Thanks !
I was getting worried that things wouldn't fit within budget ... Turns out, it's tight but it fits (at least as far as the high LODs are concerned !)
I am also trying to document all the technical steps with video recordings (pretty much everything except for the sculpting part, since there are so many tutorials and sculpting videos out there already anyways).
So far I have been covering Topogun retopo over a decimated sculpt, cleaning up the meshes in MayaLT, and UVmapping with Roadkill and LT. Next up, baking things down with Xnormal and Handplane, texturing with Photoshop and Mudbox and/or Zbrush, and exporting to the game importer using LT. I expect editing to take forever but we'll see !
Getting there ! Recording the whole process is slowing me down a bit, but now it's time for the fun texturing part anyways (And hopefully particles too !)
You are a damn genious
After browsing through your thread i just want to delete my "concept" thread, crawl under my bed and cry myself to sleep:D
Seriously, every time i do a concept and like it, i'm gonna return to your thread to remind me that it is possible to do waa...ay better, and polish it.
I think there might be some scale adjustments to be done later on with the effect as a whole, but as far as the fireballs themselves are concerned I think they are perfect - they look very, very good. Great job !
On my end I have been exploring the technical steps required in order to add an FX emitter to models without one originally too. I suppose that my process is very similar if not identical to what Andumy is doing - I'll make sure to share it all once I manage to replicate it on another custom Lina. Fun stuff ! Here's a test.
Also, here is an example of the kind of videos I am working on. Some will be accelerated timelapses like this one, with a commentary added on top explaining what is going on in broad terms ; others will be realtime, with every step explained in detail.
Besides that, thanks for the kind words guys. Jlem : that's nice of you to say, but I see tons of flaws in everything I do - which in turn becomes a motivation to work on these weaknesses for the next piece. It's a never ending process, but I find that the vibe of the Dota2 Workshop makes it very pleasurable
Also, quite ironically, I think that a good way to progress is to *not* look at other artist's work too much - at least not every day. The crazy badass guys out there working in the entertainment industry definitely set a high bar to try and reach, but sometimes I think it's good to shut down the outside world a little and enjoy one's own bubble
Pior. You are a rare gem between the top artists in terms of sharing valuable information and techniques. I salute you man and looking forward to the videos.
Haha yeah - that's the dirtiest trick in the book really ... it doesn't work for everything, but for some details here and there it definitely helps (that's basically equivalent to the step shown on page 4 of the Valve Character Texture Guide PDF).
Anyways - #6 is almost done, with still some cleanup and color tweaking to do, the hair to paint properly and a little bit of weathering to add. And then there's still the FX to incorporate...
Fantastic work, Pior, and thanks for sharing your technics - very simple and very useful.
About lina - i love the concept but in 3d mask looks wrong somehow. Check space between eyes, looks like they sits too far from eachother
Agree with Sumers, the eyes look a bit off. Try extruding the eye faces on Lina directly forwards to check they line up properly. with the mask eyeholes.
Fixing the eyes actually took a while - for the longest time I didn't realize that they were not only too far apart, but also too small and set too low in relation to the rest of the face, which in turn affected the hairline. Thanks a lot to those who pointed it out, I appreciate it
Getting the fire effect to work took a while as well ... I have a lot of new notes to clean up in that regard. It really is a convoluted process involving decompiling/recompiling items, manually adding the coordinates of emitter points inside a .qc file, and so on. But I think I got it down now.
So, from there I am thinking of progressively submitting little bundles of 3 of these hair+neck combos to the Workshop. Since #6 is ready, I think I will simply bundle it with the next two being finished next - and then bundle the next 3 together, and so on. That way, if by any chance Valve wants to add them, they can either add mini bundles of 3x2 items, or, go for the whole collection whenever it is completed.
Or ... shall the individual items simply be submitted as soon as they are ready ? I could see benefits in such a spread out approach, with new "fire Linas" regularly appearing in the Workshop. What do you guys think ?
