Here's the sdk...if someone wants to do a better texturing job than me. Included is a max file, obj, texture, and photoshop file with UVs, AO, and my Diffuse.
If you could make this work in game, marshmonkey, the files are in there...
Marsh, I was totally going to do a pirate ship! At least you did it justice, more than justice, that is. Kickass. I'm gonna get to the rest of the train soon, just gotta find some time. Do you think it can have particle goodness coming out of the stack? I was going to paint up some sprites for you. Also can the stack deform like your other exhaust pipes do? If so, I'll have to try and set that up for you so its as easy as possible to get into-engine.
if it fits near the bounding box and has the wheels in the right place it will work. Right now we don't define any particles via each kart. We are still having some issues with parenting a particle emitter to a kart and getting it to face the right direction. An idle animation with the smoke stack pumping up and down would be very easy to do though.
The engine, seat and steering wheel are still in the same place, only higher. If the wheels are bigger, but near the right place, and the cart is slightly higher would that be ok?
Right now the wheels are placed by the game, so they aren't changeable.
We are thinking about keeping making these sock monkies in different colors and auctioning one off once a month or so, with all money going to help fund development. What do you think?
Ouch, been working through all this new stuff for awhile. Having progress but it's comin hard.
To start this is the first time i've used any of these programs, first time I've messed with AO maps, and first time I've finished a vehicle (I started this as a low poly truck awhile back and never got far...)
Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I pester you with a few Q's marchmonkey.
1: I finally got Xnormals to work, made the AO map and got my model into Lexi-View.
It was on it's side and squished but was evenly lit.
I messed around with XNormals and got it aligned and centered to grid correctly, whether or not it's still aligned with your car I don't know.
However, now the front and back are black and not lighting correctly. Any idea what's causing that?
2:I've been reading through your workflow, have the AO map and have my colors on layers. Few Q's on that though.
first-Your color masks are white, is the background transparent? On the wed site it is blue like the website.
second-I'm not clear on colors 100%. I realize you can have 3 changeable colors, hence the masks. colormask, colormask2...
It seems like if you want white you just paint white on the occulsion, then mask it out (transparent? - back to that again)
You don't mention black however, I suppose this is oppositie white. If occlusion is black tex will be black, no need to mask?
Might as well get em all out of the way, believe me I've been looking but I'm slow...
3:You said in read-me for character/car that you can move the player rig to match hands to steering wheel? Does this mean the seat can be moved to players new position?
4:Do I need to make links for wheels? Or is their position based off of the center of car? What is the max turning angle of wheels? I had a clipping issue when I turned, edited the mesh and right now I can get about 17* before clipping.
5:You stated somewhere also to use multiple materials for specular/non-specular. I haven't tried yet, I suppose that doesn't effect color masks at all.
Well, I'll leave it at that for now as I know you've got plenty to do. I've been having fun with this though, can't wait for the game.
This is the only exporter I have found so far that's complete and free to use with Max http://www.ofusiontechnologies.com/downloads.html
Seems to work well enough, all the exporters listed on the Ogre Wiki seem to be dead end loops.
1: I finally got Xnormals to work, made the AO map and got my model into Lexi-View.
It was on it's side and squished but was evenly lit.
I messed around with XNormals and got it aligned and centered to grid correctly, whether or not it's still aligned with your car I don't know.
However, now the front and back are black and not lighting correctly. Any idea what's causing that?
XNormals should have nothing to do with where your mesh is situated, all I use it for is to generate a flat for use in the final texture. If your model is not showing up correctly compared to the way you have it modeled, you need to check out the options on your exporter and make sure you have units set to meters, and you may need to flip the y and z axis or something like that.
2:I've been reading through your workflow, have the AO map and have my colors on layers. Few Q's on that though.
first-Your color masks are white, is the background transparent? On the wed site it is blue like the website.
second-I'm not clear on colors 100%. I realize you can have 3 changeable colors, hence the masks. colormask, colormask2...
It seems like if you want white you just paint white on the occulsion, then mask it out (transparent? - back to that again)
You don't mention black however, I suppose this is oppositie white. If occlusion is black tex will be black, no need to mask?
The color mask png's are white with a transparent background. I am not actually sure if it matters what color the alpha'd bits are, as in the material script I believe it is using the alpha mask itself.
You can have up to 6 customizable colors. How the material is set up is this: The engine takes the solid portion of the colormask, fills it with a color and modulates it (multiplies) it with the base lum texture underneath. The reason the letters on the button were white is simply becuase I made them white in the base lum texture, they could have been black or orange or whatever and since no parts of the color mask were multiplying colors over it, it would remain that color.
