Mike's space: tutorials

This is cool

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 01:51:42 GMT

One of my co-workers pointed out this new feature in Photoshop CS3. There are two new tools called Auto-Align images and Auto-Blend images. These functions lie in the Edit menu.

These two tools take images that are placed in a .PSD as separate layers and does some sort of voodoo to get them to align together.. Then if that wasn't enough, it does some other sort of voodoo to blend them together.. The result??

MathMagic!

Ok, here are the images I used:

Here is the result of Auto_Align:

Here is the result of Auto_Blend after I used the Auto_Align function:

That's it. I put all of these pictures into one .PSD file with each picture became a layer in the file. Select all the layers, hit the Auto_Align button and it will have several options. I picked the first option which was Auto.

Once I hit this button it takes care of the calculations and repositioning of the layers into a stitched picture. The blend function doesn't have any menu for previews, however I don't think it really needs it.

This is really helping me out right now.

Happy New Year

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:12:26 GMT

Well here it is, the start of another new year. I still don't have any idea how long it will take to get my videos posted. We are planning some activities on TSInsider, so maybe they are waiting to get that going before I get the videos posted. I apologize for the delays.

We recently had another research trip and will probably have a couple more in the next month or two. I am excited to finally get some of the research done, and once we finish up the rest of the trips we will have everything we need to keep the wheels rolling.

While on break I found a new art forum called Game Artisans here http://www.gameartisans.org/

Lots of really great artists and discussions about game art. One of the things I see all the time is people asking the best way to render stuff out to make it look as good as possible. I usually use Mental Ray in max. I use Skylights and sometimes Omni lights to get the look I want. Here's how I went about setting up this render.

The fist thing I did was to build a virtual set for my object to sit in. I wanted it to be a very simple space that didn't have edges. I used the top of a cylinder and I deleted the rest of the faces.

I used a cylinder that had 30 sides and 12 cap segments. I remove the bottom and the sides as I am only going to use the top.

I convert to an editable poly and then I select the side and bottom quads and delete those. Then I get edge mode and grab the outside edge loop. After I have those selected I use soft selection to get a good portion of the quads toward the inner ring.

Once I have these selected I move the edges up in the Z direction. This will give me a bowl shape in which to use as my virtual set. I don't assign a texture to this, however I make the diffuse color white.

This is the result of my soft selection move.

As you can see from this image I have a bowl with two sky lights and an omni light way down in the bowl. The skylights give me the nice soft lighting and the omni supplies a kicker color, in this case a slight yellow tint.

Here are the settings for my skylights and my omni.

Now I have mental ray set as my renderer. This is under the common tab under rendering options.

The other options I want to set are under Indirect Illumination. You want to set Enable Final Gather and Global Illumination. Once you have these set up, there are numerous settings to play with, but I went with the default settings and had good results.

That's it. Hit render and take a look at the results. The best part of this is you will get some of the benefits of radiosity without the extremely long render times. In the render below I have my omni fairly far away and I turned off Shadows on my omni. Here are the results on a box with default diffuse color on a white diffuse set that I showed above.

Hope every has a happy year ahead.

Still waiting for server space.

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:00:55 GMT

I am trying to be patient and wait for space, because I want to be able to give you people a great tutorial. I appear to be in terminal holding pattern until something can be done about server space. Until that time I am working on getting the rest of the tutorials together. The holidays are coming up and service will be just as spotty as it has been recently and I have a huge trip coming up soon that I will probably be gone for a few weeks.

Here's a little tip on getting max to be a little more easy on the eyes.

If you go to Customize on the top row of menu items you can find Customize User Interface. This dialog has a few tabs, these tabs hold information that you can customize. The last tab is Colors. The top portion says elements and has a drop down menu. This allows you to pick specific portions of the viewport or tools colors or whatever. The bottom part has Scheme and allows you to pick some pre-defined schemes. Once you have all your colors the way you want them, you can save them as a new preset custom color.

Hope that helps

Tip

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:26:52 GMT

If you are like me and 99.9% of the rest of America and aren't up to snuff on your metric conversions or if you are someone from the rest of the globe and wonder what us crazy Yankees are on about when we say 50 yards away.. then this is the tool for you.

http://joshmadison.com/software/convert/

Not only does it convert obvious things like distance it also converts units of mass, power, pressure, speed.. etc.

It may save me hours of converting feet to metric.

Get it now!!!

This is great!

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 21:30:17 GMT

I wanted to point everyone to two different blogs. The cool thing about these blogs is that they are following my tutorials. This isn't the great news, the great news is that they are doing it in a different package other than Max.