Lastly, do you guys want to agree on a deadline for all this ? That way we would end up submitting a nice consistent pack, made of whichever item finished by the time the deadline comes (and the rest later). If so, what kind of date would work for you guys ?
I like the idea of mini bundles of 3 sets that way if they get added it won't saturate Lina's item pool too much as opposed to them all getting adding at the same time. That said, I think it would be a good idea to spread out when the mini bundles are submitted.
As far as deadlines go I say we can set deadlines for each 3 set mini-bundle. I'm working on my pair, and should be done fairly soon then I can pass it on to you for particle magic
Hehe ,i like how you managed the particles ,really cool .
I also would go for mini bundles ,because i thing if there will be like 9 different submission will be a bit saturated.
about the deadline i hope to finish mine soon,maybe even in the first bundle so i'm pushing hard
Besides that, while working on my notes about emitters and doing some more tests I noticed something which is worth making people aware of : the Alien Swarm tools which I use for particle authoring (and maybe even the source SDK in general ?) seem to be conflicting with proper Maya operation. I am not sure if the issue is caused by the SDK tools as launched from the Steam tool section or by the game itself when launched in tools mode (with the -tools -nop4 launch options), but I know for sure that one of these definitely messes with the Python environment variables of one's OS, which in turns breaks Maya. For instance, it makes Maya unable to save and load files. As seen here :
Now this is not a deal breaker as it can be rather easily switched back in the Windows environment variables settings, but I thought that would be important information to share anyways. It has been brought up on the Steam Forums before, but there's not much discussion about it, sadly.
Besides that, while working on my notes about emitters and doing some more tests I noticed something which is worth making people aware of : the Alien Swarm tools which I use for particle authoring (and maybe even the source SDK in general ?) seem to be conflicting with proper Maya operation. I am not sure if the issue is caused by the SDK tools as launched from the Steam tool section or by the game itself when launched in tools mode (with the -tools -nop4 launch options), but I know for sure that one of these definitely messes with the Python environment variables of one's OS, which in turns breaks Maya. For instance, it makes Maya unable to save and load files. As seen here :
Now this is not a deal breaker as it can be rather easily switched back in the Windows environment variables settings, but I thought that would be important information to share anyways. It has been brought up on the Steam Forums before, but there's not much discussion about it, sadly.
Oh man - I borked up Maya on my work computer pretty well trying to install the Maya SMD exporter stuff a while back It turned out to be exactly the problem you outline above, where the environment variables are defined wrongly and it took a couple of the TAs here a good while to sort everything out again. I vowed to use Max for all my DOTA needs from then on!
The headddress is looking great BTW - I love the particles!
Haha yeah - it really quite freaked me out the first time it happened, and even with that experience under the belt I got confused the second time too
Also, in passing - I just put that together for those participating in the pack. Obviously things can be tweaked from there, but I thought it could be a useful resource :
Sorry for the spam - but since Prophet9 sent me his lowpoly for feedback, it was possible to import a test version of #3 quite early on (with simple per-face materials) which in turn will allows for early rigging tweaks and particle tests. Needless to say, I am quite excited about this
Note that on one hand, none of that is officially supported in the Workshop... but on the other hand, Valve has been accepting such items with custom effects already, and even publishing some themselves, so I suppose that it is fair to make this information public. And after all, this is merely a combination of information already available out there - just compiled into one document.
Also note that since I have not submitted such an enhanced item yet (planning to do so next week or so with the fire Lina hairstyles above), I am not exactly sure about the submission process for such assets. As far as I know adding new effects involves editing a hero effect file and adding one's own inside it, meaning that from there Valve needs to double check everything and merge the files together somehow, which seems like a bit of a hack and quite a bit of work on their end...
