CrimsonStrife

Method behind creating that thick outline cartoony look on a model.
This tutorial will instruct you as a modeler to create cell shaded models. It does not, however cover the modeling process.

 

Intermediate Players Modelling.

 

This tutorial will instruct you as a moddeler to create cell shaded models. It does not, however cover the modeling process.

NOTE: THIS TUTORIAL WAS MADE FOR 3DS MAX 8 / 2008….HOWEVER IT SHOULD WORK WITH ANY PROGRAM THAT SUPPORTS THE SAME FUNCTIONS.

POLYCOUNT WARNING! THIS TECHNIQUE WILL LIKELY BOOST YOUR POLYCOUNT THROUGH THE ROOF…SO WHILE IT CAN BE USED ON WEAPONS AS WELL…IT IS NOT ADVISED.

I originally developed this tutorial for use with the Software Development Kit used to make new models for the Jedi Academy game. However this technique can still work for other game engines and

STEP 1: The model Cell shading does not merely involve a shader file…in order to create the thick outline seen on cell shaded models…you will need to modify the model it’s self. I will be using my InuYasha model as an example throughout this tutorial. We will be changing him from this:

Into this:

Notice the black outline? … That’s what we need to make. Lets assume you already have your model segmented properly…(in case you don’t)…you can do this even if you don’t have it ready but its a lot easy this way. I’m going to take a segment of my model and only work with it to avoid confusion.

 

(Take note that we won’t outline the eyes or eyelids…as this isn’t needed and looks rather odd)…Also you should go ahead and create a solid black texture image the same proportion as your other textures… (256 x 256 or 512 x 512 works nicely)…this will be used to color your outline…naturally you could always use a different color if you wanted to be fancy…but I don’t personally like the idea.

Ok…I’ve chosen to work with the sword on his hip first…this is nothing more than the swords model…make sure you have it selected…if it helps hide everything but the part your working with as I did here….(right-click - hide unselected in max)….once its selected…do the following:

 

Go to EDIT > Clone

 

Or just select it and hit Ctrl + V

DO NOT MOVE THE CLONE FROM IT’S LOCATION OR DO ANYTHING TO IT YET!

Now you shouldn’t see much of a difference…make sure the clone is selected….go ahead and rename it “_outline” based on what part of the model it is… for example: “hips_sword_outline” later when linking the model be sure to link it to the part it’s an outline of….in this case “hips_sword”

Now that you have selected the clone…you need to add a normals modifier on it..

 

Make sure that the flip normals box is checked…

Go ahead and apply the outline texture to the outline model…even if you haven’t textured anything else…it makes it easier to see how thick we are making the outline later…

 

Now…we add a push modifier to the outline as well…

Set the push value for about -0.14 or -0.15 should give a decent outline…feel free to experiment…however it needs to be a negative value for the line to stick out…It should look somewhat like this now….

And that’s it for the model…when you weight it…you can just copy and paste the finished weights from the object…to its outline.

STEP 2: SKINNING Ok this will be short, sweet, and to the point…cell shaded models do not need to have a ton of detail…not to say you cant put detail…but try to stay simple…not MS Paint simple mind you.

The shadows you see on my model…are part of the texture…to do this...simply take the color you used…darken it…and skin part of the area with it based on how you think shadows would cast on it…

See I said it would be simple.

STEP 3: .SKIN FILES (these only apply when using the tutorial to work for Jedi Academy's Engine, for max search "For MAX") Now here comes the not so fun part…as with every other part of your model the outlines must be setup within your .skin file…not so hard…just time consuming…..to put it simple….you should end up with something along these lines…(I highlighted all the rows for the outlines).

STEP 4: SHADERS Ok…now this is the final step…you have to create a shader file…first you will want a shade image…I used something like this on InuYasha…

Now open ShaderEd2….

 

In it…add all your texture files....

Now…you will need to repeat the following process on all your textures…

 

Select the texture..

And open its shader by double clicking on it….

 

1.Create a new stage

 

2.select the texture file for the object

 

3.set Depth Func to “lequal”

 

4.set RGB Gen to “identity”

 

The Error Check will likely flash throughout this just ignore it…as it will stop once you have done all four steps…

Now for part 2.

 

Again the Error check will freak out and start flashing…but once you have done the steps it will stop.

