2252 replies to this topic

[Heffay]

Mech importer is a general purpose tool, and there is a need for a lot of people to have all the weapons. Once you texture and rig up the mech, you can generate custom loadouts for whatever purpose you need. That is why all the weapons are brought in.

I know it's not the most convenient tool in the world, but I tried to make it general enough so that it provides everything you need, even if some manual configuration is necessary in the end. I could make a full application that allows you to custom build the mech you want, but that's a lot of effort. All the code is freely available, so if anyone wants to make a nice front end for cgf-exporter and mech importer (and asset importer for that matter), I'd be all for it.

[Max Immelmann]

well, i learned enough c++, html, and javascript to get me in trouble. it has been so many years since i have done any programming, i doubt i could write a (for/if) statement.

it was rather confusing heffay, in you 2nd vid, your cataphract comes out with out all the weapons, and when mine did, i thought i had done something wrong, so here i sat trying to figure that out, but you say it is correct. ok, no problem. so i have to go and lose the stuff i do not want.

my end goal is to have an atlas swing it's right arm down on a kodiak's shoulder, but have the kodiak block that with it's left arm, mean while, the kodiak strikes the atlas with it's right hand claws, in the atlas's left torso. maybe add some explosion for effect. this is probably a tall order for some one who is learning all this from scratch. i have to watch your vids, heffay, then go watch another vid on how you did some thing, ie, getting rid of the timeline, you just did it, did not explain how. or the powershell -recurse and -filter, no idea what they are doing, had to go look it up. i would say, i am spending more time watching vids on how to use all the programs needed than actually watching the tutorials!! LMAO

[Max Immelmann]

well, ran the importer for the atlas. went thru and deleted all the damaged parts and anything with a weapon in it. i just wanted to start with just the mech itself. now if you look at the image, the cockpit is out of place. tried that rotate 270 on X,Y,Z axis, but it never goes in the correct position. tried to do it manually, but it just never seems to fit. also, if you look behind the head, there is a hole that you can look down in. i went back thru, and did not notice if one of the meshes i deleted (dmg/weapons) was that particular mesh. once again, completely lost here.

[Max Immelmann]

after staring at the image below, which has the cockpit in it's original place, i had moved it in the previous post so people knew what i was talking about, it looks like the eye of the cockpit is attached to the eye of the mech. that window that we see i figure is the window we look out of as we play. if you look back at the other image, you see that part of the mesh is also the cockpit interior, where all the gauges and screens go, when you look around your cockpit in game. now, no matter of manipulating the mesh, puts the window up against the eye, from the inside of the head, without the cockpit itself being where it should. to me, the cockpit is attached on the opposite side of the windows! or am i just not seeing it correctly?

[Heffay]

The cockpits you see from the inside of the mech don't line up with the geometry from the outside. And as you can see, the scale is off by a bit as well. The cockpit model and the mech model are just two different views, and shouldn't line up. I usually move all the weapons to the 2nd layer and the cockpit to the 3rd just so it's out of the way.

[Max Immelmann]

Heffay, on 07 October 2016 - 03:11 PM, said:

The cockpits you see from the inside of the mech don't line up with the geometry from the outside. And as you can see, the scale is off by a bit as well. The cockpit model and the mech model are just two different views, and shouldn't line up. I usually move all the weapons to the 2nd layer and the cockpit to the 3rd just so it's out of the way.

ok. i have already deleted the weapons i do not need, and all the damaged meshes, i can do the same with the cockpit, yes?

also, another question. i wanted to take a look at the shadowcat. went to import the shadowcat_scale.obj and it is not there. so i ran the mech importer like i did for the atlas, here is the output from PS.....



copied and pasted the import.txt like i did for the atlas, and i get nothing. lots of errors in python apparently. no idea what that says.....



so what am i doing wrong now??

[Max Immelmann]

thanx to the guy helping me out, you know who you are. getting almost no help here in the forums, but i will try once more.

on vid 3, 2/3 supplemental. the one using the cicada. i believe what ever mech importer is being used in the vid, is an older version than the one i have, since at the start, the textures were not already on the mech, but the nodes had been created, and i had to go thru and add the files. now i am at the part where we are working inside the cockpit. when a monitor is the selected vert. and i choose a monitor from the materials, all i get is a black filling. i have tried all the files, cockpit_standard.dif; cockpit_standard_main.dif; tried the .spc and .ddn, even tried the _body.dif. nothing works. when it comes to the cockpit_sharedpanels, same thing, bunch of black dials and screens and what not, and no amount of switching files brings the proper look to the cockpit. and of course, one of my vert. groups is the windshield, select glass for material, aaaaaaaand big....black....windows.

so what am i missing now? where are these files that i am kind of sure need to be added to the premade nodes?

