Okay, so I'm going to start adding mini tutorials to this thread, showing the basic sequence of events I go through when I make a character. I don't know how many steps there'll be, but I figured it was better to upload them as I get through them, instead of waiting til the end to post them all. I wanted to get your first thoughts on it, so I can clear things up for the tutorial forum.

Anyway, so..

STEP ONE - PREPARATION!

First things first: If you're modelling anything without reference material, stop it right now! Just about every artist in every medium uses some sort of reference, be it prelimenary sketches, blueprints, even those little wooden mannequins you can move into sex positions. It's very easy to use references with 3D graphics, so if you've got into the habit of just opening up Max and modelling blind, get out of it as soon as possible.

The first thing you should do is draw up what you want to model, as a template to work over later.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/nightgoblintemplate.jpg

Since I'm making a humanoid, I drew him in the universal position from the front and the side. Note that I tried to keep the proportions equal in both pictures, so that the body parts line up. Essentially, you want this picture to be a schematic of your character. Also note that it doesn't have to be a GOOD picture, nor does it even have to be complete. There was no point drawing a second arm, when I can just make one in Max and copy it.

The next step is to get that picture into Max to use as a template.

In Max, Create a Plane

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut1.jpg

and drag it out in the Front viewport. Since we're doing this for Civ, line the Plane up so the bottom touches 0 on the X co-ordinate (the thick black horizontal line on the grid) and the middle of the Plane is at 0 on the Y co-ordinate (the thick black vertical line) like so:

With the Plane selected, switch over to the Modify tab and click the pull down Modifier List menu. Find the "UVW Map" and select it.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut3.jpg

This allows you to project an image onto your plane, which we'll do in a second, but first we need to tweak it a tiny bit.

On the right hand side, with the UVW Map modifier still selected, scroll down and click the Bitmap Fit button. This basically tells Max to fit the modifier to a graphic file of your choosing.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut4.jpg

You'll be asked to pick a 'bitmap' (really it's any image file, it doesn't have to be a .bmp file), so go and find the template you drew earlier, and select it. Now we need to actually apply the image to the plane, so open the Material Editor (just press the M key on your keyboard) and click on this little button:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut5.jpg

It'll ask you to pick a Material, so pick Bitmap right at the top, and find the template picture you drew. You'll see the picture appear wrapped around the sphere in the Material Editor. Click and drag that picture onto the plane in your scene and it will apply it. However, you probably won't be able to see it, because the Material isn't set up for it, so we click this little button:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut6.jpg

This changes the Material to make it show up in your scene. You should be able to see it applied to the plane now. If you still can't see it in your Front viewport, you might need to change the viewing options to Smooth & Highlights. Right click on the viewport name in the top left corner, and select Smooth & Highlight.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut12.jpg

The picture should now show in your Front viewport. However, it probably won't be centred, and we need it to be, so there's still more tweaking to do!

In the Modifier Stack, which is the list on the right side of all the modifiers you've applied, expand the UVW Map modifier and click on Gizmo.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut7.jpg

The Gizmo is a little device which controls the exact placement of the UVW Map. When you click it, you should notice a little yellow box appear on the Plane, with a green line on one edge. Click the Move tool and move your Gizmo over so that the Goblin (or whatever you're modelling) is centred, like so:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut8.jpg

Note that I also moved it down so that his feet actually lie on the 0 co-ordinate.

That's the end of tweaking the UVW Map, but now we need the side view too. Luckily, we don't have to go through all that hard work again, because we can just copy the existing plane, including all its modifiers.

Press Control + V on your keyboard and you'll instantly Clone the selected object. We now have two Planes, but we need to turn the cloned one to a right angle. So, in the Top viewport, with the new Plane selected, right click on the Rotate tool. You'll get a little dialogue box with 6 options. In Absolute:World, in the Z box, type -90 and press enter. You'll see the Plane turn, so the two Planes look something like this:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut9.jpg

Note, I moved the new plane over to the side a little, so the two Planes form a T shape instead of a + shape, but that's really just personal preference. If the side-on picture of your character isn't centred in the new Plane, then just go to the Gizmo like we did before and move it to the side. You should get the idea from the above picture.

And then you're done with the Planes! Theoretically, you could just leave it there and start modelling your character, but you'll probably regret it in the long run as it can be hard to make out details, and the texture can warp slightly as you move around in 3D. It pays to take a few more steps and make life much easier in the end, so on we go.

Click back to the Create tab, and click the Shapes button to see the below set of objects. Pick Line.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut11.jpg

Now you simply start to draw lines around your templates in the Front and Side viewports, sketching out the details with Lines as if you were tracing it on paper. Keep going until you've drawn many lines all over it to form the picture, as shown below. If you find that you've started drawing a line and suddenly you're at the edge of the screen and have no way of scrolling over ot keep drawing, simply press the I key on your keyboard. That will centre the viewport on your cursor, wherever it is. That way you can keep drawing lines without needing to stop,close the line, scroll and then start again. Great timesaver! Also, at any point you can right-click on the viewport name and change back to Wireframe so that it's easier to see which lines you have.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut13.jpg

When you have all the lines for both side and front views completed, you can delete the Planes because we don't need them anymore. But they're still an inconvenient jumble of lines, so let's put them together.

In the Front viewport, right click on any of the Lines and select Convert To: Editable Spline.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut14.jpg

Once that's done, you can scroll down on the right side to the Attach option. Click that.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut15.jpg

Now click on all the other lines in the Front viewport. You'll slowly attach them all together into one big super Line! Be carefuly not to select any of the Lines that make up the side view, though, as you want the two to be separate.

When that's done, go to the side viewport and repeat the process, attaching all those Lines together. You should end up with two Lines, one is the front view of your character and the other is the side view:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut16.jpg

Again, I moved them apart because I prefer it that way, but you get the idea.

And that's the end of this first section of the tutorial. Now that we have those two templates properly adapted into Max, we can use them to make life much easier when we start to create our character, which I'll go into in the next step.

This is to good to be in a private forum. You should move this out to the how to forum.

This is to good to be in a private forum. You should move this out to the how to forum.

You think I should do that already? As I said in the opening paragraph, I was planning on getting feedback first. I figured some parts might be confusing or not compatible with older versions of Max, and that I should run it by the guys here first. Also, I thought it'd make more sense to put them in the Tutorial forum when the whole thing is done, instead of in pieces. But I'll just copy it over if people think it's better that way?

First of all, awesome! :goodjob:

Second, I don't see anything wrong with putting a rough draft here first. Though there's probably no need to finish the whole thing first, since it might be very big, but depending on the parts you might be able to combine them into "lessons" before publishing on public forums.

In any case, I'm gonna go over each as you publish and give you feedback.

I must say, I still haven't gone over this first part (gonna do that tomorrow) but I find it interesting that you converted the sketch into max splines to use as reference (if I understand correctly from the quick overview I did). This is definitely not something I ever read in any tutorial (they always go straight from a sketch (on a plane) to building the thing). Anyway, it kinda makes more sense really :) and I'm curious to see how it'll affect the process later on.

If you want I can move this thread to the tutorials, just tell me;)
Edit: that means I believe I can since I got thread tools to move a thread but never used them before.
Edit: no I can't seems I can only move threads if I started them, nevermind. You will have to copy that yourself if you want that tutorial public.

PART 2 - BASIC MODELLING!

Okay, so in this tutorial I'm going to try and show some of the basic modelling techniques that I use. Please bear in mind that this is only one of many possible techniques, and is by no means the One True Path To 3D Zen. It's just the one that a lot of people prefer.

Oh, one thing, hopefully you'll all understand the screenshots. After posting the last tutorial I found out you're only allowed 15 pictures per post, so I'm trying to combine multiple things into each screenshot, so possibly they'll get a bit jumbled.

Anyway, so we pick up right after the end of the last tutorial. The next thing to do is start actually modelling. My preferred method of starting out an organic character is with 'splines'. Which are basically just 3D lines, like the ones we traced around the character. So go to Create, and Shapes, just like before, but this time click on Circle. Then, in the Front viewport, create a Circle at your templates waist. Using both the Left and Front viewports, rotate it and scale it so that it fits the template from both views.

http://static.flickr.com/73/212344487_2314830a5d_o.jpg

When you're comfortable with the placement, hold down the shift key and move the Circle halfway up the character's body. This will Clone the Circle. Again, scale it and rotate it if you need to, to make it fit both the front and side templates. Once more, hold shift and move the Circle to clone it up around the shoulders of the character. You should end up with something like this:

http://static.flickr.com/65/212344489_85bf795329_o.jpg

Now that we have all three Circles, we're going to attach them together. Just convert one to an Editable Spline like we did before, and use the Attach button to make them into one object. However, make sure you start at one end and attach, in order, to the other end. If you attach them out of order, you'll get very weird results when you do the next step, so make sure you don't!

After they're connected into one object, we're going to apply the Cross Section modifier. Find it in the list and select it, and use the Linear setting. This lovely little modifier will connect up all three circles into a kind of cage shape. The more eagle-eyed readers will already be able to see the character coming to shape!

http://static.flickr.com/63/212344490_10128c209d_o.jpg

Next, we apply another modifier called Surface. Find that and apply it. This modifier, as the name suggests, creates a surface of polygons all across the cage. However, by default it probably creates way too many polygons, so on the right hand side, lower the Steps to 1. Also, make sure Remove Interior Patches is ticked. As for Flip Normals, that just depends on your scene. Depending on the order you joined the Circles together, you'll either end up with a normal mesh, or you'll have one that's inside out. Just take a look at it and you should be able to work it out. If it's inside out, tick the Flip Normals box, and it'll look right again.

http://static.flickr.com/66/212344491_bb51fd32ca_o.jpg

Now we have a base for our modelling, we're going to convert it to an Editable Mesh. Right click the body and select Convert to Editable Mesh (obviously!). While we're at it, right click it again and select Properties. In the box that pops up, in the Display Properties section, un-tick "Edges Only". This will let you see all the little lines on your model, instead of just some of them. It's almost impossible to model without being able to see all the lines, so get used to doing this.

http://static.flickr.com/86/212344492_236a62c168_o.jpg

Now that we have an Editable Mesh, I'm going to run you through each of the editing 'modes', as we keep working on the model.

