Right, I see, that transparency layer is a different alpha. So as a followup question, does every character have every mask layer turned on by default?
You can make any kind of weapon you want, but it should be roughly the same size and shape. This contest is not for animation, so the weapon would need to look fine with the existing animations.
For maps that are non square size (256x512, 128x256), do you guys lay out your UV scaled or in actual size. In other words, are you painting on a squished or nonsquished color map? The way I've dont it so far is lay the UVs out normally in the 1x1 space in Maya, paint on a square map and then resize(squish) for the compiler. Would it be better to stretch the UVs by a factor of 2 first in maya so I can paint on a map with the appropriate aspect ratio (which would hypothetically give me less artifacts). Which way is better ?
Hey Spudnik.
I will go for painting on 128x256. Don't know Maya well, but in Max you can force UV editor to adapt to bitmap in pixel ration. Anyway it doesn't matter in the end because UV will be exported in Values between 0.0 and 1.0 on U and V regardless of bitmap size (you can even try applying square and rectangular texture, both will look most likely the same on model). Valve probably later put theme in bigger texture atlas and recalculate UV, so better make better use of your pixels instead of UVs.
I noticed there is a pretty generous padding on the UV islands for the characters I've looked at. I've been going tighter than that. Anyone know how they're doing mipmapping? Should we be careful too?
I'm still confused about alpha channels and need verification on those issues:
1. There are 3 alpha channels for each part of the model.
a. Color alpha - the alpha (transparency) of the material itself.
b. Mask 1 alpha - self illumination.
c. Mask 2 alpha - specular exponent (roughness).
2. All mask1 and mask2 files have their alpha (even if it's one pixel) and it's good practice to include this channel.
3. Only certain heroes have color alpha (and so do they have transparency). Items for those who have alpha channel in their color texture are allowed to be made transparent. Items for those with no alpha channel in their color texture shouldn't be made transparent.
I'm planning on using transparency for the items I'll make for Phantom Lancer and his textures already have alpha channel. Could someone (preferably from Valve) confirm those please?
For _mask1 and _mask2, the alpha channel works just like a color channel in those images would (greyscale, acts as a map by itself) so for all intents and purposes we can ignore the alpha channels of those maps when talking about transparency.
The only channel that is the issue here is the alpha channel of the _color map which acts as a transparency channel. Only some heroes (refer to this graphic) have the ability to read information that is in that channel.
Whether or not a hero is able to use the alpha channel in the _color map depends on a line of code in his .VMT file which defines a couple of things in regards to his shader ingame (the line of code is $alphatest 1). If that code is not present, you can put anything you like in the _color alpha channel, it just won't get read or used by the game (perfect place to hide a greentooth!).
If you check the graphic linked earlier, Phantom Lancer does not have transparency enabled so you won't be able to use it. Here's the relevant post from Valve.
For maps that are non square size (256x512, 128x256), do you guys lay out your UV scaled or in actual size. In other words, are you painting on a squished or nonsquished color map? The way I've dont it so far is lay the UVs out normally in the 1x1 space in Maya, paint on a square map and then resize(squish) for the compiler. Would it be better to stretch the UVs by a factor of 2 first in maya so I can paint on a map with the appropriate aspect ratio (which would hypothetically give me less artifacts). Which way is better ?
The way I was thinking of approaching this was to lay out UV shells normally, but then when texturing in Photoshop, I would stretch the UV wireframe according to the ratios (for example, twice the width) and paint the texture on a canvas of 1024x2048. It should work the same way as the defaults that are like that.
I was thinking about that option too but then you're painting at a disproportionate resolution. I don't know if that'll add an unnecessary layer of difficulty as opposed to just stretching the UVs to begin with.
1) Is anyone else having trouble getting any of the masks to show in the workshop previewer...
I for the life of me cant get anything (specular, rim light...) to show.
Yes, I have read the PDF thoroughly.
I even tried uploading the "original" weapon and files - no dice - everything is flat shaded. Very frustrating.
2) Is there a different previewer I could be using. It seems their material shaders are so customized that I have no other option besides the in-game viewer.