Edited by Immelmann, 09 October 2016 - 07:46 PM.

[Heffay]

A pink material in the rendered viewport is a sign that cycles cannot find the file for that material. Please go to the node editor and check that the diffuse, specular and normal texture files are properly referenced in each of the Image nodes.

And yes, you can delete the cockpit if you don't need it for your project. However I find it easier to move it to another layer so that if I want to reuse that model in the future and have a need for the cockpit, I don't have to go through the whole process again.

Edited by Heffay, 10 October 2016 - 05:10 AM.

[Max Immelmann]

Heffay, on 10 October 2016 - 05:09 AM, said:

A pink material in the rendered viewport is a sign that cycles cannot find the file for that material. Please go to the node editor and check that the diffuse, specular and normal texture files are properly referenced in each of the Image nodes.

And yes, you can delete the cockpit if you don't need it for your project. However I find it easier to move it to another layer so that if I want to reuse that model in the future and have a need for the cockpit, I don't have to go through the whole process again.

the nodes were automatically generated, i am guessing by the mech importer. the texture image boxes are empty and you have to go thru and add all the dif spc and ddn files. so i know all the nodes are correct. like i said in the previous post, for the glass, monitor, and sharedpanel, yes the node editor had no files for the texture image nodes, but none of the files work, again....dif, spc, ddn and as i said i even tried body, variant, and window files.

no matter what file i reference, i can not get the glass on the window, the dials/switches on the cockpit, or the image on the monitors. those all remain black.

[Max Immelmann]

having started looking at last video, 3/3, do i have to go back and change all the .ddn .dif .spc .rbg. , which i have in both .png and .jpg to .dds? using noesis?

[TheSkiDog]

Just some test renders.

Edited by TheSkiDog, 10 October 2016 - 06:28 PM.

[Heffay]

Immelmann, on 10 October 2016 - 06:25 PM, said:

having started looking at last video, 3/3, do i have to go back and change all the .ddn .dif .spc .rbg. , which i have in both .png and .jpg to .dds? using noesis?

Blender can process the .dds files natively. There is no need to convert them anymore. Mech-importer has a line where you specify the image file, and by default it is .dds, so there should be no need to change anything there. If you did convert them to png, that should be ok as well, but it's just a lot easier to skip those steps. I believe my original post has been edited to show that there is no need to do that anymore.

[Max Immelmann]

Heffay, on 10 October 2016 - 07:50 PM, said:

Blender can process the .dds files natively. There is no need to convert them anymore. Mech-importer has a line where you specify the image file, and by default it is .dds, so there should be no need to change anything there. If you did convert them to png, that should be ok as well, but it's just a lot easier to skip those steps. I believe my original post has been edited to show that there is no need to do that anymore.

ah, ok. yeah i have already converted the .dds files, so i was hoping to not have to unpack them again from the MWO .pak. so if i read you correctly, i just need to go into the mech importer and change that command line to read which ever file extension i use? also, which one is more viable, the .jpg or the .png? i know you have talked about the differences, but which is closer to the .dds? since i am not going to use those at the moment.

also, can you elaborate further on......

on vid 3, 2/3 supplemental. the one using the cicada. i believe what ever mech importer is being used in the vid, is an older version than the one i have, since at the start, the textures were not already on the mech, but the nodes had been created, and i had to go thru and add the files. now i am at the part where we are working inside the cockpit. when a monitor is the selected vert. and i choose a monitor from the materials, all i get is a black filling. i have tried all the files, cockpit_standard.dif; cockpit_standard_main.dif; tried the .spc and .ddn, even tried the _body.dif. nothing works. when it comes to the cockpit_sharedpanels, same thing, bunch of black dials and screens and what not, and no amount of switching files brings the proper look to the cockpit. and of course, one of my vert. groups is the windshield, select glass for material, aaaaaaaand big....black....windows.

so what am i missing now? where are these files that i am kind of sure need to be added to the premade nodes?

thanx for your time.

