The Daily Modding Challenge Project

[Noodle]

I've been meaning to do this for a while but I needed to think it through. This thread has been created to help further develop all modding skills by a self-imposed challenge that will consist on the daily production of an asset that can be used by the community for their modding projects. 

 

Anyone is free to participate as long as they follow these simple rules.

 

a) You must try to upload something daily. It doesn't matter the level of complexity of the thing you upload, the idea is to keep going as long as you can. If you fail at this point, you can restart whenever you please. 

b) Whatever you release must have a free license. The whole purpose of this exercise is that others can freely use your content on their own mods. 

c) No ports allowed. Everything you post here should be allowed to be posted in the files section. 

 

Keeping those rules in mind, these are the things you can and can't do in this thread:

 

Things you can do: 

 

- Modelling, texture-work (reskins or brand new textures), animations, mapping, kitbashes (as long as they use content that has been made for JA and as long as the model you use has a free license), etc. 

- Criticize other people's work on a constructive manner (i.e: this is wrong, here's how you should do it). 

- Improve or modify what other people have previously posted here. 

- Post the source files of whatever you do so others can study and learn from your work. 

 

Things you can't do:

 

- Request others to do stuff. 

- Post inflammatory comments masquerading as criticism (i.e: this is shit, kill yourself)

- Posting pictures of a WIP without a link to download the file (this is not a WIP page). 

 

 

Having said that, here's my first daily upload. A simple "fuel-tank" asset I created to avoid having to do it in GTKRadiant. 

 

MD3Viewer screenshot:

 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoha9kgeef192ob/Daily_Challenge1.rar?dl=0

 

 

[SomaZ]

Man, I'd love to participate, but my life is so irregular in terms of being able to work on a computer, it's nearly impossible to keep posting things on a daily basis. Though I'm thinking about joining on a weekly basis.

[Langerd]

 

I've been meaning to do this for a while but I needed to think it through. This thread has been created to help further develop all modding skills by a self-imposed challenge that will consist on the daily production of an asset that can be used by the community for their modding projects. 

 

Anyone is free to participate as long as they follow these simple rules.

 

a) You must try to upload something daily. It doesn't matter the level of complexity of the thing you upload, the idea is to keep going as long as you can. If you fail at this point, you can restart whenever you please. 

b) Whatever you release must have a free license. The whole purpose of this exercise is that others can freely use your content on their own mods. 

c) No ports allowed. Everything you post here should be allowed to be posted in the files section. 

 

Keeping those rules in mind, these are the things you can and can't do in this thread:

 

Things you can do: 

 

- Modelling, texture-work (reskins or brand new textures), animations, mapping, kitbashes (as long as they use content that has been made for JA and as long as the model you use has a free license), etc. 

- Criticize other people's work on a constructive manner (i.e: this is wrong, here's how you should do it). 

- Improve or modify what other people have previously posted here. 

- Post the source files of whatever you do so others can study and learn from your work. 

 

Things you can't do:

 

- Request others to do stuff. 

- Post inflammatory comments masquerading as criticism (i.e: this is shit, kill yourself)

- Posting pictures of a WIP without a link to download the file (this is not a WIP page). 

 

 

Having said that, here's my first daily upload. A simple "fuel-tank" asset I created to avoid having to do it in GTKRadiant. 

 

MD3Viewer screenshot:

 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zoha9kgeef192ob/Daily_Challenge1.rar?dl=0

 

 

 

Man, I'd love to participate, but my life is so irregular in terms of being able to work on a computer, it's nearly impossible to keep posting things on a daily basis. Though I'm thinking about joining on a weekly basis.

Agree with daily basis. Weekly would be better + it would give everyone more time to polish. 

 

Or maybe 3-4 days max. PLUS i would suggest this - Everyone is making the same star wars topic - we mostly want to keep Star Wars content fresh.

 

Meaning like - This time topic is? Jedi Outcast ! Everyone is sharing with what they made. And what next? New topic and so on and so on ..

 

and everyone is trying to make something around jedi outcast topic. 4 days is in my opinion the best option. 7 is to long and 1 day is not giving enough time to do something polished. Of course i am talking about live, college and job.

 

EDIT: Btw @@Noodle . I dont know if it is done on purpose but your MD3 has 250 frames of animation. If you dont want to make animations for this MD3 i suggest to export it with one frame only. Less space in files 

[Noodle]

Man, I'd love to participate, but my life is so irregular in terms of being able to work on a computer, it's nearly impossible to keep posting things on a daily basis. Though I'm thinking about joining on a weekly basis.

