No need to worry about the skin, I've dealt with far far worse than this before.
On a totally separate note, it's also worth noting the vertex normals on the front part of the body aren't tweaked yet, so seams are visible. Ignore em'.
Anyone here know about Bodygroups? More specifically I want to make an item that replaces the Scouts dogtags and I need to know how to use body groups to turn them off.
I dont think you can activate them yourself, but if you want to just test it in game, make it replace the sign of the wolf school
Looks nice. I'm doing a hoodie and boots set too.
It kind of makes me not even want to submit mine at this point... :S
On a side note:
Can anyone tell me how to get bones into my ItemTest compile of my item or modify the SMD I kicked out of Max to merge the bones from that into my stuff I made in ItemTest? And if anyone could give an example of paint-able textures and how they should be modified to be painted other than the code for the VMT that'd be great too.
I've been looking over the documentation on Valve's Dev Community site, but I can't find a solid answer on what to do.
I honestly have no idea what to do with the any of this stuff right now and it's pretty frustrating.
Can anyone tell me how to get bones into my ItemTest compile of my item or modify the SMD I kicked out of Max to merge the bones from that into my stuff I made in ItemTest? And if anyone could give an example of paint-able textures and how they should be modified to be painted other than the code for the VMT that'd be great too.
I was out with friends last night, so by the time I saw your message you'd logged off. :P
Not sure what you mean by merging bones into itemtest... itemtest really can't handle anything more than bip_head, so I'd strongly recommend compiling with GUIStudio and writing your qc file by hand. I only use itemtest to generate the zip and folder structure and then do everything else manually. And I think a lot of other people do the same thing.
For paintable textures, here's an example from my nutcrackers. I shrunk it down but should be pretty clear:
I was out with friends last night, so by the time I saw your message you'd logged off. :P
Not sure what you mean by merging bones into itemtest... itemtest really can't handle anything more than bip_head, so I'd strongly recommend compiling with GUIStudio and writing your qc file by hand. I only use itemtest to generate the zip and folder structure and then do everything else manually. And I think a lot of other people do the same thing.
For paintable textures, here's an example from my nutcrackers. I shrunk it down but should be pretty clear:
And that creates something like this:
Ah, I see. Thanks for the timely response!
I'll fiddle around with that GUIStudio later tonight and see if I can make some magic happen.
Now in the texture, are their any special naming convention for the alpha? Can I have more than one alpha or is it pretty much only limited to one?
Now in the texture, are their any special naming convention for the alpha? Can I have more than one alpha or is it pretty much only limited to one?
Nah. The alpha is a channel in the vtf. Dunno if you use VTFEdit or the photoshop plugin, but either one will let you save a greyscale image as the alpha channel in a vtf.
Nah. The alpha is a channel in the vtf. Dunno if you use VTFEdit or the photoshop plugin, but either one will let you save a greyscale image as the alpha channel in a vtf.
I haven't used either of those.
Another thing to thing play with!
Would you recommend the plug in or the actual program?
Damn man, when this whole item creation thing is over, I think I'm gonna compile a tutorial or something of all this stuff I've learned.
Seriously, some of those Source modding/asset creation tutorials NEED to be updated.
I haven't used either of those.
Another thing to thing play with!
Would you recommend the plug in or the actual program?
I recommend the plugin honestly. It's way more convenient if you're making the textures in photoshop.
But if you're trying to match colours perfectly bear in mind it shifts colours slightly towards green when it saves. Not anything to worry about it unless you're trying to match a colour exactly, and in that case you'll have to do some minor colour correction to address it. I don't know if VTFEdit does it as well.
Wait, wait... if you're not using the plugin and not using VTFEdit, how are you making vtf files?
Not Christmas themed but I'm still fairly new at this and I doubt id get anything done before Christmas anyway. This is the first of a set of medic weapon I'm working on. This one would function like The Sandman.
I am still having issues finding the information I need to learn how to rig things and how to get materials to behave the way I want. One of my big problems s figuring out how to recompile because I cant seem to get that to work...
If anyone could point me in the direction of some of this information that would be great.