Edited by Immelmann, 11 October 2016 - 10:57 AM.

[Wintersdark]

Heffay, on 06 October 2016 - 01:40 PM, said:

Mech importer is a general purpose tool, and there is a need for a lot of people to have all the weapons. Once you texture and rig up the mech, you can generate custom loadouts for whatever purpose you need. That is why all the weapons are brought in.

I know it's not the most convenient tool in the world, but I tried to make it general enough so that it provides everything you need, even if some manual configuration is necessary in the end. I could make a full application that allows you to custom build the mech you want, but that's a lot of effort. All the code is freely available, so if anyone wants to make a nice front end for cgf-exporter and mech importer (and asset importer for that matter), I'd be all for it.

Sincerely, sir, thank you for this. The tool in particular, but the guide in the first post as well of course.

went from having never installed Blender to having an Urbanmech set up, outfitted as I want, and ready to be used in about 30 minutes.

Now, to export to STL, and chop it up in a program that's a little easier for me to manage =) An Urbanmech is totally going to be my first 3D print =)

[Max Immelmann]

went and unpacked all the .pak again, got rid of every thing but the .dds files. tried to plug those into the nodes, but still getting the wrong imagery. can some one please tell me where these images are located?

[Heffay]

Immelmann, on 12 October 2016 - 04:39 PM, said:

went and unpacked all the .pak again, got rid of every thing but the .dds files. tried to plug those into the nodes, but still getting the wrong imagery. can some one please tell me where these images are located?

Can you take a high resolution picture of your node layout so I can see what files you are using? You might have to expand the texture nodes to display as much of the path as possible. This generally works right out of the box, so not really sure what the problem is without more info.

[Max Immelmann]

trying to follow last video using the atlas instead of battlemaster. already running into problems. can not replace atlas cockpit eye with proper texture. can not even select it. as you can see in image, there are 3 cockpit meshes, but none of them accept the window texture. all are completely separate meshes. anyone know how to get the atlas eye texture?

[Max Immelmann]

Heffay, on 12 October 2016 - 04:59 PM, said:

Can you take a high resolution picture of your node layout so I can see what files you are using? You might have to expand the texture nodes to display as much of the path as possible. This generally works right out of the box, so not really sure what the problem is without more info.

the nodes are now empty, as i have already tried every file i can find, and nothing works. suggest a file, i will add, and post another image.

Edited by Immelmann, 12 October 2016 - 05:30 PM.

[Jayce Haebdun]

Immelmann, on 12 October 2016 - 05:21 PM, said:

trying to follow last video using the atlas instead of battlemaster. already running into problems. can not replace atlas cockpit eye with proper texture. can not even select it. as you can see in image, there are 3 cockpit meshes, but none of them accept the window texture. all are completely separate meshes. anyone know how to get the atlas eye texture?

The Atlas imports with several heads. Hide the two that don't look right (one is kind of melted, the other is obviously not right). Some mechs (like the Atlas) have the body texture assigned to every face of the head. So when you change it to a window texture it looks like ****--but if you zoom in on the windows, they actually look right then.

What you have to do is select the head, switch to edit mode, and select just the faces of the mesh that make up the windows. Then separate them by selection, splitting the head into two meshes. Then you change the head to a body texture, and the cockpit to the window texture.

With the Huntsman being released tomorrow, I'm going to import it into Tabletop Simulator, I guess I'll fire up a stream and record a highlight of the process.

[Max Immelmann]

Jayce Haebdun, on 12 October 2016 - 05:45 PM, said:

The Atlas imports with several heads. Hide the two that don't look right (one is kind of melted, the other is obviously not right). Some mechs (like the Atlas) have the body texture assigned to every face of the head. So when you change it to a window texture it looks like ****--but if you zoom in on the windows, they actually look right then.

What you have to do is select the head, switch to edit mode, and select just the faces of the mesh that make up the windows. Then separate them by selection, splitting the head into two meshes. Then you change the head to a body texture, and the cockpit to the window texture.

With the Huntsman being released tomorrow, I'm going to import it into Tabletop Simulator, I guess I'll fire up a stream and record a highlight of the process.

yeah, so since i have only had blender for about a week, what you want me to do is beyond my knowledge right now. getting very frustrated at this whole thing.