2252 replies to this topic

[Bishop Steiner]

Sparks Murphey, on 16 February 2013 - 01:16 PM, said:

Well, what else would you use the bars/racks on the Cicada for? Gently nudging giant cattle? Storing cans of fuel for your fusion reactor?

A bicycle is the only sensible answer.

Should repaint that in Camacho's Caballeros colors.. that would be Lt. Cassie Suthorn's bicycle then... and you don't wanna make fun of that chica's bike!

[Allfex]

TheUncle, on 16 February 2013 - 04:23 AM, said:

I wonder why we see so little CryEngine 3 use - it's free for download and all the animations work right away?

Hm... i like the old trailer (uses unreal) and i work with unreal for a own project since "some" time. I have not so much done with the cry sdk. The reason's for me are simple... for unreal i can do all the stuff with free programs.

Sad side on this is, working with free programs s nothing the games industry look for.

But i have done a fast little scene in the cryengine.

[alfalfasprossen]

just testing stuff

trying to rebuild the mech-shader with camo-color stuff in udk, will upload it once i'm done, but it's not my current priority, so it may take a while

developing a skin for my team, the 12th Donegal Guards. I hope we will be allowed to submit our own skins or camo-patterns one day.

[Sparks Murphey]

I don't think I've seen this mentioned before in the thread, but I figured I'd give a guide to the fourth type of texture file floating around in the assets, the [mech]_[part]_rgb. Unless you want a brightly coloured rainbow 'Mech, they aren't much use for direct colour, so what are they for?

Well, the rgb files are the key to the mechlab's camospec system. You select colour 1, it gets mapped to the red channel, you pick colour 2, it gets mapped to green, and so on (note: I haven't actually checked to see which colours map to which channels, but that's the basic principle). As a retexturer, you can leverage that to your benefit, since the channels aren't just on or off, but represent transparency as well. The brighter the colour in the rgb map, the more opaque the camospec. Which means if you disregard the differences in channels and just look at it as a greyscale map, it represents which parts of the texture map should be painted (the hull casing, for instance) and which should be left alone (knee joints).

With proper processing, therefore, it makes the perfect mask for any colours you want to apply to the dif map.

The first step is to desaturate the image. For Gimp, click Colors=>Desaturate, then use the "Lightness" option. For Photoshop, click Image=>Adjustments=>Desaturate.

This will give you a greyscale image, but since the lightest colours, where red=255 for instance, still aren't as light as white would be, where red, green and blue=255. The lightest point on our greyscale map isn't white, so we'll need to adjust the channel curve. In Gimp, click Colors=>Curves. In Photoshop, click Image=>Adjustments=>Curves. You'll see a little graph with a straight line from bottom left to top right, and a number of grey peaks. Grab the top right point, and move it back to the left until it's above the rightmost peak. Be aware, there's probably a big peak, followed by some tinier ones that are harder to spot. Gimp helps here by making the bottom axis black where there is data, and grey where there's nothing.

(Top: Gimp's curve editor; bottom: Photoshop's curve editor. Both adjusting the catapult_body_rgb file.)

So, now you should have an image that goes from black to white representing how much you want that area coloured. But how to make that into a mask? Well, Gimp and Photoshop do this differently, and Gimp users, you'll be pleased (and possibly surprised) that Gimp is the easier of the two.

Making a mask in Gimp:
Right click the layer, click "Add Layer Mask" then select "Grayscale copy of layer". Done.

Okay, okay, you'll need to move it to a different layer for painting as well (Photoshop actually does this bit better, but the rest of it so much worse). Easiest way to do this is to right click the layer, select "Mask to selection", right click your painting layer, click "Add Layer Mask" again, and this time select "Selection". Now we're done.

Making a mask in Photoshop:
This is a bit more tricky, as we'll be diving down into some more technical stuff. Make sure you've got just the greyscale rgb layer visible, then click the Channels tab next to the Layers tab. Right click one of the channels there (Blue will do; but Red and Green should be identical) and duplicate it. Name the new channel "Alpha".

Click Select=>Load Selection. Make sure it's set to the document you're working in, and the channel should be set to "Alpha" (assuming you named it that). Hit okay. Now select your painting layer, and click the "Add Layer Mask" button on the bottom of the Layer tab. You should now have a layer that is automatically set to your selection set. Upside, now that you've got that mask in place, you can drag it between layers, or copy it by holding alt and dragging.


And there you have it. Hope that's proven useful to you all. I think that we should be able to use the rgb map data to make templates similar to the ones Ironhawk and Hayden made for the Repainted Concept Art thread, but I haven't explored that yet.

