Half Life2 modeling

TechSmith

I was wondering if HL2 is happier with single mesh models or if multiple object models are acceptable. I'm thinking of doing an art test for a MOD and they're using the HL2 engine. So any advice would be helpful.

MoP

An art test for a mod? Sounds pretty unnecessary to me, heh...
I don't know about HL2 modelling - do you mean character models or environment models?
I assume multiple meshes are fine, but I might be wrong...

TechSmith

Character meshes. Unfortunately I'm completely ignorant of HL2's capabilities.

Sean McBride

Well... from our (artists) perspective as far as characters go right now... using the inbox character code we can only use one mesh (object) models, but they can have tons of separate uvw maps on them. Just changed the material id on a specific section and unwrap that as a totaly different texture map. I'm fairly sure they can be all the way up to 2048x2048. They can also vary in size. Its pretty freeform as far as textures go. I'm working on a mod right now and had to pretty much figure all this stuff out for myself as there are no real character tutorials right now. There's so much info you could write a small book about it. Good luck, If you have any questions just post them here or email me.

Rakile

I'm currently working with HL2 myself, on the animation side. From what I've seen of the models they provide with the SDK, they are single meshes. I think multiple meshes might be seen as animated attachments rather than part of the character, but I'm not certain. There's a lot that I can't seem to find difinate answers on.

TechSmith

Thanks guys I've been all over the web today looking for information. Documentation for this is sparse. I wish they had something like the UDN, it would make life easier.

Onto more technical questions. What kind of texture maps are used for the character models? Can you use bump, spec or normal maps on them? Also how much lighting needs to painted in? It looks like there is some real time lighting but I'm not sure how much since I don't even own the game.

Snowfly

There's this..
http://www.valve-erc.com/srcsdk/
Posted it in another thread already. It's not too well known I guess.

TechSmith

Very helpful link, thanks Snowfly. It answered my texture question completely. However I couldn't find a definitive answer to my geometry question. A bit more research or just some trial and error will give the answer probably.

Snowfly

Yeah I couldn't find anything on multiple meshes there either, which is why I defaulted to just posting the link.

I'm pretty sure I read somwhere that you can have multiple meshes as long as they are bound to a single heirarchy. But I wonder how that would affect the shading..that is if they are intersecting meshes.

TechSmith

I guess we'll find out later. I can't even test it since I don't have the game yet.