First up, Vertex mode!

Select Vertex from the right hand menu, and you'll see a blue dot on every vertex. Make sure Ignore Backfacing is turned off here. When Ignore Backfacing is turned on, you will only be able to select parts of the model that are facing you, whereas if you turn it off, you'll find yourself selecting parts of the model on the opposite side of the model. There are times where each come in handy. For now, make sure it's turned off, and select the row of vertices shown in the screenshot below. They don't need any adjusting in the Front viewport, but in the Left viewport, scale them in slightly and rotate the whole row to fit the template.

http://static.flickr.com/84/212344493_29ad3a4347_o.jpg

While we're in Vertex mode, I'll also show you one of the other major tricks. If you look at the screenshot below, you'll notice that we really don't need the vertex I've selected on the left. So, select the Target button from the Weld section of the right-hand menu, and click and drag that vertex down on top of the one below it. This will weld the two vertices together, which is probably going to be your number one way of reducing detail on your model.

http://static.flickr.com/70/212345040_9ff2c8f8c3_o.jpg

Note, you might also realise I've moved one of the vertices at the top of the character's back. Feel free to do the same.

Next, Line mode!

Switch to Line mode on the menu, then click the Turn button. Unsurprisingly, this will turn any line you click, so do that to the two lines I've selected in the screenshot below, so they run from the front of the model to the back, rather than across it. Note that I've turned Ignore Backfacing on now, because I don't want to accidentally turn lines that are on the other side of the model.

http://static.flickr.com/62/212345041_b6ac372845_o.jpg

The reason we're turning these is because we want the model to be symmetrical. You'll see why soon. I'll also show you how to Divide lines later.

First though, we move onto Face mode!

Pick Faces on the menu, and with Ignore Backfacing turned off, simply select the entire right hand side of the model and press the delete key. Yep, just delete that whole side. This is why we wanted the model to be symmetrical. It just doesn't make sense to double our workload by making changes to both sides of the character, so instead we'll just copy the side we're working on. This is also why I only drew one arm on the original template. While we're still in Face mode, move your view around so you can see the bottom of the model, select all the faces on the bottom, and delete them. You should end up with an open hole going up inside the body.

http://static.flickr.com/97/212345042_9e090b35b8_o.jpg

Before we copy the side we're working on, it makes sense to build it up a little bit first. So go back to Create and pick Circle again, and start making another spline cage like we did before (using Cross Section and Surface modifiers), only this time do it for the lower half of the character.

http://static.flickr.com/95/212345043_88d5eb5462_o.jpg

Just as we did before, convert the objects to Editable Meshes and move/scale/rotate the vertices to fit the template. As you can see in the screenshot below, I've adjusted both the robes and the arm to be somewhat similar to the template. They don't have to be perfect, of course. There's plenty of time for finetuning later. Again, select all the faces on top of the robes and delete them, so there's an open hole going down into the robes. Do the same for both ends of the arm, so that it's kind of like a hollow tube.

http://static.flickr.com/69/212345044_b4f949f525_o.jpg

Attach all three sections together to form one object. Don't worry about the seams between the sections just yet. We'll get to those. When you've attached them, click the Mirror button on the toolbar across the top of the screen. A window will pop up, and you want to choose Instance. If you pick No Copy, you'll just flip the object horizontally, and if you pick Copy you'll simply create a second copy of the object. However, if you pick Instance, then you create a copy which is constantly updated. Every change you make to one side will be mirrored on the other side. This means half as much work for you!

http://static.flickr.com/61/212345045_7bce527347_o.jpg

Note, you may find that when you create the copy, it moved way off to the side for no particular reason. If so, either use the Offset option like I did in the screenshot, or simply click OK and then move it yourself. So long as they line back up as close as possible, it's ok.

Now we need to fix those ugly gaps in our model. Remember how we welded vertices before with the Target weld button? Well, we could do that all the way around, but this is a good opportunity to show you the other type of weld, which is Selected.

Change to Vertex mode and select two vertices on either side of a seam in the model. I've chosen two at the waist of the character. Make sure they're on opposite sides of the seam, in case that isn't clear in the picture. This process is a lot like sewing up a tear in some fabric.

With both vertices selected, use the Scale tool to scale them as close together as possible. They might move slowly, so just scale scale scale scale scale. Then, when you think they're very close together, scroll down the menu to the Weld section, and click the Selected button. If the vertices are close enough together, they'll weld into one. If they're not close enough together, you'll get a message saying that "no vertices were within the weld threshold". If so, just scale them closer together, or gradually increase the threshold (the number to the right of the Selected button) until they weld together.

http://static.flickr.com/64/212406684_06e1292d1f_o.jpg

This is a handy tool in many situations, so use it to go around the whole waist and weld the seam shut. Don't bother doing the arm and shoulder yet, though. They don't match up properly yet and welding them as they are would be disastrous, so just leave it unattached until later.

I've covered most of the basics now, but I'll just show you a few more tricks that modellers use. I promised I'd show you how to Divide lines, so I'll do that now.

In Line mode, click the Divide button from the menu and click on the line you want to Divide. It's that simple! Doing so will add a vertex, thereby dividing the line in half and adding two polygons. In the screenshot below you can see the line I chose on the character's waist (on the left). And then at the top right of the picture, you can see what it looks like after I've divided it. Notice that in doing so I've ended up with a line that looks a bit out of place, so I'm going to Turn it (as shown in the bottom right of the screenshot). Doing this keeps the model tidy, which is much more important than you might think, especially when it comes to texturing and animating the character. Any time you add detail to your model like this, check it to see if any new lines need turning.

http://static.flickr.com/67/212345256_ba7b191a65_o.jpg

Carry on dividing the lines at the waist, like I've done in the next screenshot, and then turn the lines to the right position. Continue like that around the back of the model and before you know it, you've made room for a belt!

http://static.flickr.com/94/212348618_3e028ac349_o.jpg

Using Divide and Turn is the absolute best way of adding detail to your mesh, and you'll use it all the time. You have tons of control over the model that way, and it makes the process much more akin to sculpting, which is how it should be.

That's it for this lesson! I'll carry on with the model next time. I know it doesn't look like much yet, but hopefully once we get some more detail it'll come together. Let me know what you thought of all this, too!

This is absolutely wonderful neener!! You're my new hero! :worship:
i have learnt SOOO much in these 2 tutorials. (i would also like to ask: could you do a skinning tutorial in detail like these? i tried to follow duke's, but i got lost on the last step :sad:, the flattened mapping thing was really confusing)

I assume you could apply these tutorials to buildings also.

This is absolutely wonderful neener!! You're my new hero! :worship:
i have learnt SOOO much in these 2 tutorials.

Cool! Glad to hear they're proving useful :)

(i would also like to ask: could you do a skinning tutorial in detail like these? i tried to follow duke's, but i got lost on the last step :sad:, the flattened mapping thing was really confusing)

Yep, that's going to be part of the process. Skinning and Animating come after the Modelling. I'm still not entirely sure what I'll do with Animating, because it's by far my weakest area.

I assume you could apply these tutorials to buildings also.

Yeah, most of it definitely. The spline cage stuff is better suited to organic modelling because it fits the curves better. For buildings (or, at least, human buildings) most people would probably use box modelling, which I'll try and do more of in the next tutorial.

Thanks neener. I don't have access to max (at work) so I can't put this to use, but I'm going to print it out!

I've never done any Spline modeling so this is going to be quite a learning tool! This is awesome.

Not to be a complete fanboy :p, but this is 20 pages of exactly what I needed! Nothing online or in any books I've read even comes close.

I have it c/p into a Word file if anyone wants it.

Thanks god for my color printer at work. ;)

wow, that looks quiete nice :) i think we can expect some really great models soon. and perhaps with this woodelf will be soon lvl 6 or 7 or 8 :) how long do you take for a model like that goblin, and howlong does t take to draw that sketch?! (doyou do that with photoshop or what tool do you use?!)

(now we got some really good programmers and a really good artist, i think in the near future i will become quiete obsolet...)

Not to be a complete fanboy :p, but this is 20 pages of exactly what I needed! Nothing online or in any books I've read even comes close.

Thanks for the kind words! :blush:

I have it c/p into a Word file if anyone wants it.

Ooh, that's a good idea actually. Maybe when I've finished them all, you can do that for me, so people have the option of which format they prefer.

how long do you take for a model like that goblin, and howlong does t take to draw that sketch?! (doyou do that with photoshop or what tool do you use?!)

If I did the model properly, in work conditions, it would probably take me a few hours to finish. However, I never do it in work conditions, I sit here watching TV, reading websites, talking to my girlfriend, stopping to take the dog for a walk or to cook, etc etc, so in the end it takes me a whole day, usually. As for the sketch, it took me a few hours under the same sort of conditions. It's a pretty rough sketch, it's just blobs of paint with very little detail. You can see how lazy I got with the side view, especially the lower robes and feet. Oh, and yes, it's in Photoshop.

(now we got some really good programmers and a really good artist, i think in the near future i will become quiete obsolet...)

No way, dude! You're like the NIFViewer kung fu master. As I've said before, I don't know the exact plans for this mod, but I've always thought it would be cool for each race to have almost all of the units they can have in the real Warhammer game. For that to happen, we're going to need some NIFViewer creativity! :)

wow, that looks quiete nice :) i think we can expect some really great models soon. and perhaps with this woodelf will be soon lvl 6 or 7 or 8 :) how long do you take for a model like that goblin, and howlong does t take to draw that sketch?! (doyou do that with photoshop or what tool do you use?!)

(now we got some really good programmers and a really good artist, i think in the near future i will become quiete obsolet...)
Ditto here :cry:

On the plus side, maybe I'll get a chance to play a game of civ4 or two :D

I thought you had Max, Rabbit? How could you be obsolete?!

