a well presented article.
I'd be interested in one a bit more high level though. How the silhouette is all important and the visual acuity of the ones in Quake is pretty damn good.
#388 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/22 03:39:22
that looks awesome man... :D
Velvet Touch
#389 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/22 08:31:44
Yes, that looks good!
I just remade the squad.mdl, giving it a flat skinfile.
It doesn't change much to the already excisting,
as if smaller objects get reduced in game.
This scripted print really glows.
Visual
#390 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/22 09:05:59
It relies on the normal effects, so it's very hard to see in darkplaces for the reasons mentioned earlier in the thread (back where sock posted the health vials). Fitzquake is recommended because it has motion interpolation without vertex lighting, but it's also worth seeing that it renders in winquake.
Ah
#391 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/05/22 19:01:27
Got it.
Sound
#392 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/22 22:11:59
I know I'm recalling the subject again, but now that I have the tessla coil I can't add a sound to its sparkle.
I'm allready glad I can use mh's version of progsref to make the thing go.
But now it seems as if an electric wav is hard to add to a info_notnull as all sounds are precached.
So here is a map with an example, maybe there is a simple solution for it.
Or I'll strip the toppic and read it again.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/tessl...
Sounding It Out
#393 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/22 22:53:00
It seems like the easiest way to play the sound would be to add code that precaches it to info_tessla. You can look at the code for ambient_drone to get you started. The way that ambient_drone works does mean that you can never turn the sound off, so let me know if this is a problem.
The main problem you will have is that the sound file you have does not loop. To make it look you need to:
Download wavosaur from www.wavosaur.com and install it.
Open the wav file in wavosaur
From the tools menu select markers->create marker.
You can then move the marker around, place it at the point where you want the loop to start playing after the sound reaches the end.
Finally, save the file and it should loop in-game.
#394 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/22 23:27:56
Thanks for the headsup about wavosaur... been looking for a good straight forward sound editing program. I can't stand audacity. :P
#395 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/22 23:34:26
Right, Preach.
The sound of the constant tessla is already added with some ambient_fuz.
I ment a sound that wakes at the moment the player gets touched by the tessla.
So I don't need the sound looped, only for the flash of the bold.
Reason why I thought it would fit more in the trigger_multiple from with the lightnihg is excecuted. Or in the info_notnull.
But the sounds there are all precached.
And I wonder as this func is used as teaching old progs new tricks.
Teaser Shots
#396 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/26 21:29:02
A couple of shots of a work-in-progress computer terminal model in idbase style.
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
Cool!
#397 posted by Drew [216.252.94.78] on 2012/05/27 00:31:50
Looks good and '96
Bonus Content: A Pop Quiz
#398 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/27 01:57:24
How many colours does the quake palette contain? And why does it hurt so much?
#399 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/28 03:17:04
When I start 64, when I'm working 256, and when I stop 625.
Must be the afterimage that hurts.
Do I get John Bean Sunglasses now?
http://members.home.nl/gimli/gener...
#400 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/05/28 03:46:58
looks like a quake portal gun. :P
Low Poly Side
#401 posted by MadFox [94.215.210.233] on 2012/05/28 21:19:45
I'm trying to understand the basics of models in qmle, so I'm try turning triangles into cubes without losing skin texture.
The model above is one of the low poly model site I found on the board elsewhere.
Reading the liscense and GNU it is freeware, but it's more a challence to make one of yourself.
Back To Basics
#402 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/29 22:56:07
I'd not recommend learning basics from QME because you might end up thinking that things are just hard to do, when in fact they are only hard to to in QME. It's a specialist tool for quake models, general purpose modelling programs like blender or gmax are easier for the basics, despite being more complex overall.
More Recommendations?
#403 posted by wakey [178.191.32.106] on 2012/05/30 23:03:07
Blender is to heavy for me, so i asked myself, if there is any other freeware next to gmax which is of good use for quake-modelling.
Depends
#404 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/05/31 01:16:43
The program that I've always found easiest to actually create 3d geometry in is called "Wings 3d". It isn't a full package - you can't do skinmapping or animation in it, but it makes sculpting very intuitive. I also haven't tried to get a version of it for years so I don't know if it's still developed or even easy to find...
Little Rapture
#405 posted by MadFox [94.215.208.34] on 2012/06/28 04:09:56
I was chasing the strange object bear pointed in the inspiration thread.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/moeb4...
#406 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/06/29 02:29:15
preach, what causes md3tomdl to ignore the input skin and (auto generate??) an orange/brown striped skin?
I exported a skin from qme into pcx and everything seems fine (model frames are all there as is skin mapping).
#407 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/06/29 02:30:39
ohhh never mind... i moved my skins into a subfolder but forgot to add thatr in the text file. -_-
She's So Fine...
#408 posted by MadFox [94.215.208.34] on 2012/07/01 20:37:46
and she's mine.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/bigle...
Cock Polisher ??
#409 posted by JPL [82.227.229.44] on 2012/07/02 07:54:01
.. now Quake turns definitively gay....
Then The She Would Be A He
#410 posted by MadFox [94.215.208.34] on 2012/07/02 19:41:38
The model is a convertion of the HalfLife2 low poly site whith free models. So I thought to respect the owner with a screenshot.
Most of the time these subposes don't reach ingame.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/heavy...
Here's another one that hopefully will become playworth.
Already big for milepasses and jumping on rockets.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/bigle...
Found
#411 posted by MadFox [94.215.208.34] on 2012/07/03 06:44:29
SFM xBEASTx - Black Ops
X-box game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iz_...
#412 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/03 09:00:52
More of a texturing question I guess but this seemed the most relevant thread to post in:
Are there any Gimp users here? I'm trying to make some skins but I keep getting errant full brights, even when my palette is not supposed to have them.
I never had this problem with Photoshop, so I'm guessing I'm just doing something wrong. Is there a proper way to set up a palette without any fullbrights?
Palette
#413 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/03 12:46:50
The way I have my fullbright-free palette set up in gimp is to start with the full 256 colour palette, then replace the last 16 colours with black. Since there's already a black colour at the top of the palette, the remaining 16 colours never get used.
#414 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/03 19:20:36
how do you make your palette? I load up a palette image texture (has the 256 colours in large blocks) and then make the bottom two rows black.
But I still see fullbrights on some reds.
Hmm
#415 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/03 20:17:50
I don't know if it reapplies the palette when you edit it, have you tried saving the palette, changing the colour depth to RGB, and then changing it back to indexed with your saved, fullbright-free palette?
Otherwise there's always QMe...
#416 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/03 20:49:21
Well, what it seems like is that there are two identical reds, but only depending on the index in the palette is it determined to be fullbright or not.
It's weird because in PS, the palette would show up in the same order it was in when I created it from the palette image.
In Gimp, the colours are just all random in the palette.
Otherwise there's always QMe...
What do you mean?
Well
#417 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/03 21:51:00
Try grabbing the file from http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter... and importing the palette from there. If you still have trouble, is it possible that some other tool is interfering? There is a shade of fullbright red with the same RGB values as a regular palette entry, so anything that converts skins from palette index to RGB and then back to palette index will inevitably lose information on some files.
re: QMe, you can use it as a cheap fullbright remover by importing the texture in question as a skin, then using the QMe palette filter tools (which are quite good actually, being custom built for quake itself)
#418 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/03 22:21:35
Thanks, I will try that out with the pcx file directly.
QMe palette filter tools
Which tools are those? I've honestly never touched that part of the program.
#419 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/03 22:39:24
Thanks, that seems to have worked! Just took importing the palette directly from a pcx file!
QMe Skin Editor
#420 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/03 23:14:13
The skin editing in QMe is probably the most polished part of the program. You can even undo edits that you make while drawing on the skin using ctrl-z! (*)
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter... highlights the button (top right) and shows off the dialog. You can remap colours one by one if you double-click them, then pick the replacement colour from the pop-up. It's pretty laborious to do that though.
The quicker way to replace colours all at once is to untick the boxes to the left of the row. This replaces all the colours in that row with the closest match in the remaining checked rows. That last bit is important - if you have lots of fullbright oranges and reds you want to remove from your skin, make sure that all the non-fullbright orange and red rows are ticked first. Otherwise you will get poor results!
(*) 3d view only
#421 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/03 23:17:59
Ah ok, I saw that dialog but couldn't figure out at a glance what the heck it did.
Seems like a cool way to do some quick palette swaps, thanks for cluing me in on it!
#420
#422 posted by metlslime [159.153.4.50] on 2012/08/04 02:42:42
nice model, what is that from?
Poster
#423 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/04 12:20:30
It's a sneak preview of an upcoming pack of models...
