I will cover "Projection Painting/Stenciling" the Transparent Ambient Occlusion Map(Shadows),  Specular or Gloss Map(Skin Oil) and Bump Map(Skin Texture, Pores, Facial Hair, Scars, ... ) a little later.

Tutorial Doctor wrote:

YES! Finally! Perhaps I can find some use for MakeHuman now! Get some characters goin'!

Tip: If you type "Face texture map'' in google, you can find some good things to use as a source image.

Thanks Zester!

Oh I have a tip for makehuman .....

The best way to get a lowpoly model out of makehuman without all the extra rigging and others stuff, is like so I do this because the makehuman importer for blender is flaky and never includes the proxy models.


Step 1
Click on "Geometries" then "Proxies"
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6Je1T2opFhk/Ukxyvo8akrI/AAAAAAAABC8/VtiMySPAkEk/w1106-h693-no/snapshot25.png

Step 2
In the right side panel choose the proxy you want to use there is 3 differant levels of detail from "Normal" to "Ultra Low Poly."
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-XYtlxBbxT2U/Ukxyv_aezYI/AAAAAAAABDA/5jW9jmR41Xs/w1106-h693-no/snapshot26.png

Step 3
In the "Toolbar" click on the save file icon, then in the "Left Side Panel" click on "Wavefront Obj" enter a new name for your file and click the export button.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tjXlCpNPgG4/UkxyvwQqSCI/AAAAAAAABDE/0k2ad2kgDpM/w1106-h693-no/snapshot27.png

Then paint and rig in your favorite 3d package.




Also if you click on the little "Net" icon in the "Toolbar" you can enable "Wireframe" view to get a better idea what your characters mesh will look like.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6SjylwiMPQc/Ukx2bJEMTcI/AAAAAAAABD0/8tpu6Ml9c_w/w1106-h693-no/snapshot30.png

Ultra Lowpoly
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-K-By4F5gyU8/Ukx2aT61Y1I/AAAAAAAABDo/hgNNc8XkACU/w803-h593-no/snapshot29.png

Normal 16k Poly
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-AyN_tmrDyUY/Ukx2bMQq1RI/AAAAAAAABDs/B54p9N5cFVg/w807-h596-no/snapshot28.png

178

(6 replies, posted in General)

Tutorial Doctor wrote:

I am trying to HACK OUT a way to do particles in maratis: And I do mean hack!
PunBB bbcode test

I added an explosion physics effect to a subdivided cube. I then added ONE BONE to the cube. I saved the maratis mesh out at the first frame, then at a few frames later, and then at a few frames after that etc.

So now I have several meshes from that one particle system. (I could have baked in ambient occlusion also)

I could use a little bit of scripting to make it iterate between the meshes to create a sort of animation.

But this is PAINFULLY SLOW, especially if I wanted every frame (I only had 14 frames, but still). And this is only one way to do it (could use render to texture somehow, or texture animation (hmmm, sounds like a good idea)).

But what if I want the objects to actually be 3D?

Anyone have any brainstorming ideas on how I could hack some particles in a better way?

This depends on how close you will be to the object, A Texture Animation on a plane would be good for most things, there is a tutorial on the forums here . http://forum.maratis3d.com/viewtopic.php?id=301 and http://forum.maratis3d.com/viewtopic.php?id=98 if your not using blender thats fine you should be able to work out how its done in your own 3d package.

Partical with physics is here http://forum.maratis3d.com/viewtopic.php?id=550 just keep the particle count down.

179

(9 replies, posted in Engine)

255 wrote:
zester wrote:

\

Yes but I want collision so I need soft body physics like in Bullet.

i agree, full Bullet Support is badly needed like yesterday, Morph target animation is defiantly something I would like to see in "Addition" at a later time. Maratis doesn't even have a proper Particle Effects system yet.

180

(44 replies, posted in Scripting)

Look into "Decision Trees" and "Finite State Machines" both easily done in Lua, and if you havent already done so study up on Coroutine's in lua.

A coroutine is similar to a thread (in the sense of multithreading): a line of execution, with its own stack, its own local variables, and its own instruction pointer; but sharing global variables and mostly anything else with other coroutines. The main difference between threads and coroutines is that, conceptually (or literally, in a multiprocessor machine), a program with threads runs several threads concurrently. Coroutines, on the other hand, are collaborative: A program with coroutines is, at any given time, running only one of its coroutines and this running coroutine only suspends its execution when it explicitly requests to be suspended.

If you need any help let me know.