In this blog the user (I don't know his/her name yet) Is making an engine in XSI Mod tool.

http://adventuresinmodelling.spaces.live.com

In the blog below Paul Gausden, whom I met at DevCon, is following the tutorial in 3D Canvas!

http://decapod-3d.spaces.live.com

Thanks to both of them for helping others in the community that don't have access to Max!

Tip of the day (hoping to get back on track)

Mon, 12 Nov 2007 18:31:01 GMT

Ok, I am still looking into a host for the video tutorials. Once I figure that out I will be submitting those fairly frequently. In the hopes of getting back into the tip of the day habit, I am submitting this post.

Everyone should get their hands on CrazyBump!.

http://www.crazybump.com/

This is an amazing tool that allows you to take images and make normal, displacement and occlusion maps.

I don't recommend just using photographs when making normals, instead you need gray scale heightmaps. This tool will allow you to take that grayscale image and make it into a normal.

Usually when creating normals I work in grayscale and my images usually end up more like the displacement map than the source image they show on the front page at the CrazyBump site.

Building your height information using black as the lowest point in your image and white as the highest, you will get better normals.

Use CrazyBump, you will be glad you did.

Giving the video tutorial a try

Wed, 07 Nov 2007 01:46:31 GMT

Going to see if this video tutorial works. Here goes nothing.

Video: SW1500 Switcher tutorial

Coverage may be spotty

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 03:08:08 GMT

Well, Devcon is here and I will be attending. Not sure what days I will be going, but I am looking forward to meeting people in the community.

This week I doubt I will be able to add to the switcher tutorial, but more is coming soon. Let me give a little tip of the day instead.

http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/

This is a cool program that allows you to take your 3d models and turn them into paper models.

It takes a little getting used to, but it's fun and intuitive.

See ya'll at Devcon!

Tip of the Day (Textures)

Mon, 05 Nov 2007 05:35:18 GMT

I tried looking back through my posts and see if I had posted anything about some really cool texture places. For some reason the October archive is not working. I guess I will send a report in tomorrow about that.

Here are some really nice texture places, sorry if these were posted before.

http://www.spectralogue.com/

http://mayang.com/textures/

http://www.cgtextures.com/

I should be able to work a little more on the switcher this week coming up. Pretty soon I will also post a picture of the shed I built based on the 3d model I did. I found a few flaws in how I was approaching everything, but I think it's turning out ok.

I have some cool ideas about other trains using the various 3d packages I was speaking of. Once I get that going I will add that information as well.

Sorry about the lack of daily tips, things have been a bit hectic between work and home life. I will try to be more diligent and make sure I make an effort every day.

SW1500 tutorial: Part 1b - Setting up your project

Tue, 30 Oct 2007 19:18:01 GMT

Today I am still setting up my space to work on my model. If possible I try to get line drawings that allow me to see all different sides. Top, front, back and sides if possible. Sometimes it's not possible to have that information and another tutorial in a different package will discuss how that will be done.

I will be using very small images for my drawings because I don't want there to be any problems with copyrights and things of that nature.

Below are the images that I am using for reference.

I will place these images in the correct location inside the inside out box that represents the size of the switcher.

While in Max I hit M to bring up the Material Editor. See below.

Next to the 01-Default drop down menu is a button that says Standard. You will want to hit the Standard button. This brings up your Material/Map Browser

I want to select the Multi/Sub Object material type. When the prompt comes up disregard the old material. This will give you a dialog that has 10 spaces for materials.

I am only going to use 5 of these spaces so where it says Set Number at the top you will want to select that and when the dialog opens up, set the number to 5.

As you can see the new amount of slots is 5. Next to the sphere on each of these lines are numbers. These represent material ID's, basically a number associated with a face on your box.

The first thing I want to do is to add my image to one of these slots.

Where it says Material #2 in the first slot, hit that button. It will take you to your standard material window. Next you hit the button next to the gray box that says Diffuse: It looks like this.

Standard Window:

The blank box is to the right in this image.

When you hit this button it will bring up the Material/Map Browser dialog again. This time you want to select Bitmap at the top of the list.

This should bring up a standard windows open dialog. Browse to your image and hit OK.

This should fill up your first slot. Make sure that the checkered box above Bitmap is highlighted. This allows the image to show up in the window that you are working in.

If you hit the Sphere to Box button located to the left of the X you will assign the material to your inverted box. Because of the material ID that is already assigned to the box it will probably only show like this:

Under the Modifier tab there is a section called Selection. You want to hit the Square button, this selects the face only. See image below for the selection icons.

I select the face that I want to apply the side texture to and it should be highlighted red like this.

Under the Polygon Properties portion of the Modifier tab there is a place to Set the Material ID.