No way nifviewer and skinners ever become obsolete. Once this tutorial comes out everyone will pass me on noob lvl3. :D

No way nifviewer and skinners ever become obsolete. Once this tutorial comes out everyone will pass me on noob lvl3. :D

What the? Hey, did I miss the vote for making you noob lvl3?

Well, looks like you made it without me anyway :P

It was a private ballot. ;)

If I ever animate something we can have a public vote.

ok, thats cool... cant wait to see something finished from you, and you know with nifviewer it is enough if you create some more diverse heads and armorparts / weapons ;) i can switch it... what i really need is a humanoid model, like the scout from civ4 but without backpack and without skirt, so an ancient model that wears only trousers... actually we dont have this yet :)

Here we go again! Since nobody has asked me to clarify anything in the tutorials yet, I'm probably going to try and speed things up a bit and skip some of the screenshots that just repeat things from earlier.

Part 3 - More Modelling!

Okay, so I mentioned that we'd connect the arm later, and now seems like a good time to do that.

Move round to the back of the character and grab the two vertices shown in the picture. Use the Move tool to pull them closer to the arm, and bring them up a little too. In real life, your body isn't really cylindrical, as your back is much flatter than your chest, so it makes sense to do the same with your model.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut32.jpg

Using the Divide Line technique I mentioned in the previous tutorial, try to go around the area of the body where the arm will connect up, and add vertices to create a kind of 'socket' for the arm to connect with. You can kind of see what I mean in the screenshot below. Notice how I've moved vertices, and added new ones, to line up with the arm.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut33.jpg

Select the faces I did in the picture and delete them. The arm is going to connect up there so we don't need them. Go ahead and attach the arm, and weld the seam shut like we did before.

Now to give our little goblin some hands. First of all, take a look at the wrist. There's no way we need all those vertices all the way around, so let's reduce some of the detail. At the moment, we have 8 vertices around the wrist, and we only really need 4. Weld them into 4 vertices like I have done below.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut34.jpg

So now we're going to make the hands. Since there's no reason to animate the opening or closing of hands in Civ, we're just going to model them as clenched fists. It's easier, and saves us a bunch of polygons too.

Hopefully the image below will make sense as I explain it. First of all, with the open lines of the wrist selected, hold down the Shift key and move them over (in the Front viewport, ideally). This will extend the mesh as you can see in the second part of the picture. Now, because we don't want his hands to look like pegs, we're going to rotate the open line 45 degrees so that it's more of a square shape, as opposed to a 'diamond' shape. Again, you can see this in the third part of the picture. Unfortunately, doing that has given us a bunch of really messy lines which we need to sort out. So move around the wrist area and turn the lines as you can see in the fourth part of the picture. Next, hold down the Shift key again and move the open edges a little further on, before scaling them down slightly, as shown in the final part of the picture. Feel free to tweak the vertices slightly to get them into a shape that looks roughly like a hand.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut35.jpg

And now I show you another little trick! We obviously have an open hole at the end of our hand, which we need to fix. So we're going to just create some faces out of thin air.

In Face mode, click the Create button. This will show you all the vertices on the model. By clicking on three vertices in succession, you'll create a face between them. So click on the vertices I showed in the picture below. Now, it's important that you do them counter-clockwise, in the order I do them. If you click the vertices clockwise, then the face will end up facing the other direction, towards the inside of the model. Create another face to fill in what's left of the hole.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut36.jpg

Our goblin might have some hands, but he still doesn't have a head, so let's try and fix that now.

I was tempted to try and model it using spline cages, but I decided it was a little too oddly-shaped for it to work, so instead I'll show you how to use basic shapes to your advantage.

Go to the Create menu, and click on GeoSphere. Make sure you select the "Octa" geodesic type, and lower the Segments to 3. The reason we're using Octa is because it uses far fewer polygons to achieve roughly the same shape. Using the Icosa type would give us a sphere of about 160 polygons, while the Octa type is only around 70.

Drag the GeoSphere out to roughly the shape of the head in the template.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut37.jpg

Convert it to an Editable Mesh and, in the side viewport, drag the vertices at the front and back of the sphere to where we want them to be in order to make the face. You can also delete the right hand side of the geosphere if you want, since the face is going to be symmetrical like the rest of the model.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut38.jpg

You can see the face starting to take shape, but he definitely needs a nose. Divide the line at the front of the sphere and drag the vertex out to the tip of the template's nose, like I have done in the first part of the picture below.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut39.jpg

Next, divide and turn the lines I've pointed out above in the side viewport, and then divide the next line/move the vertex in the front viewport, as you can see in the previous picture. I can't think of a better way to explain it than with that picture, so hopefully you can make sense of it. You should end up with a proper-looking nose.

Keep dragging vertices around to fit your template, like I did below. Also note that I've lined up the bottom of the sphere with the top of the body mesh, and then attached them together.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut40.jpg

So far our entire model is still only about 570 polygons, which is ridiculously low, so let's start adding some detail, starting with the hood.

In Face mode, select the faces I have in the picture below. Scroll down the menu to the Extrude section, and click and hold on the little up arrow, and drag the mouse up a little bit. If you keep the mouse button held down, and you drag the cursor up a little, you'll have much better control over the extrusion. What this button does is basically push all the faces you selected up away from the model.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut41.jpg

Now, we don't want the whole group of faces to lift up, we just want the edge of the hood to do it. So let's spin round to the back of the model and weld some of those vertices back together again. As you can see in the second part of the picture below, you should end up with just the front rim of the hood lifting up away from the model. Select the vertices along that rim, just like I have, and move them forward and down a little bit, to create a much cooler-looking overhanging hood.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut42.jpg

You can use this same technique all over your model. Just extrude sections of faces, and then weld back one end of the newly extruded surface. Go nuts with it (within reason!) and you'll probably end up with something like this:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut43.jpg

As you can see, I've extruded some ears for him, as well as bracers around his wrists. I extruded the belt that we created way back in an earlier tutorial, and I extruded his robes in several places. Also note that I gave him feet.

A lot of the detail in that model is probably unnecessary, to be honest, because it'll be lost at the default viewing level of Civ 4. The skin is going to be much, much more important in making the model look good in the game. However, even with such potentially pointless detail added, the whole model still only comes in at less than 700 polygons, so I don't feel too bad.

One last step I'm going to do, which I totally forgot about earlier, is that I'm going to add a little bit of detail to the elbow of our goblin. I could definitely leave it as it is right now, but because it's one of the most flexible parts of the human body, it's going to animate a little weirdly if I do. The arm will look really odd when it bends unless I add a little detail to the elbow. So, do what I've done in the screenshot below, dividing the lines of the elbow. What this does is mimics the loose skin on your own elbow, as it gives the model some extra stretch when the arm bends.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut45.jpg

Ordinarily you would do this to the knees as well, but since our character doesn't really have any visible knees, it should be okay. I hope it will, anyway, but I guess I'll find out later.

In case you were wondering, we're going to leave our character as half a person right now. It's easier to unwrap one half of a character instead of two, so we'll wait until that's done before we join the two halves together.

And then you're done with the modelling!

Next step is going to be the long-awaited guide to UVW unwrapping and texporting.

More great stuff neener. Thanks! This is certainly clearing things up, but it'll be a while before I get this advanced

I do have a noob question from the first part; I've never scanned any pics into max so can you run down an Idiot's Guide to that? I have a scanner, but never use it. Also, can we use concept art from the net if we can't draw?

More great stuff neener. Thanks! This is certainly clearing things up, but it'll be a while before I get this advanced

I do have a noob question from the first part; I've never scanned any pics into max so can you run down an Idiot's Guide to that? I have a scanner, but never use it. Also, can we use concept art from the net if we can't draw?

you can use any concept but you will have to find a good picture with side and front view :p and if youcreate a model thats already there, well you didnt do anything really creative... but as a base, to get a rough body and stuff.. and after that yu still can add new things ;)

Neener, what i wanted to suggest: can you create models with everthing, but the head being not part of the model, but attachable and then create some differnt versions, so i can switch them in nif viewer !? perhaps with some small seperate textures?!

I can't draw. :sad:

I have zero artistic ability. I guess I'll be making ugly bipeds. ;)

I do have a noob question from the first part; I've never scanned any pics into max so can you run down an Idiot's Guide to that? I have a scanner, but never use it.

You don't scan stuff directly into Max, you just scan them into Photoshop or whatever your image editing software of choice is. Alternatively, you do what I do and just draw them in Photoshop in the first place. Or...

Also, can we use concept art from the net if we can't draw?

Hell yes! In the games industry, it's still incredibly common for a dedicated concept artist to create all the character sketches and then hand them over to the modellers to produce in Max. I wouldn't feel bad about taking someone else's concepts and modelling them, at all.

However, as Sez mentioned, you'd either need a full front and side sketch, or you'd need to try and cobble one together yourself. I've certainly done that before. Sometimes I'll find a character I really want to model, but all I have is a front view. Either I'll just try and draw the side view myself, or I'll piece it together from multiple other pictures. For example, if you're modelling something that has a lot of concept art like, I dunno, Batman or whatever, then you can sift through all the pictures you can find looking for one where he's standing side-on. Sometimes you might find pictures where he's looking to the side, but his body is front-on, so you can cut and paste the head from the one picture onto another picture, and the arm from another picture, etc etc, and basically build a kind of Frankenstein's monster from various other images.

If all you're modelling is a very ordinary humanoid character, then you can certainly start with one of the many front and side sketches of humans out there. For example, here's a page from the very old book "Figure Drawing For All It's Worth" by Andrew Loomis:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/loomisfigure.jpg

It's not ideal for modelling, because it's not in the universal position (the arms are too close to the body) so you might need to do some creative editing in Photoshop to get it into the position you want. But basically, that's a good enough basis for you to start working on. If you feel you need the clothing/armour/whatever on the template from the start, then you can try and draw it on that picture.

Remember, you don't need to be a great artist, you just need a good idea of where to put things on your model.

