Halo 2 Rendering

Dootuz · Post by **Dootuz** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 11:40 am

Nice tut. now i just need 3ds! lol

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:08 pm

Dalto11 wrote:that'd be awesome Tural, I have turf, and I was looking to extract the BSP myself. What about materials, are they nearly as hard to put into a BSP as they are on the MC

They're the same basic thing, just finding out which model gets what shader is the only tricky part.

Tural that scenery BSP script sounds wonderful.

:)

birdman · Post by **birdman** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 1:58 pm

lol nevermind....i search for a hour...then write here, as soon i write i am able to figure it out myself .............sorry for bein a NooB........

DWells55 · Post by **DWells55** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:04 pm

I used the updated model extractor and didn't have any holes in my model. Did I still need to do the part with the welding the verts, attaching everything, and unifying the faces?

Also, when I render the plain gray MC, I can barely see anything in the render. Do I need to set up a light or something to make it look like the pictures? Any plans for a tutorial on lighting?

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 2:35 pm

I have the clean Scenery BSP scripts batch extracted from my maps, but I don't know of any way to have a Maxscript use a specific material library. (In fact, I can't get it to use one at all) So for now, you'd have to manually apply materials based on guessing which material goes on which mesh. I'm also manually working on some rotation coordinates of some main pieces (Coag base supports, trees, Headlong light poles, etc). I'll post whatever I finish tonight or tomorrow (I'd put my money on tomorrow)

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Thu Apr 05, 2007 6:25 pm

I guessed with Lockout and Turf's shaders, is there a better way to do it?

TelTura · Post by **TelTura** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:18 am

DWells55 wrote:I used the updated model extractor and didn't have any holes in my model. Did I still need to do the part with the welding the verts, attaching everything, and unifying the faces?

you only need to weld and so on if you plan on actually rigging and using the model...it is considerably easier to skin and rig one big mesh than five separate, unconnected ones. also, it shades better to rig it...watch out for unify, though, if you don't see any flipped polys, don't mess with it.

Also, when I render the plain gray MC, I can barely see anything in the render. Do I need to set up a light or something to make it look like the pictures? Any plans for a tutorial on lighting?

first, change the background from (I assume) the default black to something else...I usually use a deep blue or red, depending on the object. Go to Rendering>environment and change the background color.

as for a simple light setup, it's easy to do. just add a skylight with intensity of <.5, and set up a few omnis, perhaps one straight in front of the Chief, and one at 45 degrees to either side, all about a meter or more away from him. then make one or two behind him...but make sure all your omnis are instances of one another. make their intensity <.3, depending on how many you have, and enable shadow maps. play with the intensitys, distances and so forth....but also be sure to make your "imitation" light setup mimic what you plan to use for "real" renders....if you'll be having only nighttime scenes, then be sure to make it dimmer than normal. I leave the color at default blaring deer-eye-white, but some people don't agree with that decision...but when first building materials, I prefer not tuning everything a certain way, then discovering the color was off because my light was green.

heh, obviously this results in less-than-game-exact shading...

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:19 am

Jordan: If you manually import the .obj files you can use the "Use Material" box of the import settings window, but when I import the files through a Maxscript it doesn't use that.

Jordan · Post by **Jordan** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 8:11 am

Thanks, Tural.

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:13 am

Alright, here's three scripts, Coagulation, Headlong, and Lockout.
Note: I didn't bother with every little piece's rotation, but I believe I've covered most, if not all, of the most important ones.

In Entity, select the [sbsp] tag of your map and click the blue circle in the top right, choose "Export Mesh to OBJ" (Note: Singular, not multiple)
Find wherever you want to save it and name it something like "mapnamebsp.obj"
Now go back to Entity and and click the blue circle, this time choosing "Export Meshes to .OBJs" and choose a folder to save them to.
In that folder you'll now see several files named "mapname-Permutation[#]" - These are the important pieces, you do not need any of the others (Don't accidentally delete your single BSP mesh)
Place my script for the correct map in the same folder as these Permutation files
Open 3ds and make sure you don't have any meshes named "default" - If you have the BSP mesh imported, make sure it is centered at the origin (0, 0, 0)
Go to the "Maxscript" section of the menu, choose "Run Maxscript"
Navigate to where ever you put the Maxscript and meshes, and run the script.
When it finishes, you should have every Scenery BSP mesh correctly placed (Many correctly rotated) and named as they are named in the map files.

If there's any problems, let me know and I'll see if I can troubleshoot it.

Darco · Post by **Darco** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:19 am

thanks Tural.

antszy101 · Post by **antszy101** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:20 am

I <3 YOU
In a completely non homo. way of course...
Ill d/l later cus im going to the CC

h0pe · Post by **h0pe** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:03 am

Every time I try to open the lockout.map file in entity I get this message...

"MainMenu - Map Not Found, Set Map path"

What does that mean? BTW, I have mainmenu.map, lockout.map, and shared.map in the same folder if that helps any...

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 11:32 am

I updated the scripts, Alliance pointed out that I had uploaded the old ones and they weren't functioning properly. To the two who downloaded them, please redownload.

DWells55 · Post by **DWells55** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:16 pm

I'm confused here, what was the point of exporting the single Mesh? Is it being saved to the same folder that we save the Meshes to in the next step?

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 12:23 pm

The single mesh is the core BSP without the Scenery. It doesn't matter where you save it, I'd say put it somewhere else so as not to overwrite the material library.

birdman · Post by **birdman** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 2:53 pm

Why does my Entity program look different than the one on the TUTS? This picture is taken with the mainmenu.map allready loaded.

thanks again

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 2:57 pm

Maximize.

Darco · Post by **Darco** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 3:00 pm

because i used an older version of entity when i took pics for getting stuff. however, everything is in the exact same place...

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Fri Apr 06, 2007 4:03 pm

Ok guys, I had another code problem (KKC found this one), I had inadvertently had the program not writing the last chunk. Fixed now, the final version of those three scripts are up.