ragtag
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Posts posted by ragtag
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I was hoping it was just a bug with 10.5, sounds like it's exactly the same problem.I could use bumps where I have 5-points patches, and displacement maps elsewhere, though it wouldn't look quite as nice. I could also try to rebuild the model, so that there are no 5-point patches in it (not easy). I don't have a very dense mesh, but it looks fine as long as I don't go too close with the camera. The displacement map I have is a very soft blurry one, which I think helps.
Thanks for testing it out, I hope they fix it in the next version.
Ragnar
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I was doing some tests with displacement maps for my characters t-shirt, and all the 5-point patches turned out wrong when rendered (in 10.5). They get like a tiled image on them, while the rest looks just fine. If this has been solved in v11, I won't worry about it...and just upgrade in a month or so when next years CD is out.
If not, is there any way to fix this. The normals should all be turning in the right direction, as I model with back face culling on so that I can instantly see which way the normals are pointing. I know I could exclude all 5 point patches from the displacement map, but that's not a nice solution. I could remove all 5 point patches, though I do like to have them when modeling...they make life so much easier. Is there any other trick that I can do to get this working correctly?
Cheers,
Ragnar
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Have you considered the "weight" of such a model. Since it will include poses/shapes for a lot of different looks, it will make the final models a lot more heavy than they need to be. I don't know if this will actually be an issue, but it might be worth considering. Adding a tool to remove extra data from the model once you're happy with the shape would be very cool, though I have no idea how you would go about that.
It might also be worth it just doing a head with facial shapes as a starter (including facial expressions and lip sync shapes). Then people can attach it to whatever body they feel like using. I don't think most of us will need naked characters (okay...I need naked characters for my current project, but I'm weird
).Check out FaceGen for a poly tool to do this kind of stuff.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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win2Kpro = Windows2000 Professional. In my oppinion by far the best OS Microsoft has ever made. It's based on Windows NT and came before they started with all the activation and trusted computer nonsense of XP (not to mention the Fischer-Price interface). A friend of mine had XP stop because he had a software for viewing .jpg files, which(according to MS) was a security risk.
The best thing you can do to run a stable Windows system, is to not have it connected to the internet. Period! My home machine is not connected to the internet and has been very stable. Even with lots of games, demos, weird shareware and what not installed and uninstalled, and no re-install of Win2k for the last couple of years. If you do connect to the internet, DON'T use Internet Explorer or Outlook Express (and if you insist, know how to set the security settings of both to avoid having them mess up your system), Opera is a good alternative for both. Have a firewall (preferebly external), virus protection, Spybot and Ad-Aware.
If MS doesn't change the way they're headed with trusted/treacherous computing, my next PC will not be running any version of Windows.
OS X is pretty sweet with the user friendly front end and the hardcore Unix shell back, but is unfortunately not the best system for running AM on. This will hopefully change soon. Don't about 1/3 of AM users run it on a Mac?
Ragnar
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Haven't tested this in AM, but in a certain other software you have two different definitions. Stiffness and dampening (incidentally neither of them work in said software
).Dampening cushions the pop that is created when you pull the IK target further than the limb can reach. Basically creating and ease in/out for the last couple of degrees of rotation, when pulling and arm or leg straight.
And stiffness controls the stiffness at the joints between bones, and is only usuable to control IK chains with more than 2 bones. That is, if you make the first joint stiffer than the second, most of the bend will happen at the second one when controlled by IK. This can come in very handy for rigging hind legs of animals, especially if you can animate the stiffness too.
Neither will make the IK move in an arc. The solution AM uses for posing characters with IK and then having the keyframes stored as FK, solves this problem in an excellent way.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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If you're still just at a modeling stage, you could also copy all the geometry and paste it into a new clean model. Though, on second thought...this might just take the textures with it. Worth a shot anyway.
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It should be possible to do this in comp. There was a tool a while back for converting AM depth data to tga or to SoftImage zPic. These could be used in a third party software (such as After Effects) to create depth of field. The approach is a little bit more complicated, but it will at least save you the extra time that comes with multi pass rendering.
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I did a test with this a while back. The details can be found here http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showt...=1693&hl=ragtag
I didn't test properly with textures, but I guess that should work too. What I did get working was a animated character exported from AM via AMxTex to Ultimate Unwrap to Blitz3D, working perfectly...though with no textures.
