Blender Practice

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

RE: Blender Practice

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

@ Malk

Thanks for the confirmation. They seemed to look right, but I have always created basic normal maps. When you say... "Take a close look at the normal map or at the green channel only."... do you mean just to plug the green connector from the Texture Sample expression into the Normal input?

@ LPS

You're welcome. Hopefully they will work for you. I need to learn how to make better models and figure out how to texture them, but given the pack is coming to a close and the holidays, that learning time won't come soon enough.

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

I replied in a UDK thread today about modeling and I said to another forum member (since he said he used Blender) that it would be nice to have a "Blender group". For all of use who use Blender and either the UT 3/UDK editor. The idea would be the same thing we have in this thread, but hopefully more people?

There are 3 options on how you decide who can join.

Public - open to everyone. There is no restriction on who can join or who can post messages to it
Invite Only - require an invitation to be sent to join them. Invitations can only be sent by the group creator or forum moderators and administrators. Invitations are sent by clicking 'Pending & Invited Members' at the bottom of the page for that individual group
Moderated - open to everyone to join but messages need to be moderated before they will appear. They are moderated by the group creator and the site moderators and administrator

I am a little worried about the public option as people can join and maybe cause problems (griefers).

The invite only might make it hard for people to join, which leaves Moderated as the best option? Just to make sure people stay on topic.

Should I create this and if so, what option do think is best.

EDIT: I "pulled the trigger" and created the group and called it Unreal Blenderheads. leiterJakab sent me a PM (he was the guy in the thread) and said he would be interested.

I created it as a public group as it looks like you can change it later. Hope to see you guys there.

It will probably replace this thread as a means to communicate what we have learned in Blender. But if we get more people involved, that can only be a good thing? Time will tell.

-- Edited by Odedge on Wednesday 16th of November 2011 07:25:25 AM

-- Edited by Odedge on Wednesday 16th of November 2011 07:37:51 AM

Achernar · Amateur UT mapper

Sounds like a cool idea Odedge :)

I agree Moderated seem like the best idea but will take alot of work. Perhaps start as moderated and then a wait if its necessary - it may not be but best be sure.

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Odedge wrote:
@ Malk

Thanks for the confirmation. They seemed to look right, but I have always created basic normal maps. When you say... "Take a close look at the normal map or at the green channel only."... do you mean just to plug the green connector from the Texture Sample expression into the Normal input?

Actually I was talking about gimp or photoshop or any other 2d prog that allows you to watch the channels separately - sorry, just forgot to mention that.

I joined the Bledner group. Moderated sounds good to me, just to have the possibility to edit/delete posts in certain situations.

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

Ahh, I will try to look at a normal map in GIMP, just to understand it better. I wish they would release GIMP 2.8 soon!

I am going to keep the group public as I want it as easy to join and use as possible. If any troubles exist, I can change it to moderated.

We have 2 members now, looking for a 3rd and 4th member!

DarK · Checkmate mate.

Odedge wrote:
The following picture is more to practice the work flow/pipeline more than modeling techniques.
The mesh on the left is a bit more complex than the picture shows. The one on the right is extremely simple (with open faces where they connect). Each has 3 materials applied to them.
While having 3 materials isn't ideal, it may be needed for some meshes. The current ASE exporter now supports multiple materials (as stated before), but the specifics have changed a bit.
Also, when I was UV mapping the meshes, the textures weren't showing correctly in Blender. I finally figure out how to properly display multiple textures on 1 mesh. This way, I have a better idea how they will look once they get into the editor.

This looks sweet :)
Good job!

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Some of my latest blender models. Coming with LoD and Collision Meshes as well as LoD materials if needed. All models using tileable textures.

(Click for bigger image)

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Monday 30th of January 2012 12:00:06 PM

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Excellent M8!

If I get far enough with Legacy I'll be keen to use'em! :D
..thinking bout it I could use a wood material right now... (better go look for some)

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

I didn't expect that you guys like wooden objects so much but mentioning the asian themed meshes of UT3 it's quit obvious why you do so.
I am going to make more models anyway so I will put those wooden meshes into a package to share it with you.

Cheers.

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Monday 30th of January 2012 10:23:47 PM

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

You might find nice ones at cgtextures. I'm using tweaked wood textures from there, too - one for the bare wood and another one for the planks.

