My first s3o model doesn't like being cloaked

[unpossible]

I decided to have a go with wings and see if i could make a very simple unit. I ended up with this:


it's a 3do unit for simplicity's sake as this is my first.
unfortunately i've made a bit of a boo boo on most of the faces (highlighted i red) as they're not flat & can't be textured by 3dobuilder (they dissapear).

is there a specific way i should be working in order to keep these four sided polygons flat? flattening one with the flatten tool causes another, so it must be how i'm working that's the problem.

[smoth]

it is not that they need to be flat... select a face.. then go into vertex mode...

if you see greater then four points listed you are not working with a square.
if you see less then four points listed you are not working with a square.

[unpossible]

i've had a look and thee don't seem to be any 'extras' . here's a shot of the big square on the top - four corners but it's really two tris stuck together as it's not flat. only four vertices are listed.



perhaps i should start again and be a little more careful/cautious with my construction?

[smoth]

can you upload the .obj? I shall take a look.

[unpossible]

uploaded, it's here: http://www.bestsharing.com/files/ms0018 ... s.obj.html

thanks for the help

edit: i just used the wings 'select by non-planar faces' to take that screengrab

[smoth]

Ok, first thing is first.. models that are gonig to be imported into 3do builder need to be done peice by peice.

That is part of your problem. The little feet on your model have 6 verts on the top of them also. So that is another.


Suggestion...

If this is to be a solid object then combine all of it together. Otherwise export it piece by piece.

[Das Bruce]

Just use s3o fool!

[SinbadEV]

Snakes on a plane! (I'm sorry... it's rhymes with the subject)

[unpossible]

ok, cheers. the one i posted was the unmirrored version. the idea with this one was that i could make a very simple (3do!!!!!!) hovercraft that didn't need any animation as a lead in to doing proper work.
each bit of the shell on top, the little hover feet, the tower in the centre and the body were all separate parts.
so i should try and reduce the body to more component parts (and then combine to get around the faces interfering with one another when i flatten)?

[unpossible]

i'm a little confused now. can wings add/subtract primatives? does the description 'subdivision modeler' mean it's incapable of these?

edit: i think i've figured it out now. i wasn't keeping tight enough control of the tris that Wings was making. by tesselating the surfaces that aren't flat into tris i can get the top shell bits to behave themselves and stay flat.
the probelm arrised whn the top and bottom squares were made of tris with the division line perpendicular, twisting the whole shape when one side was flattened.

[Vassago]

i'm a little confused now. can wings add/subtract primatives? does the description 'subdivision modeler' mean it's incapable of these?

edit: i think i've figured it out now. i wasn't keeping tight enough control of the tris that Wings was making. by tesselating the surfaces that aren't flat into tris i can get the top shell bits to behave themselves and stay flat.
the probelm arrised whn the top and bottom squares were made of tris with the division line perpendicular, twisting the whole shape when one side was flattened.

Things to know:

- "Quads" Only matter in subdivision modeling. Games use triangles, not quads
- Each "quad" is made of 2 triangles
- Subdivision modeling interpolates a mesh to a higher resolution using either of the 2 available algorithms
- "Subdivision Modeler" means that it can do the above.
- Turning quads into tris is known as "tripling"
- Try to keep edges facing the same direction - it's better for tri-stripping
- Discontinuous UV maps break tri-strips and add extra verts
- "TriStripping" is a rendering method that most engines use, to increase performace. This is done by indexing triangles into long strips for rendering. The above 2 items break these strips, leading to increase render time, and therefore a lower framerate.

[unpossible]

well, here's the first one. it's taken me a while to get the basics for the various tools down (and plenty would argue i've failed!). anyhow it's a start:

obviously i misjudged the scale, and my first ever texturing exercise implies i have worse taste than lawrence llewellyn bowen
i'll start over and put a little more detail into the obvious part of the model. the shells just look crap at the moment!

[Johns_Volition]

That's quite good after one day of learning mate. Go on!

[knorke]

What tutorial did you use to get your model in the game?

[unpossible]

What tutorial did you use to get your model in the game?

to be honest i didn't find one that let me do it all. i messed about with the tools until they worked. the model is extremely simple - only one piece. most of my time modelling was taken up by not 'knowing' how to do particular stuff when i don't have boolean tools like add/substract (which i'm used to .

the rest of it took me plenty of time to do mind, exporting it as a single object from wings (AFTER COMBINING - that part took me a while to twig), importing to upspring, scaling it (poorly), saving as 3do then adding a gunpoint and textures in 3dobuilder.
i hacked up one of the CvC scripts to find out what is necessary in a unit with no animation (thankyou KDR_111!), and created the simplest script ever.
the actual 'unit' is a scout hover with a lightning gun, cloaking.

i started over last night and created a much better model:

which is going to be an s3o - i'm fed up with 3do texturing already! Two halves of the shell at the back open up and the lightning tower will pop out.

right now i'm having a quick look at all the s3o tuts on the wiki just so i understand what i'm trying to do. doesn't look too bad and i'm quite enjoying it.

[smoth]

a few things to keep in mind...

alpha on texture 1 is team color.

Texture2:
red = glowmap
green = shiny

You will need to vertically flip both of your textures for them to display correctly in spring.

[unpossible]

hmm, the s3o model is 'done', upspring'd and given a basic texture. i have to conclude that i'm the best texturer ever!
i'm left with the 'all black' error which i remember reading about. interesting thing is this is what the all black units look like when they're cloaked :

- all the TA textures on a single unit - and much faster than doing it via 3do!

Huzzah!

edit:
the invisible texture is still farked up but i believe that has something to do with the following:
the model has a good side:

and a not so good side:


have the faces inverted because i mirrored parts in Upspring?

i assume the inverted faces are messing up the invisible texture too...

edit 2: how do i invert the faces so they're correct? i've tried 'flip polygons' and 'flip all polygons' (same thing?) in Upspring but they didn't work!

[unpossible]

ok, i'm stumped. i've tried remaking the s3o from scratch by importing each part without copying/pasting. it appears that the transform function in upspring is messing up the polys on the objects turing them inside out. is this a known thing? (maestro's upspring tut is down, so i'm going on guesswork here)

i guess this means that i need to model both parts, even though they're identical mirrors - but that'll waste a lot of space on the texture.

is there another way around this?

[Cheesecan]

Hey why don't you model a worms supersheep, make it fly like a plane(with cape and all) and explode like a roach. Now that would be awesome.

Okay not be completely off topic here's my attempt to help...I'm no modder but I know the Upspring manual(or was it a tut) says you should vertically flip your UV-map texture(not the model itself) for it to fit in Spring. I haven't read the whole thread so don't be mad if I'm saying something completely irrelevent.

[Das Bruce]

This may be trickey, but try to look from inside the unit out through the invisible face.