You will want to set this to your first material ID slot or Material ID #1.

As you can see below, if I set my material ID to 1 it puts the correct texture in that place.

Make sure you follow all the steps above and place the textures in separate material ID slots.

When I am setting up my images I want to be able to see the side I am working on through the actual side of the box. For instance, if I am working on the back of the car, I want to place the image of the back on the front portion of the box.. It sounds odd, but since you are looking in through the box instead of at the outside you have to place the corresponding image on the opposite side.

I assign each face with the correct material ID and I get a box that has the images I want place in the correct location. The one snag I had, which you may have as well, is that when I put my top view in the proper location, it was mapped incorrectly. See image below.

To resolve this, I need to select this face and use a UVW Map modifier to correct the problem. As you can see from the below image, there is an orange box with an arm that sticks out from one side. There is also a green edge that can't be seen here because of the selected face. I want to rotate this box so that the green edge is to the right and the arm is facing the X axis.

To do this you want to expand the UVW Mapping dialog. You do this by hitting the plus sign next to the UVW Mapping text.

The Gizmo is how you interact with the UVW map. Select the Gizmo and the orange box should turn yellow. See the image below.

In order to rotate my gizmo I hit the E key which is the shortcut for rotate. There is also a button at the top of the screen that you can press to rotate. I want to rotate my gizmo 90 degrees. I can hit the A key, which turns on angle snap or I can hold down the J key while I rotate. Holding the J key while rotating only turns on the angle snap while you are holding the key down. The A key actually is a toggle that will keep angle snap on until you untoggle it by hitting A again. Below, you can see that I have rotated my gizmo, however it doesn't fit the box I have. To make the gizmo fit, use the Fit button in the alignment segment of the UVW Map modifier roll out.

Now that I have hit the Fit button, my map is correctly aligned, but facing the wrong direction. I just rotate the image until it is correct.

Incorrect:

Correct:

In order for me to see all my sides, without rotating my box around, I set my ambient light to white. To do this, go to the Rendering menu at the top of the screen.

Hit the button that says Environment or use the 8 key. Where it says Ambient, click the button below it and it will bring up a color picker. Set that to white and you should be able to see all the sides of your box without rotating your box.

That's all for this segment. Next up is actually modeling a portion of the switcher.

SW1500 Reference Materials

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 16:30:04 GMT

I was asked if I could provide plan drawings for the tutorial I am working on. Sadly, I cannot.

I will point you to a great reference book that does have plan drawings and also remind everyone that the Internet is an invaluable tool for finding these sorts of things.

Hard work and a browser is all that is really needed. Somewhere out there is a link to a plan drawing.

The book I am going to recommend not only has the plan drawings for the SW1500, but many other pieces as well.

On the right hand side bar I will put a book link for the tutorials. This will showcase some of the books that I will be using and have a link to them so that you may buy them if you wish.

-Porter

SW1500 tutorial: Part 1 - Setting up your project

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 17:36:19 GMT

Today I am going to talk about setting up your project. When building a vehicle from scratch, you will want to make sure that you have a much reference as possible. We discussed this in a previous post.

Setting up your environment in Max you want to make sure that you are working in the correct measurement unit for the reference that you have found. When working on U.S. rolling stock and vehicles, most reference that is found comes in Feet and Inches. The rest of the world uses Metric so if you are working with other reference you would set up your units in Metric.

I make sure that I set my units accordingly in Max. Here's how.

On the menu bar, look for Customize then Units Setup.

This will open a dialog box below that has radial buttons.

When working in Metric, I usually work in Millimeters and when working with US Standard I work in Feet w/Fractional Inches

For the SW1500 I will be working in US Standard because my reference shows all it's measurements in that format. Once you set what unit of measurement you are using you will want to set your System Unit Setup that is located at the top of the Units Setup dialog box.

I usually set my System Unit Scale to equal one of whatever unit I am working in. So in the case of US Standard I would make ( 1 Unit = 1 Foot ).

The next thing I would want to do is to make sure that my Grid and Snap Settings were consistent with my System Unit Scale. Go back to the Customize menu and this time pick Grid and Snap Settings.

In the Home Grid tab of the Grid and Snap Settings dialog, you would change your Grid Spacing to reflect one unit of your choice.

1' or 1m or 1mm, whatever you choose to work in. As long as your Grid Spacing is 1 to 1 ratio.

After I have set the units I am using, I can begin with the process of making sure my model is to scale. To do this I block everything in with boxes. This is a quick way to make sure the proportions stay correct. You will need to know how to make a primitive, if you don't there are plenty of tutorials for beginners that will bring you up to speed.

