Overgrowth Tools - What can be done?

[skulldriveshaft]

He meant constructive solid geometry.
It is basically a set based approach, determining objects by set unions, set difference etc. of simpler objects. You can cut out a sphere from a cube to get a cube with a hole.

Not totally sure what BSP means, but maybe this.

Basically the editor of Overgrowth only lets you use premade-models to stick them together. If you want to make something for which you don't have the parts, you need to sculpture these parts outside of OG with Blender etc.

there's a large sucking sound above my head...

I really like pointing and clicking stuff together though, I just don't know enough to appreciate the amount of hard work that has been done prior to that achievement.

What are you working on?

[skulldriveshaft]

I'd jump on this and say yes ... but I've worked in groups that both succeeded and failed spectacularly ... which is a bit of a masochist situation for either scenario ... LOL!

Also im not sure if I wanna try to mod this or create something with the UDK ...

Red Faction remake in Unreal Tournament - srsly?

I played Unreal Tournament so much I turned it into a business (LONG STORY!)

I'm all for using UDK, but it's the same situation for me - I don't understand how to reuse objects from different projects - I always have a massive crash which I forward to Unity and then they tell me programming stuff that I don't understand.

The tools however seem super intuitive ... although it does need more features before it can truely be fully functional.

... Basically the editor of Overgrowth only lets you use premade-models to stick them together. If you want to make something for which you don't have the parts, you need to sculpture these parts outside of OG with Blender etc.

Yep, that's what i meant ...

Basically you can't build anything you want from scratch within the editor ... you have to piece the meshes together ... its sorta like legos ... If you have a special "brick" in mind you can't make a special "brick" within the editor, instead you have to make the "brick" with a program like 3Dsmax, Blender, modtool, etc.

3Dsmax and Blender I heard about, but what's modtool?

There's lots of 'GAME READY' models - but depending on what engine you throw them into - you either get mangled, malfunctioning, or just static (because none of the 20 animations made it through import) *sigh*

Which is what I have been going through with UDK so far - and since I know nothing about models, and I have Windows7 64bit, I can't use Blender to find out even.

If you're doing a OG theme mod that's probably fine ... as much as i seen so far, the meshes seemed pretty modularized (single objects like a block, wall, rock, plant, etc) so you can piece meshes together to create a landscape ...

If I can throw in any models and assign the names of default animations that are already in OverGrowth - I'm sure there's a whole continent that can be mapped to match - right?

Sometimes however you'll see huge chunks of a map be a single mesh (not in OG ... this is just a rant ... lol), which really sucks because you can't be versatile with the meshes in that map (it would be like having a lego building be one single piece) ... it pisses me off when mappers do that :C ...

I might reclaim my walmart laptop and press it into model animation editing with Blender

*facepalm*

Well, I didn't do any coding for Fortran as a job, it was just a class ... It's apparently a required class for mechanical engineers (I tried to opt out and take C++ instead, but they wouldn't let me because they said that I would use Fortran more ... Bullshit! LOL!)

So, what did you engineer?

[Endoperez]

If you're doing a OG theme mod that's probably fine ... as much as i seen so far, the meshes seemed pretty modularized (single objects like a block, wall, rock, plant, etc) so you can piece meshes together to create a landscape ...

If I can throw in any models and assign the names of default animations that are already in OverGrowth - I'm sure there's a whole continent that can be mapped to match - right?

You can throw in any models, but you can't import animations yet. I'm not sure if you ever can, because Overgrowth has its own animation and rigging editor already incorporated. It's not complete yet, but now that we have a real model moving in the engine the animation editor will probably be used to create walkcycle, jump animation etc etc for it. And if an existing Overgrowth skeleton works with an imported model, you should be able to re-use at least some animations made for that skeleton, with the imported model.