Thanks neener. I guess I'm still overwhelmed. :blush:

It's that time of night again! Fourth day in a row and I'm done with the next part of the tutorial. First though, I totally forgot to reply to Sezereth's post above:

Neener, what i wanted to suggest: can you create models with everthing, but the head being not part of the model, but attachable and then create some differnt versions, so i can switch them in nif viewer !? perhaps with some small seperate textures?!

Sure thing. Just to make sure I understand, you want me to create a full body, without a head, and then create multiple different heads? And texture both the body and the heads? If so, I can do that. What kind of body? Human or Orc or Skaven or what? Male or female?

looking forward to your next tutorial neener:D, i have tonnes of buildings that are dying to get some skin;) (mostly elven)

Oh, and while im thinking of it: what polycount do you recomend for buildings? at the moment, all of the city houses (ie the buildings that make up the mahority of the city) are around 300-350 polys. the buildings like barracks and archery ranges are around 500 polys, and the palaces are way over 1000 polys, but im going to try re do them to have 1000ish polys.

@ woodelf, i found out how to do the polycount, click the little hammer icon, and then click 'more' then scroll down until you find 'polygon count'. easy;)

STEP 4 - UVW MAPPING

So, now we're done with the modelling, it's time to unwrap our character in preparation for texturing.

I just want to point out straight away that the method I use for unwrapping is, again, not the only way to do it. Opinion is pretty much divided on which is the best way to unwrap a character, and I just happen to prefer this one. One of the downsides to my method is that it uses a lot of modifiers, resulting in a large stack. In old versions of Max, large stacks tend to be unstable and can crash the program, although I haven't had it happen since Max 5. However, the other major method of unwrapping involves literally breaking your model apart and morphing it back into shape, which is totally counter-intuitive to me. I prefer this method, although others will probably disagree. So anyway, I just thought I'd mention that.

First of all, in Face mode, with Ignore Backfacing turned OFF, click and drag to select your entire model. You want to make sure you've selected absolutely every single face in your model. Now scroll down the right-hand menu to the Material section, and type the number 99 into the Set ID box.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut46.jpg

To explain what we're doing here, every face or group of faces can be assigned a number ID. What this means is that if you accidentally or deliberately click on another face, you can always go back and use the Select ID button to re-select the group of faces you had before. We'll try it with our one and only group so far. First, deselect those faces, and then type 99 into the Select ID box, and press the Select ID button. If you did it right, it will select all the faces in your model. This will come in handy later.

The next step is going to be to go around your whole model and assign set IDs to groups of faces all over it. It's difficult to explain exactly which faces should be in which groups, because that requires some knowledge of the next few steps. It'll probably make more sense when you've read this whole tutorial, and then come back and read it again. Essentially, though, we want to group together all the faces that can be mapped together. The most common type of mapping is planar mapping, like we did in the first tutorial. However, if we try to planar map an irregular shape like the goblin's head, it will come out horribly, because the head itself isn't a plane, it's a kind of ball shape. What will happen is called texture warping, which we'll see later. So instead, we're going to split the head into two separate groups; one for the face and one for the hood. That's going to create a 'seam' between the two textures, but it should look natural.

In Face mode, select the following faces on the character's....face, and then assign them an ID of 1.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut47.jpg

Then, select these faces on the hood, and assign them an ID of 2.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut48.jpg

Keep going like that, assigning new IDs to each group of faces that can be easily planar mapped.

You will of course come up against some shapes that can't be planar mapped, like the arm. However, because it's cylindrical, it CAN be mapped fairly easily, so go ahead and assign it just one ID.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut49.jpg

When you've gone round your whole model and assigned all the groups their own ID, we need to do one last check before we can move on. Use the Select ID button to select group 99 again. If you missed any faces on your way round the model, they'll still be part of group 99 and will show up. Sometimes, for example, it's easy to forget the faces underneath the character's feet. If you don't get any faces when you select group 99, then you're done and we can move on.

Select group 1, and apply a UVW Map modifier, just like we did in the first tutorial. However, this time, instead of clicking on Bitmap Fit, we're going to switch to the side viewport and click the View Align button. This, obviously, aligns the Gizmo with the currently selected view. Also make sure you change the Length and Width to 100 each.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut50.jpg

Now open up the Material Editor (press the M key) and click on the second material slot. Again, click the little grey box next to Diffuse but this time, instead of clicking Bitmap, click on Checker. This will automatically give the material a checker pattern. Increase the U and V Tiling to to 25, and click on the little blue checker box button to make the material show in the viewport. Click and drag the material onto your character, and you should now be able to see it covered in checkers, although they'll be very messy.

To fix that, apply an Unwrap UVW modifier and click on the Edit button.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut51.jpg

This will bring up the Edit UVWs window. Before we start fixing things, let's get rid of the horrible background by clicking on the blue checker box button I highlighted. Then, click Display and turn on Show Hidden Edges.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut52.jpg

Now we're ready to start moving UVs around.

Take a look at the first part of the screenshot below. Notice how the checkers around the neck are stretched? That's the texture warping I was telling you about. If I was to try and paint something on there, like a necklace, it would look horrible as all the pixels stretch and warp. So we need to fix that by moving the UVs in the Edit window. Grab the two vertices at the bottom of the neck in the Edit UVWs window and move them down like I have in the picture. You'll see the checker pattern move on your model and start to look better instantly. As you can see, the eyes and mouth still need some work, so fix those in the same way, and then you can move on.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut53.jpg

When you're done with the UVWs for the face, scroll out a little bit in the Edit window and move the whole group upwards slightly, out of the dark blue square. You'll see why this is important later on, but for now just trust me and move them. We're going to do the same with each other group of UVs too, moving the second one up and right, the third one over to the right, the fourth one down and right, etc etc. Always make sure they're away from the blue square, and also try to remember where you moved previous groups. You don't want to move any two groups to the same place.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut54.jpg

Now close the Edit window and apply an Edit Mesh modifier. This basically does the exact same thing as Converting to an Editable Mesh, but because it's a modifier it can be removed or turned off. It looks identical, though, so go back to Face mode and scroll down to select group 2. Again, apply a UVW Map modifier and use a planar projection. Also, again make sure you set the Length and Width to 100. When you've done that, apply another Unwrap UVW modifier. As you can see, we've just applied the same three modifiers as before, and we're going to keep doing that every time we finish a group. Your modifier stack should start looking like this:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut55.jpg

With the same three modifiers repeating over and over. Keep going round the model, unwrapping the UVs and moving them to make the checker pattern look uniform.

Occassionally you'll come across a fairly irregular shape. I'll use the ear as an example.

The best way to map the ear, in my opinion, is with a planar map from the Front viewport. However, that will give significant warping to the back of the ear, so we need to create a seam and move the back of the ear into the right position.

In the screenshot below you can see the ear after I've done a simple planar UVW map. I've selected the vertex in the middle, which is actually around the back of the ear. I press Ctrl+B on the keyboard and it Breaks the vertex. Breaking a vertex is the opposite of welding it, and it creates multiple vertices from that one. After the vertex is broken, there are 7 vertices in its place, which I then move away from the rest of the ear. Think of it like I'm peeling the ear, by first creating a cut at the back of the ear, and then peeling the skin away to make it flat. Gross, I know, but it's a fairly accurate analogy!

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut56.jpg

Note: You can also Break vertices in the normal Editable Mesh stuff. We never had an opportunity to use it with this character, but it's a pretty useful tool sometimes.

Now, you remember I said we could map the arm even though it's cylindrical? Well, this is how. When you apply a UVW Map, instead of using the default Planar mode, click on Cylindrical. You'll see the Gizmo become, you guessed it, a cylinder! Select the Gizmo in the same way we did in the first tutorial, and you'll notice that it has a green line down one edge. This is where the seam will be when you apply the Unwrap UVW modifier, so we need to move it. Right now it's on the top of the arm, which is the most noticeable place. It's totally inevitable that there'll be a seam on the arm, so we may as well leave it on the underside of the arm where it's less visible. So in the side viewport, click View Align, and then switch to the Front viewport to rotate the Gizmo around like I have done. You want the green line to be on the bottom of the arm.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut57.jpg

Apply the Unwrap modifier and let's see what we have. I always find cylindrical mapping to be horribly inaccurate, but maybe we'll be lucky.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut58.jpg

Hey, that's not bad! With a little bit of tweaking I think we've ended up with some decent mapping.

Okay, so when you're completely done with all of your unwrapping, it's time to consolidate everything. First of all, save your model. Then, right click in your modifier stack and select Collapse All. This collapses your model to a single Editable Mesh, with all the modifiers you had in the stack. Apply one last Unwrap UVW modifier (you don't need the UVW Map modifier this time) and hit the Edit button. You should see all of the groups of UVs you created. Now you understand why we moved them all out of the way. If they'd all been on top of each other now, it would be a nightmare to try and untangle them all. However, now we need to move them all back into that blue square. When you export your UVs, only the ones inside the blue square will be exported. Furthermore, because you want your texture to be as detailed as possible, you want as little empty space between your UVs as possible. Your UVs can't overlap, and they can't extend beyond the blue square, but they definitely want to fit as snugly together as possible. Scale them, rotate them, move them into every position you can think of to try make them fit perfectly. I'm not kidding when I say that some professional modellers will spend hours just trying to arrange these UVs as efficiently as possible. Sadly, I'm not all that good at it, and so my example isn't the best. However, hopefully you can see what I mean, and realise that I've tried to fit them as closely together as possible while taking up the full blue square.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut59.jpg

Finally, when you're ready to finish, you need to use the Texporter plug-in. If you don't already have it, you can download it at this website (http://www.cuneytozdas.com/software/3dsmax/). When it's installed, you can activate it by clicking on the Tools menu (the little hammer icon) and then clicking More, and then finding Texporter in the list.