3:You said in read-me for character/car that you can move the player rig to match hands to steering wheel? Does this mean the seat can be moved to players new position?
I just meant that if you are making a character, you have some fiddle room as to where you position the skeleton if it is such a shape as you need to do so. The hands do need to match up with the steering wheel though. I had mentioned that we will probably support the ability to define where the player is positioned as a function of a kart setup, but if you moved that, you would have to make sure to move the steering wheel of the kart the same amount.
4:Do I need to make links for wheels? Or is their position based off of the center of car? What is the max turning angle of wheels? I had a clipping issue when I turned, edited the mesh and right now I can get about 17* before clipping.
no, as it stands now, the wheel positions and sizes are fixed.
5:You stated somewhere also to use multiple materials for specular/non-specular. I haven't tried yet, I suppose that doesn't effect color masks at all.
It does, in that you can only change the color on one material at a time. So if you have a kart with one section you want to be shiny, and you use a separate material for those bits, you can't change a color across both, they would have to be split up into separate named texture units even if it looks like they should use the same customizable color.
mm, sorry, I meant X-Form (in 3dsmax) not x normals. Starting to wear out
I've got it positioned right, just getting weird lighting at the moment.
I really appreciate the thorough answers.
I guess I'm a bit confused about the steering wheel bit yet. I modelled my truck around your car. So the wheels and steering wheel are in same place. I loaded up the posed character and he's in the seat, yet his hands don't reach the steering wheel.
I saw the ma and mb files included, but I don't have maya.
So I guess further Q's about the car/char set-up are coming:
1-when I export the car I do it sans wheels? Do I just export one wheel centered on grid? Then the garage places said wheel?
2-Do I need to export vehilce with character skeleton? If so is it possible for you to upload an FBX file for max users?
Again, sorry. I know you are trying to get around to release and this stuff will all be available eventually anyway. I've just had a hard time getting motivated to model recently and this seems to be a cure
I pretty much copy/pasted your material file. Having probs with that though. If I load model with the exported material I get my truck in viewer with the AO material and said lighting issue. But if I use your material file (with my names) inserted I get this error:
(I've double/Triple checked for old files, etc...)
Ogre Exception:(Item Identity Exception) resource with the name minitruk_chrome already exists. In resource manager::add at../src/ogreResourceManager.cpp (line 113)
no problem, they could be things other people are wondering as well. In some strange future where I have some time I will need to write up some proper documentation. Having the garage is going to help enormously once it is released.
My guy might not be properly positioned in the kart, he might be too far back. If the steering wheel is in the same position as in the ref kart then that is the important bit.
All the items are exported separate, so yes - kart is exported sans wheels, wheels are exported as a single wheel at 0,0,0. No character skeleton should be exported with the kart.
There should be no lighting issues if you have lighting off on all your materials and the diffuse is set to 1 1 1 1. What you might be seeing is the issue skizot had where you have the rim lighting applied and you also have max open while in the viewer, in which case max messes with the tgs files of the rimlighting cubemap for some reason. Try closing max and then loading up the viewer.
"resource with the name minitruk_chrome already exists"
this is becuase Ogre does not like having two things named the same anywhere. The viewer loads every resource it can find in the same directory as your model, and if there is another material file in the folder which has a material named minitruk_chrome, even if it is not used on the model you are trying to view it will come up with this error. Just rename one of the materials in both max and the .material file and re-export the model.
I tried lots of stuff, nothing worked. took a break.
Started in viewer with spec and matte Ao material. Then add one line at a time to material file and kept reloading lexi view. No probs, I have colors.
Though my AO doesn't seem to show through the colors.
I did figure out that I can have a mask work in both 'channels' (matte and spec). Kindof cool, I suppose if it works in viewer it would work in engine. Not sure if that would mess up the color picker though.
Currently I have windows and lic.plate on one mask, the windows have spec material, the plate had matte. I can choose their colors seperate. Would this make 2 color swatches to choose in garage?
I also have other color masks per channel. 2 tone paint on matte, etc... chrome bumpers on spec.
Awesome idea for a wheel, goes with the barnacles good.
Think I'm done buggin ya for awhile.
I did figure out what the Ogre/Lexi Viewer material issue was though. Not sure how to fix it but have found a workaround.
When exporting a single mesh that has multiple standard materials applied, the oFusion exporter for max combines them into a sub-object material.
So Standard Max materials named 'matte' and 'specular' become:
material#35/matte and material#35/specular.
They remain seperate materials in the exported material file, and the mesh file still has 2 materials on it, but you can't edit the names in the mesh, so you have to leave the material files material names the same.