181

(9 replies, posted in Engine)

255 wrote:

This is called deforming a mesh. It has nothing to do with physics. For physics to work (e.g. a collision between a cloth and a human), you should link every bone with a primitive which in turn has to be a physics joint, which is insane, not good performace-wise, etc. etc.
So your idea only works for "fixed" animations, cutscenes, and stuff like that.
Thanks for the suggestion though.

Its called Morph target animation, per-vertex animation, shape interpolation, or blend shapes.

There are advantages to using morph target animation over skeletal animation. The artist has more control over the movements because he or she can define the individual positions of the vertices within a keyframe, rather than being constrained by skeletons. This can be useful for animating cloth, skin, and facial expressions because it can be difficult to conform those things to the bones that are required for skeletal animation.

The Horde3D engine supports this but I think there the only OSS engine that does, could pull that and there particle effects code. Once we get the build system moved over to premake ill look into it. Horde3D code base is realy small and clean. The author works for crytek.

Tutorial Doctor wrote:
255 wrote:

You can't use Blender's physics engine on external software just exporting a mesh.

The way I am thinking is sorta hackish, but straightforward also.

I am sure I saw a tutorial where someone used shapekeys to move an armature, which moved the mesh. In this way, you have an armature which deforms a mesh (which is needed for maratis). That armature animation is keyframed and the whole thing is exported into Maratis.

The shapekeys are only a driver for the armature.

I am going to do some research on a way to drive the shapekeys with the physics engine (vertex groups?)

Tutorial Doctor you shouldn't have to do all of that you could do this with physics and auto keying in blender.

com3D wrote:

Zester, it's trully awesome to have you back in the community ! big_smile

Hee thanks I appreciate the love wink Good to be back I enjoy this community.

I am going to dump the images here first then fill the tutorial in with instructions, its geared for those who only have limited blender experience. Note: I might have some of the images out of order on accident, there was a lot of pictures but I will fix them.

Project File to follow along with. https://zester.googlecode.com/files/Project.zip

Step 1
Open the UV/Image Editor
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--uEegz-m6gk/UkxH3fNjqlI/AAAAAAAAA_s/3yaOAPHWvWI/w936-h693-no/snapshot1.png

Step 2
Create a new blank texture 2048x2048 and name it "Diffuse"
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W5hNM-tSucI/UkxH6f1tvKI/AAAAAAAABAg/ZL8U9314nGU/w936-h693-no/snapshot2.png

Step 3
We are going to fill the blank texture with the UV Grid, this is useful in combination with blenders UV tools to look for any stretching with the UV's
Note: Blender has one of the most Advanced UV Editors that exists, if nothing else in Pro VFX work its used for that, ill show you how to use the advance UV editing features in another tutorial.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IJyP6euf49o/UkxH_Yn7vYI/AAAAAAAABBA/b-szJKhvPoc/w656-h486-no/snapshot3.png

Step 4
Create a new Material
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-gLlZ91DRucQ/UkxIAWiD9oI/AAAAAAAABBM/qA0PWBEpPsU/w262-h486-no/snapshot4.png

Step 5
Open the Texture Tab and create a new texture if one doesnt already exist.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_3nspLGpCvw/UkxIA9JZkRI/AAAAAAAABBc/hOPtxnK5zGA/w261-h485-no/snapshot5.png

Step 6
Choose the "Diffuse texture we just created."
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-PhelQuq1RUs/UkxIA9iJ8dI/AAAAAAAABBk/RmKnCDhRR-4/w263-h486-no/snapshot6.png

Step 7
Change the mapping from "Generated" to "UV"
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-VblVhcx2r44/UkxIBnARuwI/AAAAAAAABB0/We128Vx58Rs/w263-h486-no/snapshot7.png

Step 8
With your mouse cursor over your modeling view press the "N" key to open up the "Viewport Properties" panel and scroll down to the "Display" tab and change that from "Multitexture" to "GLSL"
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zcELQtC649Q/UkxICeyfakI/AAAAAAAABCA/MgK_f34dCVQ/w656-h486-no/snapshot8.png

Step 9
Note: This is out of order.
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1U6ASi-thRw/UkxICM7vX0I/AAAAAAAABB8/nGQP2gm6-IM/w321-h485-no/snapshot9.png

Step 10
Create a new "Brush" and ...
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4ln7-b26kVQ/UkxH2zUCXxI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/Et5eVkOBUxU/w321-h485-no/snapshot10.png

Step 11
Open the "HeadAndFaceReference.jpg" image
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6SjJjAUac48/UkxH3jKZD3I/AAAAAAAAA_w/sh2ehaCxykQ/w727-h437-no/snapshot14.png