I have to say that gathering that information was a bit difficult - it's almost like a bit of a secret, but there's always a way to reverse engineer stuff - decompiling stock assets was quite useful in that regard Now of course I suppose that it's up to us to use this "power" sparingly, not making every item glow like a Christmas tree... If anything, that could be a push for particles effects (and rules !) to be added to the workshop. Last but not least, I have zero insider's knowledge regarding particle effects being okay to submit or not ; what I mean by that is that, working on such effects is a bit of a risk. Valve could very well decide to not accept such items at all, since, again, they are not officially supported at this time.
Anyways - let me know what you think ! And thanks a lot to those who helped me gather this information and test things out - you know who you are
[edit] Added a warning about Python environment variables, which seem to be overwritten by the Alien Swarm tools. This totally breaks Maya, so if you are not familiar with manually editing environment variables on your system you might want to stay away from all that
Just wow! While lots of people keep the whole particle thing like a taboo/secret just like you said, always avoiding questions and refusing to give directions about anything related to it, you share your knowledge posting a freaking in-depth guide on how to do it. What a class act, keep up the amazing work and attitude!
Just wow! While lots of people keep the whole particle thing like a taboo/secret just like you said, always avoiding questions and refusing to give directions about anything related to it, you share your knowledge posting a freaking in-depth guide on how to do it. What a class act, keep up the amazing work and attitude!
So I've read through this guide and maybe you can add some information/shed some more light to the following
What are qc files
I'm thinking its just the directory that referenced the meshes, animations, etc.
What are pcf files?
Basically the file which contains particle effects (there can be any number of particle effects to one pcf file)
What is an attachment?
The location where particles emit from (the emitter)
What code is being used (I think its very important to mention since a little mistake in coding results in everything not working)
Parts that were unclear to me:
on Page 15, you had a the code template yellow being the attachment (where the emitter is located) and the teal, the template of new code.
Can you explain/correct the definitions of
name <-- name of the particle effect
attachment_type <-- ???
attachment point <---- The name of the attachment previously described (yellow area)
Perhaps give some definition to the important particle system terms you gave on page 24
Operator
- Movement Lock to Control Point
- Set Control Point To Particles' Center
ForceGenerator
- Pull towards control point
What is a control point? (Emitter?)
To make some things easier to see, maybe add all the helpful links/ required software in its own page so it'll be easier to see. The software you listed on page 4(tools and prerequisites) are hard to see without reading having to re-read.
ah, thanks a lot. Great info!
have you tried crowbar to decompile the models? it works better, doesnt need a sdk to decompile and the whole renaming shenanigan. Also you can use the Dota 2´s studiomdl.exe to compile.
Awesome, but... This just means more work! I'm going to have to make a million particles now! Even worse, I WANT to.
It's been a while since I rolled up my sleeves and got dirty in some qc files.
Edit: I tried the Crowbar decompiler that Hayes mentioned. It decompiles dota2 mdls without needing to rename the vtx files and works really really well!
I am glad to hear that the particle information is appreciated ! I hope it will help answering the most common questions about qc recompiling. GhostD, thank you for your detailed proofreading - I will make sure to go over these points whenever I get a chance to edit the document again.
Besides that, I could not dedicate much time to the Linas over this past month or so, therefore I squeezed in a texturing job for a Sniper set that Sumers and Andumy are working on - "Smoke of War", as seen here : http://funkyimg.com/i/Jb3N.jpg
Cross-posting from Sumer's thread :
I now have time to resume work on the Linas - in parallel with more hero set design and cleanup. This will be a busy September !
Replies
Got some work done on #6. I should probably test out the polygon budget for the neck part before going further ...
I was getting worried that things wouldn't fit within budget ... Turns out, it's tight but it fits (at least as far as the high LODs are concerned !)
I am also trying to document all the technical steps with video recordings (pretty much everything except for the sculpting part, since there are so many tutorials and sculpting videos out there already anyways).
So far I have been covering Topogun retopo over a decimated sculpt, cleaning up the meshes in MayaLT, and UVmapping with Roadkill and LT. Next up, baking things down with Xnormal and Handplane, texturing with Photoshop and Mudbox and/or Zbrush, and exporting to the game importer using LT. I expect editing to take forever but we'll see !