Lexi-viewer will not open this file.
So, I first exported a 3ds file. The materials get combined into a sub-object material.
Import that 3ds into a clean Max file. Without doing anything to materials I export that with oFusion to an .osm mesh and material. The material file looks the same and the material names are the same.
Theoretically it shouldn't open in Lexi_View. But it will now.
I have tried this several times and get the same results each time.
Okay, I've gotten through midterms, so now I have a little more free time to start looking into getting my army helmet and cigar into OGRE-readable formats. Problem is I'm using Luxology modo. Modo is compatible with Lightwave files, and while the OGRE site lists LWO exporters, there's no place there to download either of them. So unless anybody can offer up one, I'm going to try going through Blender.
Sorry for the lapse in updates, this month I am working on some lame contract work in order to pay the bills. I am working on some ZG stuff in my spare time, but it is so secret I cannot show it here !!
It has been a little while since we posted an update - Brian has been a little bogged down moving to another apartment in San Fransisco, and I have been slightly derailed doing some non game related contract work to bring in some more development funds.
But here is just a little feature we got working last weekend, a "look-back" key that you can press to check out what it going on behind you. I think it will be very useful!
cool, I will check it out for sure. We don't have really solid plans yet - for the little videos I have just been buying royalty free stuff like this. For the actual game I am not sure what we will do, the sound guy we are working with is going to try and make some music for us too.
Nice job man:poly123: the progression is felt. Love the colour selector, a unique part that is often overlooked in many games. Please include that music!
The engine at the front just sorta takes away from the look of the skull. It would be more recongnisable if it had just holes there, like in the previous update. Still, will be buying this one for certain.
[edit] BTW, are you guys taking donations? [/edit]
yea, bit iffy on it myself. Was trying to stick the engine under the jawbone there but there wasn't much room.
We are not taking donations right now, we would feel strange taking money for effectively nothing. We would like to fund raise though by providing something, even if it is small. My girlfriend is making sock monkies to match the sock monkey character in the game and we had the idea of auctioning them off to try and raise some money.
hopefully those auctions don't get up too high, because I really want one!!! That skull cart looks really cool the engine placement looks good. Looking forward to seeing it textured.
haha that's awesome, marsh.
Is there any ETA on a beta/test release maybe? I posted on your forums as well, that I was interested in making a custom track. But I can't just make something without being able to playtest, etc etc.
The first thing we will have out is the stand alone garage editor, and after that we are going to have set up some sort of beta before IGF sumbissions close - I don't know if it will be open or closed yet.
marshmonkey has released obj files of everything for refs. They worked good for me. they are probably about 3 pages back, maybe up at the Zero Gear site too.
oh thank you,
that means I have to cut from now on some polygons and reduce some stuff
my current SL300
fits perfectly your default goKart because I didn´t knew if the wheel distance can be changed or even the wheel radius, width or size.
I can't wait to see it textured and shiny! It is good you kept the wheel positions and size, those are all static. The only thing that can be moved currently is the player position.
few crits
I am with bitmap on the logo, could be copyright issues. The player's hand come off the wheel in some animations to wave around and such - it looks like they would clip through the windscreen at the moment. The back looks like it could use a bumper or some kind of ornament, especially since you will be looking at the back most of the time.
those things aside, I think you really nailed our style.
Replies
And awesome doll. I wish my girlfriend would hand make a doll for me.
You could sell that shit once the game is released.
Here's the sdk...if someone wants to do a better texturing job than me. Included is a max file, obj, texture, and photoshop file with UVs, AO, and my Diffuse.
If you could make this work in game, marshmonkey, the files are in there...
http://www.codywright.com/files/smiley.zip
We are thinking about keeping making these sock monkies in different colors and auctioning one off once a month or so, with all money going to help fund development. What do you think?
To start this is the first time i've used any of these programs, first time I've messed with AO maps, and first time I've finished a vehicle (I started this as a low poly truck awhile back and never got far...)
Anyway, I hope you don't mind if I pester you with a few Q's marchmonkey.
1: I finally got Xnormals to work, made the AO map and got my model into Lexi-View.
It was on it's side and squished but was evenly lit.
I messed around with XNormals and got it aligned and centered to grid correctly, whether or not it's still aligned with your car I don't know.
However, now the front and back are black and not lighting correctly. Any idea what's causing that?
2:I've been reading through your workflow, have the AO map and have my colors on layers. Few Q's on that though.
first-Your color masks are white, is the background transparent? On the wed site it is blue like the website.
second-I'm not clear on colors 100%. I realize you can have 3 changeable colors, hence the masks. colormask, colormask2...