I am aware that the pieces of geometry have to be skinned to the existing bones, but is it possible to add extra bones to the current setup? If so, how is that handled? Such as constraints/parenting and applying animation/dynamics and how those will be implemented.
And with regards to the blend shapes, are we responsible for providing the various blend shapes (where applicable)?
Thank you for reading and I hope there are answers to these questions.
this is almost imposible now that i have made it already i cant decrease the count that much. Even their model cannot apply in the game now. That dosent seem to be right because if i have uploaded the model before 2 days it would be ok now, but now i have to decrease the level of detail again??
sorry man, but when they say polycount it means triangles because every polygon in game will split into triangles
there was a bug on the ingame compiler that was calculating quads and not triangles.
about the in game models, as they are beta, they dont worried to make a perfect model, and lot of then pass the polycount. that doenst mean that we can break the contest rules. sorry for your work, now you will never forget that is triangles and not quads =]
I am aware that the pieces of geometry have to be skinned to the existing bones, but is it possible to add extra bones to the current setup? If so, how is that handled? Such as constraints/parenting and applying animation/dynamics and how those will be implemented.
And with regards to the blend shapes, are we responsible for providing the various blend shapes (where applicable)?
Thank you for reading and I hope there are answers to these questions.
i read in some place that you can use custom new bones to a new item, but to animate it you need to add the main bone hierarchy, which means that you need to compile the entire model again, and i think that is not possible for the contest
about the blend shapes they are called flex on the source, all character have a huge set of them and you dont need to worry with that =]
I'm trying to put a beard on the skeleton king, but i can see that his jaw is driven by blend shapes, is it possible to connect the beard to the jaw in any way?
So the Sand King has a complete head replacement. Does this mean we need to create a completely new head, even if someone were to just give him a head armor or something?
Also, anyone have any ideas what I should do if I have multiple concepts for multiple different heroes, and I want to choose one to continue working on? We can't change thread titles AFAIK so I shouldn't make a generic one, and making three threads with the intention of only continuing one seems... overdoing it?
Hello
My good fellow ..gamerz...designerz..etc...I'm a noob when it comes to 3d animation,but 2d now that i can do! now this will be a good learning opportunity for me very excited dont know why this will take lots of work well dimensional wise..wish me luck... I am going to need it literally.
Sorry if this has been asked before, but am I allowed to make say, two different types of bracers, or can I only use an exact duplicate of the other.
I was thinking of using armor on one arm, and a cloth wrapped around the arm on the other.
EDIT: Also, since I couldnt find anything in the contest rules, do you guys know if its required that we rig our items? I'm not sure how to even do it. Do you just bind them to the existing rig bones?
Okay so I've been trying to figure this out a bit... How much do we need to worry about our items clipping through the default items?
I see a bunch of items already in the dota 2 store that look great when the full set is equipped, but clip like crazy when paired with the default stuff
Do we only need to worry about our full item set working with itself, or do we need to make sure every piece we make works well if equipped one at a time?
question about normal maps channels, its says that it needs to have "red channel is left; green is up; blue is top" does that translate to X+ Y+ Z+ in xnormal?
My items simply don't show up in the previewer once I import them. The import is successful and without any error but the items are not appearing.
I skinned everything properly in 3DMax and kept the same names as Valve did. I tried changing the units setup and the scale of the model and skeleton as seen in the previous posts but nothing seems to work. My normals aren't flipped and I reset everything using ResetXForm before skinning.
Could it be because the texture files I'm using right now as a test are filled with pure white only or is it something else?
I'm working on a set for Disruptor, and I was wondering if the tri count listed on the Technical Requirements page means i get another 1500 tris to add to the mount or do i need to replace the entire mount and stay within 1500 tris?
My items simply don't show up in the previewer once I import them. The import is successful and without any error but the items are not appearing.
I skinned everything properly in 3DMax and kept the same names as Valve did. I tried changing the units setup and the scale of the model and skeleton as seen in the previous posts but nothing seems to work. My normals aren't flipped and I reset everything using ResetXForm before skinning.
Could it be because the texture files I'm using right now as a test are filled with pure white only or is it something else?
Any idea?