After browsing through your thread i just want to delete my "concept" thread, crawl under my bed and cry myself to sleep:D
Seriously, every time i do a concept and like it, i'm gonna return to your thread to remind me that it is possible to do waa...ay better, and polish it.
I think there might be some scale adjustments to be done later on with the effect as a whole, but as far as the fireballs themselves are concerned I think they are perfect - they look very, very good. Great job !
On my end I have been exploring the technical steps required in order to add an FX emitter to models without one originally too. I suppose that my process is very similar if not identical to what Andumy is doing - I'll make sure to share it all once I manage to replicate it on another custom Lina. Fun stuff ! Here's a test.
Also, here is an example of the kind of videos I am working on. Some will be accelerated timelapses like this one, with a commentary added on top explaining what is going on in broad terms ; others will be realtime, with every step explained in detail.
[ame="
Besides that, thanks for the kind words guys. Jlem : that's nice of you to say, but I see tons of flaws in everything I do - which in turn becomes a motivation to work on these weaknesses for the next piece. It's a never ending process, but I find that the vibe of the Dota2 Workshop makes it very pleasurable
Also, quite ironically, I think that a good way to progress is to *not* look at other artist's work too much - at least not every day. The crazy badass guys out there working in the entertainment industry definitely set a high bar to try and reach, but sometimes I think it's good to shut down the outside world a little and enjoy one's own bubble
Anyways - #6 is almost done, with still some cleanup and color tweaking to do, the hair to paint properly and a little bit of weathering to add. And then there's still the FX to incorporate...
Getting there !
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20130424180556/glee/images/f/f5/Fry_drool.gif
About lina - i love the concept but in 3d mask looks wrong somehow. Check space between eyes, looks like they sits too far from eachother
Also.
Do the one with feathers
Fixing the eyes actually took a while - for the longest time I didn't realize that they were not only too far apart, but also too small and set too low in relation to the rest of the face, which in turn affected the hairline. Thanks a lot to those who pointed it out, I appreciate it
Getting the fire effect to work took a while as well ... I have a lot of new notes to clean up in that regard. It really is a convoluted process involving decompiling/recompiling items, manually adding the coordinates of emitter points inside a .qc file, and so on. But I think I got it down now.
And a ingame preview :
[ame="
So, from there I am thinking of progressively submitting little bundles of 3 of these hair+neck combos to the Workshop. Since #6 is ready, I think I will simply bundle it with the next two being finished next - and then bundle the next 3 together, and so on. That way, if by any chance Valve wants to add them, they can either add mini bundles of 3x2 items, or, go for the whole collection whenever it is completed.
Or ... shall the individual items simply be submitted as soon as they are ready ? I could see benefits in such a spread out approach, with new "fire Linas" regularly appearing in the Workshop. What do you guys think ?
Lastly, do you guys want to agree on a deadline for all this ? That way we would end up submitting a nice consistent pack, made of whichever item finished by the time the deadline comes (and the rest later). If so, what kind of date would work for you guys ?
Let me know, I am all ears
I like the idea of mini bundles of 3 sets that way if they get added it won't saturate Lina's item pool too much as opposed to them all getting adding at the same time. That said, I think it would be a good idea to spread out when the mini bundles are submitted.
As far as deadlines go I say we can set deadlines for each 3 set mini-bundle. I'm working on my pair, and should be done fairly soon then I can pass it on to you for particle magic
I also would go for mini bundles ,because i thing if there will be like 9 different submission will be a bit saturated.
about the deadline i hope to finish mine soon,maybe even in the first bundle so i'm pushing hard
Besides that, while working on my notes about emitters and doing some more tests I noticed something which is worth making people aware of : the Alien Swarm tools which I use for particle authoring (and maybe even the source SDK in general ?) seem to be conflicting with proper Maya operation. I am not sure if the issue is caused by the SDK tools as launched from the Steam tool section or by the game itself when launched in tools mode (with the -tools -nop4 launch options), but I know for sure that one of these definitely messes with the Python environment variables of one's OS, which in turns breaks Maya. For instance, it makes Maya unable to save and load files. As seen here :
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v242/pior_ubb/maya_alienswarm_python_issue_zpsa6336efd.png~original
Now this is not a deal breaker as it can be rather easily switched back in the Windows environment variables settings, but I thought that would be important information to share anyways. It has been brought up on the Steam Forums before, but there's not much discussion about it, sadly.
