Questions (3DS Max & GunZ)

[Anju]

1) If I were to name an object, for example, called, "hide_ceiling," would it be like player clip from GTK Radiant?

2) How come whenever I add lights to my scene and export it, the map doesn't have lights? Am I suppose to name the lights to something else?

3) Naming an object in 3DS Max as pass_something is meaning player can go through it like HellSniper posted, correct?

4) How would I apply texture into an object? I seem to be doing something wrong that doesn't show the material correctly.

5) How do I make sky animation move like in Town?

6) Do I only use the name tag, "obj_#," for only that can do animations such as fire (Dungeon), sky clouds (Town), snow (Snow_Town), etc?

7) If I were to name a dummy, "spawn_item_solo_ap03_##," will it be able to place a AP spawn in the map? I noticed that the 'ap03' is something from the XML files from the worlditem.xml in system.mrs or the server files. And 'solo' is for the game mode type such as Deathmatch, Berserker, etc..

8) What happens if I named a camera, "wait_pos_01"?

9) What will "sun_Dummy" if I named a light that or something?

I think that's about it for now. If I have any more questions that needs answering, I'll ask.

 

[Wucas]

Woah this is going to be fun

1) If I were to name an object, for example, called, "hide_ceiling," would it be like player clip from GTK Radiant?

Spoiler

Short Answer: Conditional; Yes
Long Answer: 'hide_' is probably one of the more finicky parts of modeling. Although any closed shape (as in an element that has every face connected by edges in that deformation of the shape does not cause a break or tear) can create a player clip, that does not mean it is 'clean' to model that way. The way in which MAIET creates a collision is by a single closed mesh with extruded pieces, creating a collision hull. Take a look at the image below, which is my collision hull for one of my newer maps, dung_room02. As you can see instead of creating a whole bunch of elements for the floor, ceiling, and walls, it is instead one mesh. This mimics MAIET and creates a better looking collision on export (it actually creates a box with multiple cuts).

2) How come whenever I add lights to my scene and export it, the map doesn't have lights? Am I suppose to name the lights to something else?

Spoiler

Short Answer: Lights are 'created' by WorldEdit
Long Answer: When a scene is created although lights are added the exporter does not actually bake the Lightmap texture. As you know, LM is simply different colors added onto the existing texture do to light position, when you export a map you save the positions of these lamps in *mapname*.RS.xml (see 'Omni' dummies in this xml

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). Then, after editing a few settings in WorldEdit (fitting the level of detail/ lamp intensity), you bake it. As you can see in the below images, this is the process in which you generate a LM. Max Size is the largest size a single LM texture can be, same as well for Min Size; Super Sample is kinda like anti-alias, and Tolerance deals with light intensity.

3) Naming an object in 3DS Max as pass_something is meaning player can go through it like HellSniper posted, correct?

Spoiler

Short Answer: Correct
Long Answer: 'pass_' is what 90% of your objects should be in Max. 'pass_' allows for the item to create a clip for weapons, wallrunning, and things like that. You also have 'passr_' (stand for pass rocket, but it includes everything basically) and 'passb_' (pass bullet)

4) How would I apply texture into an object? I seem to be doing something wrong that doesn't show the material correctly.

Spoiler

Short Answer: UV Mapping; Material settings correct?
Long Answer: Just like any item, maps are created on the basis of UV Mapping. One problem you could be facing is that in your Material tab (shortcut 'm') you have not selected "Show Standard Maps in Viewports."IN the image below i show which buttom must be enabled to see things

5) How do I make sky animation move like in Town?

Spoiler

Short Answer: Just an Animation
Long Answer: This is done by a simple animation. Some things (such as water/ flags) have animations created simply by using a naming convention ('water_' [different varities] and 'flag_' respectively). This is not the case in this situation however, in which the animation is created by hand

6) Do I only use the name tag, "obj_#," for only that can do animations such as fire (Dungeon), sky clouds (Town), snow (Snow_Town), etc?