And had a wild idea last night, finished up a little bit ago. Lot of people on the steam forums want another BMOC, so I thought maybe an MvM style Santa hat would work:
I recommend the plugin honestly. It's way more convenient if you're making the textures in photoshop.
But if you're trying to match colours perfectly bear in mind it shifts colours slightly towards green when it saves. Not anything to worry about it unless you're trying to match a colour exactly, and in that case you'll have to do some minor colour correction to address it. I don't know if VTFEdit does it as well.
Wait, wait... if you're not using the plugin and not using VTFEdit, how are you making vtf files?
Good to know.
Oh when I put it in ItemTest it made a vtf and a vtm out of my Targa.
Right now, I've been reading some tutorials on getting the bones in from the SMD during compiling and it's talking about having a reference, idle, and phys/collision SMD export.
(I'm following this for reference: http://www.polycount.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-71741.html)
They're using a hat for their test, but I'm not sure in my case if I'm going to export the bones with all the SMDs or if I put them in select ones.
Also, I did some exporting of my SMDs out of Max and I don't have QCs from them... Have no idea why it does that.
For hats & misc it's not really necessary to worry about idle anims and physics. Just use one of your reference LODs for the idle and use $automass for the physics.
By way of example, here's the qc I used for the spy's version of the Clad-Iron Claus. It's very simple.
If you do weapons, you can still use $automass but you just need to be sure the weapon lies on the ground when you die with it out (ammo pickup). That's about it as far as character-carried physics is concerned.
If you're making props for maps, then yes, depending on what it is, you have to get the physics correct since people will be directly bumping into/walking on top of/etc the prop. And you may or may not need a discrete idle animation, depending on what the prop is meant to do in the map.
So TLDR, it depends on what you're trying to do. Hats are probably the simplest thing you can make because there's so little you have to worry about.
---
The smd and qc files are seperate things. Think of an smd as being your raw object plus bones/weightmap plus timeframe/animation info. The qc file is how you tell the model compiler what to do with that info in the smd, where the model should be, where the finished model will look for textures, etc.
I don't think max can automatically generate a qc. Maybe there's a plugin that does that, but I'd imagine it's pretty pointless. Once you start understanding how the qc commands work, it's straightforward to make a qc file. It only starts getting complicated when you're making characters instead of props and hats.
I say go ahead and follow that tutorial fully. Do everything it says, do some reading on the valve developer wiki, and just try to understand why you're doing what you're doing in each step.
I need advice from someone who has made 3rd person TF2 animations. I'm making a mod with new weapon that requires a set of 3rd person animations so the Scout will hold the gun correctly and the reload will look right. Problem is when I decompile the Scouts animation file the skeleton is all torn apart and stretched when I import it to Max, making the files unusable as a base to make adjustments to. Do any of you guys know how I can decomp the animations so they are not broken? Or perhaps one of you has them decompiled already?
Have you tried the files in sourcesdk_content\tf\modelsrc\player\scout\parts? I used the spy smd from the sourcesdk_content folders and was able to import it with the skin/weightmap intact no problem.
Alternately, there's a set that someone here on polycount decompiled, but I think those may just be objs.
Have you tried the files in sourcesdk_content\tf\modelsrc\player\scout\parts? I used the spy smd from the sourcesdk_content folders and was able to import it with the skin/weightmap intact no problem.
Alternately, there's a set that someone here on polycount decompiled, but I think those may just be objs.
Holy piss, all the third person animations are there in .DMX. Just gotta figure out how to work with em in max. Pretty sure I can convert them to OBJ so this should solve everything. Thank much!
For hats & misc it's not really necessary to worry about idle anims and physics. Just use one of your reference LODs for the idle and use $automass for the physics.
By way of example, here's the qc I used for the spy's version of the Clad-Iron Claus. It's very simple.
If you do weapons, you can still use $automass but you just need to be sure the weapon lies on the ground when you die with it out (ammo pickup). That's about it as far as character-carried physics is concerned.
If you're making props for maps, then yes, depending on what it is, you have to get the physics correct since people will be directly bumping into/walking on top of/etc the prop. And you may or may not need a discrete idle animation, depending on what the prop is meant to do in the map.
So TLDR, it depends on what you're trying to do. Hats are probably the simplest thing you can make because there's so little you have to worry about.
