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Help... ;]

Posted: Tue Jul 27, 2010 8:49 am
by Unlimited
Can I help with creation of TA3D? I can create 3D models (in LightWave 3D), make little tests of them... Also, I can help with script engine and unit scripts (I know D, C, Lua programming languages, but i'm not good at C++...). I like TA and I wanna help :) (Sorry for my bad english...)

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 2:56 pm
by Balthazar
Not a problem, there are several people here who can create different units for TA3D.

What exactly do you want to know?

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 4:58 pm
by Unlimited
I exactly wanna know how I can help. :?: What I must do?

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 5:12 pm
by Balthazar
There are several thing you can look at:

For the start you can look here http://trac.ta3d.org/wiki/Modding

In a short way:
- create model in *.3ds format
- texture it with UV mapping

Use 3DMeditor to convert *.3ds to *.3dm
Change name of units to the one from the default ones and put in in /ta3d/objects3d/ folder.

You should be able to build it or spawn using console command (spawn player_ID number_of_units name_of_unit)

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Wed Jul 28, 2010 5:51 pm
by Unlimited
Can I use shaders, not only UV mapping?

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Fri Jul 30, 2010 3:21 pm
by Balthazar
Yep :P

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Sat Jul 31, 2010 12:19 pm
by zuzuf
Hi!

You can use several model formats:
  • 3DO - OTA's format, no UV-mapping, compatible with OTA (can use any GAF texture in TA3D, including 32bits ones)
  • 3DM - TA3D's own model format, supports UV-mapping, GLSL shaders and default animation (useful for map features, you can use it to simulate the wind in trees :) )
  • S3O - Spring's format, supports UV-mapping and easy player color mapping but no shaders and as opposed to Spring these models requires only multi-texturing support in TA3D :)
  • OBJ/MTL - you need to create special objects (bones) to link pieces you want to animate
  • 3DS - idem
You can find the list of files which have yet to be remade here : http://trac.ta3d.org/browser/trunk/src/ta3d/mods/ta3d
It should be almost up to date (it was done by a script but since we have several formats for textures, 3D models, etc... it gets a bit complex to update) but just in case check if the object you want to make isn't already in the repository.

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2010 6:10 pm
by Unlimited
Thank you, zuzuf :) . I wanna also ask, what is the maximum value of polygons in one unit of ta3d?

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Sun Aug 01, 2010 7:06 pm
by zuzuf
A unit is made of several pieces. Each piece can have up to 32768 polygons and up to 32768 vertices. You can have as many pieces as you want so there is no real limit, only the processing power available to render the unit and the RAM required to store it :P.
However, in order not to hurt performance too much I would advise not to use too much polygons (especially when they're not visible), by "too much" I mean don't use millions of polygons you would get thousands of polygons per pixel :P

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 5:29 pm
by Balthazar
Try to have less than 100-200 polygons per unit. Details can be obtained through texturing.

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Mon Aug 02, 2010 9:25 pm
by zuzuf
Now you can also take into account the average number of copies of a unit during a game. If it's designed to be unique then you can put more polygons on it. Adding more polygons will be more useful for FPS view or big zoom factor than default camera settings so it won't be lost anyway :P.

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Tue Aug 03, 2010 9:51 am
by Unlimited
Unique units in the game (battle) are commanders and krogoth, and also big bertha/intimiditator,nuclear missile silo (so I will create them :D )... I made Core Gaat, The Can and Punisher (but without texturing, cause I don't get Core Prime tileset for texturing yet). Now I'm working on creating HD Krogoth (quality as is KutlasS project 3D units...)

Re: Help... ;]

Posted: Fri Aug 13, 2010 8:41 pm
by DOT
zuzuf wrote:Each piece can have up to 32768 polygons and up to 32768 vertices. You can have as many pieces as you want so there is no real limit
Those Piece limit is really useless since it would be anyway then splitted
except on OBJ..