When you click it, it will show you a list of options regarding how you want to export the UVs. Set the Width and Height to 512. In reality, Civ 4 uses textures around 128, but it's usually better to draw the texture at a higher resolution and then shrink it to fit, instead of struggling with every single pixel at a lower resolution. Whichever number you pick, make sure that you set both Width and Height to the same number, and that it's a power of 2 (128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024, etc). Next, turn off "Ploygon Fill". Yes, it's supposed to say Polygon. Yes, people have told the guy who makes it that. It's been like that for years and years now, so I guess it's become a running joke. Anyway, turn it off, and change Edges to All Lines. Turn off Backface Cull and Mark Overlaps. Change "Colorize by" to Constant and click on the colour box to change the colour to pure white. Then, when you're done, click the Pick Object button and select your character. A window should pop up showing your neatly arranged UVs as a picture! Click the disk icon to save that picture in whatever format you choose, and you're all done!

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut60.jpg

Now, all you have to do is paint whatever you like on that picture, and when you apply it to your model in Max, it will appear on it. So load that picture into Photoshop and start painting your textures!

Very nice neener :thumbsup: This is pretty much what I do when mapping, except that I rarely used ID because I completely missed the part where you can select faces based on IDs - that should speed things up significantly :)
And I also use a custom "checker" pattern - one of those images with colored and numbered squares.

I would say this though, I still haven't figured out how to decently unwrap the entire head - you know how sometimes a head's texture looks like an orange whose skin was peeled away in one piece and flattened. It's good for when you need asymmetrical face texture, but I always end up with parts of it either distorted or not matching well once textured. Anyway, I wonder if you could do a mini-tutorial on that? :)

I would say this though, I still haven't figured out how to decently unwrap the entire head - you know how sometimes a head's texture looks like an orange whose skin was peeled away in one piece and flattened. It's good for when you need asymmetrical face texture, but I always end up with parts of it either distorted or not matching well once textured. Anyway, I wonder if you could do a mini-tutorial on that? :)

To the best of my knowledge, it's pretty much impossible to perfectly unwrap something like a face. That's why you end up with characters like this (http://marine.cottages.polycount.com//brunt/persp.jpg) who have helmets and stuff wrapped around their face. Especially when you choose to map from the front, instead of the side, like I used to do. I quickly stopped doing that because the nose was such a ***** to try and get flat. But genuinely, as far as I know, you just have to do the best you can to iron out warping, or deliberately put in objects on the head to disguise seams.

To the best of my knowledge, it's pretty much impossible to perfectly unwrap something like a face. That's why you end up with characters like this (http://marine.cottages.polycount.com//brunt/persp.jpg) who have helmets and stuff wrapped around their face. Especially when you choose to map from the front, instead of the side, like I used to do. I quickly stopped doing that because the nose was such a ***** to try and get flat. But genuinely, as far as I know, you just have to do the best you can to iron out warping, or deliberately put in objects on the head to disguise seams.
Err.... is that suppose to be an example of a badly mapped head? :confused: 'Cause I don't see it, looks damn good in fact :)

Anyway, I see what you're saying, I guess I just need more practice

Err.... is that suppose to be an example of a badly mapped head? :confused: 'Cause I don't see it, looks damn good in fact :)

No no. What I mean is that they deliberately put a helmet and balaclava on the model, so that only the very front of the face is showing. You know? That way, it's mostly flat, and therefore you can map it fairly well from the front. By adding geometry to the head which disguises seams, they work around the problem of texture warping. Does that make sense? Basically, they deliberately plan the head to be split up into three or four different UV groups.

Here's (http://www.netten.net/~bgriff/UT2004XanF1.JPG) another example. See how the face is broken up into sections that can be mapped separately? Deliberately designing your faces to use seams to your advantage is the best way I know of to make them easier to map.

No no. What I mean is that they deliberately put a helmet and balaclava on the model, so that only the very front of the face is showing. You know? That way, it's mostly flat, and therefore you can map it fairly well from the front. By adding geometry to the head which disguises seams, they work around the problem of texture warping. Does that make sense? Basically, they deliberately plan the head to be split up into three or four different UV groups.

Here's (http://www.netten.net/~bgriff/UT2004XanF1.JPG) another example. See how the face is broken up into sections that can be mapped separately? Deliberately designing your faces to use seams to your advantage is the best way I know of to make them easier to map.
Oh, yeah I see what you're saying... 'course that doesn't help when you need a regular ol' face with the neck and hair and ears and everything :)

Oh, yeah I see what you're saying... 'course that doesn't help when you need a regular ol' face with the neck and hair and ears and everything :)

Yeah, sadly not. And for those kind of heads, I think it's definitely just a question of fiddling with it til you've got something half decent.

One thing I will say though is that even on a normal 'naked' head, I think I'd probably make the face one UV group, the neck a separate UV group, and the hair a third UV group. If you take a look at even an old model like this one, from 2000 (http://www.netten.net/~bgriff/RG.JPG), you can see on the close-ups of the heads at the bottom that the neck is a different UV group. They've hidden the seam under her chin so you can't really see it, and darkened it to make it look like shadow. And then, obviously, the hair is another UV group. So by splitting the whole head into at least three maps, they've reduced warping, and have hidden the resulting seams.

Wow, oh wow. 42 pages of a super tutorial. Thanks neener. :thumbsup:

No problem. Hopefully it's useful to people.

The next step would probably be animating, but I think I'll leave that for a while. Partly because, to be honest, animating still confuses the hell out of me sometimes.

Duke did ask how to set up bones, and I know the very basics of that, so I'll try and write a quick tutorial for it some time soon, although again it's definitely not my strong point.

For the short term though, I think I'm done. Is there any major comments that anyone wants to make? Advice on which sections need more detail, or things you're still confused about so I can try and add it to the tutorials? I'd like to get some feedback before I paste them over into the Tutorial forum, if possible.

I'll have lots of feedback once I have time to to try this out neener. I'm going to read through it once again over lunch and see in any obvious questions come up. Then I'll try to draw something and see where that heads.

Honestly though, it looks good enough to put in the tutorial section now unless you definitely want some practical feedback from one of us.

Man, this is awsome! i have just skinned a building, which is ment to be a woodelf barracks all checked!!:D

i am however a little confued when you say:
"Now, all you have to do is paint whatever you like on that picture, and when you apply it to your model in Max, it will appear on it. So load that picture into Photoshop and start painting your textures!"

could you make a tutorial on how to actually PAINT the skin? that would be an awsome help for me, and then i can post my first ever skinned building for all to laugh at!:D

But seriously, this is great stuff, there is absolutely NOTHING on the internet as well detailed as this. you can consider me you loyal follower now neener :worship:

It's that time of night again! Fourth day in a row and I'm done with the next part of the tutorial. First though, I totally forgot to reply to Sezereth's post above:
....
Sure thing. Just to make sure I understand, you want me to create a full body, without a head, and then create multiple different heads? And texture both the body and the heads? If so, I can do that. What kind of body? Human or Orc or Skaven or what? Male or female?

Thats almost what i meant, yea ;) i dont know what you plan to do next, so if you create a new unit, like let me say you want to create Orcs, with a completely new model and new animations. then it would be best to create several heads and some non attached armorparts, i can switch in nifviewer. by that and by different textures (which i love to create myself or best modify myself ;) ) i can create multiple units with some bits provided by you. with that i mean, i cant create new animations... but what i can do is, (if you give em bonestructure) give em animations from other units within nif viewer....

Another way is,you create me bits i can use with already existing units, for example can you simply create a helmet like this (http://uk.games-workshop.com/dogsofwar/miniature-gallery/9/)?

So my strongest request is a male human like the scout from vanilla, without skirt and backpack (you could have a look at that model)... cause that is simply missing in the vanilla unitsection..., the rest like armor and stuff i will try to skin to the body...

Furthermore we surely are in need of a right looking orc and skavens... but that would need new animations i fear..., so i cant make use of em right now.

i am however a little confued when you say:
"Now, all you have to do is paint whatever you like on that picture, and when you apply it to your model in Max, it will appear on it. So load that picture into Photoshop and start painting your textures!"

could you make a tutorial on how to actually PAINT the skin?

I really don't think I can. It's way, way too complicated to try and teach exactly how to paint in photoshop. There are entire books on it, not to mention university degrees, so I think that's just a bit too much for me to try and tackle.

What I can do though, is explain how the texture works when you apply it back to your model, if that's what's confusing you. I can paint some basic primary colours onto the texture image, and then apply it back to the model, and you'll see how it changes the skin. I should probably do that, because at the end of the tutorials the model is still only one half of a character.

Thats almost what i meant, yea i dont know what you plan to do next, so if you create a new unit, like let me say you want to create Orcs, with a completely new model and new animations. then it would be best to create several heads and some non attached armorparts, i can switch in nifviewer.

Okay, that I can probably do quite easily. Certainly for Orcs and maybe Dwarves and similar races, because their armour is quite transferrable. Obviously some stuff will be too unique looking and will need its own model, but I'm sure we can make a lot of units from a base model and lots of armour parts.

well, i think i can figure out how to use photoshop on my own, but explaining how the textures work when applied back to the modle would be great.

Okay, super super mini tutorial this time, just to show the last couple of things I did.

STEP 5 - Oh No Not More Skinning

Okay, the last thing we did was use texporter to export the UVW co-ordinates into a picture. The picture, just to remind you, looked like this:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut60.jpg

(That's it on the right)

So, obviously, a plain black picture with white lines on it isn't going to look terribly good in Civ, so we have to digitally paint it.

Just to make sure it's all working, let's paint it in hideously bright colours!

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut61.jpg

And then simply apply that picture to our model. Literally, just drag it from the Material Editor onto our model, like we did with the checker pattern.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut62.jpg

Yay! It's ghastly!

Now, we still only have half a character, so let's make him whole. To do that, just grab the half we've got and click on the Mirror tool that we used earlier. However, this time, instead of clicking on Instance, click on Copy. That will, as you might expect, copy the half-a-character. Then, simply line them up and attach them together, and then weld shut the seam between them.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut63.jpg

Note that not only has the geometry been copied, but the UV co-ordinates have been mirrored too! This is why we didn't copy him before doing the UV mapping, because we can just do one half and copy all the co-ordinates over. Do be aware that it's a mirror image, though. Notice the swirls and arrows and zig-zags I drew have been mirrored across, so any change we make to the texture is going to be symmetrical. You can obviously make asymmetrical unwraps if you want to, it just means you have a little more work to do.