Spoiler

Short Answer: No
Long Answer: 'obj_' is used whenever a non-map object item is wanted on export. Although the main need is animations, things like water and flags also are needed. On another note, fire in dungeon (although it has to be an ELU) is not created by an '.ani' file at all. Simply by naming a texture something along the lines of 'txa *amount of images* *time in ms*' creates a loop of images. By adding this naming convention like so, "txa 16 1200 candle_00.dds" I specify that I have 16 images with the ranging from candle_01 to candle_15, and I want it to loop in 1.2 seconds. Also on a similiar note, snow in Snow_Town is hard coded into the game. Simply by naming a map 'Snow_*mapname*' will cause the snow particles to form. Just as before this is not an '.ani' and it actually is not even an '.elu', it was simply forced into the game.

7) If I were to name a dummy, "spawn_item_solo_ap03_##," will it be able to place a AP spawn in the map? I noticed that the 'ap03' is something from the XML files from the worlditem.xml in system.mrs or the server files. And 'solo' is for the game mode type such as Deathmatch, Berserker, etc..

Spoiler

Short Answer: Ehhhh Sorta
Long Answer: We will first begin with spawn dummies. As you said, adding a dummy to a map is how you add things like spawns, so you are correct, just remember to always start at '_101'. This goes from everything from solo, team, and NPC spawns. Naming conventions are as followed, spawn_(*solo_*, *team1_*, *team2_*, *npc_melee_*, *npc_range_*, etc)_***. As for worlditems (AP/ HP/ AMMO/ CTF Flags) the positions can be grabbed using a dummy, but they are not needed in '*mapname*.RS.xml'. All worlditems are spawned according to spawn.xml in the 'Matchserver -> Map -> *mapname*' folder. They will not appear unless they are placed in this file. If the spawn.xml is created if you make a name sucbh as 'spawn_item_team_bullet02_01' is beyond me but then again, I have not yet tried.

8) What happens if I named a camera, "wait_pos_01"?

Spoiler

Short Answer: 'wait_pos_' has nothing to do with cameras
Long Answer: 'wait_pos_' is used either with portals or with the NPC AI, I can't remember offhand, just like 'LINK' and a dozen other naming conventions hardly ever used. Camera positions are controlled by 'camera_pos '

9) What will "sun_Dummy" if I named a light that or something?

Spoiler

Short Answer: Sun dummy is used for lensflare
Long Answer: Go to Town and look up at the sky and there is a point that is really bright, moving your position that way will create the lens flare games always love to abuse and add in. 'Sun_' simply adds the position in which is added, nothing more than that.

Welp that's enough typing for tonight .-.

 

[HellSniper]

While doing the collision maiet style, i advice using a bunch of box objects for starters.
Because the one big collision object has some twists to it, as it can just flat out create holes in the collision.
As seen in the early halloween town maiet put out, theres a hole where there should be a ceiling, iver marked the hole with a red outline in this picture.

About fire, you generally just make a cross plane, put the txa animation material/texture ("txa 30 2000 fire_a00" as example) on them.
Then just name the object "obj_txa_fire_a_01" and export that either manualy or just let it export while exporting the map (the lazier/easier way).

The sky animation @ town is just a regular sky box/dome with a plane that moves alonge the x axis and resets its position after a while,
then it starts moving the same way again, creating an seemingly endless going of the plane.
Also, the cloud plane is set to additive and isnt using its alpha information, i think, it should be that way.

There are also object lights which are used for the "dynamic lighting", that option you can see in the gunz settings.
Which is kinda misleading imo ... object lights are used for specularity/diffuse lighting npcs and players.
Creating the illusion of an actual sun, standing in a shadow etc.
(Object lights are just omni light entities with the obj_ prefix)

 

[trunksx]

How about this sword fire

i wasnt still able to figure out how it works. It seems its a plane but when i exported it out i didnt show like these. also it have one only texture . And if there's no alpha like i show in the image below then how it works too see the black parts invisible.

 

[x1nixmzeng]

About fire, you generally just make a cross plane

I'll add that Realspace has always supported the "billboard" effect so the texture plane always faces the camera (see the object alignment description in the docs). The texture prefix for this is "algn0" for the Y-axis and "algn1" for Y and Z.

My ELU viewer supported this technique:

 

[Wucas]

How about this sword fire

i wasnt still able to figure out how it works. It seems its a plane but when i exported it out i didnt show like these. also it have one only texture . And if there's no alpha like i show in the image below then how it works too see the black parts invisible.

Just as x1 stated above, this allows you to make meshes that always face the camera. This is useful in most everything in modeling, and it is present in modeling in everything from fx pieces to map areas.