Step 12
Rename your Bush Image to "FaceReferance"
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-RkoJBcB4Y8Y/UkxH4PQGiqI/AAAAAAAAA_4/H2pWbJyQ5mE/w321-h486-no/snapshot15.png

Step 13
Change to "Texture Paint Mode"
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-l_OgC0-z4uw/UkxH5c1JVjI/AAAAAAAABAY/0Q1dCy0Jxzo/w727-h437-no/snapshot16.png

Step 14
If the Texture Paint Mode side Panel isn't already open then open it by pressing the "T" key
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-jl6edAf48jQ/UkxH5boUSXI/AAAAAAAABAU/Mqx3Gq2_1co/w727-h437-no/snapshot17.png

Step 15
Turn the "Strength" of your "Brush" all the way up
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-izTcTu-CnJY/UkxH44azPUI/AAAAAAAABAA/DXYA0YPvM2Y/w202-h486-no/snapshot18.png

Step 16
Scroll down to the "Texture" tab and open it if its not already showing, choose the "FaceReferance" image if it isnt already selected and change the "Mode" to "Stencil"
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-106SpV5BdaY/UkxH5fP7w-I/AAAAAAAABAM/66qx_MWt_YM/w156-h485-no/snapshot19.png

Step 17
When you move your mouse cursor over the viewport you should now see the semi transparent "FaceReferance" image being projected over your model.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-pueDo9T3v1s/UkxH8-1A2uI/AAAAAAAABAw/bSv2MikPPjc/w727-h437-no/snapshot20.png

Projection Painting Controls

1. Right Mouse Button (RMB) down at the same time and moving your mouse will move the reference image around.

2. SHIFT + Right Mouse Button (RMB) down at the same time while moving your mouse will scale the image Up & Down.

3. CTRL + Right Mouse Button (RMB) down at the same time while moving your mouse will rotate the reference image.

4. SHIFT + Right Mouse Button (RMB) down at the same time and Click/Release Y or X key and moving your mouse will scale the reference image on the Y or X axis only.

Step 18
Our Characters Dimensions and the Dimensions of our reference image will more than likely be different so start small on key areas like the "Mouth" and just start painting.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-lvsALLz9OqI/UkxH9NoI7OI/AAAAAAAABA0/XPY6139N9Us/w727-h437-no/snapshot21.png

Step 19
When your "Mouse Cursor" leaves your viewport the "Reference Image" will disappear so you can see your progress more clearly
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-fW1qUBmEoXQ/UkxH82omf7I/AAAAAAAABA4/t9f3ZHgND7o/w727-h437-no/snapshot22.png

Step 20
Paint the "Eyes" an then "Nose" next.
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-KCY-svmBuAM/UkxIAbhb-BI/AAAAAAAABBo/6603kL18vRs/w727-h437-no/snapshot23.png

Step 21
Its looking good
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-vkMkwgjpUgk/UkxIAM8J1nI/AAAAAAAABBg/v4ru-OWT0Kg/w727-h437-no/snapshot24.png


You will be hard pressed to find really high quality free reference images to use, what I do is look for individual photos of different parts of the body (Face, Chest, Back, Arms, Legs, ...) and then do color correction (Color Balance) and save those setting and apply that to the rest of my reference photo's.

Senshi Stock (Lots of free Reference Poses, mostly female some male)
Note: You need a deviantart account its free to create one.
http://senshistock.deviantart.com/gallery/

kristinkk (Both male and female models)
Note: You need a deviantart account its free to create one.
http://kristinkk.deviantart.com/gallery/

I will post more resources as I find them.

Tutorial Doctor wrote:

Zoster, you have some awesome modeling skills. I wonder if the original models were just decimated to run faster in the game.

You box modeled those?

Thank you, I dont think they were decimated they came with the source fbx files and with different LOD, I think what happened here
is they used 3DS or Maya and patching with quads ether cant be done or is really hard. I have Maya 2013 Linux on an EDU license for school and any time it comes to patching you have to use triangles.

Yes they were mostly box modeled, I am going to make different LOD versions.

Tutorial Doctor wrote:

Please! This is what I have been doing for the longest. I finally found an understandable tutorial on head modeling for characters. I have been trying to use PROJECT FROM VIEW UV mapping in Blender to get a quick texture. I have a decent workflow now.

Please, I would like a tutorial (especially of its super easy)

Did you UV unwrap?

Thats a makehuman proxy model 3000k poly and they come with there UV's already unwrapped, all I did here was the texture painting. But UV's are really easy also there are a couple of tricks you can do I would be happy to make a tutorials on UV's also.

Here was my first attempt, when I learned how the pros texture paint there models. This took me about 5-10 mins to do. But the tutorial I am writing right now will apply to texture painting any type of object.

