I might speak with Vahl about a little something to add ; basically, there is a way to avoid the LWO step by using ASE files and a bit of notepad editing. I could post a plain text stepbystep tut if you need...
You also might want to grab der_tons md5viewer and his 3dsmax import/export scripts.
Launching a test map and spawning the mesh ingame works well, but if you want faster texture update feedback you can also load a map in the editor. It's faster to laod, and also enables you to dynamically move lights around to your likings and take screengrabs from that.
Cool - this is coming along really nicely. The surface details you are putting in with the normal mapped photography are definately helping to push the character that little bit more that you sometimes get on normal-mapped characters.
Trying to find an okay color scheme before jumping back in. What do you think?
I slightly prefer "Nemo" at the moment for its simplicity, yet Saphire appeals me for its funkyness ... even if it still needs fluogreen alpha hair
Thanks in advance for the input
Also looking for an understandable way (hello Vahou) to put cubemap based fake reflections on a defined part of the model, in this case, the yellow bits in the nemo scheme, or the green ones in saphire. Any advice?
Oh btw, no GI render added Mop, but I think I'll do so in the end ... Might help making things pop a bit.
Hmm, I like Nemo too, are you gonna make the yellow metal bits into a nice brass finish, like those old diving suits with the big helmets?
I think Sapphire would work well, if you made the lighter parts of the clothing into a different colour, it's a bit too "grey" all over at the moment.
Nemo is miles ahead of the rest and suits the body, its a 'theme' more than a mere colour choice. I would push his armours yellow tones more to orange a bit though.
Okay then, I'm going for the Nemo one. I'll keep the grey+green one as an alternative for later on tho...
Still need to push things up a little... Colored speculars for metal is cool too, will try that more
I'll pack a SDK for tonight, just need to tweak the geo a little (the bumpy tube is messed up for some reason atm). Is everybody okay with a Doom3 map with the model as a static mesh? I can also include a .ASE to use with DerTon's md5 viewer but the results won't be as smooth than ingame since the viewer uses the 'classic' normalmap processing algorythm while the game uses its own... and my normalmap has been rendered for Doom3 use.
Note that you can also load the map in doomedit and play with the lights in there.
I don't know what you use to view nmaps... Do you need an .OBJ too?
Unzip the zip contents to disk, NOT to your doom3 base folder.
You should have two folders : one starts with " modelviewer... ", the other starts with " doom3... ".
The .ase file in the " modelviewerblablabla " folder is especially modified for a use with this program. You might have to edit the viewer's scene.txt file to make it point to the location where you work. Launch the viewer, hit LOAD and pick the aquaboy_modelviewer.ase . (The model should load, but you'll notice artefacts all over the place due to the way the programreads nmaps. Handy for quick tests tho). Reload the model to refresh texture display.
To avoid the artefact problems you can load the mesh directly in doom3. To do so, copy the files from the folders to their correspondong places in your Doom3 game directory. Then launch the game at maximum settings, and launch a map. Any will do, just note that there is one testmap shipped with the game. To start it bring down the console (ctrl+alt+~) and type :
map testmaps/test_box
You can then spawn the model in the map. Console again, then :
testmodel models/characters/players_mp/aquaboy
The model should appear. Put your updated .tgas in the players_mp directory and relaunch the game to see your changes.
Hope it's clear enough... I'll upload an .obj if you need that too. Don't hesitate and point mistakes in the text above...
You'll find an OBJ and a Max7 file in that, and a special PSD I've put together that shows how to fake a normalmapped result with a 100% self illumination texture.
You basically put all your maps in it (diffuse, spec, bump, normal), follow the PSD layering system shown here and you'll get a more or less decent approximation of the final result, without the need for any normalmap viewer. It's an obvious crappy hack but it can help ; you can also play with contrast and levels to get a neat Doom3style dark result.
Thanks Pior, good stuff to learn from! I feel liek textureing a normal maped model is like painting betwean the lines lol. Btw what sort of normal maped did you use then for doom because in max it looks realy strange. Did you resize the texture for the SDK or has it been this small all along :O amazing howmuch you can get out of a small texture.
Hell no I didn't paint it at 256... Could have been a neat challenge tho
It was done at 1024, I simply sized it down for the layered psd to lighten the filesize. The point was simply to show a layer system that tries do fake a lit normalmapped model. It's not great but it can help... maybe?
As for the weird normals, the reason why they look this way is because I used doom3's built-in renderbump commandline to generate them. It's faster than most other tools available, and outputs nmaps that look really good and smooth once in the game. I highly recommend to test your paintwork ingame to really see how it looks like in the end
But yeah its a tad complicated to mess with all those maps, previewers and all. I guess the UE3 toolset has better features to offer?