I included an explanation in part of my animation tutorial I made months ago, you can check that out here. In this case it is the glare piece for a lamp, but it can be used for any number of things. I have used it for grass, worlditems, jjangs, fire, etc personally.

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Your second question deals with this item being an "addative layer" which instead of drawing the image normally, it adds more colors to what is already present. This is also brought up in the tutorial above. Basically anything that is not black will be added to the underlying texture in the scene (be that a map, a character, or anything else present) creating an effect that appears to be lit, glowing, or glaring. No alpha layer is needed in this situation since black is #000000 so it does not not "add" anything to the realtime render. This attribute allows you to use the DDS compression of DX1 which allows for much smaller file sizes than what you would need for a texture with an alpha layer (DX3 or DX5).

 

[Anju]

Woops, I didn't mean to ask about the wait_pos. I mean that camera naming xP. But thanks a bunch, Wucas and HellSniper.

 

[TheCodeOfGunz]

Thank wucas and hellsniper this is helpful!

2

 

[trunksx]

I was following what wucas said but i got this problem

did u know why it happens?
theres no alpha chanel, but it still get black in the character viewer.
maybe im doing sth wrong dunno

 

[HellSniper]

Set the material to additive.
You can find that in the material editor in the extended parameters.
Alternativley you can use maiets character viewer (mcv) to set the material to be additive aswell.
You can make stuff like this for example.

 

[trunksx]

Oh it rlly works , didnt know how to do that, but then i figure out this problem, i dunno why this happen, y tried to create a plane in every single angle to have a square but i couldnt get it.
there sth im forgetting?

it should be seems like this, its the same obj importer from blender
so i dnt know what i left.

thanks for helping.

 

[Wucas]

Oh it rlly works , didnt know how to do that, but then i figure out this problem, i dunno why this happen, y tried to create a plane in every single angle to have a square but i couldnt get it.
there sth im forgetting?

it should be seems like this, its the same obj importer from blender
so i dnt know what i left.

thanks for helping.

I dont understand your problem.

 

[trunksx]

I dont understand your problem.

Oh my problem was when I imported the .elu to blender then exported to 3d max as obj, with the same texture I though it should be the same as the original .elu but it hasnt.
I mean the elu I exported from 3d max, the box follow the camera, but it doesnt look good as the original.
i think theres sth I'm not doing.
You know what I mean?

 

[Anju]

Alright, I know couple more thing now. But how do I use a picture file for the texture in Material Editor?

 

[warrenscoots]

wait_pos is exactly what it sounds like. It's where the camera and the characters wait until spawned. You will see that on maps like island where you will see a black abyss and a white square.

Alright, I know couple more thing now. But how do I use a picture file for the texture in Material Editor?

You can use any format you want in the material editor, even .avi .wmv and so on. Plugins even allow file formats such as .RAW from cameras.

 

[Wucas]

Oh my problem was when I imported the .elu to blender then exported to 3d max as obj, with the same texture I though it should be the same as the original .elu but it hasnt.
I mean the elu I exported from 3d max, the box follow the camera, but it doesnt look good as the original.
i think theres sth I'm not doing.
You know what I mean?

Post your MAX file.

You can use any format you want in the material editor, even .avi .wmv and so on. Plugins even allow file formats such as .RAW from cameras.

I had no idea you could use video... you may want to specify that Gunz only uses JPG, PNG, BMP, TGA, and DDS though =o.

 

[warrenscoots]

Post your MAX file.


I had no idea you could use video... you may want to specify that Gunz only uses JPG, PNG, BMP, TGA, and DDS though =o.

Using video is the same as image sequence though except video is all automated, imsq you have to manually put frame rate, start frame, end frame, speed unless you have the exact variables it's all trial and error. But yes GunZ does only use jpg png bmp tga and dds.

Also looking through the GunZ source that particle flow would work to some degree maybe a nice waterfall is in need :closedeyes:

 

[HellSniper]

Even blender supports avi and other movie formats as valid texture.
Obviously only for <inblender> usage.
Like stated before, gunz only uses the commen image formats jpg,png,dds,tga,bmp.

 

[trunksx]

Post your MAX file.

This is the max file

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[Wucas]

I have no idea what you did wrong, I recreated something fairly close to what you did and everything worked fine... I have no idea why yours does not function correctly.

Maybe try and use FBX export when you bring something from blender to max next time.

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