Please ask your basic (newbie) questions in here. - by scumble
scumble on 24/6/2005 at 08:38
I took that advice from the Unreal Developer network, but the flesh engine probably introduces complications.
Vertex editing isn't easy, I'll give you that, but I've managed to construct a roof or two with wedged-shaped brushes without problems - it's possible to get the brushes slightly off even if you think they are lined up, especially if you are trying to match up angled sides.
I'm thinking now that you could intersect the builder brush with a bunch of other (additive) brushes that make a bumpy surface, like a load of spheres. Might work, but I'm not sure. If that doesn't make sense, I can try it later and post a screenshot.
SubJeff on 24/6/2005 at 13:22
No, it makes sense. I'll try it too. Let's see what happens.
I had snapping to grid on with my vertex editing and I though this would line them up nicely. If two sheets (4x20x20 for e.g.) are snapped to each other and have the same vertex raised by 20 shouldn't the edges be seamless?
scumble on 24/6/2005 at 20:39
Well, so far I managed to crash the editor. I've got a feeling that this is a bad idea - BSP just isn't meant to be used like this.
Crispy on 26/6/2005 at 04:28
Yeah, I ended up with huge problems when I tried vertex editing, even when everything was snapped. There's not only an "UnrealEd goblin" to contend with, but also a "Flesh goblin", it seems; the Unreal renderer will often be fine with something that Flesh chokes on. And "something that Flesh chokes on" often means "anything apart from a predefined basic shape". It's really quite annoying. :grr:
rob_beddall on 2/7/2005 at 09:03
hello.
i have a few important questions to ask of you all.
these could mean the difference between me leaving my current mod team or not :)
1. is it possible (and has it been done) to import custom characters into the game?
2. is it possible (and has it been done) to import custom static meshes into the game?
hmm that's about it.
i have managed to do both of these things using the unreal engine bu ti just wondered if you could do it in thief 3?
thankyou
rob_beddall on 2/7/2005 at 09:32
hmm. okay this is sounding more promising.
just a couple more questions.
1. is it not possible to just use actorX to export the models? ( i know it's for unreal but it's the same engine isn't it?)
2. Who makes the tools and are there any plans for a max 7 version?
thankyou kindly
Crispy on 2/7/2005 at 12:54
1. Never heard of ActorX. Maybe you should try it and see if it works, if you're familiar with it; you'd be doing the rest of us a favour. :thumb: I just took a quick look, and there are PSK and PSA files in the SkeletalAnimations and SkeletalMeshes folders, along with some others:
SkeletalAnimations folder contains: PAN, PSA, SAI files
SkeletalMeshes folder contains: PRO, PSK, RGD, SKI files
Recognise any of those? :) I skimmed through some ActorX documentation I found on the Unreal Developer Network and I noticed it referred to PSA and PSK files, so that's something at least.
2. The tools were made by Ion Storm, AFAIK. There is a reverse-engineering effort underway to make them work with other versions of 3ds max, but it's not certain at this point how successful that will be. At best, it just requires modifying some DLL calls... at worst, we may have to end up writing our own tools.
rob_beddall on 2/7/2005 at 14:46
yup. psk and psa are the ones i know of.
no idea what the other ones are.
ascottk on 2/7/2005 at 17:01
The psk are the base meshes, the pro & the ski are associated with those. The sai & pan files are the animations. T3Ed updates the pro, ski, sai, & pan files when you try to add new motions through the skeleton browser.
Here's some things I found messing around with the skeleton browser:
Quote Posted by ascottk
I don't think the non-Garrett animations have enough bones for Garrett to control. Aside from Garrett the skeletal mesh with the most bones is the Puppet.
Garrett: 125 bones, 2688 faces, 3475 vertices
Puppet: 104 bones, 2854 faces, 3768 vertices
The puppet actually has more faces & vertices but less bones.
The rest average about 77 bones, 1200-1800 faces, & about 2500+ vertices.
Another interesting experiment is editing a *.ski file with notepad. I couldn't load alexDmale_def from the DX:IW demo without changing MeshFlags (underneath) to "3". It was "1" but I guess Garrett_08 has that number reservered for the player. I can't get Alex to do any motions because he only has 59 bones. The smaller of the AIs in TDS is 77 bones.
