2251 replies to this topic

[Heffay]

There are generally 3 materials created for each mech: The <mech>_body, <mech>_variant, and window. If the materials aren't lining up like you expect (as in the Atlas head), try to change the material in that object's material window to one of the other options. As a general rule the _body material is for all the normal mech parts (torso, legs, arms, etc), and the _variant is for weapons, special geometry... stuff like that. But it isn't a universal rule and I've seen variations on that.

For example, you have the founder head selected, and the _body material applied to it. Go to the materials for that object and change it to the _variant. Then it should line up properly.

There is also the cockpit material, but that only applies to the internal cockpit view.

[GetinmyBellah]

I wanted to say, "Thank You!", for creating this thread and keeping it up to date to follow the tech changes over the years. That in of itself says a lot about you, and your commitment to helping the art and, or 3D community of Fan Creations! In fact, you have prompted and inspired me to load 3DS Max and Poser 11 once more and get back to spending some of the limited time I have to some of my more favorite hobbies; 3D creations & composition, Photoshop & Post Work, Sketching original works and bringing them to life in said programs and let's not forget gaming!

So, once more, thank you for your time; to all who have helped make this thread and those who have been spawned from this original, so to speak, and the truly awe-inspiring dedication! It truly means a lot to many of us if I may speak for the masses who read and take this knowledge but do not post to simply give thanks. This much I know to be true. Happy Gaming and best wishes for the Holiday Season to come! (I just hope that Thanksgiving or the November Season is not overlooked with X-mas and related Holidays overbearing everything just for the sake of the almighty "dollar". Cheers!

[Heffay]

STR8-Eight, on 13 October 2016 - 08:22 AM, said:

I wanted to say, "Thank You!", for creating this thread and keeping it up to date to follow the tech changes over the years.

Glad to help out! I assure you it's all driven by selfish greed, as I love seeing what people can create from these models! Soooo many talented artistic types out there!

[Max Immelmann]

Heffay, on 13 October 2016 - 07:37 AM, said:

There are generally 3 materials created for each mech: The <mech>_body, <mech>_variant, and window. If the materials aren't lining up like you expect (as in the Atlas head), try to change the material in that object's material window to one of the other options. As a general rule the _body material is for all the normal mech parts (torso, legs, arms, etc), and the _variant is for weapons, special geometry... stuff like that. But it isn't a universal rule and I've seen variations on that.

For example, you have the founder head selected, and the _body material applied to it. Go to the materials for that object and change it to the _variant. Then it should line up properly.

There is also the cockpit material, but that only applies to the internal cockpit view.

well, all that was already said in your videos, so really, nothing new there.

as i have already said, as far as the cicada, i gave you the image you asked for, and as i have said, tried every imaginable material, and all i get is black monitors and a black cockpit window.

for the atlas, that just happened to be the material i had selected when i took the picture. i have tried all the others, and once again, nothing fits.

[Heffay]

Immelmann, on 13 October 2016 - 10:07 AM, said:

well, all that was already said in your videos, so really, nothing new there.

as i have already said, as far as the cicada, i gave you the image you asked for, and as i have said, tried every imaginable material, and all i get is black monitors and a black cockpit window.

for the atlas, that just happened to be the material i had selected when i took the picture. i have tried all the others, and once again, nothing fits.

Did you use Noesis for the export, or my cgf-exporter program? If you used Noesis, you have to make sure to check the "flip UVs" option when doing the conversion.

For the black materials, there is a bug in Blender where sometimes a material will look pure black in the display port, but it should still render normally. I'm not sure if that's what you're experiencing, but if it's a pure black material, then that is usually the cause. You can fix that by deleting the material from that part and reassigning it.

[Max Immelmann]

Heffay, on 13 October 2016 - 10:47 AM, said:

Did you use Noesis for the export, or my cgf-exporter program? If you used Noesis, you have to make sure to check the "flip UVs" option when doing the conversion.

