Got an initial concept done, lemme know whatcha guys think, any and all feedback is appreciated!
Callin' it "Ember Wood Drow", she's essentially wearing armor that's a bit charred and burning at the edges.
Wasn't sure what i wanted to do with her head, wanted to do something other than a cloak and long hair would be a nightmare to rig. So i went with a color gradient and a minimalistic tiara, more of a headband than anything as the drow character is hardly regal. Anyway, def. looking for feedback or other ideas for that area.
Edit: Took some input and figured I'd update the picture with a more recent one. Pretty rough but just a general idea.
re-edit: touched up concept big time, i made a post on reddit and they absolutely hated the hair and then someone reminded me that drow uses cold and not fire (duh) and i realized the idea of including burning cinder on the wood was pretty retard.
You might want to look into giving her a charred/tattered cape as well. Maybe half the size of the normal one? Reason is that some of the people that were contacted by Valve to make items did have concepts for a cape-less Drow, but Valve shot it down saying she felt too empty without it.
Otherwise, you could definitely pull this off if you handled the charring/glow spots right, making them bigger so they don't devolve into a bunch of shimmery pixels when seen from the in-game bird's eye view.
Rock on thanks for the speedy feedback aivonov. Was def. thinking of adding a burned cloak.
As for the charred bits that's a concern I will certainly keep in mind, in fact maybe I'll completely hold off on those areas and work them out once we have some preview tools in the future.
Thanks!
Edit:Knee jerk reaction from the community is they hate the hair, so i'm gonna work on it. Anyway I don't wanna spam this thread too much with personal work stuff so I'll probably make a new thread in the near future once i move on to 3d.
Maya SMD importer works fine for 32 bit MAYA. I haven't tried to export with it yet.
I was going off the weapon files from the game and the guide, which got me into the UV shared border edge seam. I moved the flipped UV mirrors into another UV region and it solved the normal map generation problem. I noticed a hero model had this UV layout, but the weapon did not. It is simple enough to move the UV mirrors back over the model before importing back into the engine for checks. These are just the dance moves that 3D programs with conflicting agendas make you do.
At this point, I'm going to finish sculpting my set.
Thanks, Zip. Yeah, I just noticed the MASK info. So, in valve's models, their UV layouts weren't in 0:1/0:1, but rather 0:-1/0:1 and I think xnormal needs 0:1 in order to work. I tried a few tests, taking the hiRez and lowRez in xnormal and maya transfer, but they both came up empty. Zbrush seams to produce useable normal maps with the right layout as long as they don't overlap. I can always shift the UV maps on top of each other once I'm ready to export them. So, you are adding 1K texture files of each of the maps just for valve and using 256 for each map when you compile into vtf.
At this point, I'm reworking my lod1 model for my item. I'm trying to get it under 700. A lot of the dota models don't have the lod1. I only found a few examples. Some of their items are over 800 and 900 as the lod0. Interesting.
Anyway, my workflow seems reasonable enough. I can't wait to actually compile and submit. It should be interesting to read all the feedback.
Model source content resides in \content\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\maya\
Compiled model binaries belong in \game\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\
Material source content resides in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\
Compiled material binaries and .vmt belong in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\ and should be named the same as the model
"
just one of those things we're going to have to trudge through, but i'm sure more resources and tutorials will show up in the coming weeks.
Not much of a maya user or weight painter myself, so not exactly looking forward to that myself
Question for you guys:
It says in the docs that materials aren't two sided and you need to double the mesh up to make it that way, but the drow ranger cape doesn't appear to be two sided. Should i consider that asset to be 2x the polys before moving forward?
@crazyfingers- I think you are confusing some information. You don't need to double up a mesh, but by mirroring certain parts of the mesh, you can conserve precious UV space for your texturing, which is going to be restricted to 256H x 256W and 128H x 256W depending on what you are making. So, if you build a cape that is mirrored, you can get a lot more information on that small UV set. You can have asymmetrical featured in your cap to create a difference, but you can also share space. I've boiled down a lot if you need clarification.