The first box you will want to make is the overall dimensions of the object. In the case of the SW1500 switcher, the overall sizes are 44' 8" long , 15" high and 10' wide. I create my primitive box and type these numbers into the Parameters box.

Make sure that in the top down view your box is in the North/South orientation.

The next box I am going to make is to make sure that my Trucks, or as they say elsewhere Bogies have their center positions.

The measurement from bogie center to bogie center is 22' I make another box to represent that distance. The height of that box isn't really important right now, but if you know how tall the bogies are, this would be a good height for that box. Also another thing to make sure of is that your boxes should be centered at 0,0,0. The best way to do this is to right click in any window and hit the move button. This will bring up the transform tool.

This tool represents the ways you can move the object. Green is Y, Red is X and Blue is Z. You could try to line everything up visually, but that would be difficult, so I use the dialogs at the bottom of the screen to type in my transform (movement)

If your object isn't at 0,0,0 just highlight the numbers in the below boxes and type 0 (zero). You can use tab to go between the dialogs and it will automatically highlight the number for you.

The next thing I do, is create a box that is roughly the size of the bogies. In this case I know the axle centers, which is 8', and I know I have a 40" wheel diameter. Using this information I am able to approximate the correct size of the bogies. So using this information I make my box, 8' long to indicate the centers of the axles and 20" high, which is the radius of each wheel. I then make a cylinder that is 40" in diameter and place these at the ends of my axle distances.

My setup looks like this.

Keeping these objects in my scene throughout the build allows me to refer back to make sure that I am creating a proportionally accurate model.

The last thing I want to do is to set up my base box with images of the plan drawings. This allows me to build inside the box and to use the images as a template. To do this, I convert my box to an editable poly, select all the faces and then use the flip command. This will allow me to see into the box from the outside. When you do this make sure that backface cull is selected under the Display / Display Properties tab

This is the resulting model.

Next time:

UV mapping your setup box.

Difficulty loading post today.

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 19:59:10 GMT

I was working on the tutorial for the SW1500 and was going to make a post today, but I am getting an error with Live Writer. I will see if there are alternatives and get this post done today.

Thanks

-Porter

Tip of the day

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 22:45:28 GMT

Soon I will begin on the first project (SW1500). Currently I am investigating reference materials, poly counts and techniques I want to discuss for this tutorial.

When working on a larger, multi-part tutorial, it makes sense to make a roadmap of what you are discussing and when. I want to make sure that I am making sense and not just typing a stream of mental blathering type of post.

In the mean time, here's a tip to keep you guys interested.

Acme Brick has a brick design software that allows you to make textures out of their bricks. Usually this is used to design masonry, however it's great for building out levels in Hammer, Doom3 Editor or UnrealEd.

Here's the link to their free downloadable product.

http://www.brick.com/md/index.htm

3D Packages

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 06:03:28 GMT

I have downloaded Blender, XSI Mod tool and 3D Canvas. Taking a cursory glance through the applications I am noticing that I am really going to need to watch some video tutorials to become proficient in them.

XSI Mod Tool:

After opening the package, I am able to make a primitive fairly easily, but I am unable to figure out how to do a face extrusion.

Blender:

Same problem with blender. I am able to create a primitive really easily, but after that I am a little stumped how to get into face mode or do an extrusion.

3D Canvas:

Here I am very quickly able to create a primitive and do a face extrusion without too much trouble.

I am sure that I will have better success after I read some tutorials or watch a video or two. I am going to (attempt) building a different piece of rolling stock in every package listed below.

Max

Maya

3D Canvas

XSI Mod Tool

Blender

Getting started on the Max version soon, then will follow with the Maya version. The things I will post will be about the differences between the packages and how I overcame those differences. The Max version will be more like a build log, while the rest will be more tips to make your train work using that package.

Keep watching.

Well, we have our demo done

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 17:33:08 GMT

As you can see from Rick's post here..http://yardlimits.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

We have the workings of a demo that we are showing to senior management. These images are a few days old and already we are looking better than that.

I hope that the tip of the day stuff has been useful and I want to continue with it, however I would like to start working in ways that will help benefit the community. To that end I am going to try to work on a piece of rolling stock that isn't going to ship, but it will show you the process that we go through to make a train for the game. I will be using Max and Photoshop to get this done, however it will be on my own time and therefore coverage may be spotty. Working full time and having a family isn't conducive to working on the computer at night, but I will try to make some sort of progress every day. On days that I am too swamped, or if I didn't make much progress I will try and give a tip on something.

So I think what I am going to do as my tip today is to discuss how we get started on building a train.

