Duck and Cover

Ok... first, about the material editor, you mentioned some tips you might have, I'm all ears...
Second, as I said I'm a total newb to this so this may sound stupid but... how do I make a "Matte Shadow" material to work with?
Third, where did you put the light? was it directional or omni... or sunlight?
4. Are there any tutorials around on how one can build a script like the one you mention...
5th question is kind of unrelated to MAX but... i guess it's for modellers in a way... You didn't really use the tools you guys gave us, did you? I see you guys using something more like a really awsome version of Red, by that I mean you could build the sprites in one program or window, then build tiles in another, then lay them both in the level in a thrid... am I totally wrong?

NMA had a page highlighting the editors. It all seems to work within FO:T, but it's a seperate part of the program (like the map editor is seperate from the entity editor).
http://www.nma-fallout.com/features/tac ... ex_2.shtml

Note that the tiles (and sprite animations) are actually just of bunch of renders split umong PNGs. They had a converter application which converted all the PNGs into sprites (or tiles...). I talked about all this to some graphic artists back in the demo days.
The animations were done with the automated process (overnight render Section8 talked about, combined with the "converter" to take the PNGs and make them into the appropriate format). The end product is loaded into the Sprite editor and they build the sequences by hand.

If someone actually does build a process for 3dsMAX to build all the required frames to make a proper animation I *will* program a proper downsampling logic to import the renders into sprite animations automagically.

I've got one of the first sets *I think* ready for making into sprites... just need to reshoot them as pngs... see... i'm not sure if the camera angles are right so I don't know if it works, that's why I was wanting to load them into another program so i could look at them... but it seems there is still a lot of work to do... anyway... i'll tell you when I have some things built anyway... the only thing i've shot is a touret.. and it's kinda cheezy anyway... hopefully Section8 can give me some pointers on that one...
so... in a few months maybe you'll need to get to work? hehe... anyway, thanx for the info

...man sprites are so much harder than tiles..hehe... anyone have a tile request?

Ahah, yeah sprites are much harder.

Note that for faster processing, my "processor" would most probably read TGAs instead of PNGs... I know that 3DS used to handle TGAs, so MAXr4 should also support them, but I'm just checking... Does it? If so that'll save me time later on.

Otherwise, for the shadow, it's PRIMORDIAL that the shadow is of a SINGLE COLOUR, which is then "changed" with it's alpha value. If you do it otherwise, then you won't be able to toggle them off.

Once you've figured out the proper camera angle it'd be damn important to tell the people here what it is so other people can acheive the same renders...

Uh... another question... is there any way to scale in max? like if you makes something too big or small can you scale it up or down with any particular deformation... something easier than doing it by mesh

Red, as far as the camera angle thing goes, this is a link to a site that shows how to achieve that. However, it only works for smaller models. Once you've done that, set up the array and this link will show you how to automate the capture process. As far as the first, I was working from a tutorial and I ended up with a barrel (easy stuff, but i'm a newb at 3d, like I said) that was 300x100 pixels, which I turned into a touret for a raider fast attack vehicle, which I'm hoping I'll finish... some day... anyway, I tried to use the first link, and since the barrel was 300x100 it put the camera inside the barrel, so i kind of had to guess at the proper location by multiplying the coordinence... uh... yeah... so i'd like to acutally be sure that I have the right angle, so that's why I was wondering about resize or scale or whatever... uh...

12 hours of max...typing skills...failing... brain... shutting down... uh... yeah, so... I hope this helps someone and stuff...and... I can do TGA... so... yeah... uh... I'm gonna go pass out now...

Camera Angle is 30° above the ground and 45° rotated to one side, if I remember right... With the light it´s a bit more difficult, I´m not sure yet, what the exact position is (I think 60° above ground and about 50° rotated to the left) but I gotta check.
I set up a scene in Lightwave, which I´d send to anyone interested. Though it seems, I´m the only one here using this program. I could make a small sketch however, with all the settings I believe I found out. Is there a way to post images on this forum?

he's right... at least according to the tutorial... and you can put an immage in... the Img button above font settings and below subject gives the code of how to include an immage...

and where can I find some .bip's?