OldMan, I love the idea of a 'classic' skin for him!
I'm impatient to see how it'll look like ingame. Note that you can also play with spec and bumps (even if you don't go for normalmaps) as they can give you some extra control. But yeah a single texture map is great too
A couple of ingame shots... Loving the engine so far, no matter what the kids say.
I'm almost done with it since then, should be finished next week ... after the exam
First off a normalmap rerender. It can now be used in any thirdparty viewer since it's the 'classic' tangant space at work here, no Doom3's secret voodoo :
Below is a lighting renderpass, can help for easier SDK texturing :
I also made some test regarding possible ways to display normalmaps outside of a gameengine. Here is what I've got so far, might help those who don't really know where to start : realtime normalmap viewers comparaison
You can see how the same light setup affect the 3 orthos views differently.
The DX8/9 metalbump allow multiple lights but has mirroring issues (see the leg folds, boots aso). Ben Cowlard's Fx simplenormal shader by has the same mirroring issues and only allow 1 light. Ben wrote some more elaborated versions of that tho, won't run on my machine but you might find something that suit your needs on his website. The FxTTnormalmap shader that ships with max7 is dull.
DerTon's md5 viewer has the best featureset, allows multiple lights, specmaps, and deal with mirrored UVs. However it requires asci files and you'll have to make some little textediting to get things to work.
Can have any materialslot and any lightning setup. Will messup mirrored UVs tho... One workaround would be to manually mirror the meshpart but it'll give you seam issues and an incorrect Xform.
Load up aquaboy in max/maya load map in the diffuse and spec channels, aissign to the model, etc. For the normal map put the normal map (the rerendered one, not the doom3 rendered one) in the bump channel.
Export (there is a pdf that installs with the previewer for detials on how to do this)
And load it up in the the previewer and it should work
I think I might go for a blue colour scheme like in that pic above.
What I would like to know is when you texture a normal mapped model, do you guys still put strong highlights and shadows into the diffuse?
As you can see above, i have some pretty strong shadows and highlights.
Whats the best way to go about texturing a normal mapped character? (in terms of shading the diffuse texture)
I plan on a bump and spec map as well, thats if I get around to it!
Makk, usually I think when a character is normal-mapped and specular-mapped, you really don't need much painted shading at all, especially not highlights.
The diffuse map of a normal-mapped character usually appears pretty flat, since the highlights aren't painted on, it's mainly hue and colour variation of a basic material colour.
It's usually also good if you slap a GI lighting bake on a Multiply layer above, so the "crevices" of the model get darker without affecting the other parts, makes it look a bit more natural and detailed.
Your texture is a really good start, IF it was for just a regular non-normal mapped model ... the highlights would get really bright and blown-out in game if you use that at the moment.
the diffuse map by nature is simply colour information though it tends to be gud to have a small amount of lighitng in. If you got doom3, look around all the texture files to get a rough idea exactly how much lighting info u cud put, it's minimal if any.
The secret lies into a succesful balance between details put into the diffuse, heightmap, normal map.. and ofcourse the specular map. Small geometry details like fabrics and creases in skin should be done in the heightmap where as general geometry/lighting info is stored in the normalmap and the highlights/shine I store in the specular map.
atleast that's how i understand it, I have limited knowledge how it really works but I feel I'm getting the hang of it with the amount of doom3 moddin i've been doing as of late.
Yeah Makk what Mop and Razor said... Its an exercice in itself but it becomes natural rather quickly. You really have to think just like if you'd been texturing a hirez model, which is something we are not really familiar here
Break down your materials, and be very gentle with the specmap on the fleshy bits.
I terms of shading in the diffuse map, it *can* help to have a bit of lighting info in it somtimes. BUT what you mostly need in there is a 'dirt' pass as Mop stated : not a texture overlay, but shading showing where parts of the model are 'stuck' in shadows. (think eyesockets aso) You can clearly see that in the textures shipped with doom3.
Ok here goes 3 maybe 4 hours of work, in all honesty I don't know where I'm going with this and I'm gonna let it stay that way and see what happens.. *sniff*I smell a Car crash.
I'm almost tempted to go for that abe pic oldman put but I'll just see how this pans out first.
Replies
Still have to add the howto make the ppm compatible with KDR's PPM support mod though
http://wip.global-illusions.com/d3tut/quick%20Tutorial%20-%20Doom3_PPM.htm
Haaa sorry Gok I thought it was already more widespread, I was picturing people studying like mad
http://wip.global-illusions.com/d3tut/quick%20Tutorial%20-%20Doom3_PPM.htm
I might speak with Vahl about a little something to add ; basically, there is a way to avoid the LWO step by using ASE files and a bit of notepad editing. I could post a plain text stepbystep tut if you need...
