Custom Content Challenge: August 2014: African Adventures / Tileset Expansions

[Legacy_Killmonger]

               

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/257000821/GoWild_2.JPG


https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/257000821/GoWild_3.JPG

<wip above>

 

Just a teaser

'>

 

<I think I'm running out of time>

 

And I have a few problems:

 

1) The Gazelle crashes the toolset even after xform reset of all pivots, rebuild and reskin [tga]. It is supersetted and scaled by 80%

 

2) The Oryx loads but appears only in the toolset dialog box but not in toolset (But it worked in an earlier "non-sane" version) Textures?

 

3) The Gnu is the same (animated in dialog box but no appear in toolset) and the other alt-mesh (wildebeest) crashes the toolset. Wth?

 

4) In the Tropical tiles some of my critters are just above the ground...I vaguely recall how to fix that for all tiles...Do'oh...

 

5) If a Nwn vertex should only be affected by less than four bones, can I just delete (edit) the offending vertex in the mdl file?

 

6) I'm sure there was something else.... 

 

 

A little assistance please?     

 

 

Otherwise the sanity checked working models with basic shadows, pictured above, is about as far as I have got yet.

None of them are tweaked for their species in the appearance2da but for now they are functional.

Portraits, I guess, are next. (I've not had to deal with that workflow in years)

 

I have sound files for all the above but I doubt I'll get that far due to RL

Should I just include the raw sounds in a separate annotated upload ?

 

 Thanks in advance...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               

@Killmonger: In order to show your images: If you have your pics hosted in dropbox, do right clik on your pic an click on "copy public link", them paste it between:


[ img ]someimage[ /img ] (Without spaces)


Someimage = URL of the image = Dropbox public link

 

• Reduce the scale factor in the aurora base of your creatures to avoid that they be above the ground: If you are using supermodels, this can be cause because the supermodel creature have a bigger scale than yours....

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

If you delete the offending vertex on the skin, the skin modifier may not export properly. I have found with GMAX, if you modify the number of verts on a skin, it tends to mangle the painted weights associated with the bones. If you delete a bone already in a skin, it is usually even worse.

 

If at any time you would like the skinned creatures inspected, let me know and I will take a look for you. I do a lot with skins.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_ZugothNDeadly]

               

here are my newly constructed anubisath models:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i have one question.

how do i size them up without having to redo the animations cuz last time i sized one model using the scale factor in NWMax it looked like it sinked down.

there are some huge dragons made by Hardpoints(link here:            http://neverwinterva...geons-dragons-0) and they didnt sink up or down.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Killmonger]

               

Thanks for the quick reply

 

Got it no specific edit of vertex without starting from scratch (I've seen the distortions on the mesh)

I don't mind skinning but wow I've redone these a few times  

 

I've been focussed on the wildebeest.

Redone it twice more now..xform, safe pivots, textures, no shadows, nomenclature... super model check and test

Now when I test it I get the toolset crashing again (before loading into the dialog box)

I'm thinking it is a skinmesh conflict (aka too many bones affecting vertices. Wouldn't that be a safe bet?)

It also won't appear in NwnExplorerv1.1

The display is black (tga texture and model are loaded) Hmmm...

I may take you up on that offer MD. Let me crack a cold one and consider....

 

 

The scale factor reduction ratio ! 

I'll try again soon

Thanks

 

'>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Killmonger]

               

Grrrr

<no edit function>

 

That "ratio reduction"  thanks is for SH

'>

 

 

@ ZugothNDeadly

 

Those fellers look great ! Nice job!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Shemsu-Heru]

               

 

Giant carnivorous plant, This creature is unable to move from its position, but can attack if you get too close. The creature uses MerricksDad's worms animations, Thanks MD for that!

 

 

 

BTW, I have tried this texture variation, What do you think about it?

 

 

 

@Killmonger: The vertex distortion in the skin, could be caused by a another bone which is affecting it...