Could be a few things Chris,
I had a similar problem when i mistakenly saved a completely transparent alpha channel on my _color map, only some characters support transparency though.
More likely are you using Bones imported from a .FBX file? i had a bunch of problems with importing FBX bones and my items not being where they should be. Importing SMD and exporting FBX worked first try though.
@Fractal:
Yes, you can make the bracers asymetric. And yes you have to rig the items. The best way to do that is to rig them to the skeleton that comes in with the .smd.
@artquest
I don't think there's any rules set in stone for this issue, but "less clipping with default = better" is a good way to look at it I think. Also, it really has to be decided on a case by case basis so I don't think that you can have any hard and fast rules for this, I'd say do your best to minimize clipping with the default but don't stress out over it.
Hey guys, I'm rather new to this so excuse my noob issues, but I'm having a lot of trouble just importing the provided models into maya. I'm getting a lot of missing plugin errors, I suppose they must be proprietary Valve plugins, but I was wondering if there was a tutorial on how to set it up to avoid this. Specifically, I'm getting a lot of errors that look like "Unrecognized node type 'vsVmtToTex';" and "Plug-in, "vsMaster.mll", was not found on MAYA_PLUG_IN_PATH. #" I found the vsMaster.mll in the source filmmaker folder but I can't import it. I'm going to try downloading maya 2012 (currently using 2013) and see if that fixes it, but does anyone have any other tips?
Those are plugings that are used by Valve inhouse iirc that they haven't released an updated version of in a couple of years. You should be fine just ignoring the errors.
What about for exporting and stuff? None of the acceptable formats are maya defaults and at least one of them is source specific isn't it? Wouldn't those features be included in the plugins or do I get them from somewhere else?
Yeah, FBX is standard for Maya and Max and works perfectly. A 3rd party .SMD in-/exporter is available for both apps as well, but using FBX is substantially easier.
How can we get the precise colour palette used for each hero? Right now I am just picking values from the diffuse textures, but there are lots of shades of green for example. How can we also know how much the colours are distributed relative to each other?
I noticed they are now strictly enforcing the triangle limit not "poly". Its significantly harder to go that low! I wonder if they will reset the limit now that its all tris or if they wanted this many tris from the start, b/c the default items are over the limit if so.
yeah well I already submitted a kit a while ago, but its over poly count by definition now, even tho it uploaded and was accepted through the software before. I wonder if they'll have me resubmit it.
Probably not, one of my weapons made it in-game even though it was over the tricount for both lod0 and lod1 and didnt even have a lod1 :S Ah, the joys of the early days where nothing was defined yet
hello, I started the antimage but when I tried to make a quick test for my set I realized there are NO ANTIMAGE AT ALL. so, the question is - how is it possible to preview\submit antimage set, if its not exists at all!
How do I know that the weapon / armor piece that I'll be making is going to "align" properly ingame? Are there some kind of anchor points I have to set on the weapon? Sorry if this is mentioned somewhere in the docs, I haven't found it. For example: What if the hero holds it wrong?
edit: I also just tried opening the clinkz fbx weapon and it complains "d:dota_dev/staging/game/dota/materials/models/heroes/clinkz/clinkz_bow_color.vtf not found;" ..clearly, they wrote an absolute path into this model file, I don't even have a drive.
I've got the following question: I'm working on a set for Disruptor, and it haves some particles that stays at the character preview, specifically for the back and the weapon. If we can't change the particles (at the moment, I don't know -and I searched- a way to do it AND ok from Valve side), Valve will do for us?
If we can't change the particles, but Valve will do for us, how can we remove the particles at the in-game tool to show the work done to the community?
If we can't and Valve is not doing new particles, shall I suppose that while designing we must respect the position of the objects affected by particles? (wich means no big changes on the parts of the items affected by particles, at least in size/position).
For what it's worth, my Bounty Hunter weapons had custom Jinada particles added to them by Valve once I had submitted them into the game. Since Jinada is linked to a skill it didn't need to be displayed in the in-game viewer but I'd say that Valve makes the custom particles once you've submitted the item so you'll have to make do with the default particles for screenshots.
