Kualan

Forgot to mention, the HoloNews One stuff is great.

Heh, by coincidence both HoloNews One and other galactic media are going to feature in the next issue of Volume Five.

@@Seven and @@Kualan, when you're at the screen where you pick the .glm to import, there's an option to import all/a range of animations, too. You enter the starting frame number and how many frames the animation is. Maybe that will help.

Thanks Artemis, I'll give that a try later today.

None of those pk3's have the model_default.skin.

Just checked - they're in MBAssets3.pk3

So I want to some more skin practicing, so I want to do some of MB2 skins because they have some pretty cool skins. But here's the problem I can not find the model_default.skin file in any of the models folders. Does someone know where the model_default.skin are located?

If I recall correctly, the full contents of the 'models/players/' folder in MB2 are spread over several .pk3s. So you need to go through FAMBModels.pk3, MB2Models.pk3 and probably several more to find everything.

Countless hours were spent playing that game, I still do too since that's another game that's still being modded. Have you tried making any skins from characters in that game besides Tann?

Off the top of my head, I don't believe so. I remember when that Sev'rance Tann panel needed to be made I contemplated putting together an Echuu Shen-Jon model but in the ended chickened out with a standard hooded Jedi seen from behind.

NB: The Sev'rance Tann skin wasn't done by me, but alas I can not recall where I got it from. It might be on @@mrwonko 's backup of the old JK3Files site.

The modding community is still going for SWGB? Dayum, I may have to fire up the old disc again.

I know right? I used to send my heroes to war in the campaign just so that I could complete the mission with ALL of my troops alive

Heh, I remember re-doing Darth Vader's mission on Yavin IV over and over to try and ensure I finished with as large a curbstomp Imperial army as possible. If you're gonna crush rebels, you got to do it right.

I learned it helps to pose the bones and start painting from there because the mesh will actually move as you paint it.

Woah, that sounds like a game-changing timesaver rather than the constant backup-export-Modview-import-retry cycle I'm in at the moment.

Is there a way to automatically pose the bones based on a JKA animation .gla or do you pose them manually?

I have separated the neck parts from the head parts (keep in mind that the head was originally cut into 10 parts in order to work), so the neck goes to "cervical" and the head to "cranium". I shared the beta version of the model, so it's open for anyone who's willing to fix that bug. By far that is the best I could've done from my own to bring Sebastian Shaw back to live for JKA. And I saw people talking, that if they are re-shooting ROTJ and the original saga, than this mix of Hayden + Sebastian will be added for the end, but if that is what they aim to do, I would just recomand to return to Sebastian, because he was casted and it must be him. What's worse than cutting you out of a movie, is to cut you out of the movie, after you were shot there.

If you separate them (as in cut them into separate meshes) and then weigh each part 100% to a different bone, they won't animate in sync with each other - they will tear like it has in your picture. The weights need to be joined so that the mesh deforms in the correct way.

Your options are one of the following:

1. Rejoin the neck, and then use Face Select (or manual Weight Paint) to weigh part of it to cervical and part of it to cranium (Easiest Option)

or

2. Leave the two meshes separate, but weigh a thin percentage (like 0.25) of vertices along the top of the neck to the cranium bone, and a thin percentage of vertices along the bottom of the head mesh to the cervical bone (creating a 'border' that passes into both meshes).

I really didn't know what I was doing with weighting at the time, so this is probably for the best.

Yeah I'm doing a lot of trial-and-error myself. There's definitely an art to it - and weighing someone like Bane with all his coat-tails and satchels and extra stuff is a farcry from weighing a skeleton-like frame like C-21 Highsinger's.

I like that Sev'Rance Tann reference haha

Galactic Battlegrounds was the first Star Wars game I was ever truly obsessed with.

I know @@Seven made a Cad Bane release, but today I tried my hand at putting together one of my own.

Main difference is that I believe his comes from Clone Wars Adventures, whereas I've used the model from Republic Heroes due to its (slightly) more high-res textures hopefully giving the bounty hunter a better appearance in-game. This guy won't be released as quickly as Ventress or Bossk though as there is a LOT more fine-tuning on the weights to do.

Well, I just went through this whole thread from start to finish to refamiliarize myself with what possibilities were out there.

 

There is so much amazing content in here... Concepts, releases, just brilliant work.

 

I can't wait for each release, but the one question I have is if the Barc Speeder was lost when your PC died?

The BARC speeder was backed up, I believe (can't check at the moment, using my laptop not my PC) but I never did get around to remodelling it slightly so it synced better with the driver animations. Also, if I remember correctly, there were also some issues with getting it to run in-game without crases that I'll need to iron out.

Hey @@Kualan, do you have that Imperial Knight link?

The Imperial Knight model was one that was made for the old Legacy RP server several years ago, and I know at the time the creator (Kel I believe his name was) was absolutely adamant that the model not be shared outside that community. I would like to respect that person's wishes but on the other hand the server is long-dead. 

If anyone knows of a way/can contact him to find out if he's cool with it, I'd be happy to share what I have.

I forgot how many great creations were in this thread - can't wait for that pack release @@Jrue

Well, is it possible to do it with spliting the entire neck and assing it to "cervical" and the head itself to "cranium"?

It will probably still deform a little - I don't know you could try. In my experience only the lower half of the neck should be weighed to cervical, not the whole neck.

Well i think it is too late, because the head model in order to work in ModView and base JKA without any other mods installed on it, except the 1.0.1 patch was splitted on 10 pieces.

It will take longer, but it isn't too late - and it's also the only way to fix the bug.