It seems like if you want white you just paint white on the occulsion, then mask it out (transparent? - back to that again)
You don't mention black however, I suppose this is oppositie white. If occlusion is black tex will be black, no need to mask?
Might as well get em all out of the way, believe me I've been looking but I'm slow...
3:You said in read-me for character/car that you can move the player rig to match hands to steering wheel? Does this mean the seat can be moved to players new position?
4:Do I need to make links for wheels? Or is their position based off of the center of car? What is the max turning angle of wheels? I had a clipping issue when I turned, edited the mesh and right now I can get about 17* before clipping.
5:You stated somewhere also to use multiple materials for specular/non-specular. I haven't tried yet, I suppose that doesn't effect color masks at all.
Well, I'll leave it at that for now as I know you've got plenty to do. I've been having fun with this though, can't wait for the game.
This is the only exporter I have found so far that's complete and free to use with Max
http://www.ofusiontechnologies.com/downloads.html
Seems to work well enough, all the exporters listed on the Ogre Wiki seem to be dead end loops.
You can have up to 6 customizable colors. How the material is set up is this: The engine takes the solid portion of the colormask, fills it with a color and modulates it (multiplies) it with the base lum texture underneath. The reason the letters on the button were white is simply becuase I made them white in the base lum texture, they could have been black or orange or whatever and since no parts of the color mask were multiplying colors over it, it would remain that color. I just meant that if you are making a character, you have some fiddle room as to where you position the skeleton if it is such a shape as you need to do so. The hands do need to match up with the steering wheel though. I had mentioned that we will probably support the ability to define where the player is positioned as a function of a kart setup, but if you moved that, you would have to make sure to move the steering wheel of the kart the same amount. no, as it stands now, the wheel positions and sizes are fixed. It does, in that you can only change the color on one material at a time. So if you have a kart with one section you want to be shiny, and you use a separate material for those bits, you can't change a color across both, they would have to be split up into separate named texture units even if it looks like they should use the same customizable color.
I've got it positioned right, just getting weird lighting at the moment.
I really appreciate the thorough answers.
I guess I'm a bit confused about the steering wheel bit yet. I modelled my truck around your car. So the wheels and steering wheel are in same place. I loaded up the posed character and he's in the seat, yet his hands don't reach the steering wheel.
I saw the ma and mb files included, but I don't have maya.
So I guess further Q's about the car/char set-up are coming:
1-when I export the car I do it sans wheels? Do I just export one wheel centered on grid? Then the garage places said wheel?
2-Do I need to export vehilce with character skeleton? If so is it possible for you to upload an FBX file for max users?
Again, sorry. I know you are trying to get around to release and this stuff will all be available eventually anyway. I've just had a hard time getting motivated to model recently and this seems to be a cure
I pretty much copy/pasted your material file. Having probs with that though. If I load model with the exported material I get my truck in viewer with the AO material and said lighting issue. But if I use your material file (with my names) inserted I get this error:
(I've double/Triple checked for old files, etc...)
Ogre Exception:(Item Identity Exception) resource with the name minitruk_chrome already exists. In resource manager::add at../src/ogreResourceManager.cpp (line 113)
material minitruk_chrome { technique { pass { lighting off ambient 0 0 0 1 diffuse 1 1 1 1 specular 0 0 0 1 emissive 0 0 0 // set color texture_unit Color1 { texture minitruk_colormask.png colour_op_ex blend_texture_alpha src_manual src_current 1 0 0 } texture_unit { texture minitruk_lum.png tex_coord_set 0 colour_op modulate scale 1 1 scroll 0 0 rotate 0 } // env map texture_unit { cubic_texture cubemap.png combinedUVW tex_address_mode clamp colour_op_ex add src_texture src_current colour_op_multipass_fallback one one env_map cubic_reflection } //rimlighting texture_unit { cubic_texture rim50.tga combinedUVW tex_address_mode clamp colour_op_ex add src_texture src_current colour_op_multipass_fallback one one env_map cubic_normal } } } } material minitruk { technique { pass { lighting off ambient 0 0 0 1 diffuse 1 1 1 1 specular 0 0 0 1 emissive 0 0 0 // set color texture_unit Color1 { texture minitruk_colormask.png colour_op_ex blend_texture_alpha src_manual src_current 1 0 0 } texture_unit { texture minitruk_lum.png tex_coord_set 0 colour_op modulate scale 1 1 scroll 0 0 rotate 0 } //rimlighting texture_unit { cubic_texture rim50.tga combinedUVW tex_address_mode clamp colour_op_ex add src_texture src_current colour_op_multipass_fallback one one env_map cubic_normal } } } }My model mesh, material, all textures, all cubemaps and env maps (from steam googles) are in one folder.