I don't know if you can throw in ANY objects, but at least .OBJ files work. Currently you have to write a small XML file, but it's basically something like this:

<model>data/my_models/imported_sword.obj</model>
<colormap>data/my_models/imported_sword_diffuse.png</colormap>
<normalmap>data/my_models/imported_sword_normalmap.png</normalmap>

The only problem you might have is that the default shaders don't support a separate specular map. The specular map image is a black and white image that tells where the object is shiny (polished metal blade) and where it's not (leather-wrapped grip and pommel). The alpha channel of the colormap is read as the specularity map, which results in VERY shiny objects... I hope it's not too difficult to make a shader that reads the specularity from a different file, but I haven't looked into it.

[skulldriveshaft]

You can throw in any models, but you can't import animations yet. I'm not sure if you ever can, because Overgrowth has its own animation and rigging editor already incorporated. It's not complete yet, but now that we have a real model moving in the engine the animation editor will probably be used to create walkcycle, jump animation etc etc for it. And if an existing Overgrowth skeleton works with an imported model, you should be able to re-use at least some animations made for that skeleton, with the imported model.

That's what gets me, I'm not even worried about re-using animations, each model having it's own animations would make them more unique.

I just downloaded MilkShape3D and tried following along the tutorial.

Although I can create the proper joint structure, not all the right points (?) get selected when assigning them to a joint.

So far I have managed to mangle every model put into MilkShape3D.

I haven't given up though, there are more models to mangle.

I don't know if you can throw in ANY objects, but at least .OBJ files work. Currently you have to write a small XML file, but it's basically something like this:

<model>data/my_models/imported_sword.obj</model>
<colormap>data/my_models/imported_sword_diffuse.png</colormap>
<normalmap>data/my_models/imported_sword_normalmap.png</normalmap>

As long as I can do that with notepad, I'd be happy, it seems straightforward enough.

The only problem you might have is that the default shaders don't support a separate specular map. The specular map image is a black and white image that tells where the object is shiny (polished metal blade) and where it's not (leather-wrapped grip and pommel). The alpha channel of the colormap is read as the specularity map, which results in VERY shiny objects... I hope it's not too difficult to make a shader that reads the specularity from a different file, but I haven't looked into it.

Alpha channel = transparency?

Shiny, like giant robots, rampaging in the rain.

[skulldriveshaft]

I just learned how to animate a .obj model in MilkShape3D !!!!

And then I quit without saving.

+_+

It was way more painful than in the OverGrowth tools video >_>

Next step, coloring models, maybe even textures!

Thanks to Assaultman67 for pointing out MilkShape3D, otherwise I'd still be working with with statues wandering around levels.

Anyone else know any animating tools that are free or inexpensive?

[Endoperez]

Blender 3D. It's free, the user-interface is rather complicated. They're working on a new version (2.5) which overhauls the whole user interface, but that is still in Alpha stage. If you're willing to give 2.49 try even though it's user-interface will change again soonish, I can give some pointers.


To get the user-interface to work more like other 3D applications, grab the edge of the options bar on the top and drag it downwards until you can see the extra options. Changing View Zoom, Middle Mouse Button and View Rotation (turntable AND around selection) helps you if you ever move to 3DS Max.

In Blender, you get a menu from space and can add objects, skeletons (called Armatures in Blender) lights etc.
When a menu pops up, you can select the first option with 1, second with 2 etc. When there's no menu, number keys change LAYERS, so if everything disappears, press 1 before panicking.
'H' is for Hide; everything you had selected is now hidden. To unhide everything, press Alt+H.

Blender's most useful quick-keys for me are G, R and S (grab/move, rotate and scale) and axis keys: X, Y, Z. Z is up. G-X moves selection in X-axis only. R-YY rotates selection around LOCAL Y axis only. If a head is pointing straight up, both local and global Z axis are the same. If the head is pointing slightly forward, local Z-axis rotates head left and right, global z-axis rotates head as if someone grabbed it and tries to snap your neck.