First and foremost is reference! In order to create our trains, we go take pictures on location, with the help of one of our partners. Recently we went to Pennsylvania and took tons of photos as part of the Horseshoe Curve route. Our partners in this were the folks at Norfolk Southern. They were very accommodating in allowing us access to the facilities and equipment we needed to see. This is the best sort of research. I do not recommend trying to get into one of these vehicles without approval and supervision. In lieu of getting into a piece of rolling stock to take pictures, there are many resources on the Internet to model from. Just a couple of links to show what a search found for me. Ideally you would want a 3 view drawing. Front, side and top. It's difficult to find that on the Internet, so if all else fails, get a side shot and work from that and the 3/4 view photos that are easily found.

http://www.the-blueprints.com/index.php?blueprints/trains/

http://crcaboose.railfan.net/drawings.htm

There are also books out there with very detailed drawings and photos. These can be useful as well.

I am going to model an EMD SW1500 switcher, luckily I have some very good reference material to work from. I am going to make a blank livery and have three LOD's for the vehicle. When I am done, I am hopeful that we can give this to the community and see what sort of liveries we get back from them.

Stay tuned to this spot...

Tip of the day

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 17:34:52 GMT

When working in Max there are several ways to select objects. One is to just draw a marquee around whatever it is that you are working on. Another is to select something individually. You can also select something using the name, as discussed yesterday.

After you have selected these objects, you can make them a selection set. That way all you have to do is go pick that selection set from a list and it will select those objects quickly.

Here's how you do it.

Here I am trying to make sure I can quickly select objects without grabbing each on individually every time. It does require that I do this process at least once.

Here I am just selecting spheres, I then go to the top of the window and use the selection set naming dialog highlighted in yellow.

I went through and selected the like items and named them appropriately. Now I just scroll through the items and pick what I want from there.

Hope this helps

Tip of the day- Weekend edition

Sun, 14 Oct 2007 18:30:35 GMT

Well, I am trying to build a shed. I haven't done a lot of construction projects so I am really unfamiliar with how to calculate the amount of wood I need.

Here's the way I worked it out-

I knew basically how a shed was supposed to go together, and I went to the local lumber yard and looked at the ones there, just to figure out the construction process. I came back home and built out the shed in Max.

I named the first piece of each size of lumber I would need. (example: 2x4x8_01) Using this system I built the shed out and color coded it. See the picture below.

Now that it is build I use the select object by name dialog (hotkey is H). I can then select the like pieces and it will display how many pieces of that particular board I need. I removed the peak pieces so that you could see the structure inside. Now I just take my list to the lumberyard and see what the damage to my wallet is. The things this doesn't cover is all the nails, hinges and brackets I will need, but it gives me a good overall view of what kind of work is involved.

Bonus Tip:

There is a tool under the utility tab that is called measure. The best part of this tool.. it gives surface area. I selected the roof of my shed to figure out how many bundles of shingles I am going to need.

Tutorial

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 16:34:05 GMT

Sorry about missing a tip of the day. Yesterday was crazy! I was busy creating LOD's for some rolling stock while setting up my new Vista machine. As you know, setting up a new machine is difficult sometimes and even more so when working on a game. There are all the art programs, the game, source control, admin rights, network paths.. just loads of things that have to happen so you can be productive.

To make up for the lack of a tip, I am posting a large tutorial on how to create 3d assets in a non-destructive fashion. Non-destructive basically means you get to go back and make changes to shape, and density of the mesh. I will let the tutorial explain it better. It may be a little technical, I believe it should be easy enough to follow along.

Creating assets using non-destructive work practices

The following document contains directions for creating assets that not only meet the Aces Studio quality, but also allow for the ability to change the assets in order to suit the future needs of all our products. These practices will be outlined below and tutorials on how to work non-destructively will follow some of the rules. This is mainly for building new assets, not reworking old assets. If you need to build new pieces for an old asset, this would be how to do it.

1. When building out assets, it’s important that any modifiers that have been applied should not be collapsed. Once a modifier stack is collapsed, that portion of the asset must be thrown away and rebuilt if it is incorrect. In order to allow for quick and easy changes, the un-collapsed history must be maintained.

a. Here I have made a spline with multiple vertices to emulate a rail or some other pipe type of object. As you can see from the image, there are quite a few vertices along the path as well as a smoothed corner.

b. The next step I use is sweep, this is located in the modifier list. Sweep allows you to extrude out this spline with several different premade shapes as well as allowing for the use of custom shapes. To the left is a close up view of the sweep dialog and to the right is the spline after the sweep modifier has been applied. As you can see from this image, this is much like rendering the spline in the viewport or extruding along a path. The power of using this technique is the ability to control the polygon count by optimizing the path or steps in anywhere in the modifier stack. This image shows that my sweep has a setting of 6 steps of interpolation.