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Killmonger]

               

@SH

 

The ancestors of "Audrey"    !!!

 

<from the lil' shop of horror>

 

 

That thing is great !

Perhaps various types of gas are emitted (depending on colour)

 

Maybe you could do a triffid too?

 

imho

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

here are my newly constructed anubisath models:

 

 

 

i have one question.

how do i size them up without having to redo the animations cuz last time i sized one model using the scale factor in NWMax it looked like it sinked down.

there are some huge dragons made by Hardpoints(link here:            http://neverwinterva...geons-dragons-0) and they didnt sink up or down.

 

To scale up a model, what I usually do is make sure that I first have an animation set with any position keys ONLY on the root dummy. Then I use the scale wizard to scale up all the nodes in the scene. This will increase the size of all nodes in world scale, moving the rootdummy up to the proper position. If your version of NwMax does not do that, I can assist by offering mine. This will usually corrupt a skin. So to undo the damage, what I do is select the skin node, turn off its "always deform" (sp) checkbox, and then turn it back on. If you have to change the position of the skin, you should find that it just needs its position scaled. But be sure to do that AFTER you turn off the deform. Again, if your nwmax version does not have that ability, I can offer my skin scaling functions. After you do that, and the bones rely solely on rotation keys except for the position keys on the rootdummy, you can then set the animscale value to 1.0 safely in the aurorabase. This lets you save the larger animation with the current model. If however you want the animation linked externally, you use the animscale value equal to the rate you scaled up, which is normally what the scale wizard sets it to.


Simply using the animscale will also not give you proper shadows from the bones inside your model.

 

Edit:

 

Just to be clear, what the anim scale value seems to do is scales the values that position keys move. So if the base model has a position key that moves the root dummy up 100 points in a jump action, then the unscaled larger model will also only jump up 100 points, even though a 2x size model would need to jump up 200 to look the same.


This is also where the sunken into the ground, or floating appearance comes in. The intial position key of the rootdummy remains the same as the original model, so your 2x creature is half under ground, or a 0.5 scaled down model is floating half the original height (of it's root dummy) in the air.


From my experience, ONLY position keys are based on this. It has absolutely nothing to do with rotation keys. I do not use scale keys, so I don't know about those.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

Thanks for the quick reply

 

Got it no specific edit of vertex without starting from scratch (I've seen the distortions on the mesh)

I don't mind skinning but wow I've redone these a few times  

 

I've been focussed on the wildebeest.

Redone it twice more now..xform, safe pivots, textures, no shadows, nomenclature... super model check and test

Now when I test it I get the toolset crashing again (before loading into the dialog box)

I'm thinking it is a skinmesh conflict (aka too many bones affecting vertices. Wouldn't that be a safe bet?)

It also won't appear in NwnExplorerv1.1

The display is black (tga texture and model are loaded) Hmmm...

I may take you up on that offer MD. Let me crack a cold one and consider....

 

 

The scale factor reduction ratio ! 

I'll try again soon

Thanks

 

'>

 

I don't trust nwexplorer worth crap to display my models properly. Most of my skins do not show in it, but they work fine in the toolset and in-game.

 

A few things I notice with skins is that if the underlying bone is not light-closed, it will cast odd shadows, which can actually go as far as crashing the game. Cap holes used on all bones can help you find those. There are other techniques, and I have to assume that the CM3 has already incorporated all my known fixes since i was late to that party by a few years.

 

Another thing is duplicate faces using the same verts. Same problem, and highly likely to crash the engine but not the toolset.

 

To help reduce bone conflicts, I find it always best to paint them by hand with absolutely no feathering. If you let the bones do all the work for you, you get stuff like the ape I just redid, which originally looked like a rubber dog toy when it moved. You also get 5 or more bones acting on the same verts pretty easily, especially if bones are wide and close to each other. The innate size of bone radii are based on the actual size of the bone in 3d space. I am not fond of that personally, but I understand its usefulness when you are king of making proper bones, which I am not, and is nearly impossible with the dumb per-bone lighting on mouse over that NWN does in-game. I hate that crap by the way.