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2753326
Oh man - I borked up Maya on my work computer pretty well trying to install the Maya SMD exporter stuff a while back
The headddress is looking great BTW - I love the particles!
Also, in passing - I just put that together for those participating in the pack. Obviously things can be tweaked from there, but I thought it could be a useful resource :
I hope this helps !
http://pioroberson.com/files/Adding%20emitters%20and%20custom%20effects%20to%20Dota2%20cosmetics.pdf
Note that on one hand, none of that is officially supported in the Workshop... but on the other hand, Valve has been accepting such items with custom effects already, and even publishing some themselves, so I suppose that it is fair to make this information public. And after all, this is merely a combination of information already available out there - just compiled into one document.
Also note that since I have not submitted such an enhanced item yet (planning to do so next week or so with the fire Lina hairstyles above), I am not exactly sure about the submission process for such assets. As far as I know adding new effects involves editing a hero effect file and adding one's own inside it, meaning that from there Valve needs to double check everything and merge the files together somehow, which seems like a bit of a hack and quite a bit of work on their end...
I have to say that gathering that information was a bit difficult - it's almost like a bit of a secret, but there's always a way to reverse engineer stuff - decompiling stock assets was quite useful in that regard
Anyways - let me know what you think ! And thanks a lot to those who helped me gather this information and test things out - you know who you are
[edit] Added a warning about Python environment variables, which seem to be overwritten by the Alien Swarm tools. This totally breaks Maya, so if you are not familiar with manually editing environment variables on your system you might want to stay away from all that
exactly
Thanks a lot pior. u r the man!
So I've read through this guide and maybe you can add some information/shed some more light to the following
What are qc files
I'm thinking its just the directory that referenced the meshes, animations, etc.
What are pcf files?
Basically the file which contains particle effects (there can be any number of particle effects to one pcf file)
What is an attachment?
The location where particles emit from (the emitter)
What code is being used (I think its very important to mention since a little mistake in coding results in everything not working)
Parts that were unclear to me:
on Page 15, you had a the code template yellow being the attachment (where the emitter is located) and the teal, the template of new code.
Can you explain/correct the definitions of
name <-- name of the particle effect
attachment_type <-- ???
attachment point <---- The name of the attachment previously described (yellow area)
Perhaps give some definition to the important particle system terms you gave on page 24
Operator
- Movement Lock to Control Point
- Set Control Point To Particles' Center
ForceGenerator
- Pull towards control point
What is a control point? (Emitter?)
To make some things easier to see, maybe add all the helpful links/ required software in its own page so it'll be easier to see. The software you listed on page 4(tools and prerequisites) are hard to see without reading having to re-read.
Again, thanks for sharing this information
have you tried crowbar to decompile the models? it works better, doesnt need a sdk to decompile and the whole renaming shenanigan. Also you can use the Dota 2´s studiomdl.exe to compile.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/CrowbarTool
It's been a while since I rolled up my sleeves and got dirty in some qc files.
Edit: I tried the Crowbar decompiler that Hayes mentioned. It decompiles dota2 mdls without needing to rename the vtx files and works really really well!
Besides that, I could not dedicate much time to the Linas over this past month or so, therefore I squeezed in a texturing job for a Sniper set that Sumers and Andumy are working on - "Smoke of War", as seen here : http://funkyimg.com/i/Jb3N.jpg
Cross-posting from Sumer's thread :
I now have time to resume work on the Linas - in parallel with more hero set design and cleanup. This will be a busy September !