c. At any time after making the initial spline, if I don’t collapse my stack, I am able to go change the resolution of the steps or the smoothness of that spline. As you can see from the image below, I have selected my spline, while keeping the sweep modifier in the stack above. I am going to reduce the number of steps in my spline to remove some of the smoothness in the corner. The results of changing the spline steps are below.

d. This adjustment is also allowed in the sweep modifier as well. However where this is noticeable is in one of the parameters of the sweep function. The corner radius allows you to make refinements to the profile of the section shape. Using this technique allows us to make refinements to the model that would not be possible if the stack were collapsed.

2. When possible, building pieces that are instanced or copied throughout the model should be built once and the other pieces referenced from that single object. When using this practice, it allows you to change one piece of the model and have all instances of that piece propagate though out the entire model.

a. The image below shows a piece that has been referenced instead of copied. Just changing the parameters of the original object updates the parameters of all the referenced objects.

b. Not only can the sweep or line of this original object be changed allowing updates to happen to the references automatically, you can also add other modifiers to the original and those modifiers will be propagated as well. In the image below, an Unwrap UVW modifier has been applied to the original. As you can see both objects show that the modifier is affecting them in the same way.

c. In the image below, I have stepped all the way back through the modifier stack to the spline and added an additional line to create a “post” in the middle of my “rail”. After I added a new detail to my spline, I stepped up the stack to my sweep modifier and changed the shape of the cross-section to a circle and turned on Union Intersections. Having this ability to step up and down the stack will give you much more power and versatility in creating your assets.

d. Using this same spline, I have made a copy to show how you can take the same tools to bring up or down the resolution of an object simply by changing a few parameters.

e. Another helpful parameter within the sweep modifier is the radius. You can adjust the size of the object without scaling the entire object. This can save time when trying to either correctly size the object to fit into a space or by inputting the exact measurement into the dialog box.

f. This is not only a useful tool for rails, but for a variety of objects. Any time that this technique can be utilized, the more control you have over your object, but also keeps us from sending a task back asking for more or less resolution on a particular object.

g. Other tools that can be used in the same way are Lathe, which allows you to use an outline or profile and you can specify how many revolutions around you want that object to be. Keeping this in the modifier stack allows you to change the steps at any time.

Lofting is another way of creating geometry that allows you to refine your information at any point in time. Much like the other tools, you can change the number of steps on the path or the shape.

Primitives that are native to Max also have parameters that you can update. Using the combination of primitives and the tools mentioned above allows you to create very detailed models with automatic mapping and the ability to control the resolution of the object on the fly.

Another modifier which needs to be kept in the modifier stack is extrude. You can specify how many segments that you want along a path. All of these tools give you greater control over your final product with the least amount of work. One of the tools in each of these modifiers is called (Generate Mapping Coordinates) and another called (Real World Map Size) using both of these will greatly reduce the time spent on making UV’s for your models. Once the entire model is built, the pieces that have been made in this non-destructive way should not need to be UV mapped at all. The only thing non-intuitive about this mapping process is that the UV’s will be extremely large. All of the pieces that have been mapped in this way will be relative in size to the other pieces that were built in this way. If you grab all of these pieces and scale them at the same time, then they will remain relative in texture density to each other.

3. Where this process breaks down and how to work around that is explained below:

a. One you have extruded this model out, you need to extrude one face in the middle of this model. At this point most people would just collapse the stack and extrude the face. If you collapse the stack at this point you will lose all of the parameterized information and the ability to crawl back through the stack to make changes without rebuilding your model. DO NOT COLLAPSE THE STACK!

b. It is possible to continue to make changes and extrude faces without destroying the work you already put into this model. There are two ways to continue to edit a model.

i. The way that we DO NOT want to use is to right click on the model and pick convert to mesh or convert to poly. This causes the modifier stack to bake the information into the model and it removes everything out of the modifier stack.

ii. The correct approach is to pick the Edit Poly or Edit Mesh out of the modifier list. These allow you to continue working on the object without collapsing the modifier stack, thus allowing you to retain the parameters embedded in the model.

c. Below is a series of pictures that shows how to make adjustments to the line, even after you have extruded faces when in edit poly mode. If you notice on the image on the left. I have turned on vertex numbering. This allows me to see the order of the vertices, the yellow vertex is called the “first vertex”. When you are making adjustments up the stack these numbers become important.

d. I then select two of the faces on top and extrude them by face normal so that they extrude individually.

