3d Section

[ScreamingFox]

I would love if we had an (game-oriented) 3d section, with releases (in known formats), and maybe even tutorials


I thought of that because i have seen some fine releases of 3d stuff on some MMO games sections, and the 'portfolio' section is 2d oriented, if one begins to put 3d releases and tutorials there, that section would become messy i think..

 

[Drakaer]

Oh yes! I would love a 3D section.

We have a large number of 3D mmos here and I doubt most people here know about 3D modeling. With a section like this people could learn the basics of 3d so they can make some neat things. It would also be useful to talk to other 3D artists so we can critique each others work to improve ourselves. Models can also be release in a format like obj and be imported in pretty much anything.

I myself am still learning but can share advice and knowledge from what I have learnt so far.

Also Bob you missed Autodesk Maya off your list. Maya is industry standard for modeling.

 

[bobsobol]

Yes. We have 3DS guides and Blender guides. But 3DS is king because of the format our game uses. I don't think anybody really uses .obj, largely because the file extension it's self is pretty nondescript. (is it a machine code object file? a lightwave object? a DirectX objcect? etc.) For any of the 3D formats, it's also pretty old and incomplete in modern terms AFAIK. FBX, 3DS and MDL seem to be popular? I don't understand all the ins and outs.

I didn't "miss" Maya any more than I missed Lightwave, Cinema4D, Mudbox etc. it's just not that common for games in my experience. (possible, but not common) I did a little search to see if I was still correct on that or if I had "fallen behind the times".

You must be registered to see links

and I quote:-

If you are an aspiring game designer, Max might be a better choice primarily due to its character rigging, motion capture handling, and animation layering

It does give some positive reasons why you may want to use Maya though.

I don't know if our existing 3D guides (which are based on one game but, as previously mentioned, pretty generic) could / should be mirrored into the proposed section or not. It could fill the section with lovely content right from the start. :

I'd love to see 3D modellers sharing information on what each of their usual games expects and coming up with ideas to make their models more easily transportable. I understand it's mostly to do with "rigging", which to me sounds rather like porting a generic C++ application from one OS or compiler to another.

e.g. I know I can write a program which is completely bound to Visual C++ or Borland C++ Builder, or I can avoid the things which are specific to that environment and make my code "highly portable". I also know that 3D designers, just like photographers, will give away or sell packs of "stock objects". So they must be reasonably skilled at making objects which are useful in a wide range of applications and easily transportable.

How do RaGEZONErs learn to share like that? Where can they share their own assets with each other? Isn't sharing developments what we do well? ^_^

 

[Repthon]

I would really love to have that section just for the heck of it. How to design 3D modules and stuff like that.

 

[Drakaer]

Yes 3DSMax is supposedly better for some things. I haven't used it personally though. I probably should haven't generalized 3D as one whole thing since there is 3D in gaming and 3D in film. Max is geared more towards gaming while maya is more towards film. Maya can still be used for creating 3d for games though.

The reason I suggested OBJ as a format is because its a format that works. In almost all pieces of 3D software there will be and OBJ import/export function. This allows for easily transporting the model from application to application. FBX could be another format to use though I don't think its as common to have in 3D apps. If you wanted to use a model in a game you could simply just load the OBJ in your preferred application and export to your the game format. Animations might be a different story though. There is nothing stopping anyone from releasing in more than one format to cover all the bases though.

 

[Justice For All]

Why create a whole nother section when the Game Section we have now would work perfectly fine?

 

[bobsobol]

Oh! I did miss Wings3D. And personally I've had a lot of problems importing "obj". Yea, they all have an import and export filter, but each filter only works for one type of "obj" file, and there are many types which are absolutely nothing like each other. XD

Why create a whole nother section when the Game Section we have now would work perfectly fine?

That's rather the point. We do have them in the sections we have now, and they aren't working as well as they should.

To be honest, ScreamingFox wasn't the first person to mention this idea or desire to me, only the first to mention it since I joined the staff team.

If you want to "port" (for want of a better word) Silk Road models to Perfect World, do you post in the Silk Road Dev section or the Perfect World Dev section? And if you've created weapons, armour, mounts / vehicles which could pretty much be imported into any game which has the right "tools" in it's releases section ... which one do you pick to release it then?

If you have sketched (on paper) a really neat weapon design and are about to fire up your modelling suite and make it into a game model, but you want it to have as wide an audience as possible (coz every game is gonna want this awesome bit of kit) what "technical" considerations should you have in mind to really make it a "stock object"? Who are you going to ask on RZ, and in which section?

This is hard for me, because I don't do it, I only talk to people who do... and we teach it at the college where I work. But, for instance, if I want to know what is a "safe" maximum polygon count for most games for this kind of asset, or what I should do about supporting games with and without normal maps, shine and / or glow mapping? How complex can my UV map be? How can I get the most visible pixels from my speculative map and still keep graphics memory low? etc. etc. etc.

You can ask all of those questions in a specific forum and get answers for one specific game... but what if you don't want the answer for one game, but a median answer for the majority of games popular in RaGEZONE development sections?

As I say, websites, code and 2D art is covered as general topics. Why not 3D modelling?

 

[Phantom*]

I've been trying to provide a 3D developer/designer collaborative base shortly after joining these forums and I can sadly acknowledge not much outside enthusiasm has come out of it these past 6 years. I kept my game choice within the forum, advertised in my signature, and used the existing blogging feature, all in an effort for content exchange. This failure could probably be attributed to the nature of a multiverse forum where members rarely venture beyond their forum of choice. What can you do?

I would wholeheartedly welcome a 3D section and at the same time am disappointed I've never thought of it. To blatantly disregard it as stupid truly affects me, but a leader must be blunt! Life goes on.

 

[softsoldier]

i love the idea of a 3d section, maybe add one for people looking to create games, one for commissions and so on, ragezone is full of developers and its hard to find 3d modeling these days, it would prove very useful to the forum and the people of ragezone to include a section like this
- supported

 

[Drakaer]

Any news on this?

I just want to say this. Phantom*, they guy posted two posts above, was the one who actually got me into 3D in the first place. Although I have never spoken to him he was the one who made the original ski import/export scripts for Perfect World. Without these scripts I would have never tried 3D in the first place. So this is my thanks. A 3d section is really important to me because it I'm certain there would be others out there who never try 3D unless given a push don't know what they are missing out on.

3d is the way of the future too. Most games are 3D these days, most films (if not all) contain cg elements, even cartoons are made using 3D! I think we should keep up with times too and offer a place for 3D.

So please reconsider making a 3D section and if not could you at least give us an explanation why?

 

[343]

I must admit, when it comes to other sections, I really don't know what does or does not exist, because (as people who know me know) I have my head SO far up the PW sections butt (Perfect World)... That being said, I really think the addition of this section would be a great thing! Especially if there are already other similar sections, but not one specifically for 3d and modeling. I have seen a few things from Drakaer personally (ofc being that he is/was a fellow PW nut), and I must say; I am getting quite interested in the possibility of doing some 3d and/or modeling work myself in the future!

So in short, I vote a nice big *YES* for the addition of this section :

 

[bobsobol]

I think it's a basic isn't it. If modellers can a buff male and a hot-body babe in the 3D Model section of portfolio (or such) then each MMO section can post a tutorial on how to turn those into NPCs / player characters in that MMO... well, except Mu and Habbo.