Count me in Senor Deluxe! I don't have Lightwave, but my converters should convert it to something my programs can read.(e-mail:flamescreen@hotmail.com)

Ed is correct about the Img feature. Btw, Ed are you trying to make animated sprites? Cause if you are you must also create a new tool to enter them to game, since Spray is incapable of that.

Red was talking about possibly working on that if I can ever get anything made. At least I think that's what he was talking about... i was reading it, as usual, at somewhere around 3am...

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. If someone can automate the generation process in 3DSmax (preferably r4, by saving each animation frame, and direction - and later layer, but that's not a must for the first "version"), then I'll take the time to make a proper TGA -> Sprite animation converter. I guess for "Saving purposes", I'd expect a simple naming scheme: <spritename>_<animationname>_<direction>_<frame>_<layer>.TGA

Say you have a model called MyModel and are working on a walking animation, then you'd have MyModel_Walking_NE_0_0.TGA then MyModel_Walking_NE_1_0.TGA etc etc... The layer as mentioned you can ignore for now but I'd rather have the thing there for now.

So the isometric angle is 30deg (the 45deg ones were quite obvious, didn't need to know that

Camera Angle is 30° above the ground and 45° rotated to one side, if I remember right... With the light it´s a bit more difficult, I´m not sure yet, what the exact position is (I think 60° above ground and about 50° rotated to the left) but I gotta check.
I set up a scene in Lightwave, which I´d send to anyone interested. Though it seems, I´m the only one here using this program. I could make a small sketch however, with all the settings I believe I found out. Is there a way to post images on this forum?

All isometric views are not created equal and I don't think the FOT is at 30° . Checking the angles in Photoshop yields something around 27.5°. I think the original Fallout isometric view was 30°, but MF has changed their view slightly. You may want to do some testing to see for sure.

Ok... first, about the material editor, you mentioned some tips you might have, I'm all ears...

Try and put together a decent texture library. Get on a search engine and look for metal, and rust. Since just about every game ever released has rust, it's handy to have, and it's especially relevant to Fallout. Play with metal shaders and composite or blend materials. Basically tool around, see what you can get, and ask about the specifics here.

Second, as I said I'm a total newb to this so this may sound stupid but... how do I make a "Matte Shadow" material to work with?

In the material editor, get a new material (First button on the left. an arrow pointing to a sphere) This should pop up a little browser, and you need to select the "New" radio button. Select "Matte/Shadow" and you're way.

[FOT Specific] Uncheck Opaque Alpha. Check Receive Shadows and Affect Alpha. Check [/b]Apply Atmosphere[/b] and make sure it's applied at ObjectDepth. Shadow Brightness should 0 and the Matte colour should be black. Name the Material "Matte Floor"

Now, make a copy of the material, and name the copy to "Matte Sprite" and uncheck Receive Shadows. This material should be applied to any parts of the sprite you don't want to render, and makes rendering BASE, HAIR, SKIN and TCOL a much simpler process.[/FOT Specific]

Third, where did you put the light? was it directional or omni... or sunlight?

Lights are Target Direction, and point at the centre of your "Stage" (ie the point your camera revolves around, and where your sprite will be centred.

[FOT Specific] There are two directional lights on the FOT Sprite Stage. One for shadow, the other simply for light. Name them as follows.

Directional SHADOW

Co-ords - (750,-750,4000) with target at (0,0,0)
On - true
Cast Shadows - true
RGB - (199,188,178)
Multiplier - 1.25
Hotspot - 1498.0
Falloff - 1500.0
Object Shadows - true
All other params as default

Directional FILL

Co-ords - (-2322.071, -622.197, 2750) with target at (0,0,0)
On - true
Cast Shadows - false
RGB - (199,195,191)
Multiplier - 1.0
Hotspot - 1498.0
Falloff - 1500.0
Object Shadows - false
All other params as default

And while we're at it...