You also might want to grab der_tons md5viewer and his 3dsmax import/export scripts.
http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=5474
Launching a test map and spawning the mesh ingame works well, but if you want faster texture update feedback you can also load a map in the editor. It's faster to laod, and also enables you to dynamically move lights around to your likings and take screengrabs from that.
Hope this helps!
And cheers vahl for the great tut
Jody
Did you incorporate a global illumination shadow-render into the diffuse texture?
congrats!
s-d-k!
s-d-k!
Trying to find an okay color scheme before jumping back in. What do you think?
I slightly prefer "Nemo" at the moment for its simplicity, yet Saphire appeals me for its funkyness ... even if it still needs fluogreen alpha hair
Thanks in advance for the input
Also looking for an understandable way (hello Vahou) to put cubemap based fake reflections on a defined part of the model, in this case, the yellow bits in the nemo scheme, or the green ones in saphire. Any advice?
Oh btw, no GI render added Mop, but I think I'll do so in the end ... Might help making things pop a bit.
I think Sapphire would work well, if you made the lighter parts of the clothing into a different colour, it's a bit too "grey" all over at the moment.
Can't wait to see how you finish him!
And yeah, I second what Moose said
If I had to pick, I'd probably go wtih nemo also. It has more of the organic/earth tones to it that would place with a fish type character.
Tough choice though.
I personally really like the Santa sheme has the strongest colors if you ask me allthough the technical bits receed a bit.
r.
I prefere Nemo , but the gray color on this clothes can be just a little bit -really little bit more bright.
I love it.
Still need to push things up a little... Colored speculars for metal is cool too, will try that more
I'll pack a SDK for tonight, just need to tweak the geo a little (the bumpy tube is messed up for some reason atm). Is everybody okay with a Doom3 map with the model as a static mesh? I can also include a .ASE to use with DerTon's md5 viewer but the results won't be as smooth than ingame since the viewer uses the 'classic' normalmap processing algorythm while the game uses its own... and my normalmap has been rendered for Doom3 use.
Note that you can also load the map in doomedit and play with the lights in there.
I don't know what you use to view nmaps... Do you need an .OBJ too?
Laters!
First thing, get the md5 modelviewer, read the info txt and install the application anywhere.
http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=1281&highlight=modelviewer+md5
http://home.tiscali.de/der_ton/modelviewer.rar
Then get the SDK :
http://www.pioroberson.com/files/aquaboy_sdk_01.zip
Unzip the zip contents to disk, NOT to your doom3 base folder.
You should have two folders : one starts with " modelviewer... ", the other starts with " doom3... ".
The .ase file in the " modelviewerblablabla " folder is especially modified for a use with this program. You might have to edit the viewer's scene.txt file to make it point to the location where you work. Launch the viewer, hit LOAD and pick the aquaboy_modelviewer.ase . (The model should load, but you'll notice artefacts all over the place due to the way the programreads nmaps. Handy for quick tests tho). Reload the model to refresh texture display.
To avoid the artefact problems you can load the mesh directly in doom3. To do so, copy the files from the folders to their correspondong places in your Doom3 game directory. Then launch the game at maximum settings, and launch a map. Any will do, just note that there is one testmap shipped with the game. To start it bring down the console (ctrl+alt+~) and type :
map testmaps/test_box
You can then spawn the model in the map. Console again, then :
testmodel models/characters/players_mp/aquaboy
The model should appear. Put your updated .tgas in the players_mp directory and relaunch the game to see your changes.
Hope it's clear enough... I'll upload an .obj if you need that too. Don't hesitate and point mistakes in the text above...
Have fun!
Will play around your SDK later tonight, thank you very much.
Second part of the sdk below:
http://www.pioroberson.com/files/sdk_part2.zip
You'll find an OBJ and a Max7 file in that, and a special PSD I've put together that shows how to fake a normalmapped result with a 100% self illumination texture.
You basically put all your maps in it (diffuse, spec, bump, normal), follow the PSD layering system shown here and you'll get a more or less decent approximation of the final result, without the need for any normalmap viewer. It's an obvious crappy hack but it can help ; you can also play with contrast and levels to get a neat Doom3style dark result.
Hope this helps
The obj file doesn't have anything in it when I imported it into Max either 0_o
3ds max > me
new files below, 3ds and max4.2 :
www.pioroberson.com/files/aquaboy_low_sdk.3DS
www.pioroberson.com/files/aquaboy_low_sdk_max42.max
Should work fine now
It was done at 1024, I simply sized it down for the layered psd to lighten the filesize. The point was simply to show a layer system that tries do fake a lit normalmapped model. It's not great but it can help... maybe?