---
The smd and qc files are seperate things. Think of an smd as being your raw object plus bones/weightmap plus timeframe/animation info. The qc file is how you tell the model compiler what to do with that info in the smd, where the model should be, where the finished model will look for textures, etc.
I don't think max can automatically generate a qc. Maybe there's a plugin that does that, but I'd imagine it's pretty pointless. Once you start understanding how the qc commands work, it's straightforward to make a qc file. It only starts getting complicated when you're making characters instead of props and hats.
I say go ahead and follow that tutorial fully. Do everything it says, do some reading on the valve developer wiki, and just try to understand why you're doing what you're doing in each step.
Oh thanks for that example!
Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to do much more reading with this.
Though I'm starting to get all this stuff now, which feels good! :>
back from the grave, feel like ive been gone forever(damnit work/life)
started this the other day, still working on it and there are some smoothing issues around the barrel but ill fix those soon. inspired by a ppsh. there will be 2 styles the one pictured(in an attempt to give it a holiday feel the ammo drum is wrapped up like a present) there will also be a style with a none wrapped ammo drum
ill be picking up the spy set back up in a bit, didn't want my first thing i do in my return being pulling my hair out trying to get the watch compiled
Good news everyone, my coat now has PHHHHHYYYSSSICS!!
The hood, tussles, and zipper all have their own movements.
(I'll make a video of it later on this weekend.)
Though this also seg-ways into, hopefully, my last two problems.
It won't load the textures properly (pretty sure that's in my QC) and I'm not sure if I put the paintable code in the right spot on my VMT.
Well, I've said it before, but it's buried in the thread and it can always stand repeating.
If you're getting purple & black textures, there's really only one cause: a wrong path.
1) The name of the texture in the smd is wrong or doesn't match the name of the vmt (open up the smd in a text editor and look for "triangles" -- right after that line will be the first texture name line, sometimes with tga, png or bmp after it depending on what modeling software you use and what texture you assigned in it).
2) The path to the vmt defined in the qc is incorrect or the vmt is missing
3) The path inside the vmt to the vtf is incorrect or the vtf is missing
Well, I've said it before, but it's buried in the thread and it can always stand repeating.
If you're getting purple & black textures, there's really only one cause: a wrong path.
1) The name of the texture in the smd is wrong or doesn't match the name of the vmt (open up the smd in a text editor and look for "triangles" -- right after that line will be the first texture name line, sometimes with tga, png or bmp after it depending on what modeling software you use and what texture you assigned in it).
2) The path to the vmt defined in the qc is incorrect or the vmt is missing
3) The path inside the vmt to the vtf is incorrect or the vtf is missing
It's always a variant of one of the above.
Huh, I looked at my smds in Notepad++ and it can't find anything like "triangles" or anything with .tga/ect.
Does the .tga have to be in the same folder as my QC and smds?
Also, do I just change its extensions to .vmt?
Oh also, since I'm really close to being able to submit this; how can I get it so the character loads with the item in ModelViewer?
I think I might even try Source Filmmaker for a nice Beauty Shot of it- though I barely got to use that program this semester.
Huh, I looked at my smds in Notepad++ and it can't find anything like "triangles" or anything with .tga/ect.
Does the .tga have to be in the same folder as my QC and smds?
Also, do I just change its extensions to .vmt?
Oh also, since I'm really close to being able to submit this; how can I get it so the character loads with the item in ModelViewer?
I think I might even try Source Filmmaker for a nice Beauty Shot of it- though I barely got to use that program this semester.
2) The extension in the smd is irrelevant; only the name matters, and that name needs to match the name of your vtf in materials/models/players/items/<whatever your path is>. The location of the tga (or png or jpg or whatever) you used in your modeling program doesn't matter.
3) No, you have to actually save it as a vtf using photoshop or VTFEdit. The vmt is a text file; you'd probably be better off using VTFEdit since I think that generates the vmt as well as the vtf.
4) In HLMV, load your class model (pyro, medic, whatever) and then go to file -> load weapon (even if it's a hat or misc). Actually it might be edit -> load weapon, but it's on one of the menus.