e. After I extruded these faces you realized that you wanted another segment on the leading edge where the long extrusion lies. You can still go back and make that adjustment as long as you understand how to make that adjustment back in your stack. Notice that the extrusions are not where you would expect them to be.

f. By changing the order of the vertices you are able to control where this extrusion appears.

g. Here is the same geometry after changing the first vertex. As you can see this seems more like the geometry that was expected. Sometimes when changing the vertices around you cause the mapping to become invalid. If you go to the modifier that originally had the “generate mapping coordinates” turned on you can “reset” the mapping by clicking the output buttons so that it does the mapping algorithm again. The output buttons are highlighted here in yellow.

h. Although you will have the sides of the extruded piece to remap, 90% of your model will have incredibly clean UV maps. When you get to un-wrapping this piece of the model you may do so very quickly. All of this was possible without collapsing the stack and in a very short period of time. I am even able to add additional segments to my model and change the length without damaging the extrusions I made. The only real work left to do is to re-UV a very small portion of the model.

4. It’s obvious that eventually you will have to collapse the stack to get exactly what you want out of the final model, however, if you follow these guidelines to get your model as far along as possible before collapsing the stack, you save yourself a lot of work. Save this file as your source model. This allows us to go back to individual pieces and make changes if needed. So you should submit a source file with the non-destructive pieces in it and a final file that has the baked down information.

5. When to collapse the stack:

a. When you come to the point where you must collapse the stack to make permanent changes to the mesh it is time to collapse the stack. Make sure you either save the un-collapsed geometry in a separate file, or hide it in the current file. As long as you can reuse the un-collapsed geometry then you are safe in a collapsed stack.

b. When you have multiple UVMap modifiers. The more of these you stack the larger your file becomes. Usually you can just use UVWUnwrap once to get the same results.

c. Collapse your stack before exporting. This keeps the geometry clean for the game.

Tip of the day

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:18:01 GMT

Usually when I unwrap a model, I will do so using UVW Unwrap in Max, however I like to use Texporter to render out my UV's.

The reason I use Texporter is that it allows me to pick different ways of rendering out my UV's. The dialog box with the different setting is below, as is the link of where to get it.

http://www.cuneytozdas.com/software/3dsmax/

Another super busy day

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:44:02 GMT

I am going to do another very small tip, because we have lots of work to get accomplished. I have a few more big tutorials in the works, so be patient with me when I give out these little tips.

A good way to work on concept art is to use a 3d model as a base for your work. Usually I render out a 3d model with lighting. I then take this into Photoshop and use it to draw on top of.

Here you see a render and the final result after tweaking it.

Tip and more information

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:01:52 GMT

I got a comment on the multiple uv tutorial so I thought I would make my tip of the day answer the questions that were posed in the comment.

When I refer to the zero to one space, I am talking about the portion of the UV Unwrap window that is bounded by a black square. This is the space your image needs to be in unless it is a tiling texture. Anything outside of this space will tile.

Typically when you have a file that has a multi-submaterial on it, you will have multiple UV's.

We had an old system in our previous game where we used a huge amount of textures to make the trains look good. This time out we decided to go with as few materials as possible. So as a test we took an old switcher we had laying around that had 9 materials assigned to it. We used the render to texture method to remove all the other UV's and compressed it into one material.

I hope this helps. Busy day today so this will have to be my Tip of the Day.

Tip of the day

Sun, 07 Oct 2007 23:36:09 GMT

Oh man, the Seahawks lost! This was the perfect time to show who really should have won the last superbowl!!!

Oh well, the good news is that my son's team is back to winning. 25-0 against Woodenville.

On the weight loss front, I am doing exactly what I wanted to do, 2lbs a week.. well, at least this first week. I think 2lbs a week is a reasonable weight to lose.

Alright, the tip of the day:

http://www.spectralogue.com/texturedesk/

This program basically is a way to visualize if your tiling is working correctly. It's a small program and good for tiling non-uniformly and allows you to see the changes you make in your texture creating software, be it Gimp or Photoshop. Save the image and it updates in the viewer.

-Porter

Small tip of the day

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 17:32:26 GMT

Photoshop tip:

When creating a new image, you don't have to go through the file menu system. Just hit CRTL+N, this creates a new blank document.

CTRL+SHIFT+N will bring up a new layer dialog that allows you to name your layer.

CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+N will add a new layer into your layer stack without the dialog. This layer can still be renamed, but it's a quick way to add layers while you are working.