Anyway, so all you do then is bring your texported picture back into Photoshop or GIMP or whatever program you use, and start painting details onto it. This is a shot in progress of my goblin texture:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut64.jpg

Which looks like this when I apply it to the model:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/tut/tut65.jpg

You can see how much difference the texture makes simply by comparing the head to the rest of the body.

I really should stress how important the texture is. Not only is it probably the most important part of your model in showing detail, but if you plan your texture right you can re-skin your model into dozens of different units, not to mention allow other modders to do the same. I haven't been on the Civ modding scene long but I've already seen lots of people WAY over-do the polycount on their models. On literally half the models I've seen, by simply painting the detail onto your texture you could half the polycount.

To give a very quick example of how much a texture can help, take a look at this screenshot from World of Warcraft:

http://i.xanga.com/Sir_GriMmiE/orgrimmar.jpg

I'm by no means a Blizzard or WoW fanboy (it's hard to be after what they did to that game) but their early art direction was fantastic. Just look at how much detail they added with textures alone. That whole wall is flat, but even from relatively close it pops out at you. Obviously not everyone can paint that (I know I can't), but you can give it your best shot :)



Note to WHFB team: feedback on the goblin's texture is appreciated, since it's still in progress :)

Super work neener.

I really, really want to learn how you did that clothing (hood) for him. That is what adds a ton to the unit. He looks great!

Super work neener.

I really, really want to learn how you did that clothing (hood) for him. That is what adds a ton to the unit. He looks great!

I just...painted it. :\ That's what's hard to put into a tutorial. I just got a brush in Photoshop and started painting the shadows. Then, I got a lighter brush, and painted the midtones. Then I added highlights. There's no secret trick to it, or easy option, it's just a question of practice and patience. I repainted it at least 40 times before I got the hood I wanted.

One thing I will say, and I said it in the first tutorial, is GET REFERENCES. If you're drawing a hood, look up pictures of hoods! If it's specifically Warhammer stuff you're after, look through all the millions and millions of painted miniatures out there. I mean, right now I'm painting the arm and I have three separate webpages open where I found pictures of arms. It's absolutely vital unless you're some sort of art master.

Not the painting, but when you were pulling vertices away from his face. That was the cool part. Right in the center of Part 3 where you gave the hood an "edge".

I would give my right (well ok, left) arm to be able to draw a texture like that!! :wallbash:
I'm amazed each and every single time at how a plain, even low poly, model is transformed when applied with a good texture, and I hate it that I can't do that. It still takes me forever to get a decent sword or axe texture going, and half the time I end up using photos from the web anyway. :(

Anyway, I'm done whining now. :)

Now I can't wait to see this thing animated, or that Skaven, whichever you do first. :bounce:

I would give my right (well ok, left) arm to be able to draw a texture like that!! :wallbash:
I'm amazed each and every single time at how a plain, even low poly, model is transformed when applied with a good texture, and I hate it that I can't do that. It still takes me forever to get a decent sword or axe texture going, and half the time I end up using photos from the web anyway. :(

Anyway, I'm done whining now. :)

Now I can't wait to see this thing animated, or that Skaven, whichever you do first. :bounce:

If it's any consolation, these are probably the best textures I've ever done. You should have seen me, god, even a month or two ago. I was hopeless.

For practicing, my best advice is to get a picture (pretty much any picture will do) and try copy it directly over the top. Open a new layer over it in Photoshop and try to block in the colours. Use brushes with soft edges and low opacity (around 30%) and try add more and more detail as you go. Start dark and slowly work your way up to the highlights. Keep using the proper picture as a guideline and just see how it turns out. When you're done, either do the same picture again (and again and again) or move onto a new one to keep things interesting. After a while (literally, even one or two nights of doing it) you should notice an improvement.

And honestly, if there's anything I can do to help, let me know, because I was definitely in your position so very recently, and I know how frustrating it can be sometimes. Even now I feel guilty saying things like "I was in your position" because I'm painfully aware of how far I still have to go. I have a folder on my hard disk full of textures that make me weep and want to quit forever. :sad:

Seeing your work in progress makes it hard to leave my computer behind for two weeks!
Can't wait until my vacation's finished and I can see what comes of that:)

Now I really need to learn PS...

@neener: I'm definitely going to give it a shot. Thanks for the encouragement :)

ARRRGH!! im pulling my hair out because i REALLY want to finish my texture, but i cant beacuse im grounded (only 5 and a 1/2 more days)

Anyway, besides my whining,
@neener: i had a go at painting over the texture thingo, (the day i was grounded;)) but no colours came up, it was all black and white:sad: do i need to make a new layer or something in photoshop?

P.S. that tutorial is exactly what was missing, thank you so much neener.:D

I have the 47 pages in a doc file if you want them neener. I included the pics that you had to link to in part 1 because of image count limitations.

looks nice, and hell yea, i know that a texture can make the difference (i dont have many vanilla units i can base my units on but i triied to create all those units just by varriing heads, weapons and skins....). and i notice a big improvement to when i started, i triied to copy and paste things, which ended up ugly ;) now i can almost draw everything i want... it just takes very long if it is something very special ;) and time is the thing i dont have... so perhaps we can cooperate and you do some models and i do some textures ;)

I have the 47 pages in a doc file if you want them neener. I included the pics that you had to link to in part 1 because of image count limitations.

I actually went back and edited those to make them fit one post, along with a few typos here and there. But yeah, that .doc file would be great, thanks. How big is it?

so perhaps we can cooperate and you do some models and i do some textures

Sounds good to me!

By the way, going back to that request for a generic model with attachable heads/armour. I can easily give you the backpack-less scout (I've pretty much done it already), and I can easily make new heads and/or armour parts, but I do need to know what they're going to be for. What races and units would you be making out of this generic human? If I could get a list of them, I could try and make the right heads and armour pieces for them.

@neener: i had a go at painting over the texture thingo, (the day i was grounded) but no colours came up, it was all black and white do i need to make a new layer or something in photoshop?

You don't NEED to make a new layer, but I would. Many many layers, in fact. I have about 50 on the Goblin so far. But to be honest, even just painting stuff onto the background shouldn't cause it to be black and white. Did you definitely change the colour of your brushes? If so, the only thing I can think of is that somehow you've converted the image to a grayscale. Go to Image > Mode > RGB Colour. If that doesn't fix it, let me know.

I actually went back and edited those to make them fit one post, along with a few typos here and there. But yeah, that .doc file would be great, thanks. How big is it?

I fixed some typos as well. 2.21 megs all told.

Ah, perfect. I guess the best thing to do is to upload it to the File Database, like Rabbit did with his NIFViewer tutorials? And then I just link to it from the post. Do you want to do the honours, or should I? (edit- the honours of uploading the file, that is, not of posting it on the tutorial forums :) )

It's at work and I'm not, but I'll upload it tomorrow morning and put your name on it. Very nice stuff.

Sounds good.

Here's the finished Night Goblin texture, for what it's worth:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/nightgoblinfinished.jpg

I increased the contrast because from a distance it was just turning out like a blue-grey blob. I'm not too sure about it though, to be honest, because I'm not convinced it doesn't look too gaudy and glossy. It kind of reminds me of badly painted Warhammer miniatures, in fact.

Sounds good.

Here's the finished Night Goblin texture, for what it's worth:

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/nightgoblinfinished.jpg

I increased the contrast because from a distance it was just turning out like a blue-grey blob. I'm not too sure about it though, to be honest, because I'm not convinced it doesn't look too gaudy and glossy. It kind of reminds me of badly painted Warhammer miniatures, in fact.
A sign of a great artist is that they're never happy with their own work (see Van Gogh ;)), but let me tell you right now that this is the most polished and best looking original model we've had on these forums. And I'll drink to that :cheers:

I agree with Rabbit. That is spectacular. :clap:

Aw, thanks guys. You make me happy in my pants. :blush:

For comparison's sake, here are the post- and pre-contrast pictures next to each other. Which do YOU prefer? I think the latter is more fitting for a [b]Night[b] Goblin, but also just seems a little flat in comparison.

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/nightgoblinfinished.jpg

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/nightgoblinfinisheddark.jpg

How do they look in game? The bottom one might not show up at all. I like the top one more anyhow since fitting or not I like to be able to see the units! ;)

Gah, you're gonna make me go and import the damn things? I hate that part!

Fine, give me a minute! :mad:

:lol:

I'd do it if you sent me the model. ;)

The higher contrast model definitely looks better. You gotta remember, this is a game so presentation is more important than realism, plus it's a colorful game in general so it won't look out of place.

Oh and yeah, and of course you should always actually see how the thing looks in game before you make the final judgement. Not sure why you hate the importing part, but once you get the hang on it, it hardly even registers as more than the clicks that it takes to do it :).

The importing is just so...fiddly!

Still, I tested it and it does look okay in the game. You're right that it fits better with the rest of Civ 4 than the low-contrast one would.

Okay, so, job done, now onto the Orcs!

The importing is just so...fiddly!

Still, I tested it and it does look okay in the game. You're right that it fits better with the rest of Civ 4 than the low-contrast one would.

Okay, so, job done, now onto the Orcs!
Wait, what about animations? :)

I was thinking, even if you still don't feel comfortable enough with animations to do the whole thing, maybe you could rig that guy just enough (even just as a throwaway test rig) to put him in some sort of position other than the "vitruvian man" - maybe something like idle, or some threatening/mid-attack type pose, so that it can be put into warhammer and look half way there? :worship: :D

Wait, what about animations? :)

I was thinking, even if you still don't feel comfortable enough with animations to do the whole thing, maybe you could rig that guy just enough (even just as a throwaway test rig) to put him in some sort of position other than the "vitruvian man" - maybe something like idle, or some threatening/mid-attack type pose, so that it can be put into warhammer and look half way there? :worship: :D

Grrrrr. :p

Yeah, I suppose so. My reasoning was that, unlike the Skaven, the default animations will at least look normal on the Night Goblin. But you're probably right, I should make sure I can get one character fully finished before I do the rest. Although that does mean I have to make a ball and chain for him.