The main problem is that the particle effect (default one for Disruptor at the back or the weapon) is "big", specially at the back. Wich means that the screenshoots/preview images of the hero in game will look kinda confused if we don't make the back particles match with the custom design.
Guys i need your help!
I've made a texture and a low poly for lance but i've got wierd issue while exporting to Dota2.
I've placed lance on the same place as in original file and and skined it to a proper bone.However it didn't work:
But then i exported lance from original file and it had the same problem. (however if take original .FBX file without exporting it - it works and match perfectly)
Does anybody knows why such thing can happend?
Maybe something wrong with FBX export or I simply don't know some details?
Replies
http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2ShaderMaskGuide.pdf
I will go for painting on 128x256. Don't know Maya well, but in Max you can force UV editor to adapt to bitmap in pixel ration. Anyway it doesn't matter in the end because UV will be exported in Values between 0.0 and 1.0 on U and V regardless of bitmap size (you can even try applying square and rectangular texture, both will look most likely the same on model). Valve probably later put theme in bigger texture atlas and recalculate UV, so better make better use of your pixels instead of UVs.
1. There are 3 alpha channels for each part of the model.
a. Color alpha - the alpha (transparency) of the material itself.
b. Mask 1 alpha - self illumination.
c. Mask 2 alpha - specular exponent (roughness).
2. All mask1 and mask2 files have their alpha (even if it's one pixel) and it's good practice to include this channel.
3. Only certain heroes have color alpha (and so do they have transparency). Items for those who have alpha channel in their color texture are allowed to be made transparent. Items for those with no alpha channel in their color texture shouldn't be made transparent.
I'm planning on using transparency for the items I'll make for Phantom Lancer and his textures already have alpha channel. Could someone (preferably from Valve) confirm those please?
The only channel that is the issue here is the alpha channel of the _color map which acts as a transparency channel. Only some heroes (refer to this graphic) have the ability to read information that is in that channel.
Whether or not a hero is able to use the alpha channel in the _color map depends on a line of code in his .VMT file which defines a couple of things in regards to his shader ingame (the line of code is $alphatest 1). If that code is not present, you can put anything you like in the _color alpha channel, it just won't get read or used by the game (perfect place to hide a greentooth!).
If you check the graphic linked earlier, Phantom Lancer does not have transparency enabled so you won't be able to use it. Here's the relevant post from Valve.
The way I was thinking of approaching this was to lay out UV shells normally, but then when texturing in Photoshop, I would stretch the UV wireframe according to the ratios (for example, twice the width) and paint the texture on a canvas of 1024x2048. It should work the same way as the defaults that are like that.
I for the life of me cant get anything (specular, rim light...) to show.
Yes, I have read the PDF thoroughly.
I even tried uploading the "original" weapon and files - no dice - everything is flat shaded. Very frustrating.
2) Is there a different previewer I could be using. It seems their material shaders are so customized that I have no other option besides the in-game viewer.
Fixed my problem by following this tutorial.
Simply downloading the "Model and Texture Files" in the character's requirement page will not give you good textures to reference...
I am aware that the pieces of geometry have to be skinned to the existing bones, but is it possible to add extra bones to the current setup? If so, how is that handled? Such as constraints/parenting and applying animation/dynamics and how those will be implemented.
And with regards to the blend shapes, are we responsible for providing the various blend shapes (where applicable)?
Thank you for reading and I hope there are answers to these questions.
sorry man, but when they say polycount it means triangles because every polygon in game will split into triangles
there was a bug on the ingame compiler that was calculating quads and not triangles.
about the in game models, as they are beta, they dont worried to make a perfect model, and lot of then pass the polycount. that doenst mean that we can break the contest rules. sorry for your work, now you will never forget that is triangles and not quads =]
i read in some place that you can use custom new bones to a new item, but to animate it you need to add the main bone hierarchy, which means that you need to compile the entire model again, and i think that is not possible for the contest
about the blend shapes they are called flex on the source, all character have a huge set of them and you dont need to worry with that =]
What I'm asking is if hair flowing is done through the bone or model.