[Allfex]

Heffay, on 16 February 2013 - 06:17 AM, said:

I wish I was more familiar with is, as I'd use it a lot more. It would definitely save a lot of time and effort converting the assets to something Blender can use. I highly recommend writing a tutorial like this one to go over the basics, including the animation parts (I'm working on walk cycles, and it's... not fun). I'd love to do more with Cryengine!

Remember, be detailed and use lots of screenshots. Or, use a video capture tool (like fraps) and upload a tutorial to Youtube.

Hm.... would do a little tutorial on bringing the assets to cryengine but i dont know if pgi like that so much. If i get a statement on this i would be happy!

[Sean Lang]

Your not doing anything wrong, and if they want you to stop they will tell you!

[Skadi]

Bishop Steiner, on 15 February 2013 - 06:50 PM, said:

.... here....

fixed that for you.......

Wait... thats no AC20!
You're doing it wrong!

[Heffay]

Just a concept about what is possible. This is entirely in Blender. Obviously a lot needs to be done (hill sucks, trees from game files, post PPC fire resolution, higher resolution on the flames, etc, etc, etc). But the roots are there for a decent cut scene for the next DHB commercial, and I figured I'd give anyone dumb enough to still be reading this thread a little peek.

Edited by Heffay, 19 February 2013 - 08:26 AM.

[Allfex]

Heffay, on 18 February 2013 - 05:29 PM, said:

Just a concept about what is possible. This is entirely in Blender. Obviously a lot needs to be done (hill sucks, trees from game files, post PPC fire resolution, higher resolution on the flames, etc, etc, etc). But the roots are there for a decent cut scene for the next DHB commercial, and I figured I'd give anyone dumb enough to still be reading this thread a little peek.

Like it!!! Still a lot to do but this looks like a solid ground! Good animation-work!

Want more!

[Adridos]

Guys, I'd like a few suggestions, if possible.

By now, you've surely seen my old mechscale and I'd love to make an update of it, just becuase the size argument is going to stay fora while adn we may as well be up to date. The problem is, as you are probably aware by now, that PGI has changed the way they are creating the mech models to a more flexible way, but in doing so, we've lost the centralised model and we can only get a geometric entity in CryEngine throigh code that links the various parts together.

Geometric entities are not convertable into .OBJ, though and so I came up with a rather long solution of converting the various parts files into CGFs, which I can convert into .OBJs and then assemble in the Maya itself. This solution is going to work, but it is going to take a lot of time and the creditility of the exact measurement may also be lost in the process, so I'd like to ask for advice on how to somehow get a full mech into a rendering program without all the sidesteps I had to do in my thought process on getting those models.

Here's the sign of "things to come":

Edited by Adridos, 20 February 2013 - 08:54 AM.

[alfalfasprossen]

actually i wouldn't know of a faster or easier way.
you can export the skeleton of course and snap objects to their respective bones (use snap to point, or parent without retaining position). Yes, you have to export every mesh-part by hand (or use the batch-ability of noesis to do so) and then import and place them all again. One could write a script for that, but since every mech has different variant parts and they might sit at different bones, it would either require an elaborate script or still handiwork remains.
So i suppose doing it by hand will be the way to go. Of course we could share completely set up mech model files in fbx or collada format.

The only thing that freaks me out is that the meshes exported from the cga files have ****** up smoothing groups.

[Adridos]

Okay, here's the first meta update. I still need to make the Spider, but that's for tomorrow.
Good night guys.




P.S. Yes, Even I am really suprised by Trebuchet's size.

P.P.S. Yes, I've done a complete mirror copy of the 5M Trebuchet, if you don't believe me, I'll post a picture of 3 standing next to each other and you can try to guess which one is the "falsificate".

P.P.P.S. No, I won't move it before the Cataphract, since that is marginally taller.

Edited by Adridos, 20 February 2013 - 05:00 PM.

[Adridos]

Okay, here's the final one:


And the side-profile, like before:

Edited by Adridos, 21 February 2013 - 10:25 AM.

[Bishop Steiner]

Raven, Centurion, Trebbie and catapult aare ALL too darn big.

Heck, what am I talking about? The Jenner is the only one actually on the rights scale. Pretty much all the rest (cept the Spider and commando) are far bigger than they should be. Try fitting 36 Atlases @ 20 meters tall each in a 130 Metar tall DropShip (Overloard) AND 6 aerospace fighters, Cargo holds... and well, all the actual "ship" parts like the fusion drive.......

It's just those 4 are, sadly, egregiously out of scale, evern from the resto of the MWO scale.

(Please tell he how even 4 Commandos come close to the mass of that Atlas?????)

[Adridos]

Bishop Steiner, on 21 February 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

Try fitting 36 Atlases @ 20 meters tall each in a 130 Metar tall DropShip (Overloard) AND 6 aerospace fighters, Cargo holds... and well, all the actual "ship" parts like the fusion drive.......