:sad:

Grrrrr. :p

Yeah, I suppose so. My reasoning was that, unlike the Skaven, the default animations will at least look normal on the Night Goblin. But you're probably right, I should make sure I can get one character fully finished before I do the rest. Although that does mean I have to make a ball and chain for him.

:sad:
No rest for the wicked :)

The animations are actually not very difficult to properly set up, i.e. label them and assign proper id's so the game properly recognizes them and knows how to use them, it's the actual animation that's the difficult part. So you could start with just rough movements and make sure you can export the thing with everything working right and then worry about polishing up the animations.

Btw, what you mentioned about default animations working for the goblin - you maybe right but you still need to rig and skin the character, did you do that for the goblin? 'Cause if you did you should post the exported file, I'd be curious to know if that actually works (i.e. taking a fully rigged character with all the necessary bones but no animations at all and using vanilla animations on him), because so far it's just a theory. :)

Hmm. The animations are working fine, and don't look too bad, although they do need tweaking.

However, for some reason, after just implementing the animations, the model gets reverted back to a pink texture in-game. Not sure why, since it was working when there were no animations. I'll keep fiddling with it tomorrow (way too tired right now), but does anyone have a quick idea why that would be?

thats awsome neener! i also like the higher contrast model. i cant wait to see it in action:D

very very nice goblin texture neener, but to be honest i think its too bright ;)

wanted to hear a professionals (yes i consider you one) opinion about my newest creation (its the nifviewer-tweaked viking models body from warlords and the vanilla axemans head... with swordsman animation and a all by myself drawn texture)

http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/7460/neenerdb5.th.jpg (http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=neenerdb5.jpg)


and about the backpackless scout, ok, wellplease remove his skirt too!!! i need him with trousers only ;) and i think you will have problems animating him too... so can you import him into a nif with just a bone structure and without animation?!

Armor Parts and stuff, well cant really tell, will have to look through gws side again... but shoulder armour is allways good, and a helmet ive showed you before...

That model looks awesome, Sez. Really really cool. You drew the entire texture from scratch, or used another unit's as a base? I really like how 'busy' his armour looks, with lots of details thrown in.

As for my model, I just don't understand this. I went to bed, but couldn't sleep, so I came back to mess with the model some more. I didn't make any changes, but now the texture is working again and the animations are not. I'm taking the Praetorian max file from the Firaxis tutorial and exporting it and it just plain isn't working. It did before but now it's not, and I don't understand it. I mean, that Praetorian is a complete, pre-setup file designed explicitly to work, and it DID before, but without any changes it's not doing it.

I absolutely hate this. I despise exporting these models and messing with NIFs and trying to get the damn things working in the game. I just can't stand it.

I'll be putting your tutorial up soon neener. Drink some :coffee: and relax a minute. The exporting will come.

@ seZ - That does look awesome.

But it just doesn't make sense. Why would the animations not get exported when I'm loading up the complete Praetorian and hitting export with the settings they use in the guide? I don't understand it one bit, and the documentation is no help whatsoever.

You are the guinea pig on this sad to say. I don't think anyone else has exported a biped. I read their 20 page guide and it wasn't any help at all, but I'm a noob so I expected to be confused. I'm not sure if anyone from Firaxis reads the CFC, but maybe posting in the C&C and begging for help would work?

You are the guinea pig on this sad to say. I don't think anyone else has exported a biped. I read their 20 page guide and it wasn't any help at all, but I'm a noob so I expected to be confused. I'm not sure if anyone from Firaxis reads the CFC, but maybe posting in the C&C and begging for help would work?

Like I said before, all the units in Civ 4 are exported bipeds, at least according to the PDF guide. The Praetorian model is made by Firaxis, as is the tutorial. Are you saying that, despise that guide being there, not one person has ever actually used it and gone ahead and exported a character from Max into the game?

Yes, I think I am.

I've commented on just about every new unit made and other than skinning and nifviewing I can't recall a new biped.

Here's the link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2502) to your uploaded tutorial neener. It's a .rar since I don't have winzip on my computer.

There is the ability to add images, but I didn't know which you might want to add. I assume you can add them since it's your file.

Here's the link (http://forums.civfanatics.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=2502) to your uploaded tutorial neener. It's a .rar since I don't have winzip on my computer.

Thanks. I appreciate it.

Yes, I think I am.

I've commented on just about every new unit made and other than skinning and nifviewing I can't recall a new biped.

When you say a "new" biped, do you mean one they made themselves? Because I'm trying this with the default Praetorian, which uses the ordinary Firaxis biped, and should be no different to any other unit. Nobody has ever even tested the Praetorian that comes with the PDF tutorial?

When you say a "new" biped, do you mean one they made themselves? Because I'm trying this with the default Praetorian, which uses the ordinary Firaxis biped, and should be no different to any other unit. Nobody has ever even tested the Praetorian that comes with the PDF tutorial?

Unless Rabbit has I can't think of anyone else who might have. I'll admit that I never even thought about doing it.

If that's the case, then I think maybe I should hold off from doing anymore until someone with a bit more experience has tried it out. I'm just getting really frustrated here because I have so little experience with even ordinary NIF stuff, let alone exporting bipeds that nobody else has done before. It's even more frustrating because I've managed to properly export the texture, and properly export the animations, but not both at the same time, and I have no idea why.

I can still model stuff, but I'm honestly ready to give up on exporting them unless someone else wants to try it too.

Well sitting at work it makes absolutely no sense why it doesn't work like their guide says. Stick with an awesome Skaven model now. :)

BOOYAH! **** YOU, FIRAXIS! IN YOUR ****ING FACE! WHO'S LAUGHING NOW, HUH? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!

http://all-one-word.org.uk/images/warhammer/nightgobliningame.jpg

(yes, I know he looks a little odd. He's using the default biped, which stands upright whereas his model is designed to be hunched over, so his face kind of gets pulled back upwards. He's also bending his arm to hold a shield which isn't there. But other than that!)

:woohoo:

Did he hurt that one pig? :D

Now you have to write up another tutorial on how you accomplished this!

Added 5 images to the excellent tutorial neener. Let me know if you want others added to capture the steps.

:woohoo:

Did he hurt that one pig? :D

Now you have to write up another tutorial on how you accomplished this!

Honestly, I don't even know.

The only thing I've managed to learn is that apparently the NIFViewer doesn't actually play the animations? Nobody told me that. At least, it doesn't play the ones exported from Max. I'd been checking the exported models in NIFViewer to see if they worked, and none of them did. Occasionally I'd check them in the game too, and they still didn't work, so I had no reason to doubt the NIFViewer. However, on a total whim, I decided to bring one of the non-working NIFs into the game, and it actually worked. So clearly on some models, NIFViewer is lying about what does and doesn't work.

edit-
Added 5 images to the excellent tutorial neener. Let me know if you want others added to capture the steps.

Which images? To which tutorial? This one or the one I posted in the Tut forum, or the uploaded one?

edit again-
Sezereth: Just one quick question about these attachable heads/armourparts you want from me. Do I need to do anything special with them when I export them, to let the game know they're attachable to other units? Or do I just export ordinary, static meshes? For example, let's say I make the Scout with no dress and a full bone structure, and I make 3 heads and 5 armour parts. Do I just export them all, individually, into 9 separate static NIFs?

I took 5 images from your tutorial and placed them in the database as teaser pics. ;)

Ah I see. Okay, that's cool. :)

You should link that file to your sig neener, it's a work of art.

Wonderfull, just wonderfull. Adding contrast is a good choice IMO, even if it looks too comic-like when zoomed in, but who the heck plays at such a zoom-level?


And I didn´t even say "thank you" for this great tutorial until now, But on the otherside didn´t I had the time to do anything with MAX the last weeks.

You should link that file to your sig neener, it's a work of art.

Which, the tutorial or the Goblin/Pig party? The screenshot looks pretty terrible if you ask me. I'll show it to people when his skeleton is worked out. Besides, I've been ignoring my sig since I found out that I can't have a custom title or avatar :cry:

And for animations, bipeds etc.:

I think I said this before, but the only-one I know of who made a completely new model with animations is Chalid! Maybe you should ask him neener, but I don´t know if he used MAX for his Dragon.

Which, the tutorial or the Goblin/Pig party? The screenshot looks pretty terrible if you ask me. I'll show it to people when his skeleton is worked out. Besides, I've been ignoring my sig since I found out that I can't have a custom title or avatar :cry:

I think you can have this now! You need 60 posts for this as far as I remember.

Hmm, okay, cool. Thanks Duke. I'll harass him until he helps me if I run into any more problems.

Honestly, I don't even know.

The only thing I've managed to learn is that apparently the NIFViewer doesn't actually play the animations? Nobody told me that. At least, it doesn't play the ones exported from Max. I'd been checking the exported models in NIFViewer to see if they worked, and none of them did. Occasionally I'd check them in the game too, and they still didn't work, so I had no reason to doubt the NIFViewer. However, on a total whim, I decided to bring one of the non-working NIFs into the game, and it actually worked. So clearly on some models, NIFViewer is lying about what does and doesn't work.

edit-


Which images? To which tutorial? This one or the one I posted in the Tut forum, or the uploaded one?

edit again-
Sezereth: Just one quick question about these attachable heads/armourparts you want from me. Do I need to do anything special with them when I export them, to let the game know they're attachable to other units? Or do I just export ordinary, static meshes? For example, let's say I make the Scout with no dress and a full bone structure, and I make 3 heads and 5 armour parts. Do I just export them all, individually, into 9 separate static NIFs?

gratulations to exporting your model :)
ok, first, the nifr viewer does only play animations like a rotating rotor of a plane ;) no single other animation that is writen in a kfm file...

second, the unit on the picture i posted, i dont draw every single line of a unit with a brush, i used the texture of the original viking as the base (to know where his proportions are), the rest is done by layers, filters and a huge bunch of highlighting, darkening and some real drawing with a brush plus a big amount of that funny finger dragging tool :) but i didnt use any texture of another model !
Sometimes, for example to create a shirt, i copy the upperbodytexture of the unit, recolour it, use some filter and then draw and drag and highlight and stuff above it, but thats not different to create a new area, color it and do the same (except that you already have some life in the layer ehre the filters can apply, but you can easily draw that yourself too). so i can do a new texture on a blank UV map, if you ment that ;) (and i started some time ago to not use anything else than what comes from photoshop or from firaxis for textures). i dont even use templates (images from figures), it just pops up in my head and then it is a trial and error...

third: about those meshes, best would be you ask whiterabbit about that... with weapons, it is very easy, they can be mesh only. and with heads, perhaps it is good to have them a BIP Head in, i think then the head actually can be attached and is then part of the model instead of a seperate mesh, but dont know if this works, cause ive only seen this with actual heads from vanilla models (ripped of ones by rabbit and chalid)

I think you can have this now! You need 60 posts for this as far as I remember.