Flavour Text
#424 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/05 01:05:18
Since there's no way I can squeeze all this on the model I might as well post it here:
The defective packs (pictured left) were manufactured between July 2087 and February 2088. We advise all customers to inspect your medikits for the following indicators:
• Unusual or pungent odour
• Discolouration
• Liquid discharge from base
• Inoperative indicator light
Any pack displaying one or more of the above symptoms should be returned unopened to your retailer for exchange or a full refund.
Remember, in an emergency situation your life could depend on your medikit - be safe, not sorry.
Haha!
#425 posted by Drew [216.252.90.38] on 2012/08/05 04:39:46
Awesome!
#426 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/09 10:12:16
Hm... I think I have found why .mdls have to be split the same way the verts are split on the skin map...
OBJs (for example) allow a face to contain it's own s/t tex coords, but MDLs have the s/t coords bound to the vertices themselves...
Oy... I guess I will need to figure out how to split up the OBJ mesh so that skin verts and mesh verts are split the same.
FYI
#427 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/11 22:24:48
OBJ files store verts in clockwise order, but (I guess because of OpenGL?) they need to be in counter clockwise order to draw properly.
ne_modelEditor
#428 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/14 23:29:29
It's called 'ne_modelEditor' but all it can really do right now is edit UV mapping on models. :P
File->Open to open a model (.mdl but will load .obj)
RMB Drag on the 3d view rotates
MMB Drag on the 3d view pans
Click the "Show UV Mapping" button at the top.
Click and drag to move UV verts around.
Dark Blue verts are normal skin verts.
Light Blue verts are verts that share front/back tris. Moving a light blue vert moves the two together.
File->Save to save a new model. Don't overwrite your models... who knows what this program could do?! Oh right.. me. Just keep some backups of your models.
- There's no undo (there will be)
- You can't split/merge skin verts (you will eventually be able to)
- Can't select verts/tris in 3d view (you will eventually be able to)
- Can't edit 3d mesh at all (don't know if I bother with this, there are better modelling programs out there)
ne_modelEditor 0.01
Made out of java, so you can just unzip this into a folder and double click ne_modelEditor.jar
If double clicking doesn't work, you probably don't have java or it's not set up right.
Also, this requires OpenGL 1.1 compatible card... which should be like every card out there.
Cool Stuff
#429 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/16 21:41:19
Specialising in UV maps is probably a good niche to aim for, as all the existing mdl format editors are lacking in that department. I already prefer using this tool to QMe, which doesn't even select the vertex under your cursor correctly. Quick wish-list in that department:
* Drag select
* Select adjacent vertices command
* Select entire component (all vertices connected to the current selection)
* Rotate tool
* Scale tool
* Mirror tool
That ought to be enough to let people create efficient skins.
Also one nitpicking detail: Quake actually places vertices in the middle of the pixel at the given skin coordinates, not in the top left corner of that pixel. It's a kind of unhelpful design because it means you can't get even borders on the edges of carefully aligned polygons. But it's the design we have been given so the editors have to follow it.
#430 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/16 23:32:11
Quake actually places vertices in the middle of the pixel at the given skin coordinates, not in the top left corner of that pixel.
Oh shit! I actually uncorrected this because I thought it was due to integer casting somewhere along the line!
As for your wishlist: yup. :)
Other things:
- selecting tris and being able to detach them as one piece
- being able to "relax" tris in UVs to match their shape on the mesh.
-displaying coordinates and allowing editing of UV vertices by typing in
#431 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/17 07:33:49
http://necros.slipgateconstruct.co...
v0.02
ESC now closes UV Editor. This is mainly just a convenience shortcut.
Shift-selecting multiple frames in the sidebar of the 3d window will auto animate the frames in the selection... Just a lame way to preview animations for now until I make some proper representation of the frames... maybe with JTrees or something.
Box selection is in. Holding Ctrl while selecting will add new verts while just box selecting will clear the previous selection, as per usual windows UI standards.
Alt+Box selection to deselect vertices within the box is NOT implemented yet. (it will be)
There's no 'select element' function, but something almost as good... I emulated 3dsmax's Grow/Shrink Selection functionality. With a single vertex selected, pressing the grow selection button will select all vertices surrounding it (that are connected). Shrink selection works in reverse.
So you can select a whole element just by repeatedly hitting the + button.
A very rudimentary Undo action is implemented for UV vertex edits only. (Which is fine considering it's the only thing you can do anyway!)
Of everything, I'm the least happy with the undo implementation. I've never coded an undo system before and I realize I should have been making it along side everything else. As it is, I seem to be working around my classes which is never a good thing.
You still can't select stuff from the 3d view... Sorry, I'm just not sure how to do the traces. I realized when I sat down to code it I had no idea how a "traceline" actually works! All I could think of was doing a search in a sphere along a vector in small increments and hope to find a vertex within the radius... but that seems lame. :P
Next will be some basic functionality like rotating and scaling verts and at least edge and face selection/movement.
#432 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/17 08:53:01
You still can't select stuff from the 3d view... Sorry, I'm just not sure how to do the traces. I realized when I sat down to code it I had no idea how a "traceline" actually works! All I could think of was doing a search in a sphere along a vector in small increments and hope to find a vertex within the radius... but that seems lame. :P
There's a better way based on this fact:
The closest approach of a point to a line is where the vector between the point and the line is perpendicular to the line
You can create some linear equations which can be solved simply to give you the correct point on the line. Then calculate the length of the difference and reject the vertex if that distance is too great. I can expound on the maths later today
Linear
#433 posted by Preach [195.246.108.11] on 2012/08/17 15:47:57
Ok, so here we go. In the following maths any variable in bold is a vector, non-bold are scalars:
We can define a line in 3d space using two vectors, origin and direction. The origin a can be any fixed point on the line. The direction r is a vector parallel to the line. The equation of the line is:
x = a + k r
where x is any point on the line, and k is a scalar which can vary. For fixed a and r we can choose k to find any point on the line.
In this specific case the natural choice of a is the viewpoint of the 3d render. In quake we would find the vector r using makevectors(self.v_angle), in your java thing you're on your own...
If we let b be the coordinate of a particular vertex we are testing we get (from the post above)
r . (a + k r - b) = 0
We solve for k:
k = (b - a) . r / (r . r)
In a third post I'll bash through some algebra which uses this value of k to calculate the (squared) distance on b from the line.
The Scheduled Algebra Bashing...
#434 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/17 23:56:46
...will now not be taking place.
If we let x = b - a from above, the end product of all the algebra is
(x . x) - (x . r)² / (r . r)
which gives the square of the shortest distance from the vertex at b to the line. You can get this by substituting the value of k back in and doing lots of expanding, grouping, cancelling etc. I'm going to take a short cut which explains it from a different angle.
We will look at projection: flattening the 3d space onto a 2d plane with our line sticking out as the plane's normal vector. Since this plane is perpendicular to the line, we can just measure the distance from the vertex to the line in this plane to find our shortest distance.
We will start with a simplifying assumption which we can generalize later: assume that r is a normalized vector (of length 1).
We can split x up into two components: parallel to the line and perpendicular to the line. We ultimately want the latter one, but it turns out the former is easier to calculate. The parallel component is in the direction of r with length |x| cos C. Because r is length 1:
|x| cos C = r . x (1)
So we end up with the parallel vector being:
(r . x) r (2)
To get the perpendicular vector we subtract this parallel vector from x:
x - (r . x) r (3)
This is the vector we want, so we just do the usual trick of taking the dot product of (3) with itself to get the length squared:
(x . x) - 2(x . r)² + (x . r)²(r . r) (4)
Under our assumption (r . r) = 1 so (4) reduces to
(x . x) - (x . r)² (5)
What happens if we relax the assumption? We need to divide the right hand side of (1) by |r|. We then have to divide (2) by |r| a second to normalise the additional r term. But because |r|² = (r . r) we can calculate the normalizing factor without any expensive square roots. If you work through equations (3) and (4) you should find the same cancellation of the latter terms occurs to get the formula at the top of the post.
After all that cleverness to avoid a square root, I'd still suggest doing one for this specific application. The key thing is that r doesn't change within your loop through the vertices. You can normalise r outside of the loop, and avoid a division operation within the loop. For models of 300 vertices I'm sure this will prove to be faster. So just use (5) with a normalised r.
PS: Why does func_ let me do &nbsp; and &bull; but not &theta; ?
#435 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/18 21:38:25
Thanks for taking the time to outline the whole process, Preach. I was going to reply yesterday, but it seems I can't even get my 3D Picker working to translate on-screen clicks into world coords.
I'm sure I just messed something simple up but I got frustrated with the damn thing and just went and mapped instead. :P
#436 posted by necros [99.227.156.158] on 2012/08/19 07:23:57
Finally straightened out the screen coords -> world coords shenanigans and thanks to your posts, I now have vertex selection in the 3d view! :)
For edge selection, I'm thinking make a plane perpendicular to the camera, find the point where the trace hits the plane, then use the same stuff you posted above except in reverse-- find a perpendicular line of shortest distance to the edge from that point.
