Pinkdot's Models

[_Atti_]

i dont expect, i just stated:)

though as i think of it..it would be nice to be able to shoot through at least the two big gaps

[PinkDot]

Here's the lowpoly model of curtains. These are two same models, rotated by 180 degrees and that should do for now, I think. Later I can do another model for some variation. Now, I'll make more skins.

 

 

(All these textures are 1024 x 1024, so I suppose for the game I have to lower down them to 512 x 512...)

[Springheel]

Wow, that looks great!

[SneaksieDave]

Beautiful. Did anyone say, 'cloth physics?'

 

Kidding! Don't stone me.

[Domarius]

Can I see the wireframe?

[PinkDot]

Of course you can

 

264 faces.

 

 

Actually I wonder if it wouldn't harm to make front sides of left and right curtain models more complex. Just triangle teeth maybe? The polycount should be still reasonable (around 700 faces) and the shadows cast on the curtains would be more believable...

[Domarius]

Well I thought it looked great as it was - that's why I asked to see the wireframe, I couldn' t beleive you did all the folds with normal maps and alpha textures, so I wanted to see if the front was actually done with all the folds done in the mesh...

 

I think its great.

[Springheel]

About that well, apparently Doom3 can't read objects that have multiple layers? Is that how you did the collision model?

 

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=15863

[Domarius]

Also, I'd keep it that way since you said its 264 faces - you could have a long dining room with each window having those curtains and it would look cool. If it was the 700 face version... that room would bog down sooner and the same effect would still be acheived with the 264 version.

[PinkDot]

I haven't been here for a while...

 

Domarius - ok, I'll keep it like it is now.

 

Springheel - I don't think I've used two layers... Sorry for that delaying - I'm just too busy recently to check what's wrong. I think the material name might be wrong - "common/collision" instead of "textures/common/collision".... ?

[PinkDot]

Is there any quick tutorial how to put single model in simple one-room map? I can't even get to Dark Mod resources in DoomEdit (I've changed some paths in Project Preferences but that was not enough..) And please don't send me to Doom3World tutorial list... I'll start to learn this editor in the future but now all I want is to test how do my models look in game...

[SneaksieDave]

For the creation of a model entity in DoomEd, just drag a box (left mouse button) and then right click it and choose func->func_static. Then, in the Inspectors window, Entity tab, hit the "Model..." button, and browse to your model. It should be assigned to the still selected func_static when you hit OK. If it is not, hit Spacebar, which clones the item (this is a known bug in DoomEd).

 

If you mean further down than that, that you don't have TDM working in DoomEd yet, or how to rig up a model to work in Doom... someone else might have to answer.

[Ishtvan]

Don't you also have to run the editor command with some arguments (like fs_game, don't remember off the top of my head) to make sure you're using the mod assets? Maybe this is the missing step?

 

These are the args I have, I just made a .bat file that runs this:

 

doom3 +set r_fullscreen 0 +editor +set com_allowConsole 1 +set fs_game darkmod

[PinkDot]

fs_game darkmod

Thanks, for some reason this was missing in my DoomEdit shortcut...

 

I'm a bit further - thanks Sneaksie, I've managed to do this but the models stopped appearing in that black preview window... Maybe I've dragged them somewhere outside the box but there's no <Reset Posiotion> button to click...

 

OK, but assuming that I manage to put my model on the map then where do I start the map to test it?

[Ishtvan]

If you go to the "View" menu, there should be some render options to render the camera view so you can look at the model rendered in that window. Alternatively, you can bsp the map, exit the editor, start the game and launch the map from the console with "map <map name>" if you want to walk around in it. I think there's a way to play the map directly from the editor too, but don't know how to do that myself.

[Springheel]

and then right click it and choose func->func_static. Then, in the Inspectors window, Entity tab, hit the "Model..." button, and browse to your model.

 

Actually, you can skip the func_static bit.

 

All I do is:

 

1. On the grid, leftclick and drag to draw a brush (red box).

 

2. On the grid, rightclick on the brush. Go to the top of the dropdown menu that appears and click 'New Model'.

 

3. The dialogue window should come up after a few seconds, allowing you to browse to your particular model.

 

4. Once you select the model, you should see it appear in the window marked "Cam" as well as on the grid.

 

5. Hit escape to deselect your model.

 

6. On the grid, rightclick somewhere near (not on) your model. From the dropdown window, select 'light' (the one with no submenu)

 

7. A light will appear next to your model.

 

8. Hit F3 and F4 to go to realtime camera mode. You should now be able to see the way your model will look in the game. You may need to move the light around to get a good look.