Zip- Xnormals likes 0:1 like I thought. There might be a setting to make it check all UV space, but I'm not worried at this point. Also, the Xnormal and ZBrush normal maps aren't that different, but I'll see later on when I finish this first weapon.
@crazyfingers- I think you are confusing some information. You don't need to double up a mesh, but by mirroring certain parts of the mesh, you can conserve precious UV space for your texturing, which is going to be restricted to 256H x 256W and 128H x 256W depending on what you are making. So, if you build a cape that is mirrored, you can get a lot more information on that small UV set. You can have asymmetrical featured in your cap to create a difference, but you can also share space. I've boiled down a lot if you need clarification.
Nah he means that if there's a cape, you can see it from one side but it won't appear from the other side. I know Omniknights cape and stuff is two sides, so 2 polygons occupy the same world space, just with opposite directional faces.
If the Drow Cape isn't 2 sides, then how visible is it when looking at the invisible side? Perhaps they didn't bother since you wouldn't notice.
@Tortilla When has that ever been the case in any game engine or renderer? I could understand if the engine has some problems, where you would just duplicate the mesh and reverse the normals for one, but that seems unlikely. Curiosity got the best of me, and I checked drow's cape normals, which were facing outward. I didn't find this second mesh, but still amusing.
Can't say I know many engines, seems strange that it does state "Please note that Dota 2 does not support double-sided materials; you will need to create geometry where a backside is needed." and Omniknight does follow it. Just looked at Queen of Pain again and her wings are only one-sided too, however they're also tilted downwards in a way that you'd never really see the inner sides of the wings in-game. So don't know whether its meant to be followed or not.
Pushin' forward a bit, not sweatin' technical stuff too much as there's a ton of work to be done in the meantime. Super sloppy Models, Uvs, and textures but just getting everything going:
The community really wanted me to give her a veil but i'm still not sure about that direction...
I like the bandit approach. For some reason, I don't like her face. Can you always list the changes underneath the pictures you post, so we can more train our eyes on what you want us to comment on?
Maybe i'll go for half way, not much emotion in the nose anyway.
(as stated very preliminary texturing and modeling)
Axe had a lot of armor sets covering his face but i dunno, so early in this custom asset thing it's hard to tell what's acceptable and what isn't. It's easy to find out what fans want, valve... not so much. If you put in the time make something great i'd think they'd take it even if it's a little off kilter.
Just gonna incorporate as much input I can while adhering to the style sheets provided as best I can. That said I have a lot of black in my texture to worry about!
Personal critique: Right now i realize neither the burned area or wooden areas read as wood, that's priority #1, totally redo the textures, I'll really figure this out when i get the first piece in zbrush. Also worried it has more of a WoW vibe than a dota vibe. Going to find a way to super saturate, pull back on color variety, and create less cartoony detailing in the shoulders. Drow's color pallet doesn't really lend itself to wood but i'll figure something out, probably just make it dead.
I'm loving the hair. I think though, I prefer no veil over the nose-veil. The full veil is nice though...I don't think it should be too much of a problem because bounty hunter has one basically like it.
I made about 5 good looking models in blender but I stall on textures in Photoshop. Are there any resources on how to setup your layers, mask, explain fresnel, etc. that Valve detailed? I read all their technical jargon, have researched, and request assistance! :P
@Swampsteel Before you go forward, you need to have your Lod0 mesh and a zbrush/mudbox sculpt. Why? Because, in order to generate the color, you will need a 3 point baked light file, ambient occlusion map and normal map generated in xNormal. Once you have these, you can finish the baked color map. This is a big step, but once you finish that, you will be in good order. I used Zbrush to generate my normal map, because I got better results, but you should be fine with xNormal. Also, remember that your LoD0 mesh needs to be broken down into the LoD1 mesh later on, so think about that when you are building your original polygon mesh.
I'm using Maya, so I generated the my 3 point light map using my hiRez sculpt from zbrush with 3 point lights, which should be obvious. I setup a bakeset and used a mental ray override in a batch bake to generate the light information to a texture setup on the model with in the bakeset. Now, I'm not sure what the correlating Blender setup is, considering that program is alien to me, but I have it installed to reference. You should be able to google "bake light map Blender."
