Stupid questions regarding toys creation

[McKeu]

Heyas,

So I just made a toy for practice and the fucks of it and noticed some things

I assume the manipulator position later in game is determined by the tool_group position in blender?

Are H5 maps important to have? (I have never worked with modelling software, etc. before)

 

Cheers.

 

[x17]

Yep, the tool_group is position of manipulator of toy. So, the toy could be slightly "outside", or better said, the manipulator could be slightly outside the toy.

H5 maps arent mandatory, but are definitely advised, as they add a lot onto visual quality. Depends on what the toy is. H5 maps are made separately, usually by using either exported UV map of asset (exported from Blender) or even just using the base diffuse texture that is mandatory to have.

Base texture should be only plain color one - so no lighting data in it (this was done long ago in archaic ways when there wasnt PBR yet). They could usually always go lower res. Normal maps are made for fine detail and relief of the object, they should usually go in higher res. Specular maps are made for shininess (green channel) , metallicity (red channel) and glow (blue channel) and could go in lower res often.  

[McKeu]

5 minutes ago, x17 said:

Yep, the tool_group is position of manipulator of toy. So, the toy could be slightly "outside", or better said, the manipulator could be slightly outside the toy.

H5 maps arent mandatory, but are definitely advised, as they add a lot onto visual quality. Depends on what the toy is. H5 maps are made separately, usually by using either exported UV map of asset (exported from Blender) or even just using the base diffuse texture that is mandatory to have.

Base texture should be only plain color one - so no lighting data in it (this was done long ago in archaic ways when there wasnt PBR yet). They could usually always go lower res. Normal maps are made for fine detail and relief of the object, they should usually go in higher res. Specular maps are made for shininess (green channel) , metallicity (red channel) and glow (blue channel) and could go in lower res often.  

Gotcha, so advisable would be to have the tool_group around the center or the balance point of the toy, I guess.

I have no idea what I actually need to do in shadermap, for example 

[x17]

Just now, McKeu said:

Gotcha, so advisable would be to have the tool_group around the center or the balance point of the toy, I guess.

I have no idea what I actually need to do in shadermap, for example 

Well, depends - one can have it intentionally a bit outside of center, but then it would rotate the toy differently on un-centered pivot point. Its advisable simply to center everything anyways in Blender.

What do you mean on Shadermap, do you mean on program or ? The base texture is mandatory, simply to give your object some basic colors and texture. In some cases, some details for surface could be done (example : rust). Normal maps can be generated on many places online, but also in PS (I think you need specific plugins). Specular map is usually made from scratch, altough one could make just as plain one effect (one channel) image if they dont need anything specific. But, its easy to make ... one opens the base texture ... goes into channels of the image (RGB channels) and then on every channel uses values from 0 (black/min) to 1 (white/max). This makes mix of colors eventually. While one could go and guess the color and say "Ill just paint this in dark green to get a bit of shininess" its much more logical to go with proper way.

[McKeu]

2 minutes ago, x17 said:

Well, depends - one can have it intentionally a bit outside of center, but then it would rotate the toy differently on un-centered pivot point. Its advisable simply to center everything anyways in Blender.

What do you mean on Shadermap, do you mean on program or ? The base texture is mandatory, simply to give your object some basic colors and texture. In some cases, some details for surface could be done (example : rust). Normal maps can be generated on many places online, but also in PS (I think you need specific plugins). Specular map is usually made from scratch, altough one could make just as plain one effect (one channel) image if they dont need anything specific. But, its easy to make ... one opens the base texture ... goes into channels of the image (RGB channels) and then on every channel uses values from 0 (black/min) to 1 (white/max). This makes mix of colors eventually. While one could go and guess the color and say "Ill just paint this in dark green to get a bit of shininess" its much more logical to go with proper way.

I followed HDiddy's tutorial on how to make a toy in under 20 minutes. He was using the app Shadermap to create the H5 maps.

[x17]

Just now, McKeu said:

I followed HDiddy's tutorial on how to make a toy in under 20 minutes. He was using the app Shadermap to create the H5 maps.

Aha, well there are multiple ways ... its really only a matter of personal prefference and one could experiment in many ways to see how it fits them the most.

I think possibly the Substance Painter is the "most pro" app for any texture needs and remakes out there. Some of most skilled retexturers use it here, like Kraegar, and I have seen people using it in really impressive ways on assets for some other games (like STALKER, for example). But it needs time to learn, ofc. So, something simpler and faster is better for beginning.

[McKeu]

1 hour ago, x17 said:

Aha, well there are multiple ways ... its really only a matter of personal prefference and one could experiment in many ways to see how it fits them the most.

