The Harvest Moon Consortium

[Guest]

Big question here. I understand that a tile in a tiles set is not merely a 3D model. There are many aspects of the tile that have to be planned out and meshes to paint down to make it not only fantastic looking, but functional. While fixing a custom head to be 1.66 complient, I looked at the texture file for the model, and was boggled how someone could paint a distorted version of the head to be "wrapped" around the model. Was this something someone painted down in 3DsMax and max created the file recording the texture? I really need a simplistic step by step of how to build a tile from the ground up. I know it would be easier to copy a Bioware tile and edit, but I need to know what I am looking for, and what checklist of things Im putting in to make a tile that works.

Lady Abagail

[Helvene]

Abagail, as far as I remember, there were quite a good tutorials for a beginner on the vault. Try searching

[Chandigar]

10 second FYI tutorial to explain mapping concepts:

Textures are flat, meshes are 3d.

Textures are mapped onto the 3d object using UVW coordinates which basically tell the engine which spot on the texture is attached to which vertice on the mesh. The texture is then stretched to evenly span between the coordinates/vertices.

With UVW mapping, you can also set the overall size of the texture, which in turn determines how many times the texture is repeated over the course of the mesh.

Basic UVW mapping coordinates come in a few flavors. Flat, Square, Sphere, etc. Flat and Square I find the most useful for tiles. Flat basically means you have a mesh with a single projector that shoots the texture onto the object from one direction. This means you might get distortions where meshes change direction. For example, you can project a photo of a face directly onto a head-shaped mesh, but at the edges the face will start to streak and stretch weirdly. A box UVW means there are 6 projectors frome each direction projecting the same image.

With heads & body parts, you want specific textured features to match specific spots without stretch marks, so you need to apply a UVW, unwrap it, then use those coordinates to paint features in the exact right spot. This is fairly complicated, I personally haven't done it very successfully.

With tiles, its easier... you just need to remember that each mesh piece can only be mapped with 1 texture. With heads, the entire head is one mesh, but with tiles you can have as many mesh pieces as you want.

This means that if you build a wood chair with a leather seat, you don't need to have a texture with wood and leather... you can have the wood parts using a wood texture and the leather parts using a leather texture. This means you don't really need to unwrap the UVWs like you would for a head. Also, furniture is generally square so you can use simple UVWs.

UVW mapping is probably the biggest problem I see with retextured models on the vault... you have marble grain thats like 4' wide or wood paneling where the wood grain is so mashed together all you see is a grid pattern where the textures repeat.

To actually build a tile, its a bit more complicated. The basic parts are:

Mesh - This is what people see when they're on the tile
WOKmesh - This is what the engine uses to calculate collisions and is invisible
Lights - This is affected by the light settings within the tileset
Animation Nodes - These are required if you want to have animation
Emitters - These are required for effects, you generally also need an animation node for emitters to work AFAIK.

Once you have all the above pieces made, you need to enter information into the .set file which tells the engine how to actually use the tile. IE which terrain represents each corner and at what heights etc.

I really recommend going back and downloading Bioware's tileset tutorial file... I read it the first time and it seemed really brief and didn't seem to provide enough information... but as I fooled around with my first tileset I kept going back to it and finding more useful information that I sort of skimmed over the first time.

Ok, this ended up being longer than 10 secs... but I'm at work and bored so...

[Guest]

To Chandigar for the list of items that make up a tile and explination of the difference between tile models and PC Parts.

To Helvene, I found some tutorials, one very useful in explaining UVW unwrapping, I didnt know how textures were even created before this. A tutorial I was reading previously was really complicated and I was confused as to where the texture was coming from. It seemed that I was supposed to create texture face by face but that wasnt the case. I wish my knowledge of 3D modeling matched my ambition, I would be a much greater asset, unfortunately all my training has been in 2D art and applications :">

Lady Abagail

[Helvene]

Emitters - These are required for effects, you generally also need an animation node for emitters to work AFAIK.

Not necessary. If you want to leave your emmiter "always on", you don't need animation in your tile.

for the list of items that make up a tile and explination of the difference between tile models and PC Parts.

By the way, everything of this can be found on the vault in manuals.