So, once you generate these maps, it is simply following the guide to a tee. It just takes a little patience. Once you are done, that will be your COLOR_MAP.
You should already have your NORMAL_MAP from xNormal. So, now you need the MASK 1 and MASK 2. It took a little figuring for me to get these, but basically, they use the R G B and Alpha layers as MASKS In MASK 1, I found everything black except for the BLUE channel, which was simply gray and black. Gray was over the metal elements. I'm sure you can use the RED to mask out details that you want to highlight, but like I said, I found them completely black. The same is true for the Green layers, which is for reflections. The Alpha was black.
For mask 2, you need to generate a SPECULAR_MAP. The way you do this, is take your color only map (not your baked color map) and turn it to grayscale in photoshop. You do a HI PASS under OTHER under Filters. You duplicate the high pass and change it to HARD LIGHT. Duplicate it again, so you have two HARD LIGHTs in your comp. Go back down to the first HI PASS and add a brightness and contrast layer. You can darken the specular map until you just see little light highlights. There you go. You can also add a mask layer of gray around all the UV edges for the final texture. Flatten it.
This specular map will be put in the BLUE channel for MASK 2. The GREEN channel will be white. The ALPHA will be black. We will always include an alpha, even if we aren't using it. RED is specular intensity, which I created by using the BAKED color map. I flattened it and pasted it into the RED channel.
That is a lot of information to chew on, but hopefully it will help you out.
Anyone know why Valve says in here http://www.dota2.com/workshop/requirements/drowranger
128x256 texture size but when I open the said file it is 2048x2048 not 1024x2048 (Not the same aspect ratio as in-game texture) .
Do they re-size it later? Or am I missing something here? Should I start out with a square aspect ratio? or rectangular one?
For example , Drow's Arm or Bracers downloaded texture is 1024x1024 but on that page link it says 128x256.
Valve's zip of the model's files includes ma (maya 2012), smd, and ob. You should be able to get the model. The SMD import plugins are strictly for 32 bit Maya, so remember that. Also, the MA can be imported in maya 2011 with an error, but fails in maya 2010.
Currently, I'm setting up Maya 2012 (32 bit)with the SMD import and export plugins because that MA file saves a lot of work. The other way of importing model, skel, and their file structure has been sloppy and incomplete because of incompatibility issues. I'll post my results soon, once I finish this part of the pipeline.
The SMD compile is the last part before I start popping out custom items. I wish Valve wasn't so wishy-washy about what they want, but by giving us the Maya MA of each hero, the only step is to recompile that file structure with your new items, new joints, and painted weights. It is kind of silly that you would compile every new item with the base model every time, but whatever makes them happy.
I working on a Set for the BloodSeeker. I would to make feel his primitive aspect, with a panoply of a Raven Shaman.
His helmet was inspired by a plague doctor mask (glasses and leather )
I changed bones of the neck into claws, and the "claw shape" is a pattern that i included for each items. (Same method with feathers )
I try to follow the Valve's PDF and it 's very useful for value gradient and patterning .
I will begin to colrorise the items , and i don't know if i can change the red (main color of Blooseeker) by an other hue like Ivory.(always mix with black)
If you have any suggestions i take with pleasure .
Looks wonderful so far, hoping the palette will live up to the design. Don't be afraid to push different hues as far as possible, though I would stay in the same color family. Or don't - I can't predict Valve's choices nor do I want to restrict creativity. Maybe try your ideal color variant, and one more in line with his default scheme and compare?
The only criticism, design-wise, is that I have a problem with how flimsily-attached the blades look to the the stick handles; but that's really only a nitpick that I'm sure most wouldn't be bothered by.
All my software is updated, but my question is this. Is everyone exporting SMD's with Valve's file structure intact. For example, you import an SMD and you are presented with the Model's Base Mesh, weapons, and items. Are we to delete everything that is not the base model? Are we then skinning our items to bones that are already present or are we creating bones for our items? Is everyone creating the CONVEX low-Rez physics mesh for their SMD as well? Plus, where is everyone compiling their files to? Are they putting them in the Alien Swarm SDK folders? And is anyone using itemtest at this point to check your mdls? Hmmmm. I'm going to try to hammer this out today.