You'll just have to go through each piece and delete the 'cervical' bone in Vertex Groups - apart from pieces with form the lower half of the neck, in which case you remove the 'cranium' bone from Vertex Groups instead. Since you rigged it all to both cervical and cranium at 1.00, deleting the wrong one will automatically weigh it all to the correct one.

I saw somewhere, your interview I think? where you stated you wanted to maybe remaster them, why not just do that? Do you still have those older assets?

Alas, the original .psd Photoshop work files for everything pre-Volume Five were lost in October when my old PC died a nasty death >_<

I wouldn't remove them, they're still pretty good. Maybe just move them and name them original rough draft or something. 

Aye, maybe I'll move them to an 'Archive' page or something.

Just use ModView's facial animations and take a screenshot.

Modview's facial expressions are a little limited, and the majority of player-made models aren't rigged for expressions anyway unfortunately. It's okay though, as of Volume Three I figured out some Photoshop techniques to introduce facial expression so it's only Volumes One and Two that have this issue (another reason I'm considering removing them from the main 'series').

I'm actually considering removing Volumes One and Two from the site and starting the Tales From The Clone Wars series from Volume Three. I was looking back at those older issues today and they just look so dated and rusty compared to the more modern volumes. It would be a tough call since collectively the two volumes represent a huge amount of work hours, but I think it might be needed to give new visitors to the comic the best first impression.

I gotta say, I just started reading this from the beginning and I'm really digging it so far! Such an awesome idea and executed very well.

Thanks @@DTIII ! Hope you stick with it, the series definitely improves with each volume as the editing, writing and Photoshopping all get better the more practice I had at them.

It is attached as you have instructed me once and the same way as I did with TFU Obi Wan Kenobi's head from Episode 3. It's weighted to "cervical" and "cranium" firt the edit mode, select all, than go to the drop menu than i added the cervical and clicked assign it was on 1000, after that i added the cranium and hit "CTRL + I" in order to make inverse selection and assigned it to the cranium.

That's why it's bugging out - as I said in my previous post you must assign only the verts/faces along the lower-half of the neck to 'cervical' and the rest of the head to cranium.

Btw @@Kualan Toshi's Luke eyes and mouth are weighted on "jaw" and "cranium" and since i just hit "M" button to move them on the head and than just change it's parent connection from "torso_0.001" to "torso_0" as i did many times with older models and it worked for them.

And what about the head itself?

The eyes, mouth and head need to be weighed solely to the cranium bone (unless you wish to rig the face for expressions) and the lower half of the neck gets rigged to the cervical bone.

From the pictures it looks like you've got one of them rigged to the wrong bone.

Thoughts after Episode 1:

+ It's clear that lots of effort went into making this.

+ Nice to see Jaden/Zora's backstory developed a bit further back beyond what we heard about in the game.

+ Creative use of camera angles in the earlier scenes.

+ Ties well into other parts of the story already established in the game (e.g. Tavion securing the scepter on Commenor).

- Voice acting. Probably won't be as big a deal later in the series when you can use the vanilla game's audio, but that Zabrak language and the auto-type dialogue was pretty harsh on the ears. Given the effort that went into other parts of producing the video, trying to get a VA or two might not have been a bad idea? I know the community is a little scarce on those though...

- Plot question. Just minor things that jumped out at me on the first viewing (maybe I missed something though) - who is the guy who collects Zora? At first I thought he was associated with the Jedi Praxeum and that is why he was taking Zora away, but then later on it seems like the idea to take her to Luke (after she shows him the lightsaber) is occurring to him for the first time. And then he randomly shows up with the Scepter, so I assume he is the collector that Kyle mentions in the main game. But if so, why did he care about taking Zora in the first place?  Maybe I'm missing the point and these questions are answered in a later episode? 

Overall it's a decent machinima that is well put-together given Jedi Academy's limited tools for the task, and I will check out the next episode to see where you take things.

I'm downloading Episode 1 now and will leave some feedback for you afterwards - shame YouTube is such a dick and has gone trigger happy on some of the clips.

Yes i am sure, and I showed the Flametrooper result in game, as to show what I don't want Sebastian to look like. Somehow after following your steps for the UV Split Mesh error, after the final step with the Edge Spliter from around 1700+ verts head it goes to a 7000+ verts

Oh, if the starting figure was 1700 then yes that sounds about right. Didn't realise you were starting from such a high-poly model. 

Long story short - the model isn't designed to work on JKA engines so you're going to have to cut it down into little pieces.

Thanks for saving me again @@Kualan !! This time it worked, however in ModView I ran into the error for too much verts. I did separate the head on 2 half parts, but the right side of his head is 641 verts and the left half of his head is at 3,717 verts. I tried to use decimate as you once mentioned and played around but mostly the face dissapears, so I will have to split it on more parts, however I don't want it to look with a visible triangules on the face during gameplay. How can I avoid this any thoughts?

That's a very big disparity in vertices - are you sure you correctly split the edges along the seams for the 3,717 vert mesh? That figure seems more like one that comes from splitting all the edges.

No, you don't need to go into the UV Image Editor. You can do all this in the main window by using the Space key to produce a dropdown menu that lets you type-and-click commands like Seams From Islands or Select Similar.

I'll try again, covering every keystroke:

1. In the main window, open Edit Mode. Press A to select all.

2. Press space and type in 'seams' - an option for 'Seams From Island' will appear in the menu. Click it.

3. All relevant edges will become red. Make sure you have Edge Select on only and right-click on one of the red edges.

4. Press Space. Type 'similar' and then click Select Similar.

5. In the next menu that appears, click 'Seam'. This will select all the red highlighted edges.

6. With them all selected, press Space. Type 'edge'. Click 'Edge Split'.

7. Check that the vertex count is still below 1000 for the surface and then export.