Tip: If you load up a class model, then a hat, then you load up the hat by itself and suddenly find that you can't change the skin, click "unload weapon." HLMV sometimes double loads items like that.
2) The extension in the smd is irrelevant; only the name matters, and that name needs to match the name of your vtf in materials/models/players/items/<whatever your path is>. The location of the tga (or png or jpg or whatever) you used in your modeling program doesn't matter.
3) No, you have to actually save it as a vtf using photoshop or VTFEdit. The vmt is a text file; you'd probably be better off using VTFEdit since I think that generates the vmt as well as the vtf.
4) In HLMV, load your class model (pyro, medic, whatever) and then go to file -> load weapon (even if it's a hat or misc). Actually it might be edit -> load weapon, but it's on one of the menus.
Tip: If you load up a class model, then a hat, then you load up the hat by itself and suddenly find that you can't change the skin, click "unload weapon." HLMV sometimes double loads items like that.
I guess I'm going to have to add that manually to all the smds then.
Now will I have to put in both the skins on each smd, for example:
"version 1
///Stuff
end
triangles
c_wrappin.tga
c_wrappin_b.tga
[etc - vertex data]"
Or will it know to use c_wrappin_b for the second skin by default?
Also "triangle" is at the very last "end" of the document, correct?
It's not a good idea to do that manually. You can hand edit the smds, but doing more than a search/replace on a texture name is a waste of time.
You need to go back to your modeling program and find out why it's not exporting with the texture. It may not be exporting the UVs at all, in which case you adding the texture to the smd will be tedious and accomplish nothing.
Don't do anything with the second skin in the smd. That's handled by the QC. All you need is that texture name, and it needs to match the first skin in the QC. Everything else is handled by the QC.
It's not a good idea to do that manually. You can hand edit the smds, but doing more than a search/replace on a texture name is a waste of time.
You need to go back to your modeling program and find out why it's not exporting with the texture. It may not be exporting the UVs at all, in which case you adding the texture to the smd will be tedious and accomplish nothing.
Don't do anything with the second skin in the smd. That's handled by the QC. All you need is that texture name, and it needs to match the first skin in the QC. Everything else is handled by the QC.
After re-exporting, I found it was the QC that was the problem.
Okay I just recompiled, but now I have another problem.
The textures/materials load, but now my model is invisible!
Or at least it's not rendering properly.
Any ideas?
EDIT:
Found the answer on the developer wiki, but I'm going to repost in-case someone is having this problem.
"Open .VMT file. If you use LightmappedGeneric, change it to VertexLitGeneric. LightmappedGeneric is for brush geometry, not for model geometry." https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Troubleshooting_Modeling
I feel so silly.
Now I just have to get it so the colors are more "pure."
After re-exporting, I found it was the QC that was the problem.
Okay I just recompiled, but now I have another problem.
The textures/materials load, but now my model is invisible!
Or at least it's not rendering properly.
Any ideas?
EDIT:
Found the answer on the developer wiki, but I'm going to repost in-case someone is having this problem.
"Open .VMT file. If you use LightmappedGeneric, change it to VertexLitGeneric. LightmappedGeneric is for brush geometry, not for model geometry." https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Troubleshooting_Modeling
I feel so silly.
Now I just have to get it so the colors are more "pure."
Oh and this happened:
For the pure colors you need to just leave the ao (white with shading) on the colored spots. There is a spot to put the hex dex colors for the blu and red team skins (so they default to colored overlay not white). Then the paints will be overlayed on white, thus giving pure color.
For the rigging, Valve does a pretty clean weighting that's easy to follow.
100% bone weights on the rigid sections. One row of verts at 75%, one at 50%, one at 25%. (fading into the nextbone of course so the next bone would have the weight that totals 100% -ie: 75%/25%, 50/50, 25/75)
For the pure colors you need to just leave the ao (white with shading) on the colored spots. There is a spot to put the hex dex colors for the blu and red team skins (so they default to colored overlay not white). Then the paints will be overlayed on white, thus giving pure color.
For the rigging, Valve does a pretty clean weighting that's easy to follow.