Real News: you can just submit OBJs and Targas and that is it? Is that the truth?
"General Submission Requirements
For geometry source content, we accept .MA or .OBJ
For texture source content, use .PSD or .TGA
In order to help keep things organized, please maintain our file structure:
Model source content resides in \content\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\maya\
Compiled model binaries belong in \game\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\
Material source content resides in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\
Compiled material binaries and .vmt belong in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\ and should be named the same as the model
Items should be named "slotname_itemname_lodlevel". So for example, "helmet_viking_lod0" or "weapon_ogreclub_lod1". There is no need to add hero name to each item because you are already following the directory structure above."
I just got a Dev comment saying I need to reupload including the content files - the .smd or .obj files along with the .tgas or .psds. So maybe just the files uncompiled is enough. Although you'd probably have to compile anyway to test out your masks in an SDK.
I downloaded the bounty hunter model that they supply, opened the .ma file in maya 2012 and got the textures to work on the model (breaking the connection then re-finding the file), my two questions are:
Is the masks1 and masks 2 files the specular and glow maps respectively? im guessing at those two.
Question two is when i open the model, his weapons are at his feet, can i somehow play the attack animation so i know what weapons go in which hand and how they work if that makes sense. i cant seem to figure it out. cheers for the help!
EDIT: i found this by valve on what the 'masks' are:
"_mask1" is a 32-bit texture and every channel is used. Red is the detail map mask. Green is the diffuse and fresnel warp mask. Blue is the metalness mask which controls where the Color and Fresnel are suppressed. Alpha is the self-illumination mask, where the color is drawn from Color texture. Even if you are not using this, fill with a NON-BLACK color. This is done in order for texture compiler to keep this channel. If it is black it will be thrown out and the shader will think it's pure white and your item will be full bright.
"_mask2" is 32-bit and again every channel is used. Red is spec intensity. Green is rimlight intensity. Blue is tint spec by base color. Please note that this is INVERTED. Black sets tint by base color; white uses specular color. Alpha is the scale factor of specular exponent from shader. For example, if the specular exponent is set to 16, then values for this channel of 0...255 will control exponent values from 0 to 16. Look at the hero's specular exponent number to get a good idea of what values to use in this channel for your item.
Read the whole forum: I posted some answers to the mask a few posts up.
As far as the animation, the whole animation included in the MA file is an item on the floor to the heroes hand. If you push play, you might see that animation that is simply keyed in. If you select the bones, you will notice they are highlight on red in attribute editor or transform node. You can animate these bones as you wish to post your hero. You need to create your own bones for your items and skin them. When you submit, having these items skinned might be helpful for them. I was thinking about just submitting the OBJ, but now that I think about it, I'm just going to zip the MA file. That way, they can use my skin and bones.
In the technical requirements area, they list all the positions for your selected hero. Plus, when you look in the dota equip section, you should be able to see all the areas for particular items.
small update, just feeling out the style i want to go with the armor. Cloth + frozen wood, should be fun and smooth sailing now that i've sorta figured out the zbrush pipeline while working on the hair. Thinking of calling it "winter wood drow" but open to suggestions!
@SinAmos, cheers for the info, i went back and got a lot of information, seems to me a long convoluted process to get everything the way they want, but once valve post some feedback to some people's submissions, it will get easier as we know what we are doing.
In regards to the animation question, i tried pressing play but the animation bar just flickered and nothing happened on screen, reason i asked was i haven't really touched the animation side of things before and wasnt sure if i was doing something wrong.
thanks for the help however
Hi guys, bit of a noob here, could use some help from the awesomest community of 3d guys I know.
So, I have the model compiled. The mesh loads in Model Viewer and even binds correctly. Still no material and/or texture is applied, even if I created both the VMT and the VTFs and put them in the correct folder (I think?).
This is what happens when I load the item in the model viewer.
Also, there's really no way to hide CK's mace from inside the model viewer, right?
