HOW TO: make new Botf 3d Designs, the Video Tutorial

HOW TO: make new Botf 3d Designs, the Video Tutorial; support/discussion/questions

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Dr_Breen
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Post by Dr_Breen »

well to be honest i'm no prefessional as well. before i became member to this community i had no idea at all how to make 3d stuff on a computer.

when somebody (i think it was Dcer or Jigallypuff) finally figured out how to add phasers a few years ago i decieded to give it a try.

i followed this (a bit outdated) tutorial by Dafedz:
http://www.trekmania.net/conference/botf_tutorial.htm

using lightwave and UU3d. some things changed since then, howver UU3d is so easy to handle i like it much more than the 3ds max tool. so i kept using it and still do.

Edit: the youtube links should be working now
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robert_defore
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Post by robert_defore »

I have only found the company web site for the multigen creator and dont see any way to dl demo or buy a copy other than through email request. This software looks to be very expensive, is there an alternative to using this?

Ok searched forums here and worldwide, no way to do this without the creator, that is unfortunate. I was shocked to find the cost of the creator to be in the thousands of dollars, and I am unable to locate a suitable alternative. I tried both other programs and to locate this one by other means. I will give this post a wait , but may be forced to PM someone for advice. Thnx
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Post by Dr_Breen »

to the ppl having trouble aquiring a copy of multigen creator. plz contact me by pm, i'm sure we can take care of this problem
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robert_defore
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Post by robert_defore »

I have been using my 3ds max to do my UV mapping as I have not had the chance to retrieve a copy of UU3d. However, when I export my model without texture mapping into Creator it seperates fine. Once I add a texture and reexport the thing, it wont seperate. Any idea what the problem might be. I have tested this several times tonight, only changes to model where the addition of the texture mapping.
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Post by anjel »

Hello there Robert_defore, once you imported the mesh from 3dmax to creator, with textures already mapped, don´t forget you have to replace the textures, with their corresponding gifs, that step it´s almost at the beggining of the process, then after adding the phasers slots you have to separate. Of course i´m telling you the short version, it would be nice to know precisely how you do the process, to see where is the problem. This conversion is little bit complicated but necessary and each step it´s important to follow, because if you didn´t do something previous to the separation, the process goes wrong.
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Post by robert_defore »

I think I am not replacing the textures, I'll give it another try and follow your directions precisly. Hell I never could pass a spelling test, any way. Hope that works, I already figured out the adding phasor slots, funny that was what took us so long to begin editting these things. Sorry Ive been so much trouble.

I am resizing the Daedalus and giving her 8 phasor slots as a trial. It will give me an existing model to compare my own first work to that way Ill know my weaknesses and learn to improve. Ive actually had the 3ds model ready for some time, just needed the creator to get the ball rolling.
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Post by anjel »

it is always difficult at the beggining, it´s rather complicated to make the final conversion in creator, but this is the price in order to see the models we create in the game, and it´s worth every headache.
Don´t be shy and post some images of what you are doing, maybe watching the mesh we can help or if you can tell us more in detaild, how many polys, vertices or textures you want to add.
Ask everything you want and need, i keep always asking things to tc and Dr_Breen, even now i´m learning to make a model as Dr_breen show us and i found it really interesting.
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Post by Dr_Breen »

in creator under: "Info", "Preferences" under the "BSP" tab you can set the Interpenetration tolerance. you may raise it by factor 10. the model quality probably suffers a bit but changing the draw order to "BSP" will show you if it still looks good.
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Post by robert_defore »

Yes actually, I found my mistake. Late at night, no sleep I crossed up some polys. I can post some pics of the model later tonight. Right now I have the main structural elements, I simply need to tighten up some areas and it looks pretty close to the schematic.

I was very careful to watch my polys. I think about 1200 in 3ds max. Now I just need to find time to play Botf and not spend 14 hour days learning how to mod. :D

edit: I am having some undesired effects during sep. I just select individual objects and seperate again to achieve the desired seperation results. Will this in anyway screwup the model for conversion, or can I do the BSP as many times as needed?
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Post by Dr_Breen »

all the objects need to be in the same bsp tree, otherwise you will have a flickering/semi transparent model ingame
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Post by robert_defore »

Just a quick question. I noticed some textures you used in the tutorial where 512X512. I also noticed it seems standard to use 256X256 sized .giffs. Will the 512X512 be ok to use commonly. I really want to raise the detail level of this Daedalus with the textures.
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Post by anjel »

as far as i can tell, you can use just 1 512x512 texture, or 6 256x256 textures, this is the maximum number i´ve ever used, but i don´t really know the max, maybe seven...
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Post by thunderchero »

robert_defore wrote:Will the 512X512 be ok to use commonly.
this would limit who could use models.

if user uses hades the images would need to be resized to 256x256 to prevent crash.

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Post by robert_defore »

I have been manually aligning my objects and model parts so they will properly seperate. However, during the tutorial you used what you called a "snap to" short cut or command. Could I get some more details on that plz? Where is the button located or what is the short cut keys.
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Post by Dr_Breen »

the snap tool allows you to "stick" objects to each other

in the top right corner there's an icon that looks like a horseshoe, if you hover the mouse over it it says "snaps toggle"

A little bit more to the right you can select which kind of object you want to snap to the polygon/vertex/edge... you currently selected
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