STAGE Camera (free camera)

Co-ords - (-3036.288, -3036.288, 2621.544)
Rotation - (60, 0, -45)
FOV - 10.0
Far Range - 5694.0
All other params as default

STAGE Dummy

Co-ords - (0,0,0)
All previous objects should be linked to STAGE Dummy.

STAGE Plane

Co-ords - (0,0,0)
Length, Width, Height - (2000, 2000, -10)

...and you've got an authentic, genuine FOT Sprite Stage, that should be saved, marked as read-only, and used whenever you start a new sprite. For scale reference, 25 units (inches) = 1 FOT Unit.[/FOT Specific]

Are there any tutorials around on how one can build a script like the one you mention...

Leave it to me. I will deal with it myself. I feel up for a challenge, so I'm going to write up a script of sorts to make some of this easier for you guy(s). I could use the MaxScripting practice.

5th question is kind of unrelated to MAX but... i guess it's for modellers in a way... You didn't really use the tools you guys gave us, did you? I see you guys using something more like a really awsome version of Red, by that I mean you could build the sprites in one program or window, then build tiles in another, then lay them both in the level in a thrid... am I totally wrong?

We used the tools we gave you guys, plus two more the Sprite Editor and the Tile Editor, both of which could batch import Sprites/Tiles, and were generally a breeze to use.

For Red's reference:

Naming conventions for .PNG sequences (or .TGAs if you must )

<name>_<sequence>_<layer>_<animation rotation>_<frame index>

where...

<name> = name of sprite
<sequence> = name of animation sequence*
<layer> = BASE, HAIR, SKIN or TCOL
<animation rotation> = 0 represents North (ie facing top left corner of monitor)
<frame index> = Four digit number representing frame index for animation.

For example - "Brahmin_StandBreathe_BASE_0_0012.PNG"

* Note: This was not in the original FOT naming scheme, but for the sake of making third party stuff easier, use it!

[quote="Section8[FOT Specific][/quote]Now that's ALL the information needed to start a new sprite! This is very good information, thanks a lot. I just hope people here understand how to use it (I understand what it is personally, but have no idea how to use it, as I'm no artists and last I tried 3DS was in the DOS days...)

Naming conventions for .PNG sequences (or .TGAs if you must )

<name>_<layer>_<animation rotation>_<frame index>

where...

<name> = name of sprite sequence
<layer> = BASE, HAIR, SKIN or TCOL
<animation rotation> = 0 represents North (ie facing top left corner of monitor)
<frame index> = Four digit number representing frame index for animation.

For example - "Brahmin Tip Complete_BASE_0_0012.PNG"

OK, fine I'll abide to your constraints As long as I have all the info I need . Is there any way you could input the animation name seperate from the sprite name? (Sorry for the original post, forgot to remove HTML from the post, now fixed). As for the TGA, yeah, I have to as I don't file like suffering the headaches of adding libpng to my project - specially since it's not in C/CPP...

Lets start a new thread devoted to how much Section8 kicks ass, hell yeah! Well I think that answers all of my questions, now back to modeling... I wanna see combat armor again (btw, section8, why wasn't brotherhood combat armor kept? and the leather jacket too? those two are my fav kinds of armor... but then again, all the armor in FO rocked)

Is there any way you could input the animation name seperate from the sprite name?

Well, the animation name is completely independent of the sprite name. The sprite name is governed by the filename of the sprite. The animation names inside that can theoretically be whatever. Also, the <name> portion of our file convention is more for external file management, I believe our importer actually prompted for a sequence name while inputting.

