3dsmax Rendering Support Topic

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:49 am

I have a problem. Here I am doing the envelopes on the rigging process on the elite but I am having one problem. I am having trouble getting the right vertices for it shoulder. The elite has some armor that sticks up on his shoulder and I was wondering if I can get any tips on how to get the vertices of the elite's shoulder and not getting other vertices I don't want.

Thanks

-Doom

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:59 am

You didn't even state which modifier you're using.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:08 am

The Physique modifyer. I am doing the envelopes part for the elite and I am having trouble because a pice of his armor sticks up and I cant quite get it without selecting some vertices I don't want =P.

Thanks

-Doom

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:18 am

Use the Skin modifier.

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 3:21 am

Veegie wrote:Use the Skin modifier.

Ok thanks I will try that!

Thanks

-Doom

Tanasoo · Post by **Tanasoo** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 8:39 am

And also use the weight table, if you need help with that the user reference probably explains how to use it better than I can.

I end up doing just about all of the vertexes by hand with the weight table. It takes allot longer but the results are much better than with just envelopes. Also make sure to set all of the armor to 1.0 weight, you don't want metal deforming now do you?

benman08 · Post by **benman08** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:08 am

Using the skin modifier is the way to go for beginner riggers. And if you are using 3ds max 8, then you are given more ways to help your rig. In max 8 they upgraded the skin modifier a bunch giving more options to make your rig the best it can be.

trepdimeflou · Post by **trepdimeflou** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 9:19 am

Don't you mean Physique, not Skin? I'm pretty sure Physique is for beginners..

Chief Cow · Post by **Chief Cow** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:42 am

Veegie wrote:Under any channel, set a reflect/refract map

Then change the bullet to "from file"
Then asign each of the 6 directions to their corresponding files.

Is there anyway I can use a cube map with a raytrace material, since it is more accurate than the reflect/refract?
And how do I know which cube is front, back, etc?

trepdimeflou wrote:Don't you mean Physique, not Skin? I'm pretty sure Physique is for beginners..

Physique is for 3ds bipeds, skin is for custom bones/custom IK, or at least thats how I understand it

trepdimeflou · Post by **trepdimeflou** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 10:58 am

The only way to use a cubemap in 3dsmax is reflect / refract. The raytrace map type is strictly for raytraced reflection. If you use raytraced reflections, there is no need for a cubemap.

Skin / Physique work with any type of bone, wheter it is from Character Studio Biped, or from standard bones.

Chief Cow · Post by **Chief Cow** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 11:06 am

Oh, ok thanks alot that fixes alot of problems that ive been having.
But how do I know which order to put the cubes in????????

trepdimeflou · Post by **trepdimeflou** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 12:04 pm

On yayap.com, search for cubemaps. Me / Aequitas released them all in the Rendering section, and they are formatted to load correctly once you load the first one.

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 1:49 pm

One thing that pisses me off, is when you change a weight for a few vertices, then all of a sudden, they move themselves almost off the screen. Grrr

*hates weight table cleaning*

Tanasoo · Post by **Tanasoo** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:46 pm

Personally I don't see the need to use cube maps... Unless you are going for more of an in-game look rather than a "realistic" look. Cube maps are just a way to fake reflections so the game runs faster (from what I understand at least) I would just use ray-traces, then you don't have to worry about the order, and in my opinion they just plain look better.

The Skin mod is allot newer that the physique mod. Skin is also DEFANATLY easier to setup than physique, especially in Max 8.

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Sat Mar 25, 2006 2:53 pm

Cubemaps are better when you have no environement to render in, which is usually the case when working on materials.

Tanasoo · Post by **Tanasoo** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 12:55 pm

How do you extract the cubemaps? I have been looking in Ch2r but haven't found any...

trepdimeflou · Post by **trepdimeflou** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:49 pm

Here's how you can do it manually:

Code: Select all

Manually Extracting Cubemaps
by trepdimeflou

[Preliminary: Open up photoshop, create a 64x64 image, save it as a DXT1.dds.]
1) Open up your map in ADI.
2) Open the .bitm of the cubemap you want to extract.
3) Go to the "Raw Data Editor" panel, and click on the first submap of the bitmap.
4) Write down the offset number.
5) Open up your map in Hex Workshop.
6) Go to the offset you wrote down earlier.
7) go to Edit => Select  Block, type in B00 (Make sure its set for Hex, not Dec!), and press enter.
8) Open up the .dds you made earlier in hex workshop.
9) Go to offset 0x00000080, and click Edit => Paste. Click "Yes" when prompted.
10) Save this image as cubemap 1.dds.
11) To find the other images in the cubemap, we need to find their individual offsets for their raw data. To do this, simply add 0xB00 to the original offset you found five times for the other offsets. 
12) Repeat steps 9-10, saving the files to *namehere*.dds.

Orientation [as the cubemaps appear in raw]
1st: +X
2nd: -X
3rd: +Y
4th: -Y
5th: +Z
6th: -Z

Special Thanks to: Aequitas of TF6 for helping me out a great deal =D

Note, this only applies to the 64x64 cubemaps. For the higher ones you must find the other block sizes yourself.

Tural · Post by **Tural** » Mon Mar 27, 2006 1:49 pm

Publically, a guide on extracting Halo 2 cubemaps hasn't been released, some of us can do it, but there is no public application or tutorial for doing so.

Edit: Blasted trep. I see your tutorial, and raise you an application.

This application was all done with the help of Trep, who got the information from Aequitas. I just automated the hex.

If you downloaded that first application, delete it, it wasn't the final, here is the final:

Tanasoo · Post by **Tanasoo** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 1:56 am

Thanks for the tool, it works great!

I think I have gotten the cube maps in the right order (I think) this is the order I have:
3 = Up
4 = Down
2 = Left
1 = Right
6 = Front
5 = Back
The numbers are the DDS files ordered how they extract (1 = X+, 2 = X-) . Is that the correct order?

I modified the material on my chief model and now I have this:

Any comments appreciated.

Also, for the visor should I have the diffuse set to the main texture or just have it a color. Right now I have it as a color (95,51,0) I tried setting it to the texture, but it looked to silverish compared to the renders I have seen.

Veegie[Temp] · Post by **Veegie[Temp]** » Tue Mar 28, 2006 5:36 am

Specular level is wrong.