 

1.Create a 2nd stage

 

2. select the shade texture

 

3.set Src Blend to GL_DST_COLOR and Dst Blend to GL_ZERO

 

4.set Depth Func to lequal

 

5. set TC Gen to environment

 

For MAX

if you want to see in 3ds max they way the shader effects it....when your making a material set the diffuse map as a falloff...and the self illumination to 100...then in the falloff menu...make the white texture your texture file....dont do this on the outline though.

just select bitmap..and then your texture.

1000* per mesh, for a max of 32 meshes, IIRC.

 

That is the player character limit.  Weapons are much lower.

I love how people think it's ported when it was made from scratch.

 

It doesn't help that most of the EPVII models you've been sharing lately have been ripped from the pinball game.

The porting requests should really stop as a whole anyway. While the admins here may have decided to allow it on a tentative basis, you're not going to find many people here that know HOW to do it, actually be WILLING to do it, as regardless it is in violation of the EULA, likely for both JK/A and the source games.

Darth Martyr's lightsaber has 2048x2048 textures. 

 

That's more than some in-game characters.

 

 

 

This:

That's textures not verts/tris.  Textures are just flat images, we're talking about a 3d system of points that define a model.

 

 

Model Resolution =/= Texture Resolution

.. What I meant was, keep it high-res enough so that it has the best detail, the game can handle. @@Darth Martyr achieved it with the hilt of Kylo Ren's lightsaber. So I'm just saying that if the quality of Rey's staff can match that quality, then there isn't a problem and everyone's a winner! 

 

 "best the game can handle" is vague.  As I said, there is a defined limit, but you don't want to be close to that.  You have to account for the fact that whatever you're making will be rendered along dozens of other meshes in the game.  Can you imagine the performance issues if you were trying to run a server full of nothing but ~max poly'd characters and weapons?

 

Now why would he want a lower res version?! Why bother designing a mod if it's gonna be lower res? I just don't see the point, personally. All models should be as high-res as possible, as far as I'm concerned.

 

 

 

Someone clearly doesn't understand the engine limitations, nor the real nitty-gritty bits of modeling.  This old engine will shit the bed if models are not kept to certain restrictions.  More so, the one reason to maintain a low-res/high-detail balance is that while 1 model being rendered in game at the maximum detail may be fine, for every additional instance of that model or a similarly high-detail one, the game engine is going to lag and drop frames like a military cadet with leprosy.

Yeah, sorry guys, I'll be starting this week. Work was killer.

Kylo will be as 1:1 as possible, but revan will be a more hybrid of the KotOR and SWTOR versions, as that is where is face will be referenced from.  I also feel the smaller build of revan in SWTOR may fit the skeleton better. We shall see.

 

I'm looking at giving Revan some variants to choose from.

Rip in pepperonis Inyri Forge.

 

If I'm understanding the point of this correctly @@CrimsonStrife will be making both Revan and Kylo, but the poll determines who is made first. I was just suggesting that it would be fair for Kylo Ren to be first because there's no models of him like Revan.

 

@@Inyri is fine, I keep in touch with her, albeit she goes by something else now.  She just has a lot of life stuff going on. I don't think she intends to return to modding however.

 

And yes, both will be made. Eventually.

Well, if it's anything like the standard of model we got from Psyk0Sith's Darth Malgus, I'm on-board. 

Probably close, but I don't think I'd compare myself to @@Psyk0Sith, he's been at this longer than me if I recall correctly.

 

Per her own words, I'm much closer to @@Inyri's level. I'm only even remotely "known" in the community for making a bunch of cool stuff I teased and then lost/never released.

I do partly agree with you on that, but I think until we have a high-poly, movie accurate version of Kylo.. The more we have of him, the better. That way people can continue their work on him and bring out the best version possible.

 

While the version I am making will be higher-poly than the vanilla models of the games, don't expect it to be all that high-poly, this is still an old engine we're talking about here.  I'll be baking most of the fine details into the textures.

I'll be starting this week everyone. Wanted to give the poll time to circulate.

I literally thought it was Revan from KotOR and not a port. At my second playthrough,I downloaded a Revan model and it was exactly like this.

 

 

This topic is in the wrong section.

 

As far as the request goes, there's a good Revan model made from scratch by @@Almightygir. But it's only for JKA. He includes the original files, so I'm sure someone could rig it to JK2 if they know how.

I was referring to the "good" model OP posted an image of as being the port. It's obviously not @@Almightygir's work, and came directly from the game. But YES Gir does have a good one somewhere.

