Archangel35757

Update: Autodesk technical support has been absolutely no help-- after sending them my Max2012/2013 source code... the tech support Guy won't even return my emails. So... ...rather than import the VS2008 Max2012 project files into VS2010, I decided to use the 2013 plugin wizard to create a new empty exporter plugin solution. This readily compiles. So then I began populating my code into it piece-meal and compile as I go... so as to overcome the linking errors. First thing I verified were my export & about dialogs... and they work just fine. It's going well-- fixing the Unicode errors at each incremental compile. I'll keep you posted on my progress.

@@Xycaleth -- Yes! Please fix the Ghoul2 tangent space calculations for normal mapping. @@Psyk0Sith, @@DT85 -- In regards to UV seams, couldn't you create a second UV texture map in Map Channel #2, and then select only the polygons bordering the offending seams and create another texture to be used in a Shader blending function? I've seen this done before in a UVW tutorial.

But is the normal map for your Ghoul2 character "clean" ? Or does it contain artifacts from its creation using whatever modeling app?

@@DT85-- So is it that there are artifacts created inside of 3dsMax when you do a render-to-texture for the normal map, and you have to clean up those artifacts in Max? Or are you saying you have a clean normal map that is messed up in the game engine? Would you post a screenshot of your normal map?

So does anyone have this on their ToDo list? Regarding seams -- @@Psyk0Sith, I thought UV seams were always visible on game characters... and that's why all the UVW training States to try and hide the seams at material transitions on the character-- e.g. belts, pants waistline, etc., no? is there a blend function that could be used in the Shader to diminish these seam issues?

So normal maps are working for animated Ghoul2 creature/player models? @@DT85 -- can you provide a quick rundown on what the bugs/issues are? @@Xycaleth -- I disagree… normal and specular maps (textures) are unique to a creature/character/vehicle model. The normal/specular maps must be created for each Ghoul2 character skin. Perhaps you're talking about the rendering engine that uses those unique texture maps.

Why could better flight sim code not be incorporated into the engine much the same way Rend2 has?

Where in the roadmap do we stand in regards to normal maps for Ghoul2 character/creature/vehicle models in Rend2??? IMHO this is the biggest change we modellers want. My second would be better vehicle/flight dynamics-- there a quite a few simple open source flight Sims out there that could make that aspect of the game much better.

When will normal maps be completely implemented for Ghoul2 animated models in SP/MP engines???

Talking of baking details from hi- to low-poly... are normal maps working for vehicles/G2 characters??? If not, when is this targeted for inclusion into rend2?

People take the time to write manuals to convey necessary information. In my opinion, reading the manual should be the first thing one does... while experimenting with the ShaderED utility.

What if Max von Sydow is to play the ghost of Obi-Wan? Put a beard on him and he'd be a good likeness.

Figure out the game scale, change 3dsMax units to match gtkradiant, and model it that size and export out with no need for further scaling.

The JK Skeleton is 100 units tall in 3dsMax (IIRC) and Kyle is 1.8 meters tall. And on export you scale it down to 64%. Characters are typically 64 units tall in GTKRadiant. So do the math to figure out your scaling factor.

I'm not too keen on some of the casting... I think they passed up some good people-- for the sake of finding "unknowns".

Hmmm... seems to be hundreds of Star Wars models for sale on TurboSquid.com.

Ah, that's sad news.

Well, that would be up to the artist and how he negotiates/sells the rights, no?

how's it immoral if the artist sells him full rights?

It would seem to depend on how he negotiates the rights to the model with the artist, no? If the artist sells him the rights as part of their contract, then what prevents him from legally reselling it-- say on Turbosquid, etc.?

Just add the clavicles, upper arms and leg bones (along with the spine bones) to the skin modifier and paint your weights accordingly.

Just uploaded the 3ds Max 2012 64-bit dotXSI 3.0 exporter (as Beta R1). Will try to get the 32-bit version compiled and uploaded in a day or so. Sorry for the slow progress-- life, work, etc. is bogging me down... keeping me away from my hobbies.

@@Psyk0Sith -- yes, it is exactly 156.25% [ (1 / 0.64) * 100 = 156.25% ) ] @@DarthDementous -- Having "Animation" checked should not cause a crash... also for your "bolt_l_hand" weighting error-- having spaces in your 3ds Max filename can cause this issue (if your bolt is truly weighted)... the temporary workaround is to replace the spaces with underscores. I have fixed this filename bug in the 3ds Max 2012 x64 plugin, and I'm in the process of going back and updating the previous Max 6 thru Max 2011 plugins.

Because the .GLM file is scaled to 64% during CARCASS compiling, after you import the .GLM mesh back into 3dsMax you need to select the mesh_root and rescale it using a factor of 1.5625. This will re-scale the mesh to it's original 100% size. Then you need to apply XFORMs to reset the scaling and then collapse them to rebaseline the scaling to this 100% value ( @@Psyk0Sith, correct? ). Then merge this with the .Max skeleton file. You also need to get the latest dotXSI exporter-- it should not be crashing on export.

Haven't heard back from Autodesk support... but I have an idea of my own I will try out this week... to get the Max2013/2014 plugin to compile. I will be uploading 2012 versions later this week (I've been away on vacation).