Wooo, you're right! Hooray for avatars! Although I do look kind of like Rabbit's evil twin now.

second, the unit on the picture i posted, i dont draw every single line of a unit with a brush, i used the texture of the original viking as the base (to know where his proportions are), the rest is done by layers, filters and a huge bunch of highlighting, darkening and some real drawing with a brush plus a big amount of that funny finger dragging tool but i didnt use any texture of another model !

Ah, I see. That's what I figured. Very nice work. I really ought to look through more of the Civ4 .dds files. So far I think I've only ever seen the Scout's.

third: about those meshes, best would be you ask whiterabbit about that... with weapons, it is very easy, they can be mesh only. and with heads, perhaps it is good to have them a BIP Head in, i think then the head actually can be attached and is then part of the model instead of a seperate mesh, but dont know if this works, cause ive only seen this with actual heads from vanilla models (ripped of ones by rabbit and chalid)

Hmm. From what I know of bipeds, I'd be really surprised if you could just put a BIP Head in there and attach it later. There tends to be pretty complicated heirarchical stuff going on with a biped which would be messed up by detaching bits. Still, I'll try to export them all as static meshes and pass them onto you, and if they don't work I'll add BIP parts later

Link the tutorial link in your sig. And your avatar is super cool. :)

And if you're a peon, what are the rest of us? :eek:

Link the tutorial link in your sig. And your avatar is super cool. :)

And if you're a peon, what are the rest of us? :eek:

Thanks :)

Yeah, I wasn't sure peon was the best choice of word. I was going to put "slave" but that sounded a bit seedy :eek: What I was going for is the (quite accurate!) image of me being locked away in a darkened basement modelling away without any sleep, being whipped by my cruel modding overlords.

sometimes i wished ive had the uvwrap, cause firaxis sometimes didnt draw correct "in the lines" and i dont see how the texture will be drawn on the model, so its trial and error until it looks good. you draw your goblin completely with a brush?! well, thats very hard if your texture gets bigger in my eyes (like 256x256) but i will see if i can implement this technique into mine to improve my skills a bit more. yea, just give me the meshes, i will see how it works out.

do you know much about mimaps?! which settings would you suggest?! (right now i dont use any, cause they end up too blurry, and for blurry textures i put too much love into them :p

I never tested the Praetorian model but I did export quadrapeds animated from scratch just fine.

And yes, the nif viewer only shows simple key-framed animations that only affect position or rotation of the entire object directly, it doesn't show skined biped(or bone)-based animations. The Gamebryo engine does come with animation tool (previewer) that handles that part but I don't know why the folks at Firaxis didn't release it. :confused:

Anyway, I guess now we can expect some wicked animations for the goblin as well :goodjob:

Also, feel free to PM me about anything to do with NIF viewer and/or exporting things from max, unfortunately the Firaxis documentation is nowhere detailed enough and makes several broad assumption (you can tell from some remarks at the end it was made for their own artists, not for us modders :)).

As for attaching parts in the NIF viewer - it obviously works fine and is trivial when it comes to weapons and shields, but as for body parts, I'd say only the heads kinda work. It doesn't matter if the head is exported with bone or not, although w/o bone will make things simpler. In any case once it's a separate nif you can simply attach it to the head bone of another unit, you hide the original head by scaling its bone back to like 0.1 and then scaling up the new head by 10. It definitely doesn't work perfectly but because most of the time the neck is obscured and in any case very small, the seams created between it and the body by doing this like that are not noticable.

It wouldn't work nearly as well if you try to attach whole arms or legs, or even pieces of clothes or armor since the disconnect would be much more obvious and things would clip through each other. Although I did have success with attaching hands (http://forums.civfanatics.com/showthread.php?t=161818) since the joint is much simpler.

phew, you guys have been working overtime:crazyeye: i go away for 2 hours and lo and behold, 2 more pages are filled up!

i absolutely love that gobbo neener, at this rate i think im going to go insane in, oh, lets say 2 days, from not beeing able to use MAX.

do you know much about mimaps?! which settings would you suggest?! (right now i dont use any, cause they end up too blurry, and for blurry textures i put too much love into them :p

I haven't used any mipmaps yet. I fear them!

I never tested the Praetorian model but I did export quadrapeds animated from scratch just fine.

I don't have access to that thread, sadly, but you've just volunteered to be my export guru if and when things go wrong :lol:

Okay, Sez, I did a couple of the things you wanted me to do.

Firstly, I stripped the Scout down to his trousers. Instead of deleting his skirt, I just welded the bottom of it up into his crotch area (:eek:) so that it looks no different to ordinary trousers, but you get to keep the original Scout dds layout.

Secondly, I made you the Venator helmet that you wanted. I went for a half-open visor with three feathers on the top, so let me know if it's good enough.

And thirdly, I made a pretty basic piece of shoulder armour.

The reason I only did those two is so that you can test them out and see if they work the way you want them to. If they work fine, I'll make more heads and armour. If they don't work, let me know what to fix.

In other news, the Orc is coming along nicely.

Okay, Sez, I did a couple of the things you wanted me to do.

Firstly, I stripped the Scout down to his trousers. Instead of deleting his skirt, I just welded the bottom of it up into his crotch area (:eek:) so that it looks no different to ordinary trousers, but you get to keep the original Scout dds layout.

Secondly, I made you the Venator helmet that you wanted. I went for a half-open visor with three feathers on the top, so let me know if it's good enough.

And thirdly, I made a pretty basic piece of shoulder armour.

The reason I only did those two is so that you can test them out and see if they work the way you want them to. If they work fine, I'll make more heads and armour. If they don't work, let me know what to fix.

In other news, the Orc is coming along nicely.

sounds nicely, i gonna test it out later today. thank you and dont forget the skaven ;)

I'll grab this too neener and play around with it. :D

@neener: i had a look at it, first the "human" is strangely edgy, well how to say, not round, well less round than... more edges, more hard edges than a vanilla scout... you notice it very hard when u apply the scout texture to it and then look at his face and his knees!!! dont know what went wrong, neither would i suggest using "smoothing" too much, cause this caused lag at some peoples pc, but i think firaxis used it at least a bit. dont know what you did to the model or which settings u used or whatever ;)

to your helmet and shoulder pad... its`s GREAT!!i really love the helmet, give me more of such wicked stuff ;) ! i skinned it quickly and created something at least close to a Venator... just the Horse and his armor need some redoing ;)
The way you texported (or uvwrapped, dont know which one is correct when i mean the way you arrange the grids in the texture) was not bad, but could in my eyes be more connected and then perhaps coloured, dont know if that is possible but otherwise great ;)
A, and i forgot: can you attach Gloss to everything related to Armor parts, that would make it a little bit easier... (and i reduced the textures to 64x64)

@neener: i had a look at it, first the "human" is strangely edgy, well how to say, not round, well less round than... more edges, more hard edges than a vanilla scout... you notice it very hard when u apply the scout texture to it and then look at his face and his knees!!! dont know what went wrong, neither would i suggest using "smoothing" too much, cause this caused lag at some peoples pc, but i think firaxis used it at least a bit. dont know what you did to the model or which settings u used or whatever ;)

I simply imported the model using the only import tools we have. I didn't change any settings, so if you have issues with it I'm not the guilty party. However, it would be easy to smooth the character out (and I don't think it would cause lag in Civ4) so I can do that and re-upload it if you want.

to your helmet and shoulder pad... its`s GREAT!!i really love the helmet, give me more of such wicked stuff ;) ! i skinned it quickly and created something at least close to a Venator... just the Horse and his armor need some redoing ;)

I'm glad something worked.

The way you texported (or uvwrapped, dont know which one is correct when i mean the way you arrange the grids in the texture) was not bad, but could in my eyes be more connected and then perhaps coloured, dont know if that is possible but otherwise great ;)

"Connected" how, and coloured how? The absolute industry standard as far as I've ever encountered it, is to use basic black-and-white wireframes like the ones I gave you. While it is possible to colour them, most people don't. What sort of colouring did you have in mind?

A, and i forgot: can you attach Gloss to everything related to Armor parts, that would make it a little bit easier...

I have no idea how to do Gloss. I don't even know what it is in relation to Civ4, though I assume it's basically a specular map. I'd need someone to explain how to "attach Gloss to everything" though, just to be sure.

(and i reduced the textures to 64x64)

Yeah, I deliberately made them big because, as I said in the tutorial, it's usually better to paint them at a higher resolution and then lower the image size rather than try to paint a tiny picture in the first place.

I noticed the blocky look as well, but assumed it was the importer.

To be honest I assumed it was how the model was created. The reason the edges are faceted is because when you first import the model all those edges are actually open. The vertices aren't connected, and the model has holes all over it. I did actually seal them all up, but at the same time I assumed there was some sort of bizarre, Firaxian logic to having a model like swiss cheese.

Life would be much easier if/when Firaxis releases all of the models completely.

Life would be much easier if/when Firaxis releases all of the models completely.

That it would, but I doubt they ever will. It's pretty rare for that to happen, even for the big FPS games.