I don't know if this is relevant, but I noticed in Spray it had a field name somewhere that was autochanged when I imported a static pic. It had nothing to do with the sprite name.

this may be a stupid question but it has to do with max... when I'm applying textures, I have this rendering error... "following objects require map coordience adn may not map correctly" especially when I try and texture map to an explicit mapping channel... I use planar and it goes away, but I don't like the way that looks so.. could someone help

Section8 wrote:Well, the animation name is completely independent of the sprite name. The sprite name is governed by the filename of the sprite. The animation names inside that can theoretically be whatever. Also, the <name> portion of our file convention is more for external file management, I believe our importer actually prompted for a sequence name while inputting.

I know very well it's independant, but the goal here was to have 3DSmax pre-render (overnight) all the animations from a single "name" by itself thus saving input time...

If you have name_animation_layer_rotation_frame, then the sprite processor can know it can merge all animations with a common "name" in the same sprite (which could possibly be renamed later on within the editor if needed).

I wanna see combat armor again (btw, section8, why wasn't brotherhood combat armor kept? and the leather jacket too? those two are my fav kinds of armor... but then again, all the armor in FO rocked)

Well, the leather jacket was left out due it it being not very different to standard leather armour functionality wise, which is a shame because I really loved looking like Mad Max. I'm not entirely sure why Combat Armour wasn't in there, but it was the first of the new sprites done for FOT2.*

this may be a stupid question but it has to do with max... when I'm applying textures, I have this rendering error... "following objects require map coordience adn may not map correctly" especially when I try and texture map to an explicit mapping channel... I use planar and it goes away, but I don't like the way that looks so.. could someone help

Well, for high poly stuff, it's good to make do with any of the standard mapping types. Planar maps the texture as a plane only, so try cylindrical of spherical mapping, and you should get some better results. Also, you can map sub-sections of any given object, so that might give better effect. I'm not going to try and explaining Unwrapping, because it's not much fun, although highly efficient for low-poly work.

I know very well it's independant, but the goal here was to have 3DSmax pre-render (overnight) all the animations from a single "name" by itself thus saving input time...

Oh, my apologies, I misunderstood.

If you have name_animation_layer_rotation_frame, then the sprite processor can know it can merge all animations with a common "name" in the same sprite (which could possibly be renamed later on within the editor if needed).

I don't see any reason why you couldn't do that, and it does make things a little easier. But from an artists point of few, it's only going to save a minute here and there, so it depends on if the implementation is worth it. I'd imagine it would be a trivial matter of parsing the filename differently, so if you'd rather do it that way go for it. I'll edit my original post to reflect changes.

* And, yes I have serious doubts about the officiality of releasing it as an extra sprite, so don't ask

Section8 wrote:Well, the leather jacket was left out due it it being not very different to standard leather armour functionality wise, which is a shame because I really loved looking like Mad Max. I'm not entirely sure why Combat Armour wasn't in there, but it was the first of the new sprites done for FOT2.

Of course, if you don't mind looking like you're still wearing Leather Armor or Environmental Armor my Leather Jacket and Combat Armor sprites that I made w/Spray will do just nicely. (The Brotherhood Armor sprite needs to be redone and will be in the next installment.)

BTW, the omission of the Leather Jacket was probably the most unbalancing thing in the whole early-game. I've noticed that low-level Raiders have a much easier time blasting people w/AC 7 + AG than they do 15 + AG. The LJ's lower DT/DR also makes a lot of the earlier weapons a lot more viable. If anyone is adding FO/FO2 weapons to their mods, I recommend following the RPG stats as closely as possible, and using the various subtypes of ammo to simulate various AP configurations. (Change the ammo.txt if you're going to do that, though.)

Also, if you look at the two types of Environmental Armor and compare it to the Combat Armor types you'll notice that the stats are pretty much the same. Methinks CA would have been a bit redundant, unless you wanted to make it more common than EA and also slip a few more instances into missions where environmental factors are an issue. If one is going to include EA in a mod, I recommend making it more vulnerable to Normal Damage, perhaps even Energy to make balance it out w/the CA types.

OTB