If you're working with Blitz3D you need to be aware of surface count. Every extra texture you apply creates an extra surface in Blitz...and lots of surfaces in Blitz slow things down. So ideally you want to texture your entire model with a single image. Also, 5 point patches and hooks left cracks in the surface when I exported (the Obsidian Games exported has been updated since then, so things that might have changed). 3 point patches work fine though, so you can use them freely instead.
If texturing doesn't work out in AM, you can always use Ultimate Unwrap to texture, it supposedly has very good UV mapping tools.
Cheers,
Ragnar
p.s. Out of curiosity, who's making the game. I hang a lot out on the Blitz forums.
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If all else fails, you can use http://www.virtualdub.org/ to convert a sequence of .tga to an .avi, which you can then import into Pinnacle.
Ragnar
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That would be 1:00am GMT right? Or 2:00am where I live. I would love to join up, but am going to a concert...I might pop in for a second afterwards though.
Ragnar
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openCanvas 3.0 is a nice alternative and relatively low cost. http://www.portalgraphics.net/en/index.asp I've been testing out the demo of it. I don't think it supports .tga, but converting .png to .tga is no big deal.
Ragnar
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I've started using Opera as my irc client too...now I use it for everything. (web,mail and chat). It's not an as advanced irc client as the dedicated ones, but it works fine for the little chatting that I do.
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Over at the Blitz3D forum they've started a very simple competition that I think would be a great idea for the AM community.
It's a prop modeling and texturing competition, where everyone gets a week or two to make a predifined prop (a chair, table, garbaga can, crate, firehydrant, raygun, hat etc.), something simple that isn't too much work to make. When done the users vote on it and the winner gets to choose what prop to make for the next week or two. All the props are then made available in a free model library, so that after a few months we will have a huge library of various props and stuff people can use.
I don't have the time to arrange this myself, but thought it was a good idea. So maybe someone on the forum or Hash themselves want to pick this up.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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Photon-Mapping is a little different. The description of the Weather function in AM matches Ambient Occlusion quite well, though I've never gotten it to work and it can't be run for every frame of an animation. As far as I understand it ambient occlusion darkens areas that are close together and facing each other. So corners become darker, the underside of characters feet become darker and the ground around it and so on. The effect is quite nice and can a little faster to calculate than full radiosity or photon mapping (though that still doesn't mean it's fast
).I'm sure Yves or someone could step in here and give a more correct explaination.
Ragnar
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Both DeepPaint and zBrush are somewhat costly 3D paint tools, but has anyone tried using this http://www.terabit.nildram.co.uk/tattoo/ shareware tool for painting AM models. It supports .obj files, so it should be possible and it's only priced at 25pounds. (edit: just noticed it's actually free for non-commercial use
)It's not as advanced as the other two, but it might be more than enough.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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TARGA
in (2003-2004)
If you're on a Win box, you can use VirtualDub to combine a sequence of images into an .avi. Simply select all the images and drag them in there, then choose the codec and compression you want and you're set. VirtualDub is also extremely fast at compressing stuff and it's FREE.
If you're on mac, doesn't iMovie do this kind of stuff or does it just do DV format?
Ragnar
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I wouldn't do it. On principal it's rarely a good idea to change version in the middle of production. Currently you know what limitations and bugs you have to work around, while the next version is an unknown...and it may take you more than a day or two to find out about any potential problems. The only exception I would say if you are very early in production, for instance are still only working on modeling. Models usually transfer fine between AM versions, it's the bones, expression and funny stuff that's more likely to cause problems.
All that said. If you're lucky it may go with out a hitch switching to v11.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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I assume you'll be using some photo application for cutting out the models first. GIMP is a free one, that can easily do this...so can just about any of the other good photo packages out there.
What you are looking for is probably doing some kind of multiplan effects. Personally, I would actually think AM was a little bit more powerfull at this than After Effects. You could create geometry that is aproximately the shape of the character and simply apply the image with alpha to that. The geometry doesn't have to match exactly, as the alpha will take care of cutting out the image exactly for the final render. You can then place as many "layers" as you like backwards, you can use depth of field, shifts in perspective and what not. This would basically be imitatin Disneys good ol' multi-plane camera in 3D.