In the second picture here, you can find how to change from normal mode to Edit Mode (where you move vertices, edges, polygons...), and other modes. Texture Paint can be tricky at first,texturing in 2D is simpler. Weight Paint allows you to visually paint the areas which specific armature bones effect.
From the on, the buttons let you choose: how objects are shown (wireframe, solid, shaded), what to use as center (object centers, group centers, that weird targeting thing), grab/rotate/scale buttons and global/local buttons, and the last four buttons are for selecting vertices, edges or faces, and if you can see and select vertices on the backside of objects.

temp.JPG (17.27 KiB) Viewed 4875 times

And I got way wordy again. I should be working! And 'B' is box selection tool!

[skulldriveshaft]

I just grabbed Blender 2.49b for Windows7 64bit (no installer, yet), should work after I install the Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistribution Package (x64)

It was confusing as hell on the WalMart laptop, I'm sure a interface refresh would do wonders.

I'll be trying to import models and see what happens, MilkShape3D crashes if a model is really big.

While going through MilkShape3D, the only thing I can't find right now is how to make Groups within a imported model. This is a huge problem, unless of course you have a full model texture, slightly annoying, but you could create a Power Ranger theme of models.

Which means I would need yet another program to create the full model texture, any suggestions?

[Endoperez]

On an existing, unwrapped model, Photoshop or any other 2D editing software is enough. Photoshop CS4 Extended can even show the 3D object textured.

Blender has a texture painting mode as well. By setting the brush to use an image, you can basically use a custom brush. You can't create many brushes inside Blender, but procedural textures also work.

I'm still not quite sure what you need these animations for. If you look at today's blog post, you'll notice that Overgrowth lets you animate models inside its own animation editor. Are you interested in animations, modeling, texturing, editing existing models or what?

[rudel_ic]

Well, since all the necessary properties are immediately available in Overgrowth via Javascript, writing an animation importer should be a cakewalk, really.

Probably even results in a 1:1 mapping for dedicated, recent formats like COLLADA. It doesn't get much easier than writing an importer for a 1:1 mapping.

I just grabbed Blender 2.49b for Windows7 64bit (no installer, yet), should work after I install the Visual C++ 2008 SP1 Redistribution Package (x64)

It was confusing as hell on the WalMart laptop, I'm sure a interface refresh would do wonders.

The interface refresh is in the works, and it's looking alright in the nightly preview build.
Wouldn't recommend doing actual work with that preview though. Stick to 2.49b for the time being.

Learning Blender is a matter of reading the blender.org Wiki section and trying out the workflows they detail there. You should be up and running in no time.
Also makes sense to print out the shortkeys reference, of course.

Which means I would need yet another program to create the full model texture, any suggestions?

If you want an application that facilitates painting PNGs, check out http://gimp.org .

If you want realtime texture painting, check out Blender.

What you want to figure out is called UV texture mapping, look that up.

[skulldriveshaft]

On an existing, unwrapped model, Photoshop or any other 2D editing software is enough. Photoshop CS4 Extended can even show the 3D object textured.

Can't afford PhotoShop, just starting with Microsoft Paint.

Blender has a texture painting mode as well. By setting the brush to use an image, you can basically use a custom brush. You can't create many brushes inside Blender, but procedural textures also work.

Now that's something interesting, I'll take a look at that when I get MilkShape under control.

The Blender interface was made slightly more understandable with your post above.

I'm still not quite sure what you need these animations for. If you look at today's blog post, you'll notice that Overgrowth lets you animate models inside its own animation editor. Are you interested in animations, modeling, texturing, editing existing models or what?

I'm interested in everything you mentioned, because eventually I would like to bring models into OverGrowth. I want to understand what it takes to achieve similar results as the OverGrowth tools.

[rudel_ic]

I want to understand what it takes to achieve similar results as the OverGrowth tools.

You need a mesh, a skeleton, the mesh's vertices have to be associated with the skeleton's bones with a weight value.
Then you do keyframe animation with the skeleton's bones - you translate and rotate them.
You can also use inverse kinematics to make a pose.

That's basically the gist of it. Making proper animations isn't easy though, let me tell you.