I use Projection Painting with Stencils for most things and Tile for hard to reach places.

But yes super easy and fast.

http://i46.tinypic.com/1o29au.png
http://i47.tinypic.com/n3lq82.png

The above 2 models are on the wiki now.
http://wiki.maratis3d.org/index.php?title=Architecture

Once I have the textures picked out I will run them threw insanebump and put them on the wiki
http://wiki.maratis3d.org/index.php?title=Assets

187

(19 replies, posted in Gossip)

I'm going to go watch Andrews video, haven't seen it yet, but from browsing the comments it appears to be about Blenders UI and plug-ins.

In regards to "Import/Export" plug-ins the situation is just as bad if not worse with 3DS and Maya, I was using Maya 2013 last night trying to export an FBX model to something Blender could read and in the end I had to use https://sites.google.com/a/render.jp/blenderfbx/ because Mayas collada, obj exporter would fail.

In my experience any format other than fbx is a gamble with Autodesk products.

For the UI complaints, the UI doesn't bother me as I use Hotkeys for everything even in other 3D packages, but solving this problem for others will not be an easy fix, as all of the follow use the Qt Toolkit for there GUI and the actual UI configuration options are a feature of Qt and not of there own.

MARI
2. NukeX
3. Katana
4. Hiero
5. Maya
6. Mudbox
7. Houdini
8. Realflow

Qt and Python is the standard for most VFX tools, Blendes UI on the other-hand is done using there own GL based UI toolkit. Much in the same-way as Maratis.

I would defiantly like to see Blender follow the trend already set by Using Qt just as I would like to see the Maratis Editor using Qt as I am a Qt dev wink but Im not going to hold my breath waiting for that to happen with Blender.

There is an asset pack for unity called Medieval Environment, I purchased the pack when I used unity. The problem is ..

1. I don't use unity anymore.
2. The models are of very poor quality as you will see.
3. I like the assets but I would rather use them in other engines, like Maratis.
4. The assets are under a very restrictive license, so I cant share them with others.

In order to solve all of the above problems I started re-modeling all of the assets provided with the Medieval Environment pack from scratch using the originals as a reference.

My models are not an exact copy of there's I did do somethings different, as you will see.

Here is what theres look like.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-g0MfPXOdw8Q/UkuwUSeBhnI/AAAAAAAAA-E/KORHzldPE5w/w514-h493-no/Screenshot1.png

And here are what mine look like.
https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_EsMI1EAml0/UkuwRxDOPPI/AAAAAAAAA98/DGMo5VV3f0w/w546-h477-no/Screenshot.png


Here is a screenshot from the Medieval Environment, of the above original model's in use. "Front part of the house in the back of the scene."
http://www.killstar.eu/ss/med11.jpg

I will start uploading them and put links in the wiki as there completed. There is about 90+ models. I did the above 2 just today.

Hope you like them.

I was wondering if there is a "Need/Demand" for a character texture painting tutorial.

Here is an example, this took me about 15 min to paint in Blender. Super easy to do anyone can paint there characters as good or better.

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-FPFlrEtxyDM/Ui5w4O8I3uI/AAAAAAAAA6Y/ZgRUnlUd0BY/w960-h540-no/fighter.png

I can make tutorials for Blender, Mudbox and 3DCoat.

190

(19 replies, posted in Gossip)

VeganDev wrote:

It's just such a shame, that the blender community ( and obviously some devs) are such jerks wink

Such a shame...

18 years of harassment from the Autodesk community will do that to ya.

191

(19 replies, posted in Gossip)

VeganDev wrote:

Then why do schools use  max ( or maya) or why do almost ALL studios use maya/max for game development ???

Avoid schools that only teach a particular tool, avoid all VFX schools that teach using windows. Windows isnt used in the VFX industry thats a Linux and Mac dominated market. You will find far more schools advertising Maya than 3DsMax.

These are the tools used in the professional industry.

1. MARI
2. NukeX
3. Katana
4. Hiero
5. Maya
6. Mudbox
7. Houdini
8. Modo
9. 3DCoat
10. Realflow

In regards to Indie Game Development, Unity3D dominates this area and the most used 3D package in the Unity community is  Blender.

I didn't use any external image editing applications and I only used the TexDraw brush(It should be the default brush in texture paint mode) that comes with blender and I adjusted the "Radius(Size of Brush)" and "Strength"(How transparent the paint is) depending on what I was painting.