As for the weird normals, the reason why they look this way is because I used doom3's built-in renderbump commandline to generate them. It's faster than most other tools available, and outputs nmaps that look really good and smooth once in the game. I highly recommend to test your paintwork ingame to really see how it looks like in the end
But yeah its a tad complicated to mess with all those maps, previewers and all. I guess the UE3 toolset has better features to offer?
I'm impatient to see how it'll look like ingame. Note that you can also play with spec and bumps (even if you don't go for normalmaps) as they can give you some extra control. But yeah a single texture map is great too
A couple of ingame shots... Loving the engine so far, no matter what the kids say.
I'm almost done with it since then, should be finished next week ... after the exam
Anyway, update (from the big WIP thread):
First off a normalmap rerender. It can now be used in any thirdparty viewer since it's the 'classic' tangant space at work here, no Doom3's secret voodoo :
Below is a lighting renderpass, can help for easier SDK texturing :
I also made some test regarding possible ways to display normalmaps outside of a gameengine. Here is what I've got so far, might help those who don't really know where to start :
realtime normalmap viewers comparaison
You can see how the same light setup affect the 3 orthos views differently.
The DX8/9 metalbump allow multiple lights but has mirroring issues (see the leg folds, boots aso). Ben Cowlard's Fx simplenormal shader by has the same mirroring issues and only allow 1 light. Ben wrote some more elaborated versions of that tho, won't run on my machine but you might find something that suit your needs on his website. The FxTTnormalmap shader that ships with max7 is dull.
DerTon's md5 viewer has the best featureset, allows multiple lights, specmaps, and deal with mirrored UVs. However it requires asci files and you'll have to make some little textediting to get things to work.
Last but not least, Max's renderbump (no realtime display):
max's scanline renderbump
Can have any materialslot and any lightning setup. Will messup mirrored UVs tho... One workaround would be to manually mirror the meshpart but it'll give you seam issues and an incorrect Xform.
Sorry for the image load. Hope the info can help!
I hope your exams will turn well and that you'll be able to get back on that one soon mate
Doom3 engine rules !!!
See this
its a bit late but you can use it of reference.
more on this page http://www.theclubhouse1.net/museum/modelscreature.htm.
good luck .
http://www.crytek.de/downloads/index.php?sx=polybump
You will also need an exporter to export to an OBJ file.
Load up aquaboy in max/maya load map in the diffuse and spec channels, aissign to the model, etc. For the normal map put the normal map (the rerendered one, not the doom3 rendered one) in the bump channel.
Export (there is a pdf that installs with the previewer for detials on how to do this)
And load it up in the the previewer and it should work
I think I might go for a blue colour scheme like in that pic above.
What I would like to know is when you texture a normal mapped model, do you guys still put strong highlights and shadows into the diffuse?
As you can see above, i have some pretty strong shadows and highlights.
Whats the best way to go about texturing a normal mapped character? (in terms of shading the diffuse texture)
I plan on a bump and spec map as well, thats if I get around to it!
The diffuse map of a normal-mapped character usually appears pretty flat, since the highlights aren't painted on, it's mainly hue and colour variation of a basic material colour.
It's usually also good if you slap a GI lighting bake on a Multiply layer above, so the "crevices" of the model get darker without affecting the other parts, makes it look a bit more natural and detailed.
Your texture is a really good start, IF it was for just a regular non-normal mapped model ... the highlights would get really bright and blown-out in game if you use that at the moment.
The secret lies into a succesful balance between details put into the diffuse, heightmap, normal map.. and ofcourse the specular map. Small geometry details like fabrics and creases in skin should be done in the heightmap where as general geometry/lighting info is stored in the normalmap and the highlights/shine I store in the specular map.
atleast that's how i understand it, I have limited knowledge how it really works but I feel I'm getting the hang of it with the amount of doom3 moddin i've been doing as of late.
I'm gonna start my skin on this now.
Break down your materials, and be very gentle with the specmap on the fleshy bits.
I terms of shading in the diffuse map, it *can* help to have a bit of lighting info in it somtimes. BUT what you mostly need in there is a 'dirt' pass as Mop stated : not a texture overlay, but shading showing where parts of the model are 'stuck' in shadows. (think eyesockets aso) You can clearly see that in the textures shipped with doom3.
Good luck!
I'm almost tempted to go for that abe pic oldman put but I'll just see how this pans out first.
- Aqua Boy WIP 1 -
- Aqua Boy WIP 2 -