Face selection, again with a plane, this time of the triangle. Find the point where the line intersects the plane, then check if that point is inside all 3 edges of the plane. (make sure the intercept point is on the same side of all 3 edges as opposite triangle point of the edges).
Good Good
#437 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/19 10:30:48
Good that all of that stuff is working. I thought of one need little optimisation for selecting the best vertex when multiple vertices meet the criteria and forgot to mention it. If many vertices are within n units of the line you are probably best off choosing the vertex which is nearest the camera (rather than just taking the first result on the list which might be on the back of the model and confusing). The neat thing is that in (5) we already calculate (x . x), so we can save that value for the best point so far, then compare it to any subsequent point which is near enough to the line.
Your plan for the edge selection seems sound but one warning - you will need to special-case the situation where the edge is already perpendicular to the camera, because when you project the line into the 2d subspace it will collapse into a point, meaning r goes to (0, 0, 0). The danger is that you will then attempt to divide by the length of that line's r value and crash because it's a divide by zero. Check for the zero length, in that case you need only measure distance between two points - easy!
Two New Models
#438 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/29 01:38:41
A couple more models coming from further experiments with gmax animation: a force-field effect and a smoke plume. Download from:
http://www.btinternet.com/~chapter...
There's a test map included, extract the whole thing to your quoth folder - the models themselves are in a folder called test (in the hope you'll remember to delete it once you've had a look around the map). As with the waterfall effect from a while ago, the models work in engines as far back as winquake but are better in something with interpolation and alpha support.
Is It...
#439 posted by JPL [82.227.229.44] on 2012/08/29 13:35:34
... announcing a Quoth 3 mod ? <- just wondering :P
#440 posted by Spirit [80.171.98.122] on 2012/08/29 15:21:02
Hm, those plumes look more like underwater plants to me. Very nice ones at that though.
Nice Smoke
#441 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/08/29 15:30:17
I was messing around with particles and getting nowhere.
Quoth 3
#442 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/08/29 19:55:38
JPL: the only reason quoth is used is because you need some kind of mod to display custom models, and quoth has an entity which does it and most people have it installed. Rumour squashed!
Preach
#443 posted by JPL [82.234.167.238] on 2012/08/29 21:02:31
I am not trying to create a rumor, I was rather expecting a brand new update from the awesome mod to shake my inspiration that is today almost inexistent... :/
and now I am really really disappointed :P
Hahaha
#444 posted by Drew [98.124.8.205] on 2012/08/29 22:10:06
New Articles (and More)
#445 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/11/24 14:51:23
While I'm enjoying having a wizzy new website, I don't want to feel like I'm just linking to it instead of posting stuff here. So I'm going to share a motivating story and then link to a new article which relates to it:
I remember on several occasions running into an annoyance when creating a model. I would spend some time working in gmax on the model, sculpting and skinning it, until I reached the moment when it was finally done, and it was time to export to mdl format. Once I'd cursed and sworn my way through making the fragile conversion succeed, I'd begin the work in QME of getting the model finished off - scaling, rotating and positioning it correctly, adding animations, importing the skins.
The annoyance came when half way through this work in QME, I'd suddenly realise how much better the model would be if this part of the skin wasn't mirrored, or if I'd turned some of the edges the other way. The dilemma was choosing between foregoing these improvements, or throwing away all the work in QME so far to export a new version from gmax.
If you have ever had the same experience, or just want to learn how you might create a quake model without using QME, please come read the long article I just posted at
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
The idea is to generate mdl files from a series of compiling tools, rather like bsp files are made.
Also in the modelling category is an expanded article on "progressive enhancement" expanding on what I've posted about it here, and restored downloads of my two modelling tools qmdl and md3tomdl. The latter is an exciting new version of the tool, v0.2! It offers better vertex rounding, proper vertex normals and support for multiple surfaces in the source md3 file. To be honest I've been using 0.2 for years and never realised I'd kept it to myself.
That's not to mention the model category where I've been uploading stuff the past week. It's a roughly even mix of models from the old site, newer models which I've shared in this thread, and entirely new models which nobody has seen yet! In particular the "Map objects" category has the best of the goods.
#446 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2012/11/24 17:10:01
i love md3tomdl :)
Learning Curve
#447 posted by mechtech [65.190.42.20] on 2012/12/10 00:23:49
Gmax md3 and soooo many things too learn. After using Hammer for so long Gmax is a bitch. Just getting things to grid. I keep moving things I don't intend to. A whole new set of terminology
I Know
#448 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/11 01:01:18
Stick with it though, and don't forget to walk before you can run. There are thousands of wooden barrel models out there, but one which was made just for quake(and so presents no legal worries) would still be nice! It's pretty simple to model, interesting to unwrap the skin for, and then doesn't need any animation (which is the hardest thing in gmax).
I really should take that old gmax tutorial I had on one of the qexpo sites, and revamp it on the blog someday...
Ogre
#449 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/15 18:34:42
New model time (although I posted previews of it years ago so it's only newly finished)
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
It's a replacement ogre (which along with In The Shadows makes two in the past week, I know...) with all the usual skin map stuff. It's based off the ogre drawing metlslme did, which I was looking for in the screenshots thread earlier.
Bonus fun fact: this model uses less texture memory than the id ogre in 3d accelerated engines! The original ogre texture is 264x194, which gets rounded up to 512x256 - twice as much as the 256x256 of this model.
New Model: Fence
#450 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/16 19:14:01
And another model, one which might even be more interesting, although it was much less effort to make. It's a mapobject for adding fences and wooden logs to a map, with 4 skins which cover the main ID wood textures. Go take a peek and download it from http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
#451 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2012/12/17 17:30:16
Looks very cool Preach. I may have a use for a model like that soon. :)
Nice
#452 posted by Hrimfaxi [89.150.173.209] on 2012/12/17 18:21:21
A model that has a lot of uses.
Nice.
Thanks Preach
More
#453 posted by MadFox [84.26.175.209] on 2012/12/17 22:46:05
Here's a little bug, it won't attack unless you change its sting.qc.
bug
I wanted something that just flattered around,
but as it awakes it is fixed to a player.
Not what I expected as it attack routine isn't used.
Maybe make it a bit smaller to lower the bouncing box.
Odd when it isn't possible to jump over it.
download
#454 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2012/12/17 23:06:24
i haven't looked at the code, but movetogoal will home in on whatever entity is stored in the .goalentity pointer.
if you adapted the sting.qc from a normal monster, then you probably have ai_stand() in the idle frames which will set the player to goalentity when it sees them.
then you probably have ai_run(#) which uses movetogoal which is what makes it run to the player.
#455 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2012/12/17 23:16:58
I guess I should have elaborated more:
what you need to do is remove ai_stand and ai_runs.
you will need to make a new movement function to replace the ai_run.
then you will need to find a way to make it choose when to move and when to stand.
btw, the model is cool. :)
Thanks
#456 posted by MadFox [84.26.175.209] on 2012/12/18 02:15:12
You're aiming at the point I lost my intention, necros.
In the mdl is a subroutine that turns, so it must be possible to make it just fly around, and take a place to sit down, after continuing flying.
It's just that I'm not so familiar with monsters that won't get hostile.
The subroutine to make it only wandering around don't come with an example to reach it.
The tumble when it dies accordant to a scrag explains a bit of the way to go.
#457 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2012/12/18 06:52:08
Maybe the code I used for birds will be helpful?
http://mobile.sheridanc.on.ca/~jon...
check out the ai_bird() function at line 373
The bird doesn't move on it's own. The mapper places bird_anchorPoint entities with flags set for either food or rest.
Birds get hungry and tired when flying and have to go to rest areas to remove tiredness and food areas to remove hunger. This is basically how they decide where to go.
Also, birds don't use movetogoal or walkmove, they directly set .velocity to fly around.
#458 posted by MadFox [84.26.175.209] on 2012/12/18 07:19:09
I searched in the AI.QC the .goalentity and the void.Hunt target.
I thought it would be possible to make the entity not getting hostile with an exclusion, but there is more involoved.
Still I don't get it why I can't jump over it.
I made the so seize small and still it acts like a pillar.
Thanks for the util, will see it through.
Creature_birds
#459 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/12/18 21:39:29
That's awesome. I did a bird mesh, but just fired it via an emission without coding anything up.
#460 posted by MadFox [84.26.175.209] on 2012/12/19 23:06:52
Poor bird mesh, to be vanished to fire without code!
necros - handsome sript! I try to rip off what comes in as usefull.
I suppose strings like "ai_monsterDead" and "ai_bird_modifyHunger" are the parts my compiler doesn't know to deal with.
But for a rough overview I must say you have a fine quake bird there.
#461 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2012/12/20 00:48:40
sorry about that.
ai_monsterDead is just a function that makes bodies fade away. You can just remove that.
ai_bird_modifyHunger is on line 188.