[SneaksieDave]

To do the same in game mode:

 

Make sure a closed box (or room) of brushes encloses all entities. If they're not contained within a closed space, D3 will complain that there is a leak (File | Pointfile will show the leak spot).

 

Make sure a info | info_player_start exists in the map.

Make sure at least one light exists in the map, with its box covering whatever area you need lit.

Make sure the walls are textured.

 

BSP the map (menu option).

 

Then, hit F2 to bring up the game. Hopefully you have it set for windowed mode with the editor? Bring down the console with ~, or if you haven't configured that yet, bring it down with Ctrl-Alt-Shift-~. Then type

 

map fred

 

where fred is the name of the map you BSP'd and saved.

[OrbWeaver]

Actually, you can skip the func_static bit.

 

All I do is:

 

1. On the grid, leftclick and drag to draw a brush (red box).

 

2. On the grid, rightclick on the brush. Go to the top of the dropdown menu that appears and click 'New Model'.

 

You can skip step 1 if you want - entities with a "fixed size" such as models do not require a brush to be drawn first.

[Ishtvan]

On a semi-related note, while looking into pressure plates, I found out you can create a brush and make it moveable, just create a moveable_base and stretch it, then set both "model" and "clipmodel" to the name of the entity. I tried it without setting clipmodel, thinking it would just auto-generate the clipmodel out of a cube brush, but it didn't, had to specifically put the entity name in the clipmodel key.

[PinkDot]

Thanks for tips. Now I can make simple room with lights and put some models. But I must have changed some settings because models appear in the editor as cubes, even in camera view. Even when I set displaying mode of entities to skinned, nothing has changed...

 

In game mode models look fine, so it should be enough to test them - it's just annoying to do something what I don't understand... (YET ! ) Oh, my sweet Dromed - everything was so simple and easy...

[PinkDot]

 

 

I've managed to get the well model in game eventually. (The size is not Atti's model size - model I've got was 5 times bigger...). There is just one thing that doesn't work:

 

- when I put the model without collision mesh all three materials work fine (arrows sticks into the wood but break on the stone and metal surfaces)

 

- when I add collision mesh (textures/common/collision) the entire object acts like made of one material (I'm not sure if it's stone or metal because the hit sound is the same for both of them).

 

As creating diffrent collision mesh materials is not possible - I suppose - there are 2 solutions:

1) leave the model without collision mesh (actually it's not much simpler than the visible mesh because of many wooden details)

2) create 3 separate models for each type of material and making the well as a prefab. I hope that will work.

 

What do you think?

 

BTW: For some reason ASE model is imported in a wrong way by the doom engine. But LWO converted from that ASE works fine...

[Ishtvan]

If the collision mesh is not that much simpler than the visual model, I'd say just leave it out and use the visual model for collision, since all the surfaces should work that way.

 

We don't understand fully how D3 decides the surface type for the collision model. It's not too surprising that it doesn't work when the model is made up of several submeshes with different surface types, but I'm not sure how D3 decides which one to pick for the whole. .cm.

 

Another radical solution that no one's tried before is to create some invisible textures with the right surface properties, open up the collision mesh text file (or a modeling program if any will load it, but I doubt it) and manually edit the proper faces to have the invisible textures with the correct surface types. No gaurantee that will work tho, I just know I've seen collision models with textures on the faces in D3 assets.

 

[EDIT: Prefabs could work too, but I understand that they sometimes don't rotate alltogether and rotating them is a pain]

[Springheel]

Looks great, Pink. Love the shot with the legs draping out.

[PinkDot]

I think Quake 4 engine uses material maps, so each pixel can be made of diffrent material. If that's the Doom 3 feature too, that would work the best for the objects made of several materials.

 

What a pity that prefabs can't be rotated... I can understand it in Dromed, but not in such modern editor as DoomEdit...

Maybe that is something what can be fixed in Dark Radiant...?

 

Another radical solution that no one's tried before is to create some invisible textures with the right surface properties, open up the collision mesh text file (or a modeling program if any will load it, but I doubt it) and manually edit the proper faces to have the invisible textures with the correct surface types. No gaurantee that will work tho, I just know I've seen collision models with textures on the faces in D3 assets.

Well, it sounds quite complicated... And I would rather look for some more "user friendly" solution, if we don't want to slow down the pace of creating models...

[SneaksieDave]

They can be rotated, or rather... they usually can. I think there are definite bugs in there (what, DoomEd... bugs?!), but you can usually get things to rotate fine. Select all parts of the prefab and trying rotating with R. If that doesn't work out right, undo the rotate, and then try Ctrl-R to change the rotation mode. One of the three rotation modes usually works... well, often... enough... kinda... if it doesn't crash.