 

Feel free to participate on the rate you feel more comfortable with! The idea is just to try and make this a constant habit. 

 

Agree with daily basis. Weekly would be better + it would give everyone more time to polish. 

 

Or maybe 3-4 days max. PLUS i would suggest this - Everyone is making the same star wars topic - we mostly want to keep Star Wars content fresh.

 

Meaning like - This time topic is? Jedi Outcast ! Everyone is sharing with what they made. And what next? New topic and so on and so on ..

 

and everyone is trying to make something around jedi outcast topic. 4 days is in my opinion the best option. 7 is to long and 1 day is not giving enough time to do something polished. Of course i am talking about live, college and job.

 

EDIT: Btw @@Noodle . I dont know if it is done on purpose but your MD3 has 250 frames of animation. If you dont want to make animations for this MD3 i suggest to export it with one frame only. Less space in files 

 

Feel free to follow at the rate you're more comfortable with! Although I must state that the main idea is not to do very complex stuff, but quick exercises to help polish, improve or maintain each of our modding skills. However, if you feel like you need more time to do what you want, please do so! I must also say that I love the idea of being inspired by a specific topic, it reminds me to inktober! If more people are interested we can sure start doing that! Although I wouldn't make it mandatory to follow the day or week's theme. 

 

Also, thanks for pointing out the animation frames mistake, I hadn't noticed! The original file has been updated to not have this mistake!

 

Now, back to the main topic! 

 

For this day's model I wanted to help those modders that need more clutter in their maps by creating this very simple, yet unique, piece of pottery. 

 

Day 2 Model:

 

MD3Viewer screenshot: 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/lr3r6kt55mo3p9a/Daily_Challenge2.rar?dl=0

[AshuraDX]

Here's my entry:

 

An Idea I had for a while, I made a hologram shader that doesn't require any non-base textures as a proof of concept.

This entire appeareance is based on a few lines of text in a .skin file and a .shader file, no changes to the model or the textures were made!

 

spawncode:

npc spawn kyle_holo
playermodel kyle_holo

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5nlx4w0qznnmvix/holo_test.pk3?dl=0

[Jeff]

Nice work Ashura and Noodle, this is a great idea.

[Noodle]

Here's my entry:

 

An Idea I had for a while, I made a hologram shader that doesn't require any non-base textures as a proof of concept.

This entire appeareance is based on a few lines of text in a .skin file and a .shader file, no changes to the model or the textures were made!

 

spawncode:

npc spawn kyle_holo
playermodel kyle_holo

https://www.dropbox.com/s/5nlx4w0qznnmvix/holo_test.pk3?dl=0

 

I love it, just a couple days ago I failed horribly at trying to make a nice holographic shader! 

 

 

Nice work Ashura and Noodle, this is a great idea.

 

Feel free to chime in if you desire to! This should be a great opportunity to do some basic models in blender! 

 

Day 3 Model: 

 

This time I didn't do a model from scratch, but took one from base JA to play around with blender's baking tools! I've always wanted more statues ingame and this was a great opportunity to try and add one of my own liking!

 

Screenshot:

 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/e812xfz92ffzpwg/Daily_Challenge3.rar?dl=0

[Sting]

I'll chime in.

 

[redsaurus]

Very nice work but where’s the download?

[Sting]

Very nice work but where’s the download?

 

Whoops, sorry about that

 

https://ufile.io/t7wka

 

/devmap Orbitalnew18

 

.map file included in the PK3

[SomaZ]

Whoops, sorry about that

 

https://ufile.io/t7wka

 

/devmap Orbitalnew18

 

.map file included in the PK3

 

Holy, that animated skybox is one sexy mo****f*****. If you ever finish that map, I would be honored to give it a full pbr texture overhaul for rend2 (if you want to ofc).

[Sting]

Holy, that animated skybox is one sexy mo****f*****. If you ever finish that map, I would be honored to give it a full pbr texture overhaul for rend2 (if you want to ofc).

 

I would love to know more about your project and yes, I want this map to be my first release.  

 

Shoot me a DM. 

[Noodle]

Thanks everybody for contributing! 

 

Day 4 Model:

 

Today I wanted to create something that will allow mappers to make their cantinas look less samey by giving a new choice of drink instead of the classical wine bottle from Nar Shadda. This time I used texturing techniques that I had never tried before, so I'm sure there's a lot to improve in the future!

 

Screenshot:

 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/08jdjlxasp5w216/Daily_Challenge4.rar?dl=0

[MagSul]

I shall put that to good use! Awesome work. 