You can simplify it a lot by removing hunger and tiredness though. Those things are not really necessary.
New Model: Dome
#462 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/20 02:06:04
Ok, it's not a totally new model, I think I posted an early version of the dome right before my old site departed. But it's got a bunch of new skins, and it's now designed to align with the grid and brushes correctly.
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
Very Classy
#463 posted by Drew [66.79.252.223] on 2012/12/20 18:22:42
inside of the ikblue dome in particular
Christmas Present
#464 posted by Preach [86.184.23.17] on 2012/12/25 00:29:47
Here's a special model for this festive occasion - although it's not really seasonal, just a little bit silly. It's a custom shambler model with some very special animations. Might even be useful if you're looking for an easter egg for your mod.
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
I reckon the underlying model has potential too. It would need a bit of work on the skin, give the fur convincing texture. Shaping on the arms needs some work. And obviously some sensible animations...
Ehhhhh
#465 posted by Fern [174.29.134.247] on 2012/12/25 11:58:37
I'm scrapping the map itself, but those columns look familiar http://www.suspenlute.com/stuff/co...
Looking For...
#466 posted by Fern [174.29.134.247] on 2012/12/27 03:11:14
with 17 years of quake history someone somewhere MUST have created a model of a human heart - preferably animated. Anybody know?
Don't Think So
#467 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/12/28 15:39:36
But it's just a blob of meat - you can probably make one in under an hour, even if you just use ye olde QME on its own :)
I spose it's possible that there was something like that in Hexen. And the HL1 gibs were pretty detailed. But hunting one down will probably take more time than making one.
Currently Reusing Reskinned Gibs...
#468 posted by Fern [174.29.134.247] on 2012/12/28 16:56:20
but I'd hoped there was something better out there. oh well.
Fr3n
#469 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/28 17:45:32
The finest heart model which comes in under 50 polygons and takes less than an hour to make.
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
Half-life certainly had a model as well, it was probably a but better than this...
No Beating Animation Preach?
#470 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/12/28 19:52:22
For shame sir.
(Nice model)
Here's Some
#471 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2012/12/28 19:57:18
Heartbeat sounds if you want them:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/y6779j28...
They're from a variety of projects; all should work in Quake.
1 Hour Challenge
#472 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/29 03:04:58
Just to say that if you do have any more vital organ requests, or indeed other ideas for models that could be created in just one hour, do post them. I'll see how many I can do between now and the new year. Reference images are very helpful.
Since the scope is just one hour, animation is probably out of the question. I did consider adding a beating heart effect to the model, but I couldn't see how to do it both quickly and well.
Ok Then...
#473 posted by ijed [190.22.25.11] on 2012/12/29 04:23:49
Not sure how complex any of these could be, or become in terms of time. This list is probably something akin to what the naughty children received over christmas instead of presents...
Gravestones http://anakhacoman.com/wp-content/...
Ladders
Cluster of mushrooms https://mycotopia.net/forums/attac...
Hanging Lantern (Nehahra but nicer)
Twisted Trees http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-5rAklDg9...
Gibbet with corpse http://images.wikia.com/uncycloped...
Old Skeleton / Bones http://www.colourbox.com/preview/2...
Wall of skulls http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_4b706Urn...
Decorative bones / mummies http://www.shopcurious.com/Images/...
Cobwebs (for corners etc)
Sacrificial Altar
Loads of torture shit http://www.medievalwarfare.info/to...
I Forgot...
#474 posted by ijed [190.22.25.11] on 2012/12/29 04:25:43
Grass
Last One...
#475 posted by ijed [190.22.25.11] on 2012/12/29 04:38:59
Piles of books, scattered around
Ahhhh Preach.
#476 posted by Fern [216.160.179.89] on 2012/12/29 07:02:46
That heart looks awesome, especially with the extra red skin I had lying around. Thanks! :D
Attempt #1
#477 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/29 14:16:41
Going for the mushrooms, one hour from now...
Done
#478 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2012/12/29 15:31:10
http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
Took a few minutes extra to upload. Probably gonna look at the gravestones next (but not straight away).
On some of the other models: The twisted tree would be really cool, I'd like to make it, but I think I'd spend longer than an hour on it, get the whispy bits animated properly etc. The hanging lantern would be doable, but without a flame inside - adding that would take longer but probably would bring the model together.
Some skull/bones type things would probably be doable, the trick is probably to make skulls that are very low poly so you can have lots, and also to make the skins match the pile of skulls/bones textures in maps - so you could have models to top off a pile of skulls brush with a bit of extra detail. Piles of books would be fine to do, the trick would be striking a balance between detail and polygons.
I guess all the mechtech torture models had to be removed from his pack then? They'd be static at least...I have no idea how you'd make a cobweb which would work in standard quake, I've thought about it before. Finally, I have a grass patch model on the back-burner right now, so watch this space...
Wow
#479 posted by ijed [190.22.21.184] on 2012/12/29 16:06:57
Can´t open the model right now, but that´s impressive progress even so.
I was pondering the cobweb as well. Gb got this working inside RMQ: http://kneedeepinthedoomed.wordpre...
But without engine modding it can´t be done like that in stock Quake.
So that´d leave either a pretty dense poly mesh which would be tricky to build and probably look bad, or an opaque one. Maybe with different levels of whiteness and a .alpha value that could work to produce filmy type cobwebs as per Temple of Doom, but AFAIK .alpha is engine mod required as well.
BTW
#480 posted by ijed [190.22.21.184] on 2012/12/29 16:10:56
I asked for mushrooms to use in my rmx map that has the poison / drunken basement area, so expect to see those used there - thanks.
The Map Models Are Back
#481 posted by mechtech [65.190.42.20] on 2012/12/29 16:58:39
Torture models included. Has source skins so you can reskin from a large full color image. Also has some tombstone models.
http://www.celephais.net/board/vie...
I have a few questions. Do hi rez textures for knave.wad exist?
Anyone have a hi rez texture for the Quoth long wall torch? or a similar model with HD skin.
Preach nice mushrooms.
ijed You could have multiple models share the same origin in a map. That might overcome the limits.
And Now That I'm Done Bitching...
#482 posted by Fern [63.231.67.41] on 2012/12/29 19:18:25
this collection is incredible and I'm definitely going to use at least one model in it so THANKS. ;)
Freaked Ogre
#483 posted by MadFox [84.26.175.209] on 2012/12/30 03:49:58
Here the models of the drunken, pissing, fishing Ogre.
blooper
Mech
#484 posted by ijed [190.22.12.150] on 2012/12/30 16:20:29
I´m already working with a custom engine - fuck the limits :)
!
#485 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/02 14:13:24
Thanks for those MechTech - thats a highly comprehensive set of models to a high quality as well.
Very nice model pack.
SHOCK HORROR
#486 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/12 01:07:32
My world is shattered - the sync/random flag on models doesn't do anything...
#487 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/12 01:52:13
Isn't it only broken in fitzquake engines?
Winquake Tests
#488 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/12 02:21:22
I've got a model where it's really easy to see that all of the animations are synchronised, and the flag does nothing in glquake or winquake. Has any engine ever added the feature back? Given the poor showing among original engines that could possibly be a breaking change!
#489 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/12 03:31:54
Did it work in software quake? (I can't run that engine)
Because I do seem to remember suddenly realizing it was broken later.
#490 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/12 04:43:50
just reading that quakeone thread about the open source quake...
it would be pretty cool to see a real fast moving dog.
Software Renderer
#491 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/12 10:32:36
Winquake is a software renderer and doesn't work. I don't know about DOSQuake because that doesn't run on my computer. I might just add a couple of extra framegroups with the same animation loop starting from different points.
DOSquake
#492 posted by negke [31.18.172.250] on 2013/01/12 15:55:01
Run it in Dosbox then.
Q3 Converting
#493 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/17 09:37:03
I've been tinkering with the Q3 Orb for converting it to Quake1.
I did it earlier with Skeleton, but then I broke the skinfile and had to make my own.
I used Q3map2Toolz to extract the three md3 files upper, legs and head.Then I use Noesis to convert to md3.
From there I used Gmax and the combine tool to get the model into one with a skinfile of 512x512.
I had some rigging as I could only export one frame out of Gmax, not the whole framegroup.
I think I missed the keyframe setting, but I was already glad I had the model in one piece in QMLE with the right UVskinfile.
Now I want to add the grenadelauncher, but everytime I merge it into the qmle model my skinfile splits to a size of 782x240.
Also it wrenches up the model itself so I tried a launcher of myself but it breaks up.
Then I tried again in Gmax to import the model with grenadelauncher and use the uvwrapper but it won't add the skinfile in the proper way.
Is there a way to add a skinfile to a 512x512 one, as far as I can see I still have a corner left.