100% bone weights on the rigid sections. One row of verts at 75%, one at 50%, one at 25%. (fading into the nextbone of course so the next bone would have the weight that totals 100% -ie: 75%/25%, 50/50, 25/75)
Ah sweet! Thanks. Now it's just a matter actually doing it. :P
Also, I baked my diffuse layer out of Max and you can see in the screen shot above, that thin white line.
The way I pulled the striped areas out of my bake was with the magic wand tool and I'm pretty sure I did it wrong; I'm also sure it's an anti-aliasing problem.
Admittedly I do kind of like the white strip- but I kind of want to know how to get rid of it for knowing's sake.
On the side-by-side, there's also a red dot on the interior of the shoe.I'm pretty sure it's because my texture over paint is dumb and I'll have to edit my uvs. Any tips for modifying multiple LODs' uvs?
Hey guys! There are lots of great models here! Here is my first model for TF2. The I HEAL YOU helmet. What do you think?
The presentation leaves a lot to be desired. You could even get a nicer screenshot out of ModelViewer with the Medic model loaded (see a few posts back).
You really should have kept the little stands holding the pieces a consistent part across the whole model- The "I"'s silhouette is extremely hard to read. (Not to mention you could easily add springs under the piece and give it some jiggle bones or something.) I'd even recommend making the "I + U" all red/blu for the sake of unity of all three.
The texture could use much more accents and minor paints to give it more visual interest. At the moment it's just too pure white; definitely pull that down to a light, blue-ish grey, even if you are set on having it be very light.
Also, with a hat this simple looking I know you could get at least, like 4-5+ LODs. Especially since it's such a simple design.
Thank you for telling me what you think. This is by far the most precise critic I've got so far on any of my models I will try to make the model and textures better. I am not familiar with those jiggle bones thingys, but I will look into them. Also I will make more LODs.
Thank you for telling me what you think. This is by far the most precise critic I've got so far on any of my models I will try to make the model and textures better. I am not familiar with those jiggle bones thingys, but I will look into them. Also I will make more LODs.
If you have any questions beyond that feel free to add me on steam [76561197979130554]. Though I can't promise a >super< fast reply because I'm doing my final projects for next week right now. After Wednesday I should be fine though.
Making rigging progress, but it still refuses to work! 8<
I thought I did everything right but I guess not.
But it does feel good to be really close!
Another problem besides the skin weights is that I have the puff-tossles not following the holes in hood. I'm still trying to figure how to make them follow it; hopefully I can at least figure that part on my own.
If anyone is super pro at rigging and skinning, I'd love to have someone help me get this done.
Amtyk - The sleeves see-through problem is an HLMV problem, we had the same problem when we were making the Spooky Sleeves. It works fine in-game though.
Questions regarding Normal maps and Specular. Seems I can have the normal work, or the specular but not both. I'm sure it is something I am doing incorrectly in the .VMT. Can someone tell me what the proper way to write the texture file to get normal and phong mask working in tandem?
Amtyk - The sleeves see-through problem is an HLMV problem, we had the same problem when we were making the Spooky Sleeves. It works fine in-game though.
Ah good, to know :>
Does kind of suck I can't just show it to people in ModelViewer and have to actually put it in-game.
How did you guys make it so the texture animated? I'm thinking of making a crap ton of Source related tutorials over my break and that'd probably be something I'd want to know about.
Questions regarding Normal maps and Specular. Seems I can have the normal work, or the specular but not both. I'm sure it is something I am doing incorrectly in the .VMT. Can someone tell me what the proper way to write the texture file to get normal and phong mask working in tandem?
Another suggestion is, look at putting the Phong info inside of a channel (like in the Dota 2 texturing guidelines) and playing with that. Hopefully that helps. I'm not sure if TF2 actually uses channel passed maps other than for trasnpancy atm, but give that a shot if all else fails.
Replies
I love this test
On a totally separate note, it's also worth noting the vertex normals on the front part of the body aren't tweaked yet, so seams are visible. Ignore em'.
I dont think you can activate them yourself, but if you want to just test it in game, make it replace the sign of the wolf school
Looks nice. I'm doing a hoodie and boots set too.
It kind of makes me not even want to submit mine at this point... :S
On a side note:
Can anyone tell me how to get bones into my ItemTest compile of my item or modify the SMD I kicked out of Max to merge the bones from that into my stuff I made in ItemTest? And if anyone could give an example of paint-able textures and how they should be modified to be painted other than the code for the VMT that'd be great too.