What you could do, which I guess is hard in AfterEffects (does it have bones now?), is add bones to the model. So that you could add little animations to the figure in the foreground, for instance have him wave his hand or flap his mouth.
I've been thinking along the same lines for doing cut-out animation in AM. The only think that I think would be a little inconvenient, is if you had lots of replacement images (such as 10 different mouth shapes) you had to switch between. Though I'm sure there is some clever way to set this up in a pose or something.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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Use low res textures when lighting (or even proxy models), and only switch to the high res ones for the final tests and render.
Buy a huge renderfarm.
Render with multipass with just 1 pass for test renders (no anti-alias).
Render static parts only once, and composite them together with moving parts afterwards.
Work in a simple cartoony style, speeds up rendering a lot...but of course it has to be an artistic choice.
In some cases it may pay off to do a low res, 1 pass, low quality textures, every 3-4 frames or so render of a shot. Just to make sure that everything looks okay throughout the shot. This way you can spot problems, such as animated objects getting in the way of a light and casting unexpected shadows, without doing a full quality render.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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I'll do another wild guess. I'm good at those.
Is it possible that the image gets flipped/rotated along the way or when read into the game? (or the UV's are flipped or start in a different corner). This would be quick to test by rotating and flipping the image.
Try applying a numbered and colored grid to the tire, to get a better idea of which part of the image goes where when in Battlefield.
Do you have a way to convert the model back into 3d studio format, just to see if the UVs look correct when you get the model back.
Does the exporter triangulate the model when exported, or does Battlefield support quads? Maybe triangulating it might be worth a shot, though I doubt it.
Cheers,
Ragnar
p.s. My Battlefield 1942 cd is so scratch that it no longer works.
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Making multiple copies to different locations is just good practice, not matter what software you're using. Harddisks fail, software corrupts files and you the user may just accidently mess up the file and then hit Ctrl-S.
An easy way is to get something like this little Incremental File Copier to make sure you save a new copy of your file every time you save. Disc space and CD-roms are cheap, your time is not.
Cheers,
Ragnar
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I don't have 11
so I don't know if this would work, but couldn't you just create a duplicate of the ground a little below the other one and have the trees grow from that and through the one above it?Ragnar
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I'm looking for a good RAM player, for playing back sequences of .tga images (both from AM and elsewhere). It should be able to scrub and loop, and prefebly be able to open a sequence if I just double click the image in Windows and it finds it's part of a .tga sequnce of images (image.001.tga, image.002.tga and so on). Free or open-source would be great, though it's not a must.
Cheers,
Ragnar
edit: I know about this one Hash RAM player , but I was thinking of one that is a stand alone app
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I'm not quite sure what you're on about. But if what you're doing is applying multiple images to the model, and want them to export as a single image, it's possible in AM, but not the best way to go. You won't get UV's laid out like what you have in the sample. What you need to do is apply multiple stamps with a single image to the same model. There is also a menu somewhere in the Decal/Stamp to choose between exporting as a single image or refering to the original image. You want it to refer to the original image. If you use the other one, you need to export the model from AM with new UV's, and the layout will be completely different (basically a grid, one for each patch...when I tried it I got little edges between every single poly).
So if I were you, and you only want to use AM...I would stick with that other app and do the standard (but boring) UV map thing.
Ragnar
Returning animator: what should I buy?
in (2003-2004)
Posted
Firstly, as a fellow sailor trying to scrape together enough cash to go sailing round the world one day, I would love to hear your travel story. Polynesia is definately a place I hope to sail to and in one day. You could post it in the OT part of the forum.
As for other things. For a paint app you should check out openCanvas3. It costs around $70, is not as advanced as Photoshop, but excellent for painting with. (disclaimer: I've only used the demo version, but will be getting it soon). In combination with GIMP you've got most of your 2D stuff covered.
I'm probably going to be slapped around with a dead fish from the rest of the crew here for saying this, but you should check out XSI Foundation too. It's around $500, a little more than AM but worth checking out (try the demo). Depends a little on what you want to do. AM, of course, is an excellent choice too.
Ragnar