Posts by Wunderboy

Quote from Sentura

i've heard about this, the reason i didnt have it installed was because i heard alot of rumors about it making explorer crash? it might have been another shell extension (i dont know how many are out there)...

Well no-one has yet come to me and told me it makes explorer crash although someone did mention there was a problem with another all-in-one thumbnail extension not playing nice with it. I've tested this version as best I can and Valve got a preview copy of and reported no bugs using it internally.

Quote from Rick_D

now make an smd importer for max9 please

It's on my to-do list. I did start one but theres a lot of coding needed to make the SMD data "sane" and convert it from individual triangles to one continuous mesh.

I need to iron out a few bugs in the SMD exporter first and do a 64-bit version.

Already posted these in the random model thread but seems to make sense to put them in here too.

[Blocked Image: http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/7598/c471si2.th.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/6362/c472wn5.th.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/4026/c473pe2.th.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5752/dodargentan0012pe2.th.jpg]

Quote from dissonance

is there a way to hand-edit mipmaps? the model is fucking incredible, but degrades when viewed from the side, and that's depressing.

As stated already, that's down more to the rendering than the texture. You could try setting the anisotropic sampling flag in the VTF but I don't think it would help much.

I think maybe 90% of you who are creating or using VTF files are using this already, but for those who don't you might find it useful.

I've updated my VTF Shell Extensions to properly support Windows Vista as well as XP and W2k. The old version only worked on Vista 32-bit and only showed thumbnails. This new version works on 32-bit and 64-bit and fixes the details view not working. Also adds a natty little summary pop-up if you hover over a VTF file in Vista.

If you're using a previous version I strongly recommend you un-install them first before installing this version.

Full details, download link, etc here.

[Blocked Image: http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/1361/vtfthumbsvistati1.th.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/6522/vtfdetailsvistasp1.th.jpg]

Finally got around to finishing this:

[Blocked Image: http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/7598/c471si2.th.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/6362/c472wn5.th.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://img505.imageshack.us/img505/4026/c473pe2.th.jpg] [Blocked Image: http://img266.imageshack.us/img266/5752/dodargentan0012pe2.th.jpg]

1 x 1024x1024 (exterior)

1 x 1024x1024 normal+phong mask.

1 x 512x512 (interior)

7500 polys.

Quote from Zyndrome

Just popped into my head when I saw this : http://www.shatteredminds.net/skit/stalkerpipes.jpgPLUS I have a chronic mental disease, caused by older games that disliked too much polygons, so I tend to be like "oh my god it's over 3 digits of tris, I'm gonna kill myself"

You think you've got problems? I started out on computers with 3Mhz chips and 48k or RAM. I freak out when my hard disk has more than 20Mb of files on it

Are those the recruitment videos from Grin?

What seir said - add a Edit Poly modifier to the stack after the UVW Modifier and make sure you have "Preserve UV" turned on.

Warning: Don't uses spaces in your filenames. You should always use lowercase and use forward slashes "/". The reason is it screws up Linux servers that might end up running your content.

As for the origin, the model's origin is the same as Max's i.e if your making something to stand on the ground, make it so it stands on the floor plane of the grid. 0,0,0 in Max is 0,0,0 in the model world.

If you're making any kind of physics model, always move it so that the centre of the model is at 0,0,0 in Max. The reason is that any rotation is based on this point. I made the mistake of not doing this for a stick grenade model and it rolled around in a REALLY wierd way.

First of all, use "VertexLitGeneric" not "LightmappedGeneric".

Second, you need to add "$cdmaterials materials/luzcalle" so that the model knows where to look for the textures.

Basic rules for making textures are:

1) Although you assign a TGA/BMP/Whatever to you model when you export and compile, the model is looking for a VMT with that name, NOT a VTF.

2) You need to specify one or more $cdmaterials paths in your QC so the engine knows where to look for textures for the model.

3) Model VMT's should be in the folders specified by $cdmaterials.

4) Models use VertexLitGeneric as the shader type (except in some circumstatnces but thats for more advanced topics)

5) You need at least a $basetexure defined in your VMT which should point to a VTF texture. The paths assumes that it's under "materials" already so you should use something like "$basetexture "models/my_model/texturename". You DONT need the .vtf extension after the texture name.

If you're still getting purple/black chequers and you're lost, try my MDLTexture Info tool. You can drag a MDL file onto it and it will tell you which folders it's looking in for textures and what VMT files the model uses. It can be useful working out if everything is where it should be.

Anyone else seen this?

http://tv4.se/vgp

I just saw the advert for it. I might give it a go for a laugh.

Oh crap. I hope they don't change to much stuff internally so I don't have to keep re-writing my plug-ins

How many of you guys who use VTF textures for Source are doing stuff on Vista? And how many on Windows XP x64 or Vista x64?

I'm doing some updates to my VTF shell extensions - that plugin that lets you see VTF thumbnails in explorer - and I'm trying to make it fulling compatible with the new versions of Windows.

I've got both of the above OS's running under VMWare for testing and it works, but is anyone else using them as *real* installations and willing to act as beta testers?

We've just been discussing the idea of modelling some small diorama's to render our prop and player models in over at Ham and Jam.

I suppose that counts as both 3D and environmental modelling if you're interested.

We got a torrent yet?

Quote from R_Yell

Who needs an installer, release it into a filthy rar if needed

Screw that! PDF and make the fuggers type it in themselves!

Actually I did something similar with a 10k human model and a 65k detail model rendered as a normal. It turned out pretty nice actually in Source although obviously the edges can look a bit jaggy when viewed at certain angles. You need a pretty high-res normal map too or you get really blocky details though.

Visual Studio Express edition requires the Platform SDK to be installed too before you can compile anything just FYI.

Quote from Psycho

Good luck. I couldn't get my head around C++.

No-one ever believes me when I say this but it's true. I learnt C++ by looking at the source code of HLMV and typing just about every keyword into google to find out what the functions did.

I admit, I had years of previous programming language experience like Visual Basic, Z80 assembler and various C syntax scripting languages before I started but it was still "fun".

Quote from Zacker

Very interesting story there Wunderboy, stuff like that could really make me pick up the game.

What got me is how it parallels the Battle of the Atlantic in WWII where you have Britain fighting off the Germans, the US shipping supplies by sea and then the convoys being intercepted by u-boats.

Talk about history repeating in a different context.