I used 4 different textures(images to paint with).
1. Dirt
2. Rock
3. Ground Clutter(Grass, Leafs, Twigs, ...)
4. Roots

It wasn't hard and didn't take long to do. You don't need to be an artist. Even if you cant draw a stick
figure you could still do just as good of a job if not better if you spent a bit more time on  it.

I will make a tutorial, might take a day or two because I like to take a pic for every step.

gamemaker wrote:

Can you elaborate, on how data from the johnflower site, can add 'detail' to a existing heightmap ?

The data from  johnflower seems to just be heightmaps ( which is the realworld data you refer to) ,so Im confused atm what you mean.

Also,and this isn't entirely fair to ask you ,,,Zester I think is away doing dev work on Ubuntu phone,so could you possibly elaborate on how he made/applied his terrain texture ? It has several  textures which wouldn't be ideal/easy for average person to deal with given faik, it mandates shaders,,did he possibly just texture the terrain inside a paint app and bring that uvmap back in or just update it.

That Rage terrain is pretty cool.

So while I was studying anael's rage terrain screenshot, I was completely stumped I had no clue on how they were generating that surface detail. I tried for days and couldn't get anything remotely comparable. And I knew that they were not modeling every detail by hand and even with shaders and there mega texturing system there was something particular going on in that terrain that I wasn't figuring into the problem.

Then it came to me ........ there using 16bit heightmaps.

Most of us are accustom to using 8bit heightmaps and wouldn't know a 16bit heightmap if it hit us in the face well no one would.
The additional coding in a 16bit heightmap is invisible to not only our eyes but your computer screen.

So I tried it out I loaded a 16bit height map I found online into blender and used a subdivided plane and a displacement modifier, the heightmap I used was of a small (1 square mile) section of New Zealand. At first it just looked like any other boring no detail terrain. Then I remembered what the guy on that johnflower site said about uping the poly count. So I subdivided until I had about
200,000 faces about what that rage terrain probably has. And you know what I started to see!!!!!! Roads, cracks in the earth, lots and lots of surface detail made that rage terrain look like some indie job!!!!



And anaels right my terrain was just a diffuse map painted in blender. Using the differant brushes and setting,s. Nothing special or even hard.

194

(17 replies, posted in Showcase)

A Spec Map is Black/Gray/White texture and white areas define the part of your model that will look shiny/wet.

Where as  "material" with specularity makes the whole object shiny.

See here for an example also most of the textures in the wiki will have a spec map.
http://forum.maratis3d.com/viewtopic.php?id=535

Specular  Texture
http://i45.tinypic.com/28k5yx3.png

Specular  Material
https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRrFz39CZsWVlmMqYO8jtrSvaBszouo1l-oDrLqiy-H0xCrA-S-8g

195

(17 replies, posted in Showcase)

Sure smile

1. Make your levels smaller and more detailed.
2. Have the insides of your building be a separate object from the out side, load and unload these part depending on if you inside or out.
3. Spend some more time practicing your modeling  and texturing.
4. Use Normal, Specular Maps
5. Bake some AO maps to layer over your diffuse textures.
6. Remove any extra faces(polys) from your models that will not be seen.

Your game looks cool and you have the character animation/game scripting down.  But its really slow on my intel gma 3000
and your models and textures need some more work.

Good Job

196

(0 replies, posted in Gossip)

I will be away for awhile, I got suckered into working on the ubuntu phone...

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTD3fxJ97OcMjcsEFxwBuTDSoU9TYIp6ooCJ4EH8vjwwSRtXJ-8cw

So if anyone needs anything, textures, models or whatever just send me a message, And I will see what I can do. Unfortunately the wiki is going to have to wait ;(

197

(4 replies, posted in General)

anael wrote:

yes, but I don't have a Android device to test,
and also not much free time, I hope a contributor will test it.

When you find the time document whatever info you have for maratis on android and I can
look into it, I have a few android devices.

Wrapscallion wrote:

have no problem doing this in paint.net. I'll show some paint.net stuff this weekend. smile ( including the automatic normal map generator)

That sounds like a great idea.

199

(35 replies, posted in News)

3dcat wrote:

a question, when Maratis publish this make a native OS binary executable (win, mac, IOS, linux) or make a pack of the project file with the maratis player for run?

It will publish a binary executable with you files packed, but in order to publish for mac/ios, windows and linux you have  to publish from that os.  It will not create a linux or mac executable from windows.

Wrapscallion wrote:

yeah....gonna need help with the blender import/export stuff, i know i can go to a blender tute site, but I need it in normal english, not linuxspeak. tongue things i know i'm gonna need help with....texture import in blender , importing a model in maratis , how would bones/rigging from a different modeler work in blender?

I can tell/show you in zester speak wink lol