#494 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/17 09:39:23
Then I tried again in Gmax to import the model with grenadelauncher and use the uvwrapper but it won't add the skinfile in the proper way.
Can you elaborate on this, it's the way to go. QMe doesn't understand the kind of skinmap you create from MD3 well enough to edit them.
Yeah
#495 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/17 12:51:22
That sounds like the right method, but how doesn't it add the skin file?
As much as I'd like to leave Qme behind and move to IQM, it's still practically a requirement for tweaking the last details of MDL.
#496 posted by roblot [209.87.249.67] on 2013/01/17 15:06:32
There's alot of good models in that mapmdl.pak. I noticed some bugs in the jetfighter (z fighting), helecopter (half a wing blade stuck in - gaps), and the garbled texture parts in pilaar.mdl. So I tried Qme for the first time and was able to fix these things. Some one must of swung the texture map vertices around in pilaar for the fun of it!
I tried the missle model tut and that went ok as well, except for the skin. Qme put some of the texture mapped faces on the shaft where no texture exists(top and bottom). So I guess I got to move the vertices manualy to make them look like how it was done for the pilaar one? Still haven't worked that one out yet but the rest is ok.
Ijed:
#497 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/18 01:57:48
A little off topic, but i'd like to know for when I get a chance to get back to work on my model editor thingy...
Which features do you need the most in QME and which the least?
I'm not planning on putting any vertex manipulation stuff in my editor and was planning on keeping it purely for skin mapping and moving frames around (copying, deleting, naming...).
I Didn't Know / Forgot About That...
#498 posted by ijed [186.37.203.141] on 2013/01/18 10:29:50
I'd add;
editing model flags (blood etc)
skin import + export (for convenience)
direct fbx import
Not fucking the verticies on resave
asset library (see all models in folder)(wishlist)
Not limited to qme features... What I've just written there will most likely destroy your sanity if done, but I make no apologies :)
The Most Obvious
#499 posted by ijed [186.37.203.141] on 2013/01/18 10:42:26
...to clarify - uv import....
Why I Use QME
#500 posted by sock [200.82.42.123] on 2013/01/18 14:07:30
Adding/replacing skins
- I often have multiple skins on objects
- Noesis does not support multiple skins which is frustrating
Setting up animation groups
- extremely useful for debugging models afterward
Adding frames - via CAD files!
I would love to be able to import frames easily. At the moment I export to FBX from LW, use Noesis to convert to MDL, open in QME and export the model to CAD and then open my base MDL and import all the CAD frames together. I would use preach importer but it does not work with the files exported from LW.
I am stuck with : FBX->MDL->CAD->MDL process.
Yowch
#501 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/18 14:20:10
Hey Sock, is the breakdown that you can export to MD3 from LW but the converter refuses to handle it? If so, e-mail me an example MD3 and I'll try to fix the converter.
#502 posted by Spirit [80.171.145.51] on 2013/01/18 14:29:26
Have you told the Noesis author about the multiple skins issue? He is nice and often super quick to fix things.
Noesis
#503 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/18 14:33:16
I keep forgetting to ask for error messages.
It just fails silently, which is a kick in the balls.
And yeah, I do the same exporter dance to get something into the engine.
Haven't tried your exporter Preach, will give it a go.
Going In Circles
#504 posted by sock [200.82.42.123] on 2013/01/18 15:24:06
The LW MD3 exporter is not up to date and I can't load it with the version I am using. This is the biggest problem with any modelling package, once a new version comes out all the user made exporters break. The MD3 format is so old that no one is supporting it anymore.
I use FBX because LW maintains the exporter and it works flawlessly and even all the skin UV co-ordinates are correct. If I could merge a series of FBX files into a MDL it would be pure heaven for me!
I would need to check if the FBX format keeps the triangle/verts the same but in theory it should. I also don't need to keep triangulating my model every time I export but if I could merge FBX files together I would gladly triangulate my exported files.
@preach, I know you use MD3 format but I can't get all my frames to merge into one MD3 files. This is why I have a huge directory of CAD files and luckily QME does directory frame loading, another cool feature. I know why you use MD3 format but I can't use it, hence my crazy conversion process.
@preach, I would still need to go into QME because of the multiple skins, your converter program only supports one skin and in a strange PCX format that even PS has trouble exporting too. Don't get me wrong, the converter you wrote is cool, but it can't help at the moment.
@spirit, there are tons of user interface issues with Noesis, but I doubt the creator is going to do much with the interface.
* Can't select/display multiple skins on models
* Can't goto certain animation frames, only got fast forward and reverse.
* Each time I export the interface resets, it should remember each export file settings or allow a template/default to be setup.
* I would love to export a batch of files but the command lines dialogue box does not work for me. When I specify parameters it ignores some of them, eventually I gave up trying because it did not make any sense.
Sadly the model format/process for Quake is still a nightmare and is top of my list of things that drive me nuts about modding for Quake. I sometimes wonder why I fight so much to get models into Quake, but when I finally do get them loading in Quake it feels awesome!
Noesis
#505 posted by sock [200.82.42.123] on 2013/01/18 15:58:42
@spirit, One other thing, if the author of Noesis had a donate button on his site I would gladly give him money! His convertor program is amazing, I would have not had created so many models for my MOD if Noesis did not exist.
@ijed, also big thank you for letting me know about Noesis in the first place, it did make a big difference to the creation of my MOD.
Noesis goodness:
FBX->MDL (perfect for static models)
MDL->OBJ (How I import into LW)
FBX details: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FBX
Supported by Max, Blender, LW, Maya
Np
#506 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/18 16:31:36
I use FBX as well, it's about as close to a universal format as you can get, apart from .obj of course.
Files!
#507 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/18 18:45:18
Hey sock, I've managed to convert a FBX to MDL via MD3 using NOESIS. Can you send me a FBX which won't convert so I can take a look?
#508 posted by sock [200.82.42.123] on 2013/01/18 19:02:44
Noesis will convert all of my FBX files to MD3 but how would I merge several MD3 files into one MDL file? I thinking about animations, I store all frames separately at the moment. I remember you used GMAX to export a MD3 with multiple frames, I am missing that stage at the moment.
Does your convertor cope with multiple skins in BMP/PCX format? If I can avoid using QME for skins and model parameters that would be awesome.
Also I don't mind using dos command line stuff to use your convertor, I can create batch files to supply parameters if necessary.
Post Conversion
#509 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/18 19:08:38
To add extra skins and set flags and rename things, I have another tool:
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
You basically write a little python script and run it on your model. The example script from
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
is hopefully easy to adapt for that kind of housekeeping.
And yeah, what you really need is a fbx file which contains the whole animation sequence at once (it's possible in general, don't know how LW copes). Then again the qmdl module could take a bunch of .mdl files with the same base model, and weld them together fairly easily...
Gmax
#510 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/18 22:49:38
I exported every animation frame in Gmax as a *.mdl file (218x), loaded every single mdl file in QMLE and exported the *.dxf, then imported all dxf files from the first animated frame of the framegroup.
Then I had all frames in one mdl file.
Don't think it is the usually way, but the reason I feel like a madfox.
Before I can use the tools of Gmax for the purpose I need ( combining all animation frames in one model) I first need to start making simple models for it, or RTFM.
Jeez
#511 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/18 23:33:49
Madfox I'm about to cry.
1. Download http://www.quaketastic.com/upload/...
2. Extract the whole thing to a directory
3. Export your model from gmax as an MD3, making sure that when you see this screen:
http://www.katsbits.com/images/tut...
you type "0-217" in the "Following Frames" box
4. Rename the md3 to "model.md3" and put it in the directory all the other files are in
5. Run the "model.bat" batch file in that directory
One .mdl file will result, in about the time you could export 15 frames.
Yes
#512 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/19 19:10:27
Thanks for your concern, Preach!
I forgot the 0-217, just entered 217 which is the reason for my oneframe attempt. Good hint, It spares a lot of time!
But I think there is something else I overlooked.
#494 state for the unwrapUVW in Gmax is a mystery to me.
I merged the v_launch.mdl into the Orb.md3.
When I try to add this skin to the UVMmap and I select the legs there is no head in the skin file. Other way selecting the head and using the unwrapUVW to add the launcher vertices then the leg skin is gone.
I can't join the parts together.
The batchfile is fantastic, works great.
Only QMLE crashes on the pcx file, as qmdl92b does.
Re: Skin
#513 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/20 00:41:18
For now I'd just add the skin as a separate step, rather than try and make the batch file do that part of the work, import and replacing using QME is the easiest way.
For your problem with the missing segments on the skin, you might need to join the different segments of the model into a single gmax object. To do this, before you apply the uvw unwrap modifier, select one of the segments, then look for the button on the mesh edit control marked "Attach"(it's in the "Edit Geometry" part). Click it, then click the other parts of the model in the 3D view.