Also, anyone have any ideas what I should do if I have multiple concepts for multiple different heroes, and I want to choose one to continue working on? We can't change thread titles AFAIK so I shouldn't make a generic one, and making three threads with the intention of only continuing one seems... overdoing it?
My good fellow ..gamerz...designerz..etc...I'm a noob when it comes to 3d animation,but 2d now that i can do! now this will be a good learning opportunity for me very excited dont know why this will take lots of work well dimensional wise..wish me luck... I am going to need it literally.
I was thinking of using armor on one arm, and a cloth wrapped around the arm on the other.
EDIT: Also, since I couldnt find anything in the contest rules, do you guys know if its required that we rig our items? I'm not sure how to even do it. Do you just bind them to the existing rig bones?
I see a bunch of items already in the dota 2 store that look great when the full set is equipped, but clip like crazy when paired with the default stuff
(Here's an example).
Do we only need to worry about our full item set working with itself, or do we need to make sure every piece we make works well if equipped one at a time?
My items simply don't show up in the previewer once I import them. The import is successful and without any error but the items are not appearing.
I skinned everything properly in 3DMax and kept the same names as Valve did. I tried changing the units setup and the scale of the model and skeleton as seen in the previous posts but nothing seems to work. My normals aren't flipped and I reset everything using ResetXForm before skinning.
Could it be because the texture files I'm using right now as a test are filled with pure white only or is it something else?
Any idea?
I'm working on a set for Disruptor, and I was wondering if the tri count listed on the Technical Requirements page means i get another 1500 tris to add to the mount or do i need to replace the entire mount and stay within 1500 tris?
Could be a few things Chris,
I had a similar problem when i mistakenly saved a completely transparent alpha channel on my _color map, only some characters support transparency though.
More likely are you using Bones imported from a .FBX file? i had a bunch of problems with importing FBX bones and my items not being where they should be. Importing SMD and exporting FBX worked first try though.
Yes, you can make the bracers asymetric. And yes you have to rig the items. The best way to do that is to rig them to the skeleton that comes in with the .smd.
@artquest
I don't think there's any rules set in stone for this issue, but "less clipping with default = better" is a good way to look at it I think. Also, it really has to be decided on a case by case basis so I don't think that you can have any hard and fast rules for this, I'd say do your best to minimize clipping with the default but don't stress out over it.
Linkception!It sucks, but we have to deal with it unfortunately. Try to make the best of it and see it as a challenge
edit: I also just tried opening the clinkz fbx weapon and it complains "d:dota_dev/staging/game/dota/materials/models/heroes/clinkz/clinkz_bow_color.vtf not found;" ..clearly, they wrote an absolute path into this model file, I don't even have a
I've got the following question: I'm working on a set for Disruptor, and it haves some particles that stays at the character preview, specifically for the back and the weapon. If we can't change the particles (at the moment, I don't know -and I searched- a way to do it AND ok from Valve side), Valve will do for us?
If we can't change the particles, but Valve will do for us, how can we remove the particles at the in-game tool to show the work done to the community?
If we can't and Valve is not doing new particles, shall I suppose that while designing we must respect the position of the objects affected by particles? (wich means no big changes on the parts of the items affected by particles, at least in size/position).
Thanks in advice!
For what it's worth, my Bounty Hunter weapons had custom Jinada particles added to them by Valve once I had submitted them into the game. Since Jinada is linked to a skill it didn't need to be displayed in the in-game viewer but I'd say that Valve makes the custom particles once you've submitted the item so you'll have to make do with the default particles for screenshots.
The main problem is that the particle effect (default one for Disruptor at the back or the weapon) is "big", specially at the back. Wich means that the screenshoots/preview images of the hero in game will look kinda confused if we don't make the back particles match with the custom design.
http://puu.sh/1jcdZ
I've made a texture and a low poly for lance but i've got wierd issue while exporting to Dota2.
I've placed lance on the same place as in original file and and skined it to a proper bone.However it didn't work:
But then i exported lance from original file and it had the same problem. (however if take original .FBX file without exporting it - it works and match perfectly)
Does anybody knows why such thing can happend?
Maybe something wrong with FBX export or I simply don't know some details?
Thanks!