Transparent Model Parts - Robe based creature models

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

                 This is more a theoretical question on my part, since I know this is possible with cloaks, but I don't know about other plt based model parts.

  Anyways, the question...  With (at least ) cloaks, it's possible to make parts of the models completely transparent by setting to a certain colour.

  If this is possible with robes, how practical would it be for use in setting up a dynamic creature, the hair, skin, and tattoo colours used normally for the base creature, but the other six channels used for individual parts that can be toggled "on" and "off" with a simple colour switch.

  I realize the mdl would most likely load based on the full model, displayed or not, which could result in lagtastic creature mobs, but is the concept itself workable?
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Failed.Bard, 30 juin 2012 - 10:13 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <digging through...>

Lisa explains the er, trickery they used to enable transparency in cloaks in her Third Stab at Fancy Schmancy Cloaks.
I'm not sure the same technique could be used with robes. That is, specifically, I don't know if robes have the transparency/reflection toggle that cloaks have in their 2da.

As far as geometry based lag is concerns, there are two very positive considerations.
The first is that node-only dynamic models *could* be created if you managed something like a full-body skinmesh (ala OTR). Node-only models would be very responsive. Edit: Actually, I'd put non-rendering shadow blobs on the nodes. Shadows and skinmesh are... problematical :-P
Secondly, modern cards handle far more complex geometry than NwN can put out and, thankfully, *most* of the model and animation routines are handed over to the GFX card. It's the stuff they keep internal to the engine (like shadows and shinywater (ugh!) that cause problems.

<...some old scrolls>
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Rolo Kipp, 29 juin 2012 - 04:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

                 Hmm...  So a base dynamic creature with environment maps at "****" instead of "default" might be a place to start for testing it then, since that seems to be what allowed it to be possible with the cloaks.  I think the parts inherit the base creatures envmap settings anyways.

  Any idea if a dynamic race can take more than a single letter name?  I'll be playing around with this a bit this week-end.  I suppose I'll know in a day or two if it's anything within my limited model manipulating ability.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               Looking at NPC Sedos might be a place to start, btw '>


               
               

               
            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Failed.Bard wrote...
Any idea if a dynamic race can take more than a single letter name?

I don't think they can have more than a single character name.  Not 100% about that.  If you search in the Omnibus for "good news regarding", though, you pull up a thread by Kinarr Greycloak which indicates that letters, numbers, some punctuation marks and at least some extended ASCII characters work for naming dynamic races.  I'm not sure if I ever tried this experiment, myself, but I have tried using extended ASCII characters (like 175, ») as a prefix for some model names and it seems to work fine.

That could open up a freakish number of possible dynamic races if my math is correct.  X available phenotypes (at least 70 or so, max 99) multiplied by the number of useable characters per race inside each phenotype.  I never followed through with this, though, so I don't know if I'm really correct about that.

Extended ASCII Characters
               
               

               

                     Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 29 juin 2012 - 05:52 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               

OldTimeRadio wrote...

Failed.Bard wrote...
Any idea if a dynamic race can take more than a single letter name?

I don't think they can have more than a single character name.  Not 100% about that.  If you search in the Omnibus for "good news regarding", though, you pull up a thread by Kinarr Greycloak which indicates that letters, numbers, some punctuation marks and at least some extended ASCII characters work for naming dynamic races.  I'm not sure if I ever tried this experiment, myself, but I have tried using extended ASCII characters (like 175, ») as a prefix for some model names and it seems to work fine.

That could open up a freakish number of possible dynamic races if my math is correct.  X available phenotypes (at least 70 or so, max 99) multiplied by the number of useable characters per race inside each phenotype.  I never followed through with this, though, so I don't know if I'm really correct about that though.