You should now see all three parts appear when you apply the uvw modifier. You might also find that some or all of the animation disappears if you do this. Either way, post back if the first bit works, at least it'll be some progress...
Noesis
#514 posted by Rich [68.0.160.150] on 2013/01/20 21:27:02
Spirit just linked me to this thread. I'm the author of Noesis. Hi!
@sock, it imports multiple skins, but doesn't export at the moment. I can give you a commandline switch or something to import additional skin pages to stuff into the mdl export, if that's what you're looking for. Noesis also supports concatenating skeletal animations via commandline, but the only path for doing that sort of thing with vertex anims involves having to export to a modeling suite first. I can stick that on the todo as well.
As for your interface issues:
"Can't select/display multiple skins on models" - You can - Tools->Data viewer->Model #, then select the textures in the model to display them.
"Can't goto certain animation frames, only got fast forward and reverse." - You can do this too. Newer versions of Noesis have an animation slider, but just like textures as well, you can select them in the data viewer to display them.
"Each time I export the interface resets, it should remember each export file settings or allow a template/default to be setup." - If you want to do repeated exports with the same setup, I recommend the commandline using ?cmode. See the readme.txt for details on using console mode.
"I would love to export a batch of files but the command lines dialogue box does not work for me. When I specify parameters it ignores some of them, eventually I gave up trying because it did not make any sense." - I'm not sure what's going wrong for you here, I use commandline mode all the time. Can you give me the commandline you're trying to use, and the data you're trying to use it with?
Also, the Noesis page doesn't have a donate link, but my personal web site does. :) http://www.richwhitehouse.com/inde...
@ijed, Noesis will generally spit errors out when something goes wrong. If it isn't, something's gone really wrong. Can you send me the files you're working with and tell me what you're doing to make Noesis fail silently?
You can both send stuff as needed to the e-mail on the contact link. (from the richwhitehouse.com link above)
#515 posted by sock [200.82.42.123] on 2013/01/21 01:04:15
@Rich, hey thanks for registering here.
it imports multiple skins, but doesn't export at the moment. I often have models with multiple skins, at the moment I use another package to add them.
Tools->Data viewer->Model # That certainly shows me the multiple skins in the MDL file but I want to see them on the model. This simple displays them as flat textures in the view window.
Newer versions of Noesis have an animation slider That would be extremely handy, as often I want to check certain frames with different skins. I don't suppose you could add a loop function (frame X->Y) for the play?
Can you give me the command line you're trying to use, and the data you're trying to use it with? I will have to go back and try the again. I did spent a long time trying to working out what each command line parameter did, but found it frustrating because I wanted to automate converting 50+ models at once and the command line seem to only work through the export window.
the Noesis page doesn't have a donate link I will sort out a donation this week. Amazing program, it has saved me loads of time trying to get models into Quake 1.
Rich
#516 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/21 12:53:22
We've talked before - I was having the problem with the Q1/BMP format that time.
This time it was a mis-applied texture from 3dsMax. Basically the material wasn't applied properly, so when importing the FBX it looked fine, but then exporting to IQM caused the UVs/texture to be removed.
Unfortunately I've since fixed it so don't have a decent repro case to show.
I'll be more precise and sure to send you bugs as they surface :)
...
#517 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/21 12:55:22
Where's a good place for contact? Can't seem to find an email link for you.
Contact
#518 posted by Rich [68.0.142.158] on 2013/01/21 16:48:08
You can use iamthedick at gmail dot com. Feel free to send stuff along whenever you run into anything that isn't working right.
@sock, if you want to apply the texture to the model in the preview, you can go to Model #->Meshes->Mesh #->Material index. Double-click that to modify it to the value of the material you want. You can also go to Model #->Materials->Material # and modify the texture index for the material instead, if you'd like.
I can look into multi-select functionality or something for the data viewer to allow you to loop arbitrary frame sets.
Feel free to send along your batch export content/commandline to my e-mail whenever you get a chance, too.
Thanks a lot for the donation. I'm presently seeking a new job and am close to broke, so everything helps. :)
Gmax
#519 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/21 22:33:57
I tried all I could to attach the the grenade launcher to the other three modelparts but they won't collect to one model.
For some reason I can't follow the button traject and end up with a skinfile of 784x240.
If I select an object I can't find the Attach button.
Quake1 Orb
Finding The Button
#520 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/21 23:15:30
http://tomeofpreach.files.wordpres...
Take a look at this.
If this doesn't work
Tell me what you see instead of "editable mesh"
Finding The Button
#521 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/21 23:15:31
http://tomeofpreach.files.wordpres...
Take a look at this.
If this doesn't work
Tell me what you see instead of "editable mesh"
Yes
#522 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/21 23:48:21
I'm as queer-eyed as the orb self.
If i select the most versatile part "legs" there shows no attach button.
legs
When I select "torso" I set the attach button, but when I attach them the UVWrapper gives me a broken mesh on a little part of the skinfile.
torso
Conversion
#523 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/22 00:23:44
What happens if you right click the legs and do "convert to editable mesh"? This ought to let you attach it, but it might damage the animation.
Thick Help Readme
#524 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/22 00:42:02
Yes, it freezes animation.
As far I can go is wondering how I got the skinfile of the rocketlauncher into the three other ones.
First the eye got damaged, then I followed necro's hint of moving the mesh in Quark47.
Only thing I couldn't avoid is the 782x240 size.
A bit torned up I decided to reinvent the rocketlauncher and made it out of a flat basefile.
Doesn't help much as I don't understand how to get a half sized UVW map out of them, just like the Q3 models.
How do they do it?
Q3
#525 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/22 01:27:36
You can use entirely separate skins for different parts of models in Q3, it's not really comparable to Q1, where everything has to be on one skin.
Vert Meshes
#526 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/22 01:57:09
I retraced the grenadelauncher from a flat vertice mesh in the hope it would get the UVWrappers attention.
Doesn't make a lot difference in detail though.
And gmax handels it as a sepperate file so I have to search on.
Thanks for the reply though!
I wondered, is it possible to place the verts behind eachother, sparing skinsize?
v_launch
#527 posted by Spiney [91.177.163.50] on 2013/01/24 15:37:13
I wondered, is it possible to place the verts behind eachother, sparing skinsize?
Should be (it's common practice), unless Quake has some funky limitation.
The UVs
#528 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/24 15:42:12
Are typically generated by Qme, which does back/front mapping without any controls for stacking or packing the UVs.
Not sure what the original models were made it, but they set the precedent.
Spiney
#529 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/24 22:13:59
Yes, the quake model format does support this, but like ijed says, the main editor that handles .mdl format has exactly one way of making skin layouts. It loads files which are more creative though - there's an example of a dome model which overlaps vertices here:
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
While I'm throwing out links to my blog...
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
...describes one way you might go about making such a .mdl file. The "madfox care package" linked a few posts ago has a ready-made setup for the first half of the article, which gives you a .mdl file to work with.
#530 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/25 02:08:16
ijed et al, what is the preferred format to export uvw maps?
3dsmax's is a binary format and I guess proprietary... :\
that wouldn't be much fun to decode...
Models
#531 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/25 02:24:21
@spiney - I placed the verts behind eachother and it worked. First skinsize had 194x220 and this one gets 184x195 smaller.
Three objects won't layer I suppose as one gets stick in the middle.
@preach - I managed to get the object attached in Gmax now. And it also collides exact to the torso, more than I could animate myself.
Only bad point is that the attached model don't want to export. It keeps asking about modifiers.
Export
#532 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/25 12:12:29
Can you screencap the error message you get?
Necros
#533 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/25 13:14:12
I honestly don't know - I just export to whichever format works. I prefer not to use proprietary formats since it just closes doors on collaboration. And you never know when they'll change the format.
I know that the .obj format is universal, supports UVs and can be imported into just about anything.
However it doesn't support animation, so typically I use FBX, which supports everything and is well supported and stable.
It seems popular with everyone here as well.
As to what UVW format it uses internally... IDK sorry.
Let me know if you need any testing done.
I also have another request... IQM format.
Skeletal as opposed to vertex animation just looks better. Strangely enough was only implemented in the 4th version of MDL / idtech as well.
+1 FBX Format
#534 posted by sock [200.117.111.32] on 2013/01/25 13:41:12
You can get dev kits from Autodesk for the format, just need to plug the code into your codebase and it should work.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servl...
Also FBX is not limited to triangles, you can store stuff in quads which is a lot easier for modelling when everything is not a huge mess of triangles.
#535 posted by necros [142.245.59.16] on 2013/01/25 16:29:51
oh so you guys import UVs by importing a whole model then? ok, that works too.
I already have OBJ and FBX is plain text too, so not too bad to figure out how to deal with it.
I know sock has trouble with OBJ in lightwave so it's probably a good idea to get FBX in anyway.
Is IQM plain text?
I doubt I will touch skeletal modelling, at least for a while. there's a lot of new stuff to take into account there.