I've been looking over the documentation on Valve's Dev Community site, but I can't find a solid answer on what to do.
I honestly have no idea what to do with the any of this stuff right now and it's pretty frustrating.
I was out with friends last night, so by the time I saw your message you'd logged off. :P
Not sure what you mean by merging bones into itemtest... itemtest really can't handle anything more than bip_head, so I'd strongly recommend compiling with GUIStudio and writing your qc file by hand. I only use itemtest to generate the zip and folder structure and then do everything else manually. And I think a lot of other people do the same thing.
For paintable textures, here's an example from my nutcrackers. I shrunk it down but should be pretty clear:
And that creates something like this:
Ah, I see. Thanks for the timely response!
I'll fiddle around with that GUIStudio later tonight and see if I can make some magic happen.
Now in the texture, are their any special naming convention for the alpha? Can I have more than one alpha or is it pretty much only limited to one?
Nah. The alpha is a channel in the vtf. Dunno if you use VTFEdit or the photoshop plugin, but either one will let you save a greyscale image as the alpha channel in a vtf.
Will probably edit the mesh on the ammo reserve satchel to make it look better soon
I haven't used either of those.
Another thing to thing play with!
Would you recommend the plug in or the actual program?
Damn man, when this whole item creation thing is over, I think I'm gonna compile a tutorial or something of all this stuff I've learned.
Seriously, some of those Source modding/asset creation tutorials NEED to be updated.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9VlYmVmI-s&feature=youtu.be
rate UP if you like it. Thank you!! http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=111219366
I recommend the plugin honestly. It's way more convenient if you're making the textures in photoshop.
But if you're trying to match colours perfectly bear in mind it shifts colours slightly towards green when it saves. Not anything to worry about it unless you're trying to match a colour exactly, and in that case you'll have to do some minor colour correction to address it. I don't know if VTFEdit does it as well.
Wait, wait... if you're not using the plugin and not using VTFEdit, how are you making vtf files?
Updated the workshop page:
I am still having issues finding the information I need to learn how to rig things and how to get materials to behave the way I want. One of my big problems s figuring out how to recompile because I cant seem to get that to work...
If anyone could point me in the direction of some of this information that would be great.
Thanks
And had a wild idea last night, finished up a little bit ago. Lot of people on the steam forums want another BMOC, so I thought maybe an MvM style Santa hat would work:
Good to know.
Oh when I put it in ItemTest it made a vtf and a vtm out of my Targa.
Right now, I've been reading some tutorials on getting the bones in from the SMD during compiling and it's talking about having a reference, idle, and phys/collision SMD export.
(I'm following this for reference: http://www.polycount.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-71741.html)
They're using a hat for their test, but I'm not sure in my case if I'm going to export the bones with all the SMDs or if I put them in select ones.
Also, I did some exporting of my SMDs out of Max and I don't have QCs from them... Have no idea why it does that.
By way of example, here's the qc I used for the spy's version of the Clad-Iron Claus. It's very simple.
If you do weapons, you can still use $automass but you just need to be sure the weapon lies on the ground when you die with it out (ammo pickup). That's about it as far as character-carried physics is concerned.
If you're making props for maps, then yes, depending on what it is, you have to get the physics correct since people will be directly bumping into/walking on top of/etc the prop. And you may or may not need a discrete idle animation, depending on what the prop is meant to do in the map.
So TLDR, it depends on what you're trying to do. Hats are probably the simplest thing you can make because there's so little you have to worry about.
---
The smd and qc files are seperate things. Think of an smd as being your raw object plus bones/weightmap plus timeframe/animation info. The qc file is how you tell the model compiler what to do with that info in the smd, where the model should be, where the finished model will look for textures, etc.
I don't think max can automatically generate a qc. Maybe there's a plugin that does that, but I'd imagine it's pretty pointless. Once you start understanding how the qc commands work, it's straightforward to make a qc file. It only starts getting complicated when you're making characters instead of props and hats.
