3D Models

Simply suberb.  Alas, i don't know of a tutorial for lightwave, but there is a XSI tutorial for view models on the VDC.  I'm sure the principle must be the same.
 
Hey guys,

I downloaded the repository of models from the link Jupix gave in the other thread and looking at them I have a few requests that should make working with the models a little easier.

Abyssary - Concerning the intrusion alarm light; would it be possible for you to include a bone which extends from the centre of the light out slightly into the area between the central light and the rim?  Also if this bone could be animated to perform a complete revolution in the idle sequence that would be great.  My plan here is to attach a red spotlight to the model in the entity code that will spin around creating the lighting effect.  To do this I need something to attach it to (the bone) and an animated model to do the spinning.

Cyberion - Concerning the teleporter; I was wondering if it would be possible to use a similar method on this as i've used with the alarm boxes.  That is for each colour to make two skins.  The first would be the inactive texture, and the second would be an animated verision of the skin with an alpha channel to use as self illumination on the lights.  Also, I was thinking it should be possible to use both the blue and red textures as skins for a single model.  So in total there would be 4 skins (blue active, blue inactive, red active, red inactive) and only one model.

Would this be possible?
 
Ok, should be easy.
Once the semester is finished i wanted to look into animating the props anyway.

If i find some time around the weekend i'll give it a try.
 
well I'm not sure about teleporter. Of course it's not a big deal to create 2 or 3 textures for teleporter, which are used in certain conditions. But can HL's engine switch them dynamicaly? And if it can, how it is performed and how the textures should be saved? I mean maybe the name of the surface of the model should be something specific or have specific preffix in order to enable texture switching in HL's engine.


This needs to be cleared out.


P.S. btw I'm terribly disatisfied with the current teleporter texture, I think it's ugly. I was thinking to enchance it or even to remake it completely. I need to change computer badly. Photoshop CS3 with his 3D model function is very useful for texturing, but I do nto have enough computer resource to perform that task without lags... damn...
 
Hello, there

exams are finished and i have finaly some time to devote to the project.

First i've modeled the big container with the shootable walls.



For the time being it has no interior, but i'm working on that.


Second i've added the rotating bone to the Alarm Light which Heoga requested.
I'll try to compile everything later on.

For now you can get the files at http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~smeiste2/
 
So, I'm still alive and made some progress:

First here's the raw mesh for the thing i'm working on:


Currently im creating the UV Map and i must say i HATE mapping!  :angry:

Second i did some experiments with compiling models and making animations work for them
the alarm light with the rotating bone works fine now, you can get the mesh and qc file here:
http://www.rzuser.uni-heidelberg.de/~smeiste2/AlarmLight.zip
I thought about modeling a spider bomb to get a bit more practise in that matter.  :)


By the way: does anyone know how the texture files are applied to the compiled models?
i didn't find an coresponding qc option.
 
the model looks good. Sharp enough and good shape.

As for texture application - I have no idea. I guess Jupix should know about that stuff.

Btw what's the number of Tri-polygons?
 
At the moment it's at 4300 polys.
With Reduce Polys + i can cut that down to around 3000 without losing much detail. Maybe even more.

And because it's a viewmodel i can remove the polys you won't see ingame, so i suspect to end up with 2000-2500.

The final count for the worldmodel should be a bit lower.
 
Wish I could see that model, but by college filter blocks imageshack  >(.  I'll take a look at that light when I get home, I worked out a hack with a rotating dynamic light but I have a feeling it's going to be prone to bugs.  Attaching to a bone should look a bit better.

As for the textures, I've done a little modelling the last few days trying to make the 3 batteries.  Used the college 3D CAD facilities to make life a little easier.  I'll try to share what I've learnt. 
Firstly you need to apply the textures as a Blinn material with the image as a TGA in the diffuse map (directory doesn't matter at this stage).

In the QC the two commands that are neccesary for textures are:

$cdmaterials - this changes the directory which the texture is stored in.  For example, my chemical battery has the chembatt.vmt applied to it which is in materials/models/batts/chembatt.vmt  So I need to enter
$cdmaterials "models/batts/"

$texturegroup - this is the second qc command for textures and controls the different skins.  For example, if I wanted to be able to change the texture on my chemical battery from chembatt.vmt to chembatt2.vmt or chembatt2.vmt the command would look like this:
$texturegroup skinfamilies
{
{ "chembatt"  }
{ "chembatt2" }
        { "chembatt3" }
}
Important bit here is that the first texture (chembatt) is the one defined in the smd.

Some models (untextured as of yet)
Limpet Mine
Chemical Battery
Fission Battery
Fusion Battery
Ionic Shield
Graviton Shield
 
Sorry for the delay.
Maybe i'll host the images and files on my private server i've set up recently. Would make everything more comfortable.

I like the props you made. Very good work  :D
 
Hey guys I modelled the keypad1 using sketchup
Hope nobody has already finished this.......







What do u guys think this is the 1st time i am making something for a mod :D
Any changes, couldn't see anything much in the small pic
and the 2 rectangles on top are for a red and green led (depends on the key code)
The top seemed blank which is why I added this
 
hmmm the main idea you should keep in mind is polygon count. Try to keep poly low. This is the most difficult part - modeling for games, you always need to think about the number of polygons in your model.

For such things as keypad, I do not think it needs a lot of round corner as this element is quite small. So far looks good, but do not forget, that models should be with textures as well.
 
yea i thought so too the curved corners will just create extra stress for the system for no gain...
I'll get the curved corners of, what about the extruding top? 

I have no idea how to texture  >(
I am not sure of what extensions can sketchup export it too, I'll have to check
 
Removed the round corners
and here is a screenshot



and sketchup can export to .3ds, .xsi, .obj
I tried to texture in sketchup, but its basically jpegs pasted on the model and there is also no shaders.
An approx. of 65 faces, i guess for the model.
 
Well, basicaly the buttons could be done with the texture. No need to model them directly on a model. It has no use at all. Just look at Half-Life's keypads, it's jsut a simple box with the texture (like keyboard) on top of it.
 
Whew!
Finally done with the mapping and basic texturing.
The next step should be a nice animation with 2 silencer arms reloading that thing.
(Hopefully that won't take me 6 months  :) )

 

Anyone some ideas what i should do to improve the texture?
 
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