No
#536 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/25 18:47:46
It's binary. Here's the site: http://lee.fov120.com/iqm/
But yeah, probably something for (current version + 1).
In Fact
#537 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/25 19:21:09
An inherent flaw in how Quake treats animation I was fighting with the last night.
Having all the animation lumped together is a big cause of the dodgy frames issue. You know the one, where the animation continues fine but at the end or start of the loop one additional frame makes the monster (or whatever) pop into some unwanted pose.
Qme had fairly good tools for naming and ordering the frames, and hunting down errant ones.
3dsMax at least doesn't have anything, so I end up counting the frames manually.
Having said that, there probably is a plugin somewhere...
Looks Like
#538 posted by ijed [200.73.66.2] on 2013/01/25 19:23:33
This could help:
Animation > Track View > Note Track
Skinfile Import Gmax
#539 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/25 21:36:30
I can export the model from Gmax to md3 and Noesis can convert it to a mdl. An mdl file in Noesid exported to md3 Gmax won't capture.
So far so good.
There is only the thing of attaching the launcher to the model. When I import the launch.dxf and try to attach it to the legs my animation gets lost.
Whwn I attach it to the torso, the uvw file also gets attached to the torsos-kin and ends up in a distorted skinfile
I can scale this part th fit into the already excisting skinfile, but the loss of texture also scrambles the launcher
Also think I had to skip some double objects while exporting as the vert/tris count gets much too high.
So it is a case of a proper attachement of the launcher to the original file without the loss of the uvw skinfile.
I tried the othe way around by just merging the launcher.mdl into the converted md3 model in QMLE. That way I also get a skinfile, but at least the proportions are in a usable manner
I loose all my animation so I have to stretch 218 launchers to make the file fit.
Didn't expect it to be such a hussle!
218?
#540 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/25 22:32:41
Don't do that! Once you've correctly organised your UVs on the rocket launcher, delete all the non-rocket-launcher parts from than object, and import the rest of the model as a new object. You can export multiple objects to the same md3 file, so there's no need for them to be combined any more.
Launcher
#541 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/25 23:19:11
I come sofar, every attempt to attach it will scramble the skinfile of the corresponding file.
http://members.home.nl/gimli/norb....
#542 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/26 00:04:39
Having all the animation lumped together is a big cause of the dodgy frames issue. You know the one, where the animation continues fine but at the end or start of the loop one additional frame makes the monster (or whatever) pop into some unwanted pose.
Qme had fairly good tools for naming and ordering the frames, and hunting down errant ones.
Yeah, that's annoying. When I was making the models for Sock, I would have to manually go into the model and rename frames each time otherwise he had no way of knowing what was what.
Ideally, I'd like to eliminate that. My original intent was to import seperate OBJs as 1 frame each. This lets you name files and give the frames names inside the model. FBX looks like it's more geared toward storing a whole animation in one file though.
Yeah
#543 posted by ijed [186.79.227.211] on 2013/01/26 03:11:00
It´d be nice to have discrete files for each loop - I waste so much time just ordering stuff to get rid of a single bad one.
Without moving to a new file format I can´t think of an elegant way of doing it though. Possibly it could be done with IQM, will have to talk to the author.
Having seperate files per from is also how QME does it - but it becomes almost as time consuming to manage as counting the frames in a 3D app.
I remember someone not versed in Quake passing me such a collection of frames, animated at 30 FPS. I got the original but exporting frame by frame was the only option I knew at the time.
It worked, but drove me slightly insane.
...PS: For a creature called ´BOSS2´
In My Defense
#544 posted by ijed [186.79.227.211] on 2013/01/26 03:26:25
This keyboard is missing four keys.
#545 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/26 05:44:46
Yeah, I guess I can see how it's not ideal either.
All the monsters in Quoth were exported manually frame by frame... that was painful.
With Sock's monsters, I wrote some maxscripts for myself that automates everything but I can appreciate that it's not always an option if you don't know how or your 3d package doesn't have scripting.
I just don't see a solution outside of individual files per frame.
Secure Agent Of Gmax With The Eye Of Noesis
#546 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/26 12:24:54
I'm glad I have Gmax as my version of max3d 4.1 won't help me out with this skin problem. Forcing the torso part to attach the launcher distorted the skin file. Then I realized I could use the material editor to add the launcher skin again.
idle
Thanks Preach, I really would have added the launcher animation manual, but the way it now collides is perfekt!
Orb-canon !
#547 posted by JPL [82.234.167.238] on 2013/01/26 14:39:55
Wow, this is great... but weird :P
Orb31
#548 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/27 00:22:25
Now it gets as bad as Quoth's RocketEnforcer,
the one that made me fear so much.
Stupid Thought
#549 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/27 03:59:34
While playing I wondered.., the rocketlauncher has three puffpipes.
In game the player sees them in front, so it looks as if the launcher is turned back.
The v_model shows it with the pipes behind.
Is it mirrored or am I shooting with the wrong way out?
I Handled Too Much Rocketlaunchers
#550 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/01/27 04:09:25
who shoot's who
Heh
#551 posted by ijed [190.22.101.6] on 2013/01/27 16:26:58
I´ll just stop whinging and learn maxscript :)
#552 posted by necros [99.227.223.212] on 2013/01/27 16:48:54
fn export3DSFrames path name start end prefix =
(
counter = 1;
for i = start to end do
(
sliderTime = i;
ExportFile (path + prefix + "_" + name + counter + ".3ds") #noPrompt selectedonly:true;
counter += 1;
)
sleep 0.1;
)
here's the function I use to export a single sequence.
"path" string to specify output folder
"name" string for animation name
"start/end" these are frame numbers in max
"prefix" can be anything, i give it a number starting at 0 and increment for each additional sequence. it's to preserve the order of the sequences in windows so when I import them all in a batch, the order is still correct.
then I call it like this:
export3DSFrames workingDir "stand" 2 13 count;
count += 1;
export3DSFrames workingDir "walk" 539 552 count;
count += 1;
etc...
from a different script that is specifically for a monster. you can add in extra stuff like a switch to choose from different variations of a monster so that it automatically enables/disables layers or adds/removes bits from the mesh like for example removing shoulder armor or adding horns...
maxscript is annoying to learn but it is extremely useful. :)
Fbx Batch Import
#553 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/01/31 01:19:55
Here's a work-in-progress python script for importing that kind of fbx batch of frames into a mdl file.
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
Anyone who's good with python know what the easiest way to handle installing libraries your script depends on? The set-up needed for this script is a barrier to use...
And More
#554 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/02/03 22:18:28
If the script in the last post was a bit too much, then give the standalone package a try:
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
It's got command line switches and everything!
Plasmagun (Quoth Replacement) And Sg
#555 posted by slapmap [178.70.211.17] on 2013/03/30 22:05:49
Plasmagun ground and view model drop-in replacement for Quoth (put .mdl s into quoth/progs) and a ground shotgun model. Feel free to use in your maps/mods/w/e.
screenshot
download
more info and pictures
Oh Shit
#556 posted by JPL [82.234.167.238] on 2013/03/30 22:11:54
This plasma gun model is really nice!!!
Agreed
#557 posted by Preach [86.128.104.128] on 2013/03/30 23:10:37
It's a wonderful match for the ikbase textures - now I'm imagining a whole set of base themed replacements. The super nailgun and rocket launcher are quite arcane and abstract in design, and fit in less with the tech stuff. But yes, a really great bit of kit.
The shotgun it also a handy bit of kit to have - it opens the way a level where you only start with the axe - like the start of Zerstörer taken further. Then you could get a "Bolt Gun" which fires nails at a shotgun rate (and gets replaced in its slot by the nailgun once you get one). After that, finding the shotgun would feel like a real reward.
Slapmap
#558 posted by sock [181.1.30.176] on 2013/03/30 23:31:41
Your shotgun and triple barrel version look really good, any plans to release them like the plasma rifle? Do you plan to make the double barrel in between?
Would be really nice upgrade path, 1->2->3 barrels.
Weak Weapons
#559 posted by Preach [86.128.104.128] on 2013/03/31 00:20:29
Actually, on the topic of both weaker weapons and base style things, I reckon a player version of the enforcer blaster would be another good "low-powered" weapon to give to players in the early stages of a base map. If it used one cell to fire exactly what the enforcer puts out (a pair of shots at 15 damage each) it would be on par with the thunderbolt on damage per unit of ammo. Firing a two shot burst would differentiate it from other weapons, and it would let players use cells from enforcers early, without giving them the lightning gun.
Slapmap
#560 posted by SleepwalkR [85.178.191.95] on 2013/03/31 00:24:50
The weapon models are nice - but this looks absolutely incredible:
http://imgur.com/a/cMad2/#0
What is it? How did you make it?