Update:

 

So far I have uploaded/released version 1.9 dotXSI 3.0 exporters for Max6 thru Max2011. I'm working to get versions for Max2012 thru Max2016 submitted as quickly as I can.

 

I would appreciate user feedback. Thanks.

 

Would definitely appreciate the newer version that supports 2015.  But I won't need it for a few days yet.

Would seem, albeit unsurprisingly, that Kylo Ren is winning by a long shot right now.

So I didn't stay gone forever and half of you new guys probably don't even know who I am, but I need some new pieces for my portfolio.

 

So I'm going to let you guys choose which of two models I make first.  (I haven't modded for these games in forever so I may need rigging assistance since I'm not an avid Blender or XSI user, unless someone knows of some plugins/scripts to rig the files in the newer versions of 3DS Max or Maya)

 

These will be full, new, actual models.  Not reskins, not frank'nmeshes, but full detailed models.

 

I'll be doing both, but who do you want first?

 

Darth Revan (with "canon" face)

 

Or

 

Kylo Ren (Movie Accurate with removable mask)

 

 

Maybe I'll do some other things for you guys later down the road, but for now, this is it.

 

EDIT: After some quick research it would appear the old plugins still work, so I should be fine.

My hope is that Bethesda will be brought on to make a Star Wars RPG someday.

 

Good luck prying those exclusive game rights from EA's grubby hands.

That "good" revan is a direct rip from KotOR, and if my recollection of porting on this site is still correct, it wouldn't be allowed here.

Saw a video for it. It's definitely clunky, but the fact they can even do it is amazing.

Well, this is still a thing apparently...

I really hate EA with a damn passion, I don't know who gave Ea the right to only use the SW ip, but they gave SW to goddamn sh!t-slinging monkeys.

 

Disney.  Well technically LucasArts did, because while the game development at LucasArts was shutdown, the company/branding was kept running as the "licensing company" for SW related games.  And they in turn handed it to EA.

Is there any kind of Star Wars team working to create Star Wars in the Unreal Engine? It would seem most of the coding changes would be limited to coding Jedi force powers and a saber system, no?

 

 

There was the crew from MB2 doing MB3 on UDK, but they decided to ditch it for an indie project. Would be great if the guy(s) behind this JKO film could make a playable game on UE4.

 

You would have to code literally everything, either through visual scripting in Blueprints, or through C++, the only things you could get "built-in" are project templates that have basic character movement.

You also (and this has been discussed at large before), would be playing a risky game even with a not-for-profit fan game, since you're now up against Disney and EA, two of the most stringent copyright protectors in the business, second probably only to Nintendo.  EA has EXCLUSIVE rights to make Star Wars games for the foreseeable future, and if you think they're going to let potential competition (even in the form of a free fan-made game) come to fruition, you're sadly mistaken.  You would likely been hearing from lawyers and getting cease and desist letters as soon as you gained any publicity.  And that's assuming that Disney/LucasArts(which they kept around for licensing purposes) don't hunt you down first for using the Star Wars IP without permission.

Each situation is different though, making and selling mods isn't a conflict of interest just because you have another job in the industry, it is entirely dependent on what that job is. If you work 9-5 and do your job, what you do outside of that time doesn't matter as long as it doesn't conflict. Doing the same job in multiple ways or through multiple means isn't a conflict of interest. If it clashes with your main job legally (meaning the company is forcing you to only work for them or something) then that's a different story. But if you're not bound by that, and it doesn't take away from the company you work 905 for, then there's no reason not to. If I'm hired to work as a producer for a studio and I need to work x hours a week, it's not a conflict of interest for me to pick up other projects outside of my job as long as I am still fulfilling x amount of hours per week. I'd even say there's opportunity for bringing attention to your 9-5 job. If someone is known for making fantastic mods, what's to stop them from going "Like my stuff? Check out this game I'm working on." Works for other creative industries quite well.

 

Actually, it can be a major legal sticking point, especially in the technical fields.  Most tech industries, Telecom, Game Devs, Software Devs, IT/Security firms, Industrial/Production, are very very picky about what you do outside of your employment with them, I know from experience.  They don't care about the time you spend doing it, but they do want you to stay the hell out of the same industry.  ("Trade secrets and other nonsense")

If I get it, it might be on PC, can't say for sure.  My big gripe for that is that it is an Origin game.  I don't really hate on Origin anymore, but I begrudge it for making me use it for the whopping 5 games I have on it, versus my 300+ Steam library.