You, of all people, should be the first one to say Atlases aren't 20 meters tall.

The only mech I actually agree is out of scale is Stalker. It should be at last as tall as the Atlas, imo.

[Bishop Steiner]

Adridos, on 21 February 2013 - 11:22 AM, said:

You, of all people, should be the first one to say Atlases aren't 20 meters tall.

The only mech I actually agree is out of scale is Stalker. It should be at last as tall as the Atlas, imo.

That's the point. According to Catalyst, they aren't. Between 12-14m.

So, an 85 ton mech, that is built like a blimp on legs should be as tall as a humanoid weighing 100 tons? And a Centurion or Trebie should be taller AND wider than a Hunchback? And a 65 ton Catapult larger than a Stalker? A Raven, much more massive than a Jenner the same weight? Gotta say we definitely gonna has to agree to disagree.

Edited by Bishop Steiner, 22 February 2013 - 12:14 AM.

[Ghogiel]

alfalfasprossen, on 20 February 2013 - 08:53 AM, said:

The only thing that freaks me out is that the meshes exported from the cga files have ****** up smoothing groups.

Originally they just smoothed everything and baked the normals. If you look at older pics of MWO you can see the usual shading errors, that blobby look, and you can see where as the pixels in the normal map try and fail to compensate for bending of the surface normal etc so end up seeing the triangulation where the color gradients are further away from neutral. (mismatch tangent basis, You can get an xnormal tangent basis plugin for CE, same one polybump uses, but the joke is while close, the way it transforms isn'tquite the same)

Anyway yeah face smoothing is fubar. The only thing you can do is see if hitting it with a 'set smooth groups to UV shell/seams'. That will be the best guess match imo.

Edited by Ghogiel, 22 February 2013 - 02:19 AM.

[Adridos]

Bishop Steiner, on 22 February 2013 - 12:13 AM, said:

That's the point. According to Catalyst, they aren't. Between 12-14m.

So, an 85 ton mech, that is built like a blimp on legs should be as tall as a humanoid weighing 100 tons? And a Centurion or Trebie should be taller AND wider than a Hunchback? And a 65 ton Catapult larger than a Stalker? A Raven, much more massive than a Jenner the same weight? Gotta say we definitely gonna has to agree to disagree.

You always kinda ignore the fact Hunchback is not a 50 ton machine.

Hunchabck is a 28.5 ton machine. There are 2 things 50 ton about it: 1. It can support up to 50 tons of raw tonnage 2. When it is equipped with Y weapons with I tons of ammo and Z number of heatsinks, then it weights those 50 tons. In comparison, Centurion is a 27 ton and Trebuchet a 31 ton machine.

Now this easily explains why Trebuchet is bigger than both of them, yet isn't completely slim (I know that machine from toes to cockpit now and I can assure you it has more mass in chassis than a Centurion), but why is Centurion talter than a Hunchback, yet 1.5 tons lighter? The answer lies in... dough.

This is what dough looks like at start (or the Hunchabck):



And this is what becomes of it later on (Centurion):



Okay, you may ask: "What does cooking have to do with mechs, their volume and proportions?" Well, the answer is simple. As I've already indicated, the first picture represents a Hunchaback. The second picture is dough of exactly the same volume (so we're talking kitted about out mechs now, not the chassis itself), yet it is bigger in two of three proportions. Where have I seen that? Yes, Centurion is taller and wider (our two proportions of dough n.2), but Hunhcback is thicker (dough n.1). This is an RL example of when something seemingly smaller and something seemingly bigger can have the completely same amount of volume and weight the same amount.

I think this answers your question: "And a Centurion or Trebie should be taller AND wider than a Hunchback?" well enough.

The same goes for Raven vs Jenner. Jenner is a much heavier mech at 28 tons than Raven, which is only 19.5 tons, but the bulk of the Raven is created by it's equipment. If you stripped both chasis, you'd easily see how much smaller the Raven actually is.

As far as Stalker vs Catapult is concrened, I'm with you on it, altough both are fairly even (Catapult is 40 ton, while Stalker is 41 ton machine).

Edited by Adridos, 22 February 2013 - 07:00 AM.

[Heffay]

All I know is that all of a sudden I want a pizza.

[Adridos]

Heffay, on 22 February 2013 - 06:26 AM, said:

All I know is that all of a sudden I want a pizza.

That's what I wanted to achieve. He who eats piza can't complain about scale.

Ok, now seriously. Can I ask you whom to ask regarding the premisions for the use of game assets? Because I have both "unseen" models sitting around and figured people from this thread might want to do something with them.