Modelling 3do-->s3o conversion made easy by jc

[MadRat]

If you haven't already done so, pop over to the DEVELOPMENT forum and try out the 1.53 version of Upswing. It is a huge step in the 3do-->s3o conversion! You basically load up your 3do and click a couple of buttons and viola! This should speed up OTA conversions for a lot of you modders. Did I mention it even makes a texture map from the 3do textures for your s3o?

Thread: http://spring.clan-sy.com/phpbb/viewtop ... &start=240

Upswing 1.53: http://user.supradigital.org/jcnossen/U ... r-1.53.exe

Don't forget to check back regularly for updates to upswing. Jc has made a lot of changes to it this past month. Lots of bug fixes. Its not crashing as much. Its definitely something for which people should pat him on the back.

Also, thanks alot to smoth for the spelling corrections.

[smoth]

this goes in modeling and ALOT is 2 words A lot.

[Foxomaniac]

Since smoth is on the grammar nazi bandwagon :

lol @ upswing.

[FLOZi]

It may be handy, though I'm a little perplexed as to why anyone is that excited about it.

[MadRat]

Dude, you can get baseline s3o's built straight from 3do's with a few clicks. It just solved my texture limitations with the old 3do format. I could care less about smoothing and all of the 3d modelling techniques for now. But I really wanted to avoid using the same model for multiple units because then its all the more difficult to troubleshoot behavior of units visually in play testing.

For me personally this is about getting the base mod off the notepad and into a working alpha. I have been hammering out details for a mod on a notebook and haven't been looking forward to the next (longer) modelling phase. Crude models are easy to whip up to get the ball rolling. But the texture map limitations with 3do's was kicking my ass.

[FLOZi]

S44 has unique textures for almost every single unit for 2 sides and doesn't run into the limit...

[rattle]

You will have to rework the uvmap anyway, atm most of the space is unused and everything is deformed to a square. That and there is no space between the maps resulting in ugly outlines. Milkshape's plugin works the same by the way, only that there's no DevIL which reduces the texture quality.

[FLOZi]

Exactly... of course it gives you more control over certain aspects (hitsphere scale & position, height etc.) but next version will allow you to set some of those in the fbi anyway.

Also note that s3o doesn't render backfaces, so a model made for OTA with all its gaping holes will probably actually look worse in s3o than it does in 3do (3do renders backfaces for exactly this reason)

[smoth]

Madrat, stretched textures, bad smoothing groups that HURTS your model. you better off with 3do

[Argh]

...unless you know how to do all of that, and you're dealing with things that don't have holes, or are willing/able to fill them. It's not a be-all end-all thing. But one thing that people have kind've missed is that it allows for 3DS export with object name/group assignments unbroken. Kind've a biggie.