[Noodle]

I shall put that to good use! Awesome work. 

 

Good to know!

 

Day 5 Model:

 

Tried to do something more complex but it didn't work out as I intended, so I did some more pottery pieces and also tested blender's render with them.

 

Screenshot: 

 

 

Blender render:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/xx4ph4sxcz3lcn5/Daily_Challenge5.rar?dl=0

[Noodle]

Day 6 Mod:

 

Today I don't bring a new model, but an animation resource for anyone that wants to use it on a project. It's based on one of Obi-wan's stances from EP III. Here's how it looks ingame,

 

https://s1.webmshare.com/0vxZx.webm

 

Keep in mind that you'll have to add this to your _humanoid.gla file on your own, since this is only a resource, not a full blown replacer. 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/ghooul8bqo6rf32/Daily_Challenge6.rar?dl=0

[RAILBACK]

Thanks everybody for contributing! 

 

Day 4 Model:

 

Today I wanted to create something that will allow mappers to make their cantinas look less samey by giving a new choice of drink instead of the classical wine bottle from Nar Shadda. This time I used texturing techniques that I had never tried before, so I'm sure there's a lot to improve in the future!

 

Screenshot:

 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/08jdjlxasp5w216/Daily_Challenge4.rar?dl=0

Reminds me of the bar_bottles I made eons ago.

 

[Psyk0Sith]

@@Noodle you need to add highlights and shadows (remember shadows are not pure black!) to your textures, your textures are all flat colored so need the extra steps!

This example is a stylized texture but the goal is the same for "realistic" assets...specularity and shadows is what sells the illusion!

[Noodle]

@@Noodle you need to add highlights and shadows (remember shadows are not pure black!) to your textures, your textures are all flat colored so need the extra steps!

This example is a stylized texture but the goal is the same for "realistic" assets...specularity and shadows is what sells the illusion!

 

I thought it'd suffice by adding Ambient Occlusion, but it seems I was wrong! I've always dreaded the idea of hand-painting highlights and shadows because I suck at painting (even more with a mouse), but I'll take it as a personal challenge to learn to properly do this.

[Noodle]

Gotta say, hand-painting is even harder than I though, specially with a mouse! Even though I'm not proud of what I did, I feel the obligation to share it with you guys so it can serve as educational material regarding the mistakes I did. I'd heavily advice to do this while following a video tutorial or step by step images, since it helps make everything much clearer.

 

Day 7 Model:

 

I did a quick barrel in blender and tried to manually paint it with the Paint Editor option. Didn't end up looking the way I wanted, but oh well!

 

Screenshot: 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/m095x0h58gw8tl9/Daily_Challenge7.rar?dl=0

[Psyk0Sith]

Well, baby steps and you did a basic block out of what could become a warcraft hand painted asset. The reason it looks like it does is because you have a very restricted color palette.

 

You say it didn't end up looking the way you wanted...and that is a very important statement: what kind of reference did you gather? Was it your goal to make it look realistic? If so you need to get as much references as possible and break down how you can replicate the different materials of the object. Something like this for example, lot's of interesting details going on:

 

 

 

 

Once you have done the clean version, you can really go to town giving it personality with wear n' tear and surface details that aren't modeled in. If you don't have photoshop or something equivalent it will take an insanely long time to master painting at a realistic level. That's where photo manipulation comes into play and i don't mean slapping on a picture you pull off google and calling it done.

[Langerd]

Well, baby steps and you did a basic block out of what could become a warcraft hand painted asset. The reason it looks like it does is because you have a very restricted color palette.

 

You say it didn't end up looking the way you wanted...and that is a very important statement: what kind of reference did you gather? Was it your goal to make it look realistic? If so you need to get as much references as possible and break down how you can replicate the different materials of the object. Something like this for example, lot's of interesting details going on:

 

 

 

 

Once you have done the clean version, you can really go to town giving it personality with wear n' tear and surface details that aren't modeled in. If you don't have photoshop or something equivalent it will take an insanely long time to master painting at a realistic level. That's where photo manipulation comes into play and i don't mean slapping on a picture you pull off google and calling it done.

Well.. many times i use images from google but i never used any like you descibed - slap a picture and change uv laout to fit the model. I many times saw people making guns, weapons like this - Uv layout from view and change it to fit the picture of the axe for example. And i agree - It looks really cheap. Bad and not natural at all.