My pw has a few :

Dynamic Illithid uses $

Dynamic Tabaxi uses +

Dynamic Kyote uses (

At one point efferts were even made to document which letters were already in use by custom phenotypes (dynamic races), so developers wouldn't have to worry about having to choose between two races both using say the letter "T" for example... (not sure the old list is still on a wiki page somewere or in forum archives..)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 29 juin 2012 - 05:57 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_OldTimeRadio]

               

Carcerian wrote...
At one point efferts were even made to document which letters were already in use by custom phenotypes (dynamic races), so developers wouldn't have to worry about having to choose between two races both using say the letter "T" for example... (not sure the old list is still on a wiki page somewere or in forum archives..)

Here's the latest one I know about.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Rolo Kipp]

               <snatching...>

Oh! Nice one, OTR. Any idea who the author is?
Added to CC Maker's reference.

<...and running>
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               

OldTimeRadio wrote...

Carcerian wrote...
At one point efferts were even made to document which letters were already in use by custom phenotypes (dynamic races), so developers wouldn't have to worry about having to choose between two races both using say the letter "T" for example... (not sure the old list is still on a wiki page somewere or in forum archives..)

Here's the latest one I know about.

Good Find, that one looks fairly up to date, although it omits the following :

E3 and E4 = Drider Phenotypes for Elves by Ramas Obarskyr

M also = Merfolk by 1whocantscript

R = Drakin by Fantu

S also = CEP Armor Stand

T also = Titan by Ben Harrison

V = CEP Skeleton

Y also = Half-Giant By Spoonmerlin

Keep in mind with Ascii that Mac and Linux could possibly recognize non-stardard characters differently as well...
(Shudders in memory of how horrible linux thrashed inline color codes in a co-developers SSE build)
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 29 juin 2012 - 09:03 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

                 Playing around with the vanilla gnoll, which is why the texture is so low a resolution, making a complete gnoll model into a robe for a half-orc, which was the closest dynamic model to its scale for this test.

  It seems like the plt wants to use the one for humans still though.  Is this how the engine handles robes, or did I do something wrong?




  General body can be tinted, as can any of the parts that are the right scale to be used along with the robe.

  Edit:  I've apparently completely forgotten how to post an image since the last time I did it.
  Edit 2:  Okay, it's just the gallery in the site here I don't know how to link to an image in.
 
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Failed.Bard, 30 juin 2012 - 02:27 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               Very Cool!

For images I like to use http://tinypic.com/
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 30 juin 2012 - 04:04 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Carcerian]

               BTW if you want the texture to look better use nwn explorer, find the dds in the "NWN Texture Packs" (c_gnoll.dds and c_gnollwiz.dds are in "xp1_tex_tpa.erf"), and right click and export as a TGA '>



Great for modeling/skinning/recoloring in general.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Carcerian, 30 juin 2012 - 06:56 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               

Carcerian wrote...

BTW if you want the texture to look better use nwn explorer, find the dds in the "NWN Texture Packs" (c_gnoll.dds and c_gnollwiz.dds are in "xp1_tex_tpa.erf"), and right click and export as a TGA '>
...
Great for modeling/skinning/recoloring in general.

 Ah, thanks for that.  I figured there was one, but didn't know where to look for it.  The tga I'd found was only 64x64, which doesn't give much detail scaled up to 256x256.  I should be able to make a proper plt for it now.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Failed.Bard]

               Here's version 2 of the tintable robe based gnolls, using the much better 512x512 dds texture as the base for the plt.




  I think I prefer this robe based version to what my original thought had been, since it would allow that potential of 255 tintable creatures (f a very similar base size) per dynamic race made. 

  My original attempts had the heads and body seperate, but the head moved based on half-orc animations and the body based on the gnolls movements.
  I'll have to see if a helm based head would do the same, it'd be nice to be able to mix and match heads and bodies to get some extra customization out of it.  

  The robes are just renamed vanilla creature mdl files, so they're not anything special on their own.  It'd be interesting trying this with a fully skinmeshed and weighted model to see how it reacts, but I'll leave that for any of the more talented CC people still around to play with if they get the urge.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Frith5]

               Very cool.