I think possibly the Substance Painter is the "most pro" app for any texture needs and remakes out there. Some of most skilled retexturers use it here, like Kraegar, and I have seen people using it in really impressive ways on assets for some other games (like STALKER, for example). But it needs time to learn, ofc. So, something simpler and faster is better for beginning.

Another thing I noticed:

If I create another toy following the same steps and place it in my addon folder, it will in game overwrite my previous toy, although both add-ons are present in the folder

I assume there is some kind of identifier that needs to be set somewhere?

[x17]

Just now, McKeu said:

Another thing I noticed:

If I create another toy following the same steps and place it in my addon folder, it will in game overwrite my previous toy, although both add-ons are present in the folder

I assume there is some kind of identifier that needs to be set somewhere?

The old ways of asset conversion used fixed, static IDs. This was changed in VX where IDs are purely dynamic. The old static lists were anyways not updated ages ago and were eventually lost with MG shutdown. So, when we convert asset in CtK, we always leave ID at 0 (zero) for dynamic ID. Line : -sv "XxXidXxX" "I32(0)" in CtK.

[McKeu]

Just now, x17 said:

The old ways of asset conversion used fixed, static IDs. This was changed in VX where IDs are purely dynamic. The old static lists were anyways not updated ages ago and were eventually lost with MG shutdown. So, when we convert asset in CtK, we always leave ID at 0 (zero) for dynamic ID. Line : -sv "XxXidXxX" "I32(0)" in CtK.

That's what I did. Didn't change those values in the bat file. Hmmm... need to figure out what's happening there.

[sadekhnd]

1 minute ago, McKeu said:

That's what I did. Didn't change those values in the bat file. Hmmm... need to figure out what's happening there.

check names, dae file name, I forget often to change them

[x17]

3 minutes ago, McKeu said:

That's what I did. Didn't change those values in the bat file. Hmmm... need to figure out what's happening there.

You need to export collada file every time, while removing all former leftovers in CtK. The asset must be triangulated, if there is one single n-gon anywhere, it wont show at all.

And ofc, you need to use proper designation of asset ... any asset needs to have numbers to designate ... like "McKeu.Toy1"..."McKeu.Toy2"... etc. Its important to check the example CtK toy batch file if all is put properly.

[McKeu]

Just now, sadekhnd said:

check names, dae file name, I forget often to change them

All fine. Used replace all in notepad++. Just checked both add-on folder and all seems fine. I will eventually figure it out.

Also the icons are not properly shown ingame for me, although they are there in the images folders.

1 minute ago, x17 said:

You need to export collada file every time, while removing all former leftovers in CtK. The asset must be triangulated, if there is one single n-gon anywhere, it wont show at all.

And ofc, you need to use proper designation of asset ... any asset needs to have numbers to designate ... like "McKeu.Toy1"..."McKeu.Toy2"... etc. Its important to check the example CtK toy pattern if all is put properly.

Aaah. The numbers are the problem. I simply named them, like "MKToyPitchfork". Need to rework that then.

[x17]

1 minute ago, McKeu said:

All fine. Used replace all in notepad++. Just checked both add-on folder and all seems fine. I will eventually figure it out.

Also the icons are not properly shown ingame for me, although they are there in the images folders.

Aaah. The numbers are the problem. I simply named them, like "MKToyPitchfork". Need to rework that then.

Yep, it must have numerical designation. Overall, there are many ways how one could name the asset - for example keeping the VX in front - but I find it unimportant and excessive. So, possibly the author's name + nameofasset### is enough

[sadekhnd]

 

11 minutes ago, McKeu said:

 

Also the icons are not properly shown ingame for me, although they are there in the images folders.

 

icons have to be in Resource folder

it has to be --   toyname_icon.png

and proper dimensions. I make it always 64x64. You don't need bigger.

[McKeu]

3 minutes ago, sadekhnd said:

 

icons have to be in Resource folder

it has to be --   toyname_icon.png

and proper dimensions. I make it always 64x64. You don't need bigger.

Yeah, did that. But I think the issue here as well might be the missing numbers

[McKeu]

So, yeah, @x17 , it was all about the numbering. Icon problem was solved with that, too.

[HDiddy]

Regarding toy centering.  You can always modify the origin if you want the pivot point of the toy to be somewhere else in the game. Like at the end of a stick rather than the center,

[McKeu]

22 hours ago, HDiddy said:

Regarding toy centering.  You can always modify the origin if you want the pivot point of the toy to be somewhere else in the game. Like at the end of a stick rather than the center,

For me it was the opposite. The manipulator was at the end of the pitchfork, because I fucked up the toy group position in Blender. Fixed it, though.