For the black materials, there is a bug in Blender where sometimes a material will look pure black in the display port, but it should still render normally. I'm not sure if that's what you're experiencing, but if it's a pure black material, then that is usually the cause. You can fix that by deleting the material from that part and reassigning it.

lets see, i used powershell to convert cga to cgf, then noesis to convert cgf to obj. i do not see anything called a cgf exporter program listed in your OP.

yes, i did the -flipUV.

believe me, i have deleted and added materials multiple times, all i get is black.

but anyways, gave up on cicada since nothing works, gave up on atlas since i can not get a proper eye window. tried using shadowcat for final tutorial. have made it to the point where you have the mech jump up and down. now take a look at my video, and you will see i have done some thing wrong to the scat's left knee. see how it rotates on landing, while the other does what it is suppose too? i have no idea what i did different. i created both at the same time. how the differ is beyond me. perhaps some one call notice my mistake?

https://youtu.be/paGI08IQ4DY

[Heffay]

Ok, the wonky knee behavior is probably do to the IK bones not being far enough from the joints to work properly. This is a complicated subject, and it's tough to tell from the view how far back the knee IKs are, but basically the knee joint will tend to twist to get to the IK bone. When they start moving like that, I generally find that they are too close to the mech.

Also, when you set up a rig with all the proper IK bones, you generally only want to control it by those bones. Foot, Hand, Torso, etc. Think of it like 2 types of bones (although there are more). Deform bones, which are attached to the geometry, and IK bones, which you use to move the body in understandable motions. Too much to explain here, but I saw you rotating some bones that you normally wouldn't ever touch. That's where bone layers can come in handy, to make sure the bones you use are the only ones you see.

I guess it depends on what you are trying to do at this point. Animation and armatures are pretty advanced topics.

Can you send me the .blend file for the atlas and cicada? I'd like to see what went wrong, and maybe give you some advice on how to fix it. It's tough to troubleshoot over a forum though.

[Max Immelmann]

Heffay, on 13 October 2016 - 05:48 PM, said:

Ok, the wonky knee behavior is probably do to the IK bones not being far enough from the joints to work properly. This is a complicated subject, and it's tough to tell from the view how far back the knee IKs are, but basically the knee joint will tend to twist to get to the IK bone. When they start moving like that, I generally find that they are too close to the mech.

found a solution to the knee problem. i do have some one who has experience using blender, more than my 2 weeks worth, and he suggested selecting all the bones, do an ALT/G and R and S, which fixed the problem. did not explain why, but at least i am now getting both knees to act the same. i will try your IK movement, see what that does. going to watch the last of the video, where you adjust the spine, or as you say, hip bones.

sure, i can send you the .blend files. i am not sure what changes i have made to them, so when you get them, i have no idea what "condition" they are in. it is all just swapping files in and out of the texture image node. some may even be empty now. if you ever want to talk on TS, i can arrange that. ok, was just going to attach the files here, but i do not see an attachment button. been over a year since i really used this forum, do they allow attached files here? gonna go see if i can find your MWO profile, and send it that way, again, forget if that is allowed.

[Jayce Haebdun]

So I said I that when I import the Huntsman to use in Tabletop Simulator, I was going to record/narrate it--but I was mistaken in thinking it was coming out on the 13th, it's actually the 18th. Since you're having trouble with the Atlas currently, I'll see if I can do a video of an Atlas import instead this weekend. (Which I'm not looking forward to; the Atlas is one of the buggier mechs if I recall correctly. Pretty sure the meshes for the head had to be split in two (the main head is _body, while the eyes/nose are _window), as well as most of the right torso ballistic hardpoints (split between _body and _variant). So every right torso _bh# I had to select all the faces that didn't line up with the Body texture, separate them into a separate mesh, then set the material to _variant.

But it's a good example of what can go wrong, I suppose. If I'm remembering right, one of the torsos imports way out of position too, so I can show how to find where it really goes.

[Volt]

hey guys, i just extracted the Huntsman mesh and some parts are floating around (UAC, Missile, Talon, LBX, etc) anyone experienced this same thing?

[Heffay]

Volt, on 19 October 2016 - 03:22 AM, said:

hey guys, i just extracted the Huntsman mesh and some parts are floating around (UAC, Missile, Talon, LBX, etc) anyone experienced this same thing?

Yeah, for some reason some parts don't have their origin set right. No idea what the cause is though, but it's a problem in a number of models, across various games.