I say go ahead and follow that tutorial fully. Do everything it says, do some reading on the valve developer wiki, and just try to understand why you're doing what you're doing in each step.
Alternately, there's a set that someone here on polycount decompiled, but I think those may just be objs.
Holy piss, all the third person animations are there in .DMX. Just gotta figure out how to work with em in max. Pretty sure I can convert them to OBJ so this should solve everything. Thank much!
Oh thanks for that example!
Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to do much more reading with this.
Though I'm starting to get all this stuff now, which feels good! :>
started this the other day, still working on it and there are some smoothing issues around the barrel but ill fix those soon. inspired by a ppsh. there will be 2 styles the one pictured(in an attempt to give it a holiday feel the ammo drum is wrapped up like a present) there will also be a style with a none wrapped ammo drum
ill be picking up the spy set back up in a bit, didn't want my first thing i do in my return being pulling my hair out trying to get the watch compiled
Good news everyone, my coat now has PHHHHHYYYSSSICS!!
The hood, tussles, and zipper all have their own movements.
(I'll make a video of it later on this weekend.)
Though this also seg-ways into, hopefully, my last two problems.
It won't load the textures properly (pretty sure that's in my QC) and I'm not sure if I put the paintable code in the right spot on my VMT.
QC: http://pastebin.com/0mTNhbSi
VMT: http://pastebin.com/fpfHbFWe
If someone could tell me the most likely blatantly obvious flaw I'm missing, I'd really appreciate that.
If you're getting purple & black textures, there's really only one cause: a wrong path.
1) The name of the texture in the smd is wrong or doesn't match the name of the vmt (open up the smd in a text editor and look for "triangles" -- right after that line will be the first texture name line, sometimes with tga, png or bmp after it depending on what modeling software you use and what texture you assigned in it).
2) The path to the vmt defined in the qc is incorrect or the vmt is missing
3) The path inside the vmt to the vtf is incorrect or the vtf is missing
It's always a variant of one of the above.
My first time going through the process, so I have no idea if I did what I was suppose to. But still, it was fun. I need to do this more.
Huh, I looked at my smds in Notepad++ and it can't find anything like "triangles" or anything with .tga/ect.
Does the .tga have to be in the same folder as my QC and smds?
Also, do I just change its extensions to .vmt?
Oh also, since I'm really close to being able to submit this; how can I get it so the character loads with the item in ModelViewer?
I think I might even try Source Filmmaker for a nice Beauty Shot of it- though I barely got to use that program this semester.
1) You should see something like this in your smd: http://pastebin.com/3Diib9im
2) The extension in the smd is irrelevant; only the name matters, and that name needs to match the name of your vtf in materials/models/players/items/<whatever your path is>. The location of the tga (or png or jpg or whatever) you used in your modeling program doesn't matter.
3) No, you have to actually save it as a vtf using photoshop or VTFEdit. The vmt is a text file; you'd probably be better off using VTFEdit since I think that generates the vmt as well as the vtf.
4) In HLMV, load your class model (pyro, medic, whatever) and then go to file -> load weapon (even if it's a hat or misc). Actually it might be edit -> load weapon, but it's on one of the menus.
Tip: If you load up a class model, then a hat, then you load up the hat by itself and suddenly find that you can't change the skin, click "unload weapon." HLMV sometimes double loads items like that.
I guess I'm going to have to add that manually to all the smds then.
Now will I have to put in both the skins on each smd, for example:
"version 1
///Stuff
end
triangles
c_wrappin.tga
c_wrappin_b.tga
[etc - vertex data]"
Or will it know to use c_wrappin_b for the second skin by default?
Also "triangle" is at the very last "end" of the document, correct?
Thanks for the tip btw.
You need to go back to your modeling program and find out why it's not exporting with the texture. It may not be exporting the UVs at all, in which case you adding the texture to the smd will be tedious and accomplish nothing.
Don't do anything with the second skin in the smd. That's handled by the QC. All you need is that texture name, and it needs to match the first skin in the QC. Everything else is handled by the QC.
After re-exporting, I found it was the QC that was the problem.
Okay I just recompiled, but now I have another problem.
The textures/materials load, but now my model is invisible!
Or at least it's not rendering properly.
Any ideas?
