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Plan for Jameson Bennett
Plan for Jameson Bennett
| Name: | Jameson Bennett |  |
|---|---|---|
| Date Posted: | Apr 11, 2005 | |
| Rating: |  5.0 out of 5 | |
| Public: | YES | |
| Comments: | YES | |
| RSS Feed: |  or Subscribe with  . | |
| Profile Page: | View profile page for Jameson Bennett |
Blog post
My first .plan here on GG: Smoothing out the art pipeline for new (and old) modeling tools and spending some quality time with Normal Maps.
I've finally gotten some time to really dig into the TGE/TSE and have been looking into ways of streamlining the art pipeline, especially for being able to view models quickly.
Although several years ago I used to be a 'mainstream' 3d app junkie, using Maya, 3DSMax and Cinema4d for my 3d work, Ive migrated to some new tools over the last couple years that I have found incredible for modeling and texturing.
By far I feel that Zbrush (www.zbrush.com) is the most amazing 3d modeling tool to come onto the market. Originally created as a '2.5d' tool and following an 'artist canvas' paridigm, the latest revisions (since 1.5) have made roughing out and creating incredibly detailed 3d models a breeze. A warning: because of it's roots, it is difficult for someone coming from traditional 3d to get ahold of...literally took me months till I felt comfortable in the application and I am still amazed at it's flexibility daily. The interface and mental model you keep during the modeling process is utterly different than 'norm', but this is the thing that allows it to be what it is. I highly recommend anybody that does modeling take a serious look at it...also, persons with a traditional painting and sculpture based pipeline seem to really run with it.
For general modeling purposes, I use Silo (www.nevercenter.com). Silo is an inexpensive but incredible low poly modeling tool with a lot of unique features, and like Zbrush is supported on both Mac and PC. It lacks a UV editor, so I do most of that in Blender if Zbrush is not cooperating with it's incredible auto mapping features.
One issue with moving away from a mainstream tool is that it becomes unlikely that a .dts exporter will be available to view the model in the engine while you work. This then creates a cumbersome addition to the workflow of importing your model into the exporting 3d app, setting up the scene with bounding box and detail nodes and finally exporting so you can see your work. This can take some time, depending on the exporter and was a big burden on my pipeline.
To speed up workflow for viewing the meshes built in many of these unsupported 3d apps, I looked into several options for importing meshes from them. I finally settled on he .obj file format as it allows you to store vertex, face, material and texture data and can be exported from nearly all 3d modeling applications out there. Ive built a tool to allow easy .dts creation from standard .obj files and posted it as a resource here:
Obj2Dts
You can download it and find instructions for use on the resource page and more detailed instructions at the Web Site link. Hopefully it will be useful to others as it has sped up my workflow drastically.
On another, somewhat related note: Zbrush will create normal maps from your 4 million poly meshes down onto your original low res models very easily. I tried several months ago to build a pipeline that would move the models with normal maps I was creating in zbrush to TSE. I was having trouble with this, using several exporters and blaming them, but after building my own I am confident that I am generating compliant meshes with good normal data(and of course with verification in Dave Wyland's ShowTool Pro). To clear up the remaining problems, I have been looking the normal map issues Jacob Dankovchik reported a while ago.
The problem seems to be related to the UV texture coordinates in some way being involved in the lighting calculation, but I am still digging into some bump.cpp and hoping for a helping hand if anyone is familiar with the bump mapping code.
I would really love to get this solved so I can start running with a solid Zbrush to TSE pipeline. You will be seeing some amazing artwork in upcoming .plans if we can get this fixed!
Although several years ago I used to be a 'mainstream' 3d app junkie, using Maya, 3DSMax and Cinema4d for my 3d work, Ive migrated to some new tools over the last couple years that I have found incredible for modeling and texturing.
By far I feel that Zbrush (www.zbrush.com) is the most amazing 3d modeling tool to come onto the market. Originally created as a '2.5d' tool and following an 'artist canvas' paridigm, the latest revisions (since 1.5) have made roughing out and creating incredibly detailed 3d models a breeze. A warning: because of it's roots, it is difficult for someone coming from traditional 3d to get ahold of...literally took me months till I felt comfortable in the application and I am still amazed at it's flexibility daily. The interface and mental model you keep during the modeling process is utterly different than 'norm', but this is the thing that allows it to be what it is. I highly recommend anybody that does modeling take a serious look at it...also, persons with a traditional painting and sculpture based pipeline seem to really run with it.
For general modeling purposes, I use Silo (www.nevercenter.com). Silo is an inexpensive but incredible low poly modeling tool with a lot of unique features, and like Zbrush is supported on both Mac and PC. It lacks a UV editor, so I do most of that in Blender if Zbrush is not cooperating with it's incredible auto mapping features.
One issue with moving away from a mainstream tool is that it becomes unlikely that a .dts exporter will be available to view the model in the engine while you work. This then creates a cumbersome addition to the workflow of importing your model into the exporting 3d app, setting up the scene with bounding box and detail nodes and finally exporting so you can see your work. This can take some time, depending on the exporter and was a big burden on my pipeline.