I wish my knowledge of 3D modeling matched my ambition, I would be a much greater asset, unfortunately all my training has been in 2D art and applications

Then my advice would be to start with 3dsmax manuals and tutorials.
Try this, I hope it won't be too complicated: http://www.highend3d.com/3dsmax/tutorials/

[Guest]

I dont necessarily want it easy, so complicated it definately okay. What Im seeking to avoid are tutorials on 3dsMax that do not pertain to Neverwinter syntax modelling. In essence, I want to learn how to use 3dsMax exclusively to build NWN tilesets and content first, and explore other applications of the program later. Im afraid of creating the geometry and such and such but miss out on the functional items and have a beautiful tileset that works like crap. However, I did look on the vault and Bioware's site and found the Tileset tutorial and it looks incredibly helpful, so I might be on my way to making my first tile really soon. Thanks to Brannor for mentioning the dangers of unevenly paired vertices. Thanks to Helvene for posting the links I really needed to follow. And to Chandigar for everything, especially Aztec Interior tileset which I recently downloaded and tested out. It is beautful and immaculate. I havent found one thing wrong in it at all, but I cant seem to get the torches to light up?

Lady Abagail

[Chandigar]

I haven't found one thing wrong in it at all, but I cant seem to get the torches to light up?

Lady Abagail

Thanks

And I think you need to toggle animloop01 on under the tile properties for all the torches to light... they don't actually shed light though, I couldn't really figure out how that worked.

[Helvene]

What Im seeking to avoid are tutorials on 3dsMax that do not pertain to Neverwinter syntax modelling. In essence, I want to learn how to use 3dsMax exclusively to build NWN tilesets and content first, and explore other applications of the program later.

There's no such thing as NWN modelling. Making models for NWN is nothing else but low-poly modelling, and usually most properities special for NWN are applied only before exporting a model, and it doesn't take more than few minutes, even if modelling a tile (or something else) took several hours.
Surely there are some rules you should follow, but their number is not too much.

So, if you're looking forward to editing tile geometry or making new, you'll have to learn at least the basics of modelling. That's why I recommend to start with 3dsmax tutorials.

Though it's all up to you. I simply think that this way it would be easier and would give you a better result with your tiles

[Chandigar]

There's no such thing as NWN modelling. Making models for NWN is nothing else but low-poly modelling, and usually most properities special for NWN are applied only before exporting a model, and it doesn't take more than few minutes, even if modelling a tile (or something else) took several hours.
Surely there are some rules you should follow, but their number is not too much.

So, if you're looking forward to editing tile geometry or making new, you'll have to learn at least the basics of modelling. That's why I recommend to start with 3dsmax tutorials.

Though it's all up to you. I simply think that this way it would be easier and would give you a better result with your tiles

Yea, you need to start with MAX tutorials if you've never used MAX before... if you don't know how to extrude a shape or manipulate an editable mesh or apply a texture and UVW map, you're not going to be able to make tiles effectively.

The only problem I have with most MAX tutorials is that they tend to give you the wrong mindset for low poly modeling.

For example, most tutorials asking you to make a door from scratch will have you:
1. build a frame
2. extrude out and bevel the panels, cut a hole out for the window then apply a wood texture to the door body
3. Build the window frame and apply a metal texture
4. Make the glass and apply a glass texture
5. Make a doorknob and apply a brass texture.
6. Apply and arrange lighting so it looks pretty.

In low poly modeling though, you make a box and apply a single texture that has the image of a window, panels, doorknob etc on it. Thats it.

It took me a while to get into the right mindset for doing low poly stuff... for the concept that textures don't represent materials, but they represent the entire object with the geometry just providing volume for the texture.

Also, I find that the actual NWN stuff takes far longer than modeling... I can build a tile in 20 mins, then spend an hour (over the course of the whole project) adding the base, nodes, walkmesh, .set information, minimaps, and finally testing and debugging (damn sparkles and shadow issues) multiple times for each tile.

[Helvene]

For example, most tutorials asking you to make a door from scratch will have you:
1. build a frame
2. extrude out and bevel the panels, cut a hole out for the window then apply a wood texture to the door body
3. Build the window frame and apply a metal texture
4. Make the glass and apply a glass texture
5. Make a doorknob and apply a brass texture.
6. Apply and arrange lighting so it looks pretty.

In low poly modeling though, you make a box and apply a single texture that has the image of a window, panels, doorknob etc on it. Thats it.

Here, I do not totally agree with you.
Fo example, making a window in a tile a seperate mesh and applying a different testure to it usually doesn't increase poly count for too much, but definitely improves the result.

In my opinion, it's much better to combine both approaches.