Mind posting the .QC file you're using to compile. Also, are you editing the .SMD in a text-editor to make sure it's using the correct texture filename (the name of the vtf/vmt)?
And yeah, unless you want to manually recompile CK's model without the sword present (which is fully possible), you won't be able to remove the sword until Valve breaks up the model into parts. No idea when that will happen though.
@darkripper - Yeah, replace the 02-Defaults - I don't even think having the file extension present matters as long as the filename is correct. I'm pretty sure my stuff shows materials fine even when I export the .SMD with *.TGA in the material lines.
It should work with *just* the filename so long as you have $cdmaterials pointing into the right directory. Or you can remove the $cdmaterials line in the .QC and just edit the SMD with the full texture pathname (Though I suggest the former as this is prone to human error).
A trick to avoid the whole SMD-editing mess entirely is to just rename the applied material in Max to the desired texture's name (the .vtf's name sans-extention that's already sitting in the materials folder). Again, also make sure the $cdmaterials line is pointing to the right directory.
@fierce - I don't know if anyone has had any luck with items showing up in the test tool yet.
@SinAmos - Elaborate? Compiling is a good way to test for any animation clipping errors and the general look of items with a proper view.
Are you compiling items mesh with bones of the base mesh and the base mesh included? Are you weighting your items before you compile and eliminating the weapons that are in its place?
You can do both. Eliminating existing weapons/items helps previewing, assuming you're actually replacing items. When it comes time to upload them to the Workshop, you'd want to compile the new custom items by themselves, but still weighed/skinned to any necessary bones (all unused ones can be deleted).
Also, for heroes already broken-up into separate model parts by Valve, you can also compile your custom items by themselves and, as long as they're skinned to any existing hero bones, load them as 'weapons'.
It's actually possible to get custom items to show-up properly mounted that way in the Alien Swarm viewer (not just CS:GO's) if you compile them using the Orangebox SDK (I use TF2) and then copy the outputted .MDLs back into your Dota/Alien Swarm models directory. Don't forget the materials.
Edit: You can also test for any animation issues directly in Max if you merge a decompiled animation .SMD into a scene that has the skinned/rigged hero model present (and your items skinned as well), and then just scrub through the animation to check for problems.
Replies
Callin' it "Ember Wood Drow", she's essentially wearing armor that's a bit charred and burning at the edges.
Wasn't sure what i wanted to do with her head, wanted to do something other than a cloak and long hair would be a nightmare to rig. So i went with a color gradient and a minimalistic tiara, more of a headband than anything as the drow character is hardly regal. Anyway, def. looking for feedback or other ideas for that area.
Edit: Took some input and figured I'd update the picture with a more recent one. Pretty rough but just a general idea.
re-edit: touched up concept big time, i made a post on reddit and they absolutely hated the hair and then someone reminded me that drow uses cold and not fire (duh) and i realized the idea of including burning cinder on the wood was pretty retard.
Otherwise, you could definitely pull this off if you handled the charring/glow spots right, making them bigger so they don't devolve into a bunch of shimmery pixels when seen from the in-game bird's eye view.
As for the charred bits that's a concern I will certainly keep in mind, in fact maybe I'll completely hold off on those areas and work them out once we have some preview tools in the future.
Thanks!
Edit:Knee jerk reaction from the community is they hate the hair, so i'm gonna work on it. Anyway I don't wanna spam this thread too much with personal work stuff so I'll probably make a new thread in the near future once i move on to 3d.
I was going off the weapon files from the game and the guide, which got me into the UV shared border edge seam. I moved the flipped UV mirrors into another UV region and it solved the normal map generation problem. I noticed a hero model had this UV layout, but the weapon did not. It is simple enough to move the UV mirrors back over the model before importing back into the engine for checks. These are just the dance moves that 3D programs with conflicting agendas make you do.
At this point, I'm going to finish sculpting my set.
At this point, I'm reworking my lod1 model for my item. I'm trying to get it under 700. A lot of the dota models don't have the lod1. I only found a few examples. Some of their items are over 800 and 900 as the lod0. Interesting.