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Cheers for the info! biggrin

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

Lord_PorkSword wrote:
Excellent M8!

...+1, finally some nice non "asianthemed" wood meshes, way more polivalence on thoses to include em in a UTish map

stevelois · ...

@mAlkAv!An

I always loved stuff made of wood. Those assets are very nice :D

It would be cool indeed if we can have more of that kind of meshes for mapping :)

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

I'm also interested in those. Unreal uses wood boxes, treasure chests and barrels, if you could create some (like the barrel above) that would come in handy for LPS' and for my remake! They would be great as meshes for these destroyable objects, so could you also make some broken wood maybe? Just a small request but I think LPS and me could need them.

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Do you mean 2 versions of one object? Like a regular barrel and a broken one? Or just broken planks?

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Broken planks definately!
Stuff like broken barrel's can also come in handy for variety, if ya can be bothered making them.

stevelois · ...

Well, the more the better. It all depend if you want to make them :)

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

mAlkAv!An wrote:
...but mentioning the asian themed meshes of UT3 it's quit obvious why you do so.
...

??? not sure to understand what u re telling here confuse ...my english again probably wink

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

:)

1. I didn't think that you like those wooden meshes so much
2. After you talked about "asianthemed" wood meshes (in UT3), I knew why you like the 'regular' wood meshes.

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

lol^^ got it now

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Thanks for the suggestion odedge, I will take a look into prefabs. If you talk about mixing planks do you mean inside blender, so that each piece of fence is still a single mesh in UE3?

For now I use a base file with straight planks, already unwrapped. I put some of them together and give them an individual look by varying length/Thickness/rotation and adding irregularities like skewed caps or broken spots. Afterwards there is only some uv relaxing to be done.

This stone is supposed to be a millstone, like this one or this.

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Wednesday 1st of February 2012 10:03:48 AM

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

Very nice work there malk.

I really like the barrles and buckets. What is the stone thingie on the ground. Also, a small suggestion... to make the fence wood planks separate from each other, so you can mix and match as you need to. It's easy to create Prefabs anyways.

Keep up the great work and you might want to post this in Unreal Blenderheads, to help out the cause.

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

For the fence, create a couple different vertical posts and a few horizontal pieces of wood and let the level designer mix, match and scale. They can then create a prefab in the editor and duplicate them as a whole section.

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Do you know if a prefab is handled like a single static mesh in UE3? Because usually each sm will increase the number of draw calls (if not instanced, as far as i know).

In the end I will make multiple versions of the fence for more variation. That nesseccary because I want to use ao maps for the models.

-- Edited by mAlkAv!An on Thursday 2nd of February 2012 09:58:18 AM

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

mAlkAv!An wrote:
Do you know if a prefab is handled like a single static mesh in UE3? Because usually each sm will increase the number of draw calls (if not instanced, as far as i know).
In the end I will make multiple versions of the fence for more variation. That nesseccary because I want to use ao maps for the models.

I don't think so as it's really an easy way to duplicate existing meshes that are arranged a certain way.

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

More stuff...

@LPS/Sly I thought the wooden boxes on the left side might fit for the Unreal remake.

stevelois · ...

Wow, love those new SM :D

A "Wooden pack" would be awesome !

Everything fits well to a Unreal remake if you ask me hihi :)

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

I likey too. This would fit nicely in some "old world" type maps?

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

u re a pure SM-launcher Malk...impressive in time realisation & quality...

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

+1 to all the above!

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Blender 2.62 was just released and comes with nice features. I like espacially the new UV tools.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.62

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

mAlkAv!An wrote:
Blender 2.62 was just released and comes with nice features. I like espacially the new UV tools.

http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.62

I just got a RSS feed about this and will check out the new UV tools, which is the main area that Iwould like to see get improved.

stevelois · ...

I was watching a youtube vid yesterday about a level set in a dungeon & I thought of Malk awesome assets so we could build some old theme maps with them. I always love old theme maps.

Malk, I just wanted to mention for the second time that I love everything you've made so far :D

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

stevelois wrote:

Malk, I just wanted to mention for the second time that I love everything you've made so far :D

+ 1 TO THAT.....hm...except some yearz ago when u redarsed me under unknown names ....rofl^^

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Thanks for the nice words steve, and sorry blitz wink

Here's another model that I just made in Blender, a damaged/broken jersey concrete barrier.