If you want to learn that stuff, search for tutorials about character animation in your suite on the internet. Stuff like this: http://homepage.eircom.net/~abyrne/Mode ... _tut09.htm

[Endoperez]

I'm interested in everything you mentioned, because eventually I would like to bring models into OverGrowth. I want to understand what it takes to achieve similar results as the OverGrowth tools.

Can you draw? I started learning how to use Blender few years ago (3? 4?), and learned if after a while. My problem was that I couldn't draw, and thus had never really looked at things and e.g. couldn't model a face or a head because I didn't know what they really looked like. It took me a year or two to draw poorly and do decent 3d models. It won't take you nearly that long if you can find some classes.

[Assaultman67]

... Red Faction remake in Unreal Tournament - srsly?

I played Unreal Tournament so much I turned it into a business (LONG STORY!)

I'm all for using UDK, but it's the same situation for me - I don't understand how to reuse objects from different projects - I always have a massive crash which I forward to Unity and then they tell me programming stuff that I don't understand.

I probably spent 2-3 years helping RedFrog work on that mod ... and it was pretty much a 3 person team ... then about a year or two ago I kinda stopped working on it because we never really got a sizable community interest going ... although I still consider it a success because we finished it (like 3 times (lol)) and at one time I said "I'd consider this a success if I ever saw more than 7 players online in a server" and that happened ...

However, during the later years of working on the mod the "theme" got completely lost (I think this was because we really weren't making with the delusion of it being widely played anymore) and we started adding weird game types, mutators, maps, etc that didn't really apply to the RF theme ...

3Dsmax and Blender I heard about, but what's modtool?

There's lots of 'GAME READY' models - but depending on what engine you throw them into - you either get mangled, malfunctioning, or just static (because none of the 20 animations made it through import) *sigh*

Which is what I have been going through with UDK so far - and since I know nothing about models, and I have Windows7 64bit, I can't use Blender to find out even.

Its a trial-like, free version of Softimage i believe ... however there is a whole slew of programs out there that are useable to a degree ... generally i stick with 3ds max though since it seems to be more adaptable ... for Blender and some other programs the 3d pipeline can be treacherous ...

I might reclaim my walmart laptop and press it into model animation editing with Blender

*facepalm*

Well, it will probably work ... i use a laptop from 2003 for my asset modeling ... and since you're never working on more than one asset at a time the power should be plenty ...

So, what did you engineer?

In the class we learned really basic stuff like arrays, defining variables, statements, loops, recursion, etc ...

But I haven't used fortran once since I've been out of that class ... i may possibly use it soon in the future ... but that depends on if the mat lab's ".m" files use the same syntax (*wonders if syntax is the appropriate word ... meh*) ...

Can't afford PhotoShop, just starting with Microsoft Paint.

Wow that sucks ... use Gimp instead ... (not sure how it compares to photoshop since i don't own photoshop, but gimp seems pretty good for how i use it ...)

...
If you want realtime texture painting, check out Blender.

Didn't know that ... ill have to give blender a second look (im using 3dsmax right now)

[rudel_ic]

Didn't know that ... ill have to give blender a second look (im using 3dsmax right now)

Well, it's not on the level of what Cinema4D does (probably the best realtime texture painting implementation to date), and I think there are quite some max plugins that do it better, but it's alright.

Edit: Insight here: http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:M ... tion_Paint

[skulldriveshaft]

I want to understand what it takes to achieve similar results as the OverGrowth tools.

You need a mesh, a skeleton, the mesh's vertices have to be associated with the skeleton's bones with a weight value.
Then you do keyframe animation with the skeleton's bones - you translate and rotate them.
You can also use inverse kinematics to make a pose.

That's basically the gist of it. Making proper animations isn't easy though, let me tell you.

If you want to learn that stuff, search for tutorials about character animation in your suite on the internet. Stuff like this: http://homepage.eircom.net/~abyrne/Mode ... _tut09.htm

I did complete a tutorial (see above) - it's pretty sweet - I've been working my way through compiling a series of animations - then to see what happens when I import it into a couple development kits.

*prays*