Anyway, my workflow seems reasonable enough. I can't wait to actually compile and submit. It should be interesting to read all the feedback.
Heroes and guidelines:
http://dota2.com/workshop/requirements
Technical info and all the assets you'd want for the heros you can make custom content for.
Great link! been wondering about polycount on lod1 bloodseeker
looks like we dont have to compile the models afterall?
"
- Model source content resides in \content\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\maya\
- Compiled model binaries belong in \game\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\
- Material source content resides in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\
- Compiled material binaries and .vmt belong in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\ and should be named the same as the model
"just one of those things we're going to have to trudge through, but i'm sure more resources and tutorials will show up in the coming weeks.
Not much of a maya user or weight painter myself, so not exactly looking forward to that myself
Question for you guys:
It says in the docs that materials aren't two sided and you need to double the mesh up to make it that way, but the drow ranger cape doesn't appear to be two sided. Should i consider that asset to be 2x the polys before moving forward?
Zip- Xnormals likes 0:1 like I thought. There might be a setting to make it check all UV space, but I'm not worried at this point. Also, the Xnormal and ZBrush normal maps aren't that different, but I'll see later on when I finish this first weapon.
Nah he means that if there's a cape, you can see it from one side but it won't appear from the other side. I know Omniknights cape and stuff is two sides, so 2 polygons occupy the same world space, just with opposite directional faces.
If the Drow Cape isn't 2 sides, then how visible is it when looking at the invisible side? Perhaps they didn't bother since you wouldn't notice.
The community really wanted me to give her a veil but i'm still not sure about that direction...
Crits and suggestions as always appreciated.
(as stated very preliminary texturing and modeling)
Axe had a lot of armor sets covering his face but i dunno, so early in this custom asset thing it's hard to tell what's acceptable and what isn't. It's easy to find out what fans want, valve... not so much. If you put in the time make something great i'd think they'd take it even if it's a little off kilter.
Just gonna incorporate as much input I can while adhering to the style sheets provided as best I can. That said I have a lot of black in my texture to worry about!
Personal critique: Right now i realize neither the burned area or wooden areas read as wood, that's priority #1, totally redo the textures, I'll really figure this out when i get the first piece in zbrush. Also worried it has more of a WoW vibe than a dota vibe. Going to find a way to super saturate, pull back on color variety, and create less cartoony detailing in the shoulders. Drow's color pallet doesn't really lend itself to wood but i'll figure something out, probably just make it dead.
I'm using Maya, so I generated the my 3 point light map using my hiRez sculpt from zbrush with 3 point lights, which should be obvious. I setup a bakeset and used a mental ray override in a batch bake to generate the light information to a texture setup on the model with in the bakeset. Now, I'm not sure what the correlating Blender setup is, considering that program is alien to me, but I have it installed to reference. You should be able to google "bake light map Blender."
So, once you generate these maps, it is simply following the guide to a tee. It just takes a little patience. Once you are done, that will be your COLOR_MAP.
You should already have your NORMAL_MAP from xNormal. So, now you need the MASK 1 and MASK 2. It took a little figuring for me to get these, but basically, they use the R G B and Alpha layers as MASKS In MASK 1, I found everything black except for the BLUE channel, which was simply gray and black. Gray was over the metal elements. I'm sure you can use the RED to mask out details that you want to highlight, but like I said, I found them completely black. The same is true for the Green layers, which is for reflections. The Alpha was black.
For mask 2, you need to generate a SPECULAR_MAP. The way you do this, is take your color only map (not your baked color map) and turn it to grayscale in photoshop. You do a HI PASS under OTHER under Filters. You duplicate the high pass and change it to HARD LIGHT. Duplicate it again, so you have two HARD LIGHTs in your comp. Go back down to the first HI PASS and add a brightness and contrast layer. You can darken the specular map until you just see little light highlights. There you go. You can also add a mask layer of gray around all the UV edges for the final texture. Flatten it.
This specular map will be put in the BLUE channel for MASK 2. The GREEN channel will be white. The ALPHA will be black. We will always include an alpha, even if we aren't using it. RED is specular intensity, which I created by using the BAKED color map. I flattened it and pasted it into the RED channel.