 

I suggest @@Noodle to paint colors like you did and later use layers blend modes like overlay or multiply, use ambient occlusion because it works fine and also dont be afraid to edit texture in program like photoshop or paint.net - believ me or not i use this 100% of the time and it is enough for me to achieve a lot. Maybe it is not professional program - Still can achieve some good looking results. Use images not to just slap the picture but to make material, real texture or use it as blend layers to make scratches, dirt, holes, burn marks etc. The default JK3 textures that you used - these also can be changed or better yet added to your new made texture and later edit in some way to create something new. 

[Noodle]

Well, baby steps and you did a basic block out of what could become a warcraft hand painted asset. The reason it looks like it does is because you have a very restricted color palette.

 

You say it didn't end up looking the way you wanted...and that is a very important statement: what kind of reference did you gather? Was it your goal to make it look realistic? If so you need to get as much references as possible and break down how you can replicate the different materials of the object. Something like this for example, lot's of interesting details going on:

 

Once you have done the clean version, you can really go to town giving it personality with wear n' tear and surface details that aren't modeled in. If you don't have photoshop or something equivalent it will take an insanely long time to master painting at a realistic level. That's where photo manipulation comes into play and i don't mean slapping on a picture you pull off google and calling it done.

 

 

Thanks! My objective was to familiarize myself with the paint tools from Blender, but it was clearly too much to handle in one go. I've been practicing a bit more now and trying to familiarize myself with painting with a Wacom tablet. It's a bit hard but I think I'll be able to get used to it in time. I'm guiding myself with this tutorial which seems very useful to my inexpert eyes. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ALfRw6I5I

 

Well.. many times i use images from google but i never used any like you descibed - slap a picture and change uv laout to fit the model. I many times saw people making guns, weapons like this - Uv layout from view and change it to fit the picture of the axe for example. And i agree - It looks really cheap. Bad and not natural at all.

 

I suggest @@Noodle to paint colors like you did and later use layers blend modes like overlay or multiply, use ambient occlusion because it works fine and also dont be afraid to edit texture in program like photoshop or paint.net - believ me or not i use this 100% of the time and it is enough for me to achieve a lot. Maybe it is not professional program - Still can achieve some good looking results. Use images not to just slap the picture but to make material, real texture or use it as blend layers to make scratches, dirt, holes, burn marks etc. The default JK3 textures that you used - these also can be changed or better yet added to your new made texture and later edit in some way to create something new. 

 

Thanks, that's solid advice too! I'll try to spend more time on my texture work in hopes of achieving a more realistic look! 

 

Day 8 Mod:

 

Didn't have too much time today to do anything, so I did a quick animation for those who want their characters to sit in a more powerful manner. 

 

Preview Pic:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6b4esas5tmn50dm/Daily_Challenge8.rar?dl=0

Edited January 26, 2019 by Noodle
edited your post to link to the video instead of embedding it, it should play properly now ~Ashura

[SomaZ]

So, my first entry.

 

@@Sting inspired me to start modelling a crate, so here it is.

 

 

 

Highpoly model

 

Lowpoly model

 

Render in Blender

 

Ingame

 

 

 

The model is supposed to be used as a misc_model_static. It also has 1 LOD.

 

Download link:https://www.dropbox.com/s/1yebprv7mrbfcz8/crate_01.pk3?dl=0

 

Oh, and many thanks to AshuraDX for some critique and useful input while texturing this.

 

Edit: Here are the source files except the substance painter project. It's like 280MB in size and most of you guys don't have substance, so I cut it. Pbr textures are included though and ready to be used in Blender. I'm not really proud of the highpoly, it could use some more love, but it's a start.

Download link:https://www.dropbox.com/s/wh1u60tcsrwsfiw/crate_01.zip?dl=0

[Droidy365]

Thanks! My objective was to familiarize myself with the paint tools from Blender, but it was clearly too much to handle in one go. I've been practicing a bit more now and trying to familiarize myself with painting with a Wacom tablet. It's a bit hard but I think I'll be able to get used to it in time. I'm guiding myself with this tutorial which seems very useful to my inexpert eyes. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7ALfRw6I5I

 

 

Thanks, that's solid advice too! I'll try to spend more time on my texture work in hopes of achieving a more realistic look! 

 

Day 8 Mod:

 

Didn't have too much time today to do anything, so I did a quick animation for those who want their characters to sit in a more powerful manner. 

 

Preview vid: 

 

https://my.mixtape.moe/kcjuth.mp4

 

Download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6b4esas5tmn50dm/Daily_Challenge8.rar?dl=0

Not sure if it's just me, but the video doesn't work :/