Anyway, bone per vert is easy to check by simply scrolling through the text output of your uncompiled model. Simply search to "skin" and then scroll down to the skin weights block and look for long lines. I suppose that only works if your bone names are kinda equal in length, like most OC models seem to be. Like Bear_Head or Ogre_Thigh.

 

If you do need an assist, I will be available all day tomorrow while I wait for my washing machine to get repaired. The metal bit under the agitator bell basically exploded and shards of rotten galvanized metal are all over my stuff. Looks like a lead factory mishap.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Killmonger]

               

Thanks MD

 

Via your suggestions I have found some problems with the mesh 

 

1) my super had been inadvertently rotated <fixed again

 

2) The wildebeest has three skins. So I have made sure that the skinmesh does not cast shadows <check x3

Most of my bones do not interfere with each other's verts more than say "orange" or "yellow"

(I took great pains to minimize their overlap but faces could be another matter)

 

3) The 3 skins need some welding (!) I thought I had already insured this. Perhaps an oversight due to marshalling so many critters through the corral. (plus several remakes...lol)

Beard = 7welds

Horns = 16welds

Body = 187welds

I presume this a job for clean models?

Personally I have not yet had the need to use it. Most of my own models are much simpler than these and are not tiles.

Floppy mesh could be causing the graphics to crash, right?

I don't just know how best to fix em all quickly.

 

After I process 'em, will I have to re skin the model again? Or can I just dump the whole linked model into it?

 

 

<Still on it>

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MerricksDad]

               

I don't know the details of how CM will fix the skin for you, if it even will, mostly because I do them by hand.

 

One thing I do know is that if you are not hand painting skin verts, snapping verts should not cause the problems I was mentioning earlier. Otherwise, if you are painting them by hand, then if you snap the verts while the skinmesh is applied, the skinmesh modifier's internal list of vert-to-bone values will be mangled. So in that sense, after you weld your verts, it would be best to repaint. Again, if you are letting bone radii do the painting for you, this should not be the case, but don't quote that as fact.

 

If the issue is simply that that many verts are too close (as told by the exporter) then I would simply ignore those issues. That many verts really won't matter one bit. I've left a lot of useless verts on the ape faces, and that number probably is in the 50's. Unless those verts it is pointing out are part of duplicate faces, reversed normals, etc, then they are just warnings, not actual errors, once it comes to being in-game. I've never had critical errors simply for verts wanting their personal space.

 

If you want to check for phantom faces on your skin, which is the most likely issue you are having, given your data and all the crap I went through doing my mods with the human bodies with extra nodes, try this:

 

Set your model to see through via the node properties.

 

Hide the bones temporarily

 

It may help to smooth the entire skin section to one smoothing group

 

Now spin your camera around and look for faces that appear whiter than others near them

 

Given the single smoothing group, they should pop very quickly to the eye

 

Also look at your model from the inside, or select all faces on your skin (before the skin modifier, possibly by inserting an editmesh modifier before it) and set the normals to unified. This will take all the reversed normals and put them on the outside so they make white spots whiter.

 

 

 

I'll be back in the morning to help if the demons are not yet banished.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Killmonger]

               

Lol

 

I'll persevere

 

Thxs

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bluebomber4evr]

               

Does anyone know if it's possible to extract voice sound files from the game? I tried using nwnexplorer but the resulting sound file did not work.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_kamal_]

               

 

 

 

Giant carnivorous plant, This creature is unable to move from its position, but can attack if you get too close. The creature uses MerricksDad's worms animations, Thanks MD for that!

 

 

 

 

 

BTW, I have tried this texture variation, What do you think about it?

 

 

 

 

@Killmonger: The vertex distortion in the skin, could be caused by a another bone which is affecting it...

 

Feed Me Seymour!