(504 tris; concrete textures from cgtextures, 2048²px diffuse + normal map (for the screenshots); textured in photshop and mudbox; highpoly in mudbox; screen taken in UDK with static lighting, reference pic)

Lord_PorkSword · Connoisseur of Bourbon!

Very nice M8!

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

lol^^...i thought u own some magic hat

Odedge · Feedback-Master ..

Lord_PorkSword wrote:
Very nice M8!

Quote for truth. Did you happen to watch a certain Blender Cookie tutorial before doing this? wink

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

Lord_PorkSword wrote:
Very nice M8!

...+1... biggrin

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Odedge wrote:
Lord_PorkSword wrote:
Very nice M8!
Quote for truth. Did you happen to watch a certain Blender Cookie tutorial before doing this?

No I didn't but I just saw that it's looking very similar so your guess is obvious smile

I'm trying to make some models from scratch to improve my workflow for the whole process of content creation. The more you make the better you get.

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

Has anyone tried blender 2.63 (pre release) yet? There is a test build available here: http://download.blender.org/release/Blender2.63/

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

not yet...not yet.....hm....+.+......ROFL !

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

So, as I had (finally) a tiny little bit more sparetime I decided to get further into modelling but ran across a few issues, however, I don't want to mention too many things in public as I'm not sure whether I want to release the things I intend to create yet, as they shall be mainly for the purpose of practise and I don't intend to spark interest in something that's maybe not gonna see the light of the world if you get what I mean. Don't want people to get hyped about something that won't be released (yes, that means I will finish my maps ROFL! ).

It has mainly to do with exporting stuff, finding the right exporters (using 2.57) so I can import static meshes into UDK and UT3 and a few questions regarding UV mapping and animations.

I intend to use the experience to maybe create a few models for my U1HD project, maybe a Nali rabbit or a Manta (which I would share with LPS then of course), but also to gain experience at all as I have plans to get into the industry one day.

Should I post a private thread regarding that or do you think it would be better to do that via chat? I'm on xfire in case anybody would be willing and able to help me, you can find me in the UOF group. I'm still learning Blender, so don't be surprised what concerns the quality of the stuff I make and my rather poor knowledge.

-- Edited by Sly. on Friday 25th of May 2012 06:51:55 PM

Bl!tz · ...ǝp¡s ɹǝɥʇo ǝɥʇ uo

lol....feel free to do it the way u prefer mate, no probs to post a thread anyway....u re admin here... haha!

Achernar · Amateur UT mapper

Hey Sly, glad to hear your giving Blender a go. I don't mind helping out where I can.

If your just after a quick model, one can always try Blendswap and just do a conversion to ASE. Grab the latest Exporter See the tutorial here.

Odedge has created an index of tutorials worth checking out.

I'd have to say that Blender Cookie is an excellent place to start also, just do a search on their site your bound to find some good stuff there.

I keep an eye out if you have any specific queries.

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

Thanks for the links!
That's actually the ase-exporter I use, the problem though is that it doesn't work... no idea why. The previous version I had, v1.4 I think, just resulted in errors when trying to export, the current one I used which shall be "fixed", v2, can't be selected in the preferences. No idea why, I just can't tick the box.

-- Edited by Sly. on Saturday 26th of May 2012 06:57:02 PM

Achernar · Amateur UT mapper

Well I'm not sure but my first thoughts are:

-Remove a prior installation of Blender

-Make sure you have the most recent versions of blender and exporter ( 2.63a Blender & v2 exporter)

-When installing exporter make sure that the old script has been deselected and removed before installing the new one.

-If this fails does it also happen when installing other scripts? (Script catelog)

-If that fails try regressing to an older script. (however I think the recent script answers a compatibility issue with the new Blender(2.63a) so going back to the previous version of Blender and script also would be required).

Hopefully that helps somewhat?

-- Edited by Achernar on Saturday 26th of May 2012 11:14:21 PM

Sly. · Unreal Old Friend

I'll have to use the latest Blender then I guess, it said that it should also work now under 2.63a, but as the script always worked on 2.5-versions I assumed that would be the case, guess I seemed to be wrong. ^^' I'll report my observations in an hour or so. Thanks for your help!

mAlkAv!An · calculating Pi by hand

The tricky thing about the ase exporter is that you need to apply a material and any texture to your mesh. This is probably the most common error.