3D Art Help

[Cartread]

This thread can be used for general Q&A about 3D computer art and/or its implimentation into Mount & Blade.

If you have any questions about modeling, texturing or adding it to M&B post here, and a fellow modder or I will offer help!

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Check out these tutorials!

Yoshiboy: Extension Tutorial - Unwrapping in Wings 3d

Yoshiboy: Extension Tutorial - Making Scenes and Scene props (using wings3d)

Yoshiboy: Adding new items to mount and blade using Wings 3d (free)

Yoshiboy: Extension Tutorial - Rigging And Animation

Highelf: All about 3d-modeling, Chapter 1 : basic modeling

Highelf: All about 3d-modeling, Chapter 2 : advanced modeling + tips and tricks

Highelf: The Unofficial Video Tutorial Series - Modelling.

Other tutorials in the About Modding > User Tutorials forum include:
-Adding an item to a mod from scratch, a video tutorial
-Adding new skins into M&B .89x
-Extension Tutorial - Texturing, tips and tricks.
-Metal texturing tutorial and advanced texturing tips (Warning: Lots of Pictures)
-Shader Tutorial
-Rigging with Blender and Hellequin's scripts
-Highlander's Scabbard-making Tutorial
-Using gmax to import and export SMDs

Some other threads of M&B graphics interest:

Thorgrim's BRF Edit thread

Shader and Graphical effects Discussion

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For instance, here is a golem I made in Wings 3D.  Made from scratch, texture included, shown in BRFEdit.


Maybe it brings up a question for you, such as
What tools in Wings3D did you use, smooth or mirror?  How many triangles is it?  Why must models in M&B be triangulated?  What program did you use for texturing (photoshop elements), and what brushes did you use?  What did you use to change .bmp to .dds (yes, .dds is the required format for texture files in M&B)?  What steps do you take to add a texture, material, & model into BRFEdit?  Is BRFEdit or Wings3D free?  Is this golem going to be a character in M&B (no, a scene prop maybe)?  Why not (rigging is fixed to the human skeleton)?

The point is there are tons of questions as far as modeling and modeling for M&B goes.  Tutorials are good, but are impersonal and can not elaborate with full help.

Any question, small or not, can be asked and then BAM, answered!

[Yoshiboy]

This reminds me I still need to more my texturing tutorial over, I must have forgotten about that one.

[Ahadhran]

Good Idea! I'll sticky the topic now.

[Spanky]

Hi guys,

Actually I could use some help with Sunhawken's colored surcoats mod posted in this forum. I tried a forum search but I can't seem to figure out what I am doing wrong, I want to add them to my mod but they appear to be invisible on the soldiers that are supposed to be wearing them. 

Here's what I did. The mod comes as one brf file with the surcoats, and seperate dds texture files.

1. I put the brf file into the resource directory and the dds into the textures directory.

2. I modified module.ini to make sure it scans textures, then added a load_mod_resource referring to the brf.

3. I edited items py and copied the entry for mail_and_surcoat, then pasted seperate versions of that underneath the entry, each with a modification of the name, e.g. "red_mail_and_surcoat".

4. I added all of the different types of surcoats to the hired blades entry in the troops py.

5. I ran the build_module file.

As mentioned, the hired blades seem to have the surcoats but they appear invisible. It seems like the program doesn't know where to find the textures. Btw, I tried using both the mod's own folders and the main directory folders.


Any help would be appreciated! Thanks.

[Cartread]

You did the steps you mentioned correctly if they show up in-game.
How do they show up in-game?  Do they turn invisible when you are far away from the troops wearing them?  If they disappear when you are far away, it is because of M&B's built-in detail-loss where it only shows the shader's layer which is mostly invisible.  This can also happens to the charger horse and some shields.

Also if you have detail level low in M&B startup config. it will show them with detail loss--mostly invisible.

...
As mentioned, the hired blades seem to have the surcoats but they appear invisible. It seems like the program doesn't know where to find the textures. Btw, I tried using both the mod's own folders and the main directory folders.

By program you mean M&B?  Do you get any error messages?

A potential problem I see with sunhawken_addon.brf is that meshes, material, and textures are all in one .brf, which can cause loading problems since they should be loaded textures -> material -> meshes.

If you don't think the invisibility is caused by the detail-loss thing then you can make 3 brfs like:

load_mod_resource = sunhawken_addon_textures
load_mod_resource = sunhawken_addon_materials
load_mod_resource = sunhawken_addon_meshes

corresponding to the 3 .brfs.

[Ron Losey]

A potential problem I see with sunhawken_addon.brf is that meshes, material, and textures are all in one .brf, which can cause loading problems since they should be loaded textures -> material -> meshes.

If you don't think the invisibility is caused by the detail-loss thing then you can make 3 brfs like:

load_mod_resource = sunhawken_addon_textures
load_mod_resource = sunhawken_addon_materials
load_mod_resource = sunhawken_addon_meshes

corresponding to the 3 .brfs.

That shouldn't make any difference ... pretty much all of the other mods around here put meshes and materials together in the same BRF.  Nobody else is seeing a problem with it.  The only place it was a problem was with map icons and Thorgrim's editor.

[Cartread]

Agreed Ron Losey.  Though I did get a statup error when M&B ran sunhawken_addon.brf.  I found that there is an invisible material under costumes_18_skin (this invisible material should be deleted)

I got the surcoats loaded up fine in-game w/ 1 brf and they work (without invisible detail loss too), so the problem is neither of the things I suggested.

My guess is that it is a graphical problem, probably DirectX shaders.  A screenshot would be helpful.

[Ron Losey]

An extra material IS bad ... especially if you have two of them, and it flags that "attempt to re-register" error.