To speed up workflow for viewing the meshes built in many of these unsupported 3d apps, I looked into several options for importing meshes from them. I finally settled on he .obj file format as it allows you to store vertex, face, material and texture data and can be exported from nearly all 3d modeling applications out there. Ive built a tool to allow easy .dts creation from standard .obj files and posted it as a resource here:
Obj2Dts
You can download it and find instructions for use on the resource page and more detailed instructions at the Web Site link. Hopefully it will be useful to others as it has sped up my workflow drastically.
On another, somewhat related note: Zbrush will create normal maps from your 4 million poly meshes down onto your original low res models very easily. I tried several months ago to build a pipeline that would move the models with normal maps I was creating in zbrush to TSE. I was having trouble with this, using several exporters and blaming them, but after building my own I am confident that I am generating compliant meshes with good normal data(and of course with verification in Dave Wyland's ShowTool Pro). To clear up the remaining problems, I have been looking the normal map issues Jacob Dankovchik reported a while ago.
The problem seems to be related to the UV texture coordinates in some way being involved in the lighting calculation, but I am still digging into some bump.cpp and hoping for a helping hand if anyone is familiar with the bump mapping code.
I would really love to get this solved so I can start running with a solid Zbrush to TSE pipeline. You will be seeing some amazing artwork in upcoming .plans if we can get this fixed!
Recent Blog Posts
| List: | 06/22/06 - Another shot at ODE 04/11/05 - Plan for Jameson Bennett |
|---|
Submit your own resources!| Chris Newman (Apr 11, 2005 at 23:00 GMT) |
My buddy was checking that out last year. Ill pass on the exporter to him.
| John Kabus (BobTheCBuilder) (Apr 11, 2005 at 23:45 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
Excellent first plan, it's great to hear from you again. Your Obj2Dts resource sounds like a huge help
| Jordan (Apr 11, 2005 at 23:57 GMT) |
This is a discrepancy between how Nvidia and ATI think the standard should be. This may be the cause for this.
ZBrush rocks.
| Anton Bursch (Apr 12, 2005 at 00:09 GMT) |
Edited on May 21, 2005 06:18 GMT
| Jacob Dankovchik (Apr 12, 2005 at 02:04 GMT) Resource Rating: 5 |
| Florian Zwerina (Apr 12, 2005 at 13:07 GMT) |
I really like "your" art pipeline
- bit surprised you use Blender
for UV Mapping...
but what are you using for Charakter Rigging and Animation???
| Jameson Bennett (Apr 12, 2005 at 18:01 GMT) |
@John: Didn't realize it took that long to get a resource approved... Ill take your advice and have a bit of patience. I was hoping it wasn't lost in the mix. Thanks for the kind words, I hope the resource helps. I know blender can be trouble at times for sure: the vert normals issue was another main driving force for me to write the tool.
@Jordan: Thanks for the tip. I had run thru about every possible way to express the normal map, inverting, scaling the levels and outputs...nothing along that line helped. Looking at the code shows a simple dotN calc straight from the rgb channels: same as practically any other normal bump mapping implementation out there (non-compressed that is)
The normal bump mapping issue above has been addressed, but not fixed completely:
Brian Ramage actual suggest that the issue is in a part of the codebase slated for addressing for milestone 3, so it will eventually be taken care of. It is good to have a workaround tho.
@Florian: I use blender for UV mapping, and any rigging and animation I do currently as 3dsmax gives me a stomach ache every time I open it. 3dsmax Feels very archaic compared to a lot of the new apps out (granted: I own v5.1). Blender takes a bit of getting used to but after you learn the shortcuts it is really fast for laying things out on the UV map with most standard mapping techniques along with a couple neat little unique methods. I am also pretty impressed with it's modeling tools, with a little knowledge and practice it is a very fast low poly modeler. Also, its free :) cant beat that. There are issues with the vertex normals (seems to be unreliable about what 'space' it reports the normals from) and some animation issues with James Urqhart's fantastic exporter, but I'm sure they can be addressed if needed since the code base is open.
I actually prefer Cinema4d (Mocca)for rigging and animation, very fluid keyframing system with dynamics, etc. When I get to the point I need animation in TGE/TSE I may crack out an exporter for that app if that seems like the best option. Currently, I am going to focus on creating a smooth pipeline for static meshes.
| Florian Zwerina (Apr 13, 2005 at 10:47 GMT) |
thanks for your answer - it encourages me to keep on using blender
even if it gives me a headache somtimes...
btw: is it true that you can not export characters
using "James Urqhart's fantastic exporter" which have skeletons with IK constraints?
PS: I have read that zbrush is going to have a skeleton/animation
feature in the nerar future!
| Jeff Gran (Apr 19, 2005 at 18:19 GMT) |
| Tatjana (Jun 24, 2005 at 04:35 GMT) |
Trying to colorize objects rendered in Blender using the DTS exporter.
I'm still exporting solid white objects while working with the UV editor in Blender. I have so far I have been able to "load" images and have them show in the 3D window, but it's rendering white when importing into Torque. I seriously need step-by-step instruction to colorize the rendered objects. I've been looking for the DTS documentation. The documentation does not seem to be accessible at this time. The junkyardcat.net links to an GhoulNet site. Frustrated
Thanks, Tatjana
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