Tip of the day

Thu, 04 Oct 2007 17:01:09 GMT

Working on 3d models is a very technical process. Making sure everything is in the right place and "feels" correct sometimes is a dry and boring process. Something that I found useful to me is to make sure I feed my creative side. I do this by doing speed painting. Speed painting is the process of trying to capture the feeling or gesture of an image without making it completely accurate and to do this in the minimum time possible. I usually give myself about an hour per image and try to do it as often as I can. I haven't really done this in a month or two, so I am beginning to feel the need to do one soon.

I usually download pictures from the Internet that I find pleasing and go to town. Here is an example.

As a side note, I don't remember where I downloaded the original picture from so I apologize to the author. I will do my best in the future to make sure I get permission and give credit where credit is due.

Original

Speedpaint

As you can see, it's not an exact representation, just capturing the feel of the scene. If I were going to make this an actual painting I would make sure that every looks as it should.

So get loose.. and speed paint!

Tip of the day

Wed, 03 Oct 2007 17:36:03 GMT

I am not sure why I call these tips of the day. They seem to turn into tutorials rather quickly. It's always harder to tell someone how to push a button than to show them, however I have no time to produce a video so I guess I will continue to push forward in this fashion. I am also going to try to make the large tutorials once or twice a week with the smaller tips filling in the gaps. That way we don't have information overload and I don't get yelled at by spaces for filling up their servers.

3DBuzz is a great place for tutorials on how to use many programs. Maya, Max, Photoshop and game related programs as well. Not only are the forums rife with smart tutorials but they have free video tutorials to download as well.

They also have advanced classes that you can pay for as well. I go here when I am trying to learn a new program or to get ideas. Sometimes tutorials are a great jumping off point to learn your own stuff. I always try and put my own spin or shortcut into what I am showing, but for the basics, you have to learn the fundamentals and this is a great place for it.

http://www.3dbuzz.com/vbforum/sv_home.php

So my tip of the day and my link of the day are both the same place.

Another big tutorial for 3dsMax

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 16:50:27 GMT

The process of moving multiple material uv's into one uv space can be time consuming and difficult.

Using the Render to Texture feature of Max you can quickly move all the materials into one unified material space.

1. The first thing you need is your object with the multiple UV sets. This is your source object. Create a separate Max file to put these object into. This way your original model is safe from harm.

2. Create a duplicate of the source object. This duplicate should reside in the same space as your source object. Like baking normal maps, the object that is going to get the unified material needs to be able to use the original file as a place to shoot rays from during it's ray casting function.

3. Lay out the UV's of your target object where you want all the materials to be placed into. Doing this, you specify exactly where you want all the pieces of your objects material to align. The image below shows the uv space that has multiple UV's. These pieces will all need to fit into the zero to one space of the UVWUnwrap window

4.Once you have laid out the UV's to be in a zero to one space it should look like this.

5. Once you have this accomplished, you will want to convert the target to an editable poly or mesh, and then select all the faces. After you select the faces, you will want to make them all the same material ID. Use the Set Mat ID and put 1 in that dialog, then press the button.

6.Open the render to texture dialog box. The object that you want to bake is the target object. Everything will be baked into this object. Be sure and set the output path. This is where you want your images to go. As you can see from the image below, I have selected the target in the Objects to Bake dialog within the Render to Texture dialog.

7. In the Render to Texture dialog there is a Projection Mapping checkbox. Enable that check box and it will ask you to pick a projection modifier. Using the pick button, an Add Targets dialog opens. This will allow you to pick the source object.

8. Once you hit pick, you go back to the Render to Texture dialog. Next to pick is the options button. Click this button and the Projection Options dialog opens. Check Use Cage. This applies a cage to the model that you can use to adjust the tolerance of the ray test.

Notice that he target now has a blue frame around it.

This is the offset that is used to pull the texture info. The area in yellow below is how you can control the cage. These dialogs allow you to offset slightly, show the cage shaded and move incrementally.

9. The next step is to add the kind of map you want generated. In this case we want DiffuseMap. Also we want to make sure that we output to a 1024 texture.

10. After you render this out, a screen will open up showing what the resulting image looks like. In Max it looks as if it was an unsuccessful output. Before starting over wondering what went wrong, open your file in Photoshop. This should be the true output. There are errors that occur when using this process, but those can quickly be fixed in Photoshop using the original images. The main thrust of this tutorial is to provide a quick and dirty way to push multiple maps into a single map.

Technical difficulties

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:55:57 GMT

I am having some issues with my network here at work. Sorry for being late today.

So my tip of the day is this:

Various versions of 3dsMax

To hide or show the transform gizmo hit the x key. If you are working on something and the little arrows that you use to move it, hit x and see if it shows back up.

Link:

http://www.autoblog.com/2007/09/29/tokyo-2007-preview-suzuki-biplane/

OH MY GOODNESS.. I need one of those!