Giant Squid
#561 posted by JPL [82.234.167.238] on 2013/03/31 15:17:40
here what it is...
#560
#562 posted by Kinn [86.161.248.120] on 2013/03/31 16:41:10
q3map2 / Darkplaces surely?
#563 posted by Slapmap [178.70.211.17] on 2013/03/31 19:16:36
Single shotgun is in the zip, tripple uhmm still need to make a quake-quality skin and reloading anims, which is painfull with no proper preview (I spent 2 hrs repositioning the model and reloading quake just to get plasmagun look ok), next week mayhaps.
DBS you already have in the game and can find replacement models if you want a better looking one.
The tentacle mess is made with splines. Its a world of Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos.
Slapmap
#564 posted by Preach [86.128.104.128] on 2013/03/31 19:21:54
Quick tip for previewing and updating models. Run quake in a window, then use the flush command in the console to reload the models from disk. That way you can make a change, save it, and get it to appear in-game instantly.
Revamped Model: Waterfall
#565 posted by Preach [86.128.104.128] on 2013/03/31 19:50:55
One of the better received models I made on my old site was the waterfall, but it never made it onto the new one. The reason was that I actually wanted to redo the whole thing, and version two is finally done.
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
I was actually hoping to release this in a pair with a related model, but that one still doesn't look right so it's being held back. Anyway, this one ought to be nice and handy on its own.
Window Models
#566 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/04/09 02:06:40
So a little break from all these coding posts. A few days ago I took the skip/detail window trick which I posted here and wrote it up for my blog. No new content, just a extra diagram, and a hint that you needed some visual cues to make a window like that work.
Well, that was a precursor to the next few models I'm gonna post, which are all attempts to highlight a window in quake, in such a way that it doesn't require alpha support (although often the models will be enhanced by alpha support in engines). Today is an example of a progressive enhancement model:
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
There's a couple of screenshots, one with and one without alpha. Hopefully the one without looks passable by winquake standards, and the nicer one from fitzquake sells the model. If you worry that the window still isn't yet well-defined enough, there will be more models to come very soon...
Glass In Quake
#567 posted by FifthElephant [82.12.230.210] on 2013/04/09 02:24:30
I'm fairly sure that you can stop all waving effects in most engines these days, couple this with transparency and you could probably get a decent effect going with a nice texture (rather than use a solid colour to mask the fact that it's a water volume), quoth even allows you to run the correct cvar's on map load.
Cool
#568 posted by than [182.164.57.115] on 2013/04/09 16:20:45
It's interesting that you can now make glass without adding entities to the map.
I have some cool tricks in my new map that are kind of neat and made possible with skip (but nothing cool with detail yet...)
FifthElephant
#569 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/04/10 01:31:22
Well, you can use the water trick, if you don't mind your glass having no pattern (you disguise the ripple effect by having a flat texture), and imposing the same wateralpha value on all your lava and slime. But that's kind of beside the point of the challenge, like saying you can make 100-brush maps bigger by just adding some more :-p
The models are still nice as a compliment to more conventional windows. If you add a translucent brush which removes itself from engines without the alpha checkextension value you get this effect:
http://tomeofpreach.files.wordpres...
Then in engines which support alpha but don't report it you get:
http://tomeofpreach.files.wordpres...
and in engines with no alpha you get:
http://tomeofpreach.files.wordpres...
which is quite a nice progression from getting the most from fully-featured engines, while staying functional everywhere.
In keeping with this, today's models are some decals to apply to windows.
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
The models received some last minute tweaks so that they play well with a semi-transparent brush behind them.
Preach...
#570 posted by FifthElephant [82.12.230.210] on 2013/04/10 01:41:47
I'm sure there is a command variable to turn off the water ripple effect completely (animation and all)... Maybe I was mistaken?
Yes
#571 posted by than [182.164.57.115] on 2013/04/10 16:01:25
it's r_waterwarp 0 in fitz (most engines?)
Doesn't turn off the texture ripple effect though, if that's what you are talking about. The glass trick I used requires a plain texture in order to make sure that the ripple is not noticeable. The polygon distortion effect that is used by glquake and some other engines still affects maps using the glass trick unless the effect is disabled.
#572 posted by NotoriousRay [15.203.233.75] on 2013/04/10 19:52:38
At the risk of derailing- than, why did you not just use func_wall with .alpha values?
Didn't Know I Could :)
#573 posted by than [182.164.57.115] on 2013/04/17 14:22:04
see title.
Also, is that supported in all modern engines?
#574 posted by gb [46.142.52.18] on 2013/04/17 14:51:51
If it doesn't support entity alpha, it's not a modern engine I would say.
Uhhhmmm
#575 posted by [178.70.222.205] on 2013/04/19 17:29:26
http://i.imgur.com/95OA964.jpg
This Triple Barrel Shotgun Model...
#576 posted by JPL [82.234.167.238] on 2013/04/20 11:01:15
...is really awesome !
Dudvmapping World Textures
#577 posted by Spiney [81.241.176.143] on 2013/04/21 15:34:52
Bringing back some old idea of breaking-the-grid for textures. I know RMQe does it for the waterwarp...
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194...
http://img835.imageshack.us/img835...
Anyone know if it can be done in some Quake engine.
I don't know how to code so... :'C
#578 posted by Spiney [81.241.176.143] on 2013/04/21 15:36:53
(i also wonder if using a custom dudv map on bilinear could give you the equivalent of bicubic filtering)
Well The Bilinear + Dudv Looks The Best IMO
#579 posted by RickyT23 [2.124.172.55] on 2013/04/21 16:51:48
Wow!
#580 posted by necros [142.245.59.16] on 2013/04/26 15:16:10
but does it work on 64x64 textures? those examples are quite high resolution. (relative to quake anyway)
#581 posted by Spiney [91.179.149.226] on 2013/04/26 23:28:24
You do have have a point with that.
Resolution doesn't really matter, but might not be appropriate for all kinds of textures, it's all about getting rid of the perfect squares by distorting with a higher res dudv map. You can have the detail texture roughly correspond to 1px boundaries (glorified dithering scheme?), but I found it tends to look better when using 2*2 blocks since with 1 px there's still some leftover blockyness. You lose some of the definition of the original that way though. I'm not sure if Quake textures are a good candidate for this since the textures tend to have very defined features. It's just about getting a less perfect cg look, something more tailored to NPR probably. Could be interesting for something like Rage to obscure some compression artifacts maybe.
Those images are just done with Photoshop's glass filter by the way, just to illustrate the point.
#582 posted by necros [99.227.215.224] on 2013/04/27 02:19:53
I actually like the 'perfect squares'. I always play with nearest neighbour now, so this is definitely a 'to taste' thing.
Deathframes With Transparant Colour?
#583 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/05/12 21:30:15
I can remember there was this fat round bimbo in Shrak, that used deathframes with the transparant colour.
It was a very strange apearance of splitting open from the centre to expand the little side it had in the middle with that colour.
In game it looked as if the monster exploded, but in the last instance it just disapeared fading in the background.
Can anyone rember this, or is it just me making it up?
Me Fool
#584 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/05/16 19:33:39
Models can't have transparant colours.
New Model - Oscilloscope
#585 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/06/16 21:47:24
About time for another model I think. I knocked this whole thing up today, so it's not that complex or in-depth. It's a monitor for a base themed map with a nice wave animation on the screen.
http://tomeofpreach.wordpress.com/...
Beep
#586 posted by MadFox [84.26.94.131] on 2013/06/18 04:43:06
Great model, Preach!
And totally without snow.
I'm getting jalous.
I Kinda Wish
#587 posted by FifthElephant [82.12.230.210] on 2013/06/22 12:04:45
all your models were bundled into something like Quoth for ease of use. It would be nice for some maps to use them :)
Egg And Chicken
#588 posted by Preach [77.98.165.95] on 2013/06/22 16:12:09
The thought had crossed my mind. I hesitate though, because once they get added to the pak they're difficult to update. Coming up with another skin or adding extra animations is possible, but you need another patch and the old files lurk about. The waterfall is an obvious candidate for mappers to customise with a skin to fit their map - and having a standard model might discourage that in favour of making-do with the stock skins.
It gets worse if a model has a problem like a badly placed origin - as you usually can't fix that in a backwards compatible way. Seeing the models in use would allay some fears, not just these technical worries but also how useful the models are. Of course, now we are back where we started...
I will admit that lots of the models would benefit from a combined code-and-model solution, which is the kind of thing that Quoth is meat to deliver. Maybe in the short term the interesting models could be deployed in the pak, to be revisited in a later patch.
Further...
#589 posted by FifthElephant [82.12.230.210] on 2013/06/22 18:09:37
to my point I'm fairly sure that Quoth also has the ability to deploy any model for use as a decorative mesh along with any particular key frame...
I think my fanboyism for Quoth is showing through (though I haven't made a map specifically for it yet I probably will soon).

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