That is a lot of information to chew on, but hopefully it will help you out.
Anyone know why Valve says in here
http://www.dota2.com/workshop/requirements/drowranger
128x256 texture size but when I open the said file it is 2048x2048 not 1024x2048 (Not the same aspect ratio as in-game texture) .
Do they re-size it later? Or am I missing something here? Should I start out with a square aspect ratio? or rectangular one?
For example , Drow's Arm or Bracers downloaded texture is 1024x1024 but on that page link it says 128x256.
Sorry for the noob question.
this is what I get
I render all my textures at 2048. That way, when I downsize them to 128H x 256W, I get as much detail preserved as possible.
@Sparr
Valve's zip of the model's files includes ma (maya 2012), smd, and ob. You should be able to get the model. The SMD import plugins are strictly for 32 bit Maya, so remember that. Also, the MA can be imported in maya 2011 with an error, but fails in maya 2010.
Currently, I'm setting up Maya 2012 (32 bit)with the SMD import and export plugins because that MA file saves a lot of work. The other way of importing model, skel, and their file structure has been sloppy and incomplete because of incompatibility issues. I'll post my results soon, once I finish this part of the pipeline.
The SMD compile is the last part before I start popping out custom items. I wish Valve wasn't so wishy-washy about what they want, but by giving us the Maya MA of each hero, the only step is to recompile that file structure with your new items, new joints, and painted weights. It is kind of silly that you would compile every new item with the base model every time, but whatever makes them happy.
damn, i thought were was something like a "clean" solution (where you define a certain node and it picks up all the textures by it self)...
thanks
I working on a Set for the BloodSeeker. I would to make feel his primitive aspect, with a panoply of a Raven Shaman.
His helmet was inspired by a plague doctor mask (glasses and leather )
I changed bones of the neck into claws, and the "claw shape" is a pattern that i included for each items. (Same method with feathers )
I try to follow the Valve's PDF and it 's very useful for value gradient and patterning .
I will begin to colrorise the items , and i don't know if i can change the red (main color of Blooseeker) by an other hue like Ivory.(always mix with black)
If you have any suggestions i take with pleasure
(the Normal maps are made but not yet here )
see you soon
The only criticism, design-wise, is that I have a problem with how flimsily-attached the blades look to the the stick handles; but that's really only a nitpick that I'm sure most wouldn't be bothered by.
I really like your set.
@Everyone
All my software is updated, but my question is this. Is everyone exporting SMD's with Valve's file structure intact. For example, you import an SMD and you are presented with the Model's Base Mesh, weapons, and items. Are we to delete everything that is not the base model? Are we then skinning our items to bones that are already present or are we creating bones for our items? Is everyone creating the CONVEX low-Rez physics mesh for their SMD as well? Plus, where is everyone compiling their files to? Are they putting them in the Alien Swarm SDK folders? And is anyone using itemtest at this point to check your mdls? Hmmmm. I'm going to try to hammer this out today.
"General Submission Requirements
For geometry source content, we accept .MA or .OBJ
For texture source content, use .PSD or .TGA
In order to help keep things organized, please maintain our file structure:
- Model source content resides in \content\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\maya\
- Compiled model binaries belong in \game\dota\models\items\heroname\itemname\
- Material source content resides in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\
- Compiled material binaries and .vmt belong in \content\dota\materialsrc\models\items\heroname\itemname\ and should be named the same as the model
Items should be named "slotname_itemname_lodlevel". So for example, "helmet_viking_lod0" or "weapon_ogreclub_lod1". There is no need to add hero name to each item because you are already following the directory structure above."Is the masks1 and masks 2 files the specular and glow maps respectively? im guessing at those two.
Question two is when i open the model, his weapons are at his feet, can i somehow play the attack animation so i know what weapons go in which hand and how they work if that makes sense. i cant seem to figure it out. cheers for the help!
EDIT: i found this by valve on what the 'masks' are:
- "_mask1" is a 32-bit texture and every channel is used. Red is the detail map mask.