[Iacov]

hey guys!

do you know where the 3d files for the mechlab are located? the "mechlab.pak" in /game is only 44kb small

[Volt]

Heffay, on 19 October 2016 - 04:47 AM, said:

Yeah, for some reason some parts don't have their origin set right. No idea what the cause is though, but it's a problem in a number of models, across various games.

ah okay, i thought it was just me. I had to adjust the meshes manually to connect the base of the ACs to the barrels, otherwise no harm. can't wait for the next releases. wonder how far along the timeline they can go, or if they're releasing the other invasion clan factions

[Heffay]

Iacov, on 19 October 2016 - 09:59 AM, said:

hey guys!

do you know where the 3d files for the mechlab are located? the "mechlab.pak" in /game is only 44kb small

I believe it's in one of the environment or levels paks. It's considered a separate level.

[Kelembai]

Sorry but I'm pretty much a noob to CryEngine. Need a bit of help.

Trying to use the cgf-converter.exe to convert files into obj, but some of the mechs_scale.cgf can't or won't be converted. Any workarounds for this? Since I really don't want to have to open each mech part and arrange them etc.

Or am I missing something? Any help would be much appreciated.

[Iacov]

Heffay, on 19 October 2016 - 05:54 PM, said:

I believe it's in one of the environment or levels paks. It's considered a separate level.

thanks!
I think I've found them
I've run the cgf converter over the cgf files but the objs are mostly empty or you can't make our what the meshes try to represent
should I use noesis for this conversion?

and do you guys know how I can load a built up mechlab? I guess the mech importer won't work here;)

thanks again!

[Heffay]

Kelembai, on 19 October 2016 - 07:19 PM, said:

Sorry but I'm pretty much a noob to CryEngine. Need a bit of help.

Trying to use the cgf-converter.exe to convert files into obj, but some of the mechs_scale.cgf can't or won't be converted. Any workarounds for this? Since I really don't want to have to open each mech part and arrange them etc.

Or am I missing something? Any help would be much appreciated.

The _scale files were only for the original 8 mechs. Watch the rest of the videos, which go over how to use mech-importer (a powershell script) to create a blender python script to import the current mechs. Let me know if it gives you any problems.

Iacov, on 19 October 2016 - 09:44 PM, said:

I've run the cgf converter over the cgf files but the objs are mostly empty or you can't make our what the meshes try to represent
should I use noesis for this conversion?

and do you guys know how I can load a built up mechlab? I guess the mech importer won't work here;)

There is no way currently to create a mechlab with all the necessary parts. You have to manually place them all. There are level files that contain this info, but I haven't worked on getting those into a usable format. It's on my list of things to do.

Can you give me some examples of files that don't convert? Thanks.

[Iacov]

Heffay, on 20 October 2016 - 04:49 AM, said:

There is no way currently to create a mechlab with all the necessary parts. You have to manually place them all. There are level files that contain this info, but I haven't worked on getting those into a usable format. It's on my list of things to do.

Can you give me some examples of files that don't convert? Thanks.

pretty much everyone in environments/frontend/mechlab_a

i ran the command

Quote

foreach ($file in (Get-ChildItem *.cgf)) { d:/3d_print/game/scripts/cgf-converter.exe $file -allowconflict -objectdir "d:/3d_Print/game/objects" }

but i'm not sure if this leads to valid files
I'll keep trying and post pics as soon as i have more than just a few tries

when you say that the level files contain the info...how exactly? can i actually read those infos or do i need a program to read them out?

and again a million thanks

[Heffay]

Iacov, on 20 October 2016 - 10:21 AM, said:

pretty much everyone in environments/frontend/mechlab_a

i ran the command

but i'm not sure if this leads to valid files
I'll keep trying and post pics as soon as i have more than just a few tries

when you say that the level files contain the info...how exactly? can i actually read those infos or do i need a program to read them out?

You need a special program to read those, but outside of Cryengine I don't think anything exists. It'll probably contain the terrain geometry and texture info, and points where other assets are added (buildings, trees, particles, sounds, etc). Some how it'll tie together the entire game directory (Objects, Textures, Sounds, etc). No idea how yet, or even if I can get it out how to use it in a practical manner. Probably will need to output it to Collada with a bunch of empty's for the game objects.

[Iacov]

hey!

i kept trying and it seemed that your cgf converter worked like charm (using the command posted above)
some of the objects are simply "goofed"...for examples the "decals" which are all plains

building the mechlab on my own is too difficult for me, but your converter made parts available that are heavily needed for my next planned diorama (heavily wip)


thanks again!

Edited by Iacov, 21 October 2016 - 07:20 AM.