My guy might not be properly positioned in the kart, he might be too far back. If the steering wheel is in the same position as in the ref kart then that is the important bit.
All the items are exported separate, so yes - kart is exported sans wheels, wheels are exported as a single wheel at 0,0,0. No character skeleton should be exported with the kart.
There should be no lighting issues if you have lighting off on all your materials and the diffuse is set to 1 1 1 1. What you might be seeing is the issue skizot had where you have the rim lighting applied and you also have max open while in the viewer, in which case max messes with the tgs files of the rimlighting cubemap for some reason. Try closing max and then loading up the viewer.
"resource with the name minitruk_chrome already exists"
this is becuase Ogre does not like having two things named the same anywhere. The viewer loads every resource it can find in the same directory as your model, and if there is another material file in the folder which has a material named minitruk_chrome, even if it is not used on the model you are trying to view it will come up with this error. Just rename one of the materials in both max and the .material file and re-export the model.
I tried lots of stuff, nothing worked. took a break.
Started in viewer with spec and matte Ao material. Then add one line at a time to material file and kept reloading lexi view. No probs, I have colors.
Though my AO doesn't seem to show through the colors.
I did figure out that I can have a mask work in both 'channels' (matte and spec). Kindof cool, I suppose if it works in viewer it would work in engine. Not sure if that would mess up the color picker though.
Currently I have windows and lic.plate on one mask, the windows have spec material, the plate had matte. I can choose their colors seperate. Would this make 2 color swatches to choose in garage?
I also have other color masks per channel. 2 tone paint on matte, etc... chrome bumpers on spec.
here are some starfish on a sand dollar wheels for the pirate ship (or any kart)
Think I'm done buggin ya for awhile.
I did figure out what the Ogre/Lexi Viewer material issue was though. Not sure how to fix it but have found a workaround.
When exporting a single mesh that has multiple standard materials applied, the oFusion exporter for max combines them into a sub-object material.
So Standard Max materials named 'matte' and 'specular' become:
material#35/matte and material#35/specular.
They remain seperate materials in the exported material file, and the mesh file still has 2 materials on it, but you can't edit the names in the mesh, so you have to leave the material files material names the same.
Lexi-viewer will not open this file.
So, I first exported a 3ds file. The materials get combined into a sub-object material.
Import that 3ds into a clean Max file. Without doing anything to materials I export that with oFusion to an .osm mesh and material. The material file looks the same and the material names are the same.
Theoretically it shouldn't open in Lexi_View. But it will now.
I have tried this several times and get the same results each time.
btw the real sock puppet on the blog is awesome
nah lol good to hear it's still goin. i just got used to reading updates so often, then they stopped and i was sad
But here is just a little feature we got working last weekend, a "look-back" key that you can press to check out what it going on behind you. I think it will be very useful!
http://vimeo.com/1329610
I just found this :
http://musicbakery.com/royalty-free-Techno-music-downloads-mp3.htm
'Techno-Sports' kindof fits, in a nice cheesy way!
Here is a video of the garage which we have been working on:
*edit* you can see some of pior's work snuck in there
[edit] BTW, are you guys taking donations? [/edit]
We are not taking donations right now, we would feel strange taking money for effectively nothing. We would like to fund raise though by providing something, even if it is small. My girlfriend is making sock monkies to match the sock monkey character in the game and we had the idea of auctioning them off to try and raise some money.
*edit* stuck the engine in the back
hopefully they DO get up high, that means we get to spend more time making the game and less time doing other work to keep us fed!
Is there any ETA on a beta/test release maybe? I posted on your forums as well, that I was interested in making a custom track. But I can't just make something without being able to playtest, etc etc.
Nice work
http://www.pioroberson.com/files/ZG_driverrig_obj.zip
I really need to write some guidelines soon. Wish I wasn't so busy.
that means I have to cut from now on some polygons and reduce some stuff
my current SL300
fits perfectly your default goKart because I didn´t knew if the wheel distance can be changed or even the wheel radius, width or size.
maybe change the merecedes logo with the peace logo?
I can't wait to see it textured and shiny! It is good you kept the wheel positions and size, those are all static. The only thing that can be moved currently is the player position.
few crits
I am with bitmap on the logo, could be copyright issues. The player's hand come off the wheel in some animations to wave around and such - it looks like they would clip through the windscreen at the moment. The back looks like it could use a bumper or some kind of ornament, especially since you will be looking at the back most of the time.
those things aside, I think you really nailed our style.