Truespace 7.5 and Maya 8.0 3d GUI making
by Carolyn Murphy · in Game Design and Creative Issues · 03/28/2008 (8:14 pm) · 2 replies
Hi all. I had an idea of how to create 3d gui's for your games. I will first put in a tutorial that uses Truespace 7.5, and after that we will do the same thing in Maya 8.0. Sorry, I don't know if I can post images/screenshots so you can get a better idea of what i'm talking about in these tutorials.
Truespace 7.5 3d GUI:
1. Create a big plain.
2. Create a cube, and scale it a smaller than your plain.
3. Or, if you would like to, use the polygon draw tool on your plain, and draw any shape you want. This shape will be deleted for the "see-through" part of the window for you game.
4. If you followed step 2, then use the boolean subtract tool to subtract the cube from the plain. If you followed step 3, then select the face you drew on the plain, and use the 'separate selected part of object' tool on it. Then sweep (extrude) the separated face you drew, and place it so it's intesecting the center of the plain. Boolean subtract the separated object from the plain.
5. You should now have a hole in your plain that takes the shape of whatever you boolean subtracted from it. Now, to add buttons, you can use the polygon draw tool, the sweep tool, or just use spheres and/or cubes. There is also a tool for making 3d text, so you can label your buttons.
6. Save the "frame" of the gui as a .obj file. You can do this through the use of the luuv plugin (and I think it comes with Truespace 7.5). Also save each button you make as a .obj file
7. You can UV map the buttons/frame, or just apply textures and colors, and then save them all individually again.
8. If you want there is a plugin that comes with Maya 8.0 I believe, that can import and export the .obj format of models. That way, you could import your GUI models into Maya!
Maya 8.0 3d GUI:
1. Make a big plain.
2. Create a curve (NURBS) on top of the plain, or just make a cube slightly smaller that the plain.
3. If you made a cube, boolean subtract it from the plain. If you made a curve, move on to step 4.
4. Go to the Surfaces menu set, and click Surfaces>Planar for the nurbs curve.
5. In the Polygons menu set, click Edit Mesh>Extrude, and extrude the shape down until it goes through the plain.
6. Boolean subtract the shape from the plain. Delete the faces of the shape if they remain there by selecting them, and clicking on Edit>Cut.
7. Add buttons by using the curve, loft, and polygon tools. You could have a button in any shape you want!
8. Add textures by UV mapping them through the use of Hypershade (Window>Rendering editors>Hypershade).
9. Use the Maya2dts utility to convert the meshes for use in Torque. In order for the interface to look convincing, you must attach it to the main camera you are using, along with the buttons you made.
Hope this is of great use to someone!
Note: I am not great at programming, and have never used Torque, but am planning on buying it sometime. I'm better at the graphics side of game making. That's why I posted these tutorials on 3d GUI's, without the use of programming or Torque Script.
- Spludge
Truespace 7.5 3d GUI:
1. Create a big plain.
2. Create a cube, and scale it a smaller than your plain.
3. Or, if you would like to, use the polygon draw tool on your plain, and draw any shape you want. This shape will be deleted for the "see-through" part of the window for you game.
4. If you followed step 2, then use the boolean subtract tool to subtract the cube from the plain. If you followed step 3, then select the face you drew on the plain, and use the 'separate selected part of object' tool on it. Then sweep (extrude) the separated face you drew, and place it so it's intesecting the center of the plain. Boolean subtract the separated object from the plain.
5. You should now have a hole in your plain that takes the shape of whatever you boolean subtracted from it. Now, to add buttons, you can use the polygon draw tool, the sweep tool, or just use spheres and/or cubes. There is also a tool for making 3d text, so you can label your buttons.
6. Save the "frame" of the gui as a .obj file. You can do this through the use of the luuv plugin (and I think it comes with Truespace 7.5). Also save each button you make as a .obj file
7. You can UV map the buttons/frame, or just apply textures and colors, and then save them all individually again.
8. If you want there is a plugin that comes with Maya 8.0 I believe, that can import and export the .obj format of models. That way, you could import your GUI models into Maya!
Maya 8.0 3d GUI:
1. Make a big plain.
2. Create a curve (NURBS) on top of the plain, or just make a cube slightly smaller that the plain.
3. If you made a cube, boolean subtract it from the plain. If you made a curve, move on to step 4.
4. Go to the Surfaces menu set, and click Surfaces>Planar for the nurbs curve.
5. In the Polygons menu set, click Edit Mesh>Extrude, and extrude the shape down until it goes through the plain.
6. Boolean subtract the shape from the plain. Delete the faces of the shape if they remain there by selecting them, and clicking on Edit>Cut.
7. Add buttons by using the curve, loft, and polygon tools. You could have a button in any shape you want!
8. Add textures by UV mapping them through the use of Hypershade (Window>Rendering editors>Hypershade).
9. Use the Maya2dts utility to convert the meshes for use in Torque. In order for the interface to look convincing, you must attach it to the main camera you are using, along with the buttons you made.
Hope this is of great use to someone!
Note: I am not great at programming, and have never used Torque, but am planning on buying it sometime. I'm better at the graphics side of game making. That's why I posted these tutorials on 3d GUI's, without the use of programming or Torque Script.
- Spludge
#2
05/14/2008 (7:25 am)
It's the text tool. In version 7.5 you can find it in the Model layout in the same menu as Add Curve. It's probably in the same menu as that in 6.x, and for earlier, you'll have to check the manual, because I don't remember, but the icon is 3d-text, so you can't miss it. Hope that helps. 
Sgfs
I have truespace but I can't find this tool. Could you point me in the right direction. Thanks.