- "_mask2" is 32-bit and again every channel is used.
im a little confused as to what they do however.Green is the diffuse and fresnel warp mask.
Blue is the metalness mask which controls where the Color and Fresnel are suppressed.
Alpha is the self-illumination mask, where the color is drawn from Color texture. Even if you are not using this, fill with a NON-BLACK color. This is done in order for texture compiler to keep this channel. If it is black it will be thrown out and the shader will think it's pure white and your item will be full bright.
Red is spec intensity.
Green is rimlight intensity.
Blue is tint spec by base color. Please note that this is INVERTED. Black sets tint by base color; white uses specular color.
Alpha is the scale factor of specular exponent from shader. For example, if the specular exponent is set to 16, then values for this channel of 0...255 will control exponent values from 0 to 16. Look at the hero's specular exponent number to get a good idea of what values to use in this channel for your item.
Read the whole forum: I posted some answers to the mask a few posts up.
As far as the animation, the whole animation included in the MA file is an item on the floor to the heroes hand. If you push play, you might see that animation that is simply keyed in. If you select the bones, you will notice they are highlight on red in attribute editor or transform node. You can animate these bones as you wish to post your hero. You need to create your own bones for your items and skin them. When you submit, having these items skinned might be helpful for them. I was thinking about just submitting the OBJ, but now that I think about it, I'm just going to zip the MA file. That way, they can use my skin and bones.
In the technical requirements area, they list all the positions for your selected hero. Plus, when you look in the dota equip section, you should be able to see all the areas for particular items.
feedback as always appreciated
Presenting the giants bread knife
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=78808653
Click to upvote
For this, shoulders look too wide. and bracers a bit long too. maybe start the thorns a bit back from the shoulders , not sure.
In regards to the animation question, i tried pressing play but the animation bar just flickered and nothing happened on screen, reason i asked was i haven't really touched the animation side of things before and wasnt sure if i was doing something wrong.
thanks for the help however
to test your item ingame ?
found a video on this one :
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=78981770&searchtext=
so there seems to be a way.. how ?
So, I have the model compiled. The mesh loads in Model Viewer and even binds correctly. Still no material and/or texture is applied, even if I created both the VMT and the VTFs and put them in the correct folder (I think?).
This is what happens when I load the item in the model viewer.
Also, there's really no way to hide CK's mace from inside the model viewer, right?
And yeah, unless you want to manually recompile CK's model without the sword present (which is fully possible), you won't be able to remove the sword until Valve breaks up the model into parts. No idea when that will happen though.
I don't know if I'm doing something wrong in the compiling but, it seems to work fine with no warnings or errors.
totally missed the part of the equation! so, basically I have to point to the material file right?
if I take every 02_-_Default and change it with my_item.vmt it should work, right? or instead it should point directly to the texture itself?
i can get my item to load fine with the textures in the csgo model viewer but it won't load in the new test feature
It should work with *just* the filename so long as you have $cdmaterials pointing into the right directory. Or you can remove the $cdmaterials line in the .QC and just edit the SMD with the full texture pathname (Though I suggest the former as this is prone to human error).
A trick to avoid the whole SMD-editing mess entirely is to just rename the applied material in Max to the desired texture's name (the .vtf's name sans-extention that's already sitting in the materials folder). Again, also make sure the $cdmaterials line is pointing to the right directory.
@fierce - I don't know if anyone has had any luck with items showing up in the test tool yet.
@SinAmos - Elaborate? Compiling is a good way to test for any animation clipping errors and the general look of items with a proper view.
Also, for heroes already broken-up into separate model parts by Valve, you can also compile your custom items by themselves and, as long as they're skinned to any existing hero bones, load them as 'weapons'.
It's actually possible to get custom items to show-up properly mounted that way in the Alien Swarm viewer (not just CS:GO's) if you compile them using the Orangebox SDK (I use TF2) and then copy the outputted .MDLs back into your Dota/Alien Swarm models directory. Don't forget the materials.
Edit: You can also test for any animation issues directly in Max if you merge a decompiled animation .SMD into a scene that has the skinned/rigged hero model present (and your items skinned as well), and then just scrub through the animation to check for problems.