EDIT:
Found the answer on the developer wiki, but I'm going to repost in-case someone is having this problem.
"Open .VMT file. If you use LightmappedGeneric, change it to VertexLitGeneric. LightmappedGeneric is for brush geometry, not for model geometry."
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Troubleshooting_Modeling
I feel so silly.
Now I just have to get it so the colors are more "pure."
Oh and this happened:
This totally doesn't look dodgy. At all.
I'd definitely go for more subtle icicles.
Have you considered making it something like an old-fashioned ice axe?
For the pure colors you need to just leave the ao (white with shading) on the colored spots. There is a spot to put the hex dex colors for the blu and red team skins (so they default to colored overlay not white). Then the paints will be overlayed on white, thus giving pure color.
For the rigging, Valve does a pretty clean weighting that's easy to follow.
100% bone weights on the rigid sections. One row of verts at 75%, one at 50%, one at 25%. (fading into the nextbone of course so the next bone would have the weight that totals 100% -ie: 75%/25%, 50/50, 25/75)
Ah sweet! Thanks. Now it's just a matter actually doing it. :P
Also, I baked my diffuse layer out of Max and you can see in the screen shot above, that thin white line.
The way I pulled the striped areas out of my bake was with the magic wand tool and I'm pretty sure I did it wrong; I'm also sure it's an anti-aliasing problem.
Admittedly I do kind of like the white strip- but I kind of want to know how to get rid of it for knowing's sake.
On the side-by-side, there's also a red dot on the interior of the shoe.I'm pretty sure it's because my texture over paint is dumb and I'll have to edit my uvs. Any tips for modifying multiple LODs' uvs?
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Thanks for voting.
The presentation leaves a lot to be desired. You could even get a nicer screenshot out of ModelViewer with the Medic model loaded (see a few posts back).
You really should have kept the little stands holding the pieces a consistent part across the whole model- The "I"'s silhouette is extremely hard to read. (Not to mention you could easily add springs under the piece and give it some jiggle bones or something.) I'd even recommend making the "I + U" all red/blu for the sake of unity of all three.
The texture could use much more accents and minor paints to give it more visual interest. At the moment it's just too pure white; definitely pull that down to a light, blue-ish grey, even if you are set on having it be very light.
Also, with a hat this simple looking I know you could get at least, like 4-5+ LODs. Especially since it's such a simple design.
"]
Thank you for telling me what you think. This is by far the most precise critic I've got so far on any of my models
No problem. If you want some help with jiggle bones. Check this place out:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$jigglebone
If you have any questions beyond that feel free to add me on steam [76561197979130554]. Though I can't promise a >super< fast reply because I'm doing my final projects for next week right now. After Wednesday I should be fine though.
Jesse, you junkie imbecile...
Making rigging progress, but it still refuses to work! 8<
I thought I did everything right but I guess not.
But it does feel good to be really close!
Another problem besides the skin weights is that I have the puff-tossles not following the holes in hood. I'm still trying to figure how to make them follow it; hopefully I can at least figure that part on my own.
If anyone is super pro at rigging and skinning, I'd love to have someone help me get this done.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z063gunxg2hn95m/coatfix_polycount.zip
Should have the qc, VMT/VTFs, and a 2011 compatible max file.
Also, why is it when I preview this- I can see through the sleeves?
[URL="http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=112399816
"]
Evil_Knevil - I'd buy that :P
Amtyk - The sleeves see-through problem is an HLMV problem, we had the same problem when we were making the Spooky Sleeves. It works fine in-game though.
Ah good, to know :>
Does kind of suck I can't just show it to people in ModelViewer and have to actually put it in-game.
Petachepas:
How did you guys make it so the texture animated? I'm thinking of making a crap ton of Source related tutorials over my break and that'd probably be something I'd want to know about.
Have you checked out this btw? -> https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Phong
They have an exmaple of how they made Alyx for HL2- who has Normals and Phong mapping in the VMT.
Another suggestion is, look at putting the Phong info inside of a channel (like in the Dota 2 texturing guidelines) and playing with that. Hopefully that helps. I'm not sure if TF2 actually uses channel passed maps other than for trasnpancy atm, but give that a shot if all else fails.