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+---- Thread: First Project Help (/thread-19519.html)
First Project Help - OneFootBazooka - 12-11-2012
Alright so, I'm working on my first custom story and I'm recreating a house. I'm trying to put a lot of detail into it and need kitchen, bathroom, etc models. I've searched for about 3 days and found very minimal information and this is where I am at the moment. I got 3ds max with the OpenCollada plugin to export models as ".dae" format. When I try to import the mesh into ModelEditor, nothing shows up. I'm not sure what steps need to be done. Like I said, there is very minimal information (at least for a noob) on the steps needed to do this. I've looked up and down for videos on youtube but there's nothing. Any help would be appreciated.
Also, I did read a step by step procedure on the wiki but I can't go any further than exporting from 3ds max.
RE: First Project Help - WALP - 12-11-2012
How usefull my help is I cannot know since I am using blender,
But when creating a model for amnesia you will have to create a mesh obviously,
it must be uv unwrapped, and have the diffuse(color) texture it will be using applied to it, its important to make sure that the texture is in the right location from the start,since the exact location will be stored in the collada file, if you change it you will have to manually change the location by opening up the collada file with fx. notepad.
Before you can export though theres a few things you will need to make sure off, first of all you mesh should be triangulated before exporting, even if your export can do it for you its safer to do it yourself. second you need to turn on the option to display face normals where ever that is located in 3dsmax and check if all the normals are facing the right way, because it will be see through from the backside in amnesia even if you can see it from both sides in 3ds max.
Note: if you want a face to be visible from both sides in amnesia you will have to duplicate and have the duplicated face normal face the opposite direction of the original.
I dont know if this applies to 3ds max as well but before exporting its very important that you apply scale location and also rotation i think. otherwise it will be rescaled in amnesia.
When exporting make sure that you set the export to only the object you will be exporting, if your object is to be an entity(or using multiple textures) with multiple pieces also known as submeshes then make sure that they are seperate objects but still selected to be in the export. If your exporter does not have an option to select which objects should be exported make sure to delete everything but what you will be exporting, including cameras and lights.
its a good idea to keep your files in the same folder but its not impossible to use content from other folders, at least with textures.
TIP: Some people has had issues with having amnesia using the wrong files, because they had multiple mods installed that used the same name for some objects. this can be avoided by added an unique ending to the title, fx lets that your custom story/mod was named scary castle, then a good file extension would be _sc , so if made a chair it would be named chair_sc and not be mistaken for a chair from another mod or story.
When you have exported your object you should allways open it up in the modelviewer before anything else. Now if you done everything right then the modelviewer will automatically create a msh. file for your object and a mat. (material) file for every object/submesh your colladae contains.
If you have created a model that recycle textures from other models then you wont get a mat. file for it, and sometimes not even a msh. file.
Now your model is ready to be used as a static object, but if you want you can add normal ,specular, alpha and many other maps to your model by opening up you mat. file in the material editor.
You can also turn it into an interactable entity by editting it in the model editor, but know that this is some advanced stuff and a category for itself.
Hope this helps
I apoligize for any misspellings that might have occured.
RE: First Project Help - The chaser - 12-11-2012
Kitchen and Bathroom models can be found in Development resources and in Moddb/Amnesia/Add-ons.
Use imagination for that detailing!
RE: First Project Help - OneFootBazooka - 12-12-2012
martinnord, Thanks a lot for the detailed post! I'll try to learn the program and follow the steps as best I can and hopefully can get some results
and The chaser, I'll have to check it out thank you!