 

Another question:

So, I found a model I would like to use as a toy. Problem: It comes with two meshes and instead of textures it is using colored materials. Apparently KE cannot deal with that.

Any best practices for that?

It had many more meshes for springs, motor, and stuff, which I all removed already. I do need to keep the main body of the tool and the drill head, though. Should I combine those into one mesh?

Attached how far I got so far (dae file).

MKJackhammer1.rar

[x17]

9 minutes ago, McKeu said:

For me it was the opposite. The manipulator was at the end of the pitchfork, because I fucked up the toy group position in Blender. Fixed it, though.

 

Another question:

So, I found a model I would like to use as a toy. Problem: It comes with two meshes and instead of textures it is using colored materials. Apparently KE cannot deal with that.

Any best practices for that?

It had many more meshes for springs, motor, and stuff, which I all removed already. I do need to keep the main body of the tool and the drill head, though. Should I combine those into one mesh?

Attached how far I got so far (dae file).

MKJackhammer1.rar 127.07 kB · 0 downloads

You would need to join the meshes into one mesh.

The UV mapping is the only one thing important here, so all materials should be as one material. 1 mesh - 1 material - 1 texture here in this case for a toy.

So, lets say there are multiple materials, you would join everything into one. UVmaps should be joined all into one, in logical way. Then, it would be easy to make custom texture, if its about plain colors. 

[sadekhnd]

you can bake all colors into one mesh. if youre interedted, check youtube how to do it.

If you want 2 meshes, you need 2 textures. check tutorial section. I posted a tutorial there how to do it.

[sadekhnd]

I organize your toy file a bit and make an iimage for you,  now you can check how it should look like.

I don't think you need 2 meshes here but it's up to you. Maybe you want to use this toy in some evil way   

MKJackhammer1.7z

[McKeu]

10 minutes ago, sadekhnd said:

I organize your toy file a bit and make an iimage for you,  now you can check how it should look like.

I don't think you need 2 meshes here but it's up to you. Maybe you want to use this toy in some evil way   

MKJackhammer1.7z 401.37 kB · 0 downloads

I was thinking about maybe adding morphs (for the drill head), but it is actually unnecessary, as you can just move the whole jackhammer up and down (when used for its intended purpose, that is ), which would look more realistic, too. So I guess I will turn it into a single mesh.

Thanks for the textures. Those are very welcome

I really need to brush up on some youtube videos about blender and general model and texture creation. Can't always expect others to fix those for me 

[HDiddy]

You could do a multi material, multi mesh toy.  Most of if not all of @Gemini Kanon's cars are done this way. Colored materials is also not a big deal either as I have sometimes used this for very small items like clothing buttons.  The problem with colored materials though is it cannot be retextured and Hook5 PBR maps cannot be applied to them.

Now when thing that I do that tends to work well is multi material, single texture mesh. In this case you can have different materials for the mesh and have textures on a single image.  You may have to remap some UVs but the process is usually not that difficult.  There is not really a right or wrong way to do it. TK17 can handle a variety of setups when it comes to materials and textures...it is more bout what makes sense for what you are trying to do.

[McKeu]

10 minutes ago, HDiddy said:

You could do a multi material, multi mesh toy.  Most of if not all of @Gemini Kanon's cars are done this way. Colored materials is also not a big deal either as I have sometimes used this for very small items like clothing buttons.  The problem with colored materials though is it cannot be retextured and Hook5 PBR maps cannot be applied to them.

Now when thing that I do that tends to work well is multi material, single texture mesh. In this case you can have different materials for the mesh and have textures on a single image.  You may have to remap some UVs but the process is usually not that difficult.  There is not really a right or wrong way to do it. TK17 can handle a variety of setups when it comes to materials and textures...it is more bout what makes sense for what you are trying to do.

Thanks man! Well, since I am using premade creative commons assets for the moment, I have to deal with them coming in all forms, shapes, material setups and amounts of meshes. It will take me a little bit of time to figure all that out, but I will get there. Haven't touched a 3D software in my life before 

[McKeu]

10 hours ago, sadekhnd said:

I organize your toy file a bit and make an iimage for you,  now you can check how it should look like.

I don't think you need 2 meshes here but it's up to you. Maybe you want to use this toy in some evil way   

MKJackhammer1.7z 401.37 kB · 3 downloads

Sadly your 3.0 and my 2.79 blender don't like each other

So I used my old dae with your texture map. Man, I never noticed how much crap there still is in that jackhammer. I definitely need to thin out that mesh.

It's close to impossible to get like 500 unwrapped components properly aligned with the map.