I have several projects planned which will require alot of custom models.
I know maya a bit, I'm currently learning blender & milkshape 3D.

Anyone have experience making models specifically for Source games?
I would like to know which is the best to use in terms of ease of importing into
source and possibly UV texturing. I'm sure there's no 1 perfect program for all of this, but it doesn't hurt to ask I guess.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

it would depend on the type of models that you're making. if it's mainly simple props, then learning a prog with lots of bells and whistles attached (like maya) is overkill, and something simpler (like milkshape) would be good enough.

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i eat paint

ok cool. I've made a model or two with Maya and it was a serious pain to
export to source, that and I couldn't get the UV texturing right.

I just got Milkshape 3D. I noticed it works with Half-life, but I wasn't 100% sure it worked for source games too. I'm trying to make some wooden bridges, brake-able pots, merchandisers for a retail map, and some fancier detail work for an underground facility. Taking the "good enough" approach is what I'm looking for, whatever is simpler to use. Thanks.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

HL2 SMD exporter for Maya 4-7 (works with 8 as well, with one extra step), though if you're using the free Personal Learning Edition of Maya you're SOL. Milkshape should work for any static or physics prop you need to make, but last time I checked it didn't support exporting models with animations for Source. Lemme know if you need any help with writing the QC and/or compiling.

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o

I was using the Prall exporter for Maya 5.0, I just installed Maya 8 (not PLE).
What's the extra step if you don't mind telling me? I was afraid it wouldn't work at all with 8.

The compiling I think I have down, its the UV texturing I can't seem to get a handle on, if you can recommend any tutorials to do that. I appreciate the offer to help I may ask for help if I get stuck.

I plan to make static models for now and eventually some simple physics models,
the last thing I want to do is beg people to make models for me, I want to learn
to make my own.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

The SMD exporter looks for shape nodes in the reference, physics, break, etc. layers, as they are what contain the actual polygons, but Maya 8 only puts the parent node in a layer when you select an object and tell it 'Add Selected to Layer' or whatever.

To fix this and get the shape node in, right click on a layer (doesn't matter which one) and select 'Membership' near the bottom of the popup menu. The left pane of the membership editor is the layers, the right pane is the nodes or objects. I just so happen to have a handy image to explain the process of putting shape nodes into layers with the membership editor.



After doing that Prall's exporter should work fine. I haven't had any success with choosing "Export only" in Maya 8, though, it only works if I uncheck 'Compile' in the list of tasks and choose "Full Compile". Also the exporter might not work if you have spaces in the output path.

I think laying out UVs has somewhat of a steep learning curve no matter what program you use, I was thinking about making a video tutorial on the subject (for Maya)...

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o

cool. I remember making the "physics" & "reference" layers.
So, you would use a "break" layer for brake-able objects I'm assuming?
That would be cool if it was that simple.

They seemed to have changed a few things for UV texturing in 8 also.
It automatically flattens out things which is bad if its a complex set of UV faces.

I learned the hard way that trying to UV texture polygons that have been modified with booleans doesn't work so well, unless there is a way to
erase the fact that it was a boolean, like delete history.

Thanks for the info, I will try this. I can tell I will get more confused. lol

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

for breakable props, you need to make all the seperate pieces as individual gib models. you make the bits in the model editor so that they are in the same position(relative to the root bone) as they would be in the unbroken model.

then, in the qc file, you set how much damage the model will take before being replaced by the broken bits, and whether the broken bits should fly off in any particular manner, whether they should fade after a set time, etc.
you can also sync various explosions and noises in the qc file, to whatever animation you give your models. the exploding barrel is a good example of that.

so breakable models aren't really breakable, they just get replaced by some gib models after they take some damage.

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i eat paint

like delete history

Edit >> Delete by Type >> History
or Edit >> Delete All by Type >> History (to delete history for all objects in the scene)
:wink:

You should also do that before exporting, as well as
Modify >> Freeze Transformations
Modify >> Reset Transformations
Which basically just resets the object's pivot to (0,0,0) without moving the object.

For simpler non-organic meshes I usually do an automatic UV projection then use the Move & Sew tool to get the UV hulls I want. As long as you move hulls rather than individual UVs and only use uniform scaling you don't get much if any texture stretching.

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o

I figured you would have to make all the broken pieces, so you would put them
in the "brake" layer then set up the options in the compile file, gotcha.
I think I'll wait until I get a handle on the UV texturing thing before testing it.

I didn't know if deleting the history would work for that, now I know, sweet! the modifying transformations command is new to me.
I''ll have to give it another test. you guys know lots, thanks.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

One of my friends has assisted me in my quest to model for HL2dm\CS:s.
He took one of my Maya models and UV textured it in Blender, very nicely I might add.

I exported it to .SMD files in Blender and compiled it...
The model shows up, but the textures do not (at least not on the model).
I've been hacking at it all morning trying to figure out what my mistake(s) was.
I hope it is as simple as a bad line in the .QC file or a misplaced or mis-pathed
directory.

I just want to get this right at least once so I know what not to do. The Maya exports that I attempted countless times failed, but the blender export didn't give me any compiling errors, go figure. i'm also giving the XSI mod tool a shot, I'm
gonna do this if its the last thing I do. lol

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

Success!

Special thanks to Baron Von Snickers for assistance in figuring out
my compiling issues. Apparently the reference .SMD file (exported from Blender)
did not name the UV texture. So when I compiled it, it would not see the
appropriate texture file. so, I replaced all the references to "material" with
the actual name of the file "merch3.tga". All hail teh Baron!

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

Some images in this post have been automatically down-sized, click on them to view the full sized versions:

I've always wanted to make a pool table for some reason...

<a href="http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/1597/pooltable2xu0.jpg" target="_blank"></A>

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

As hard as it is for me to say, I may have to dump Maya for Blender
at least for Source Models. Blender's UV texturing methods are pretty much "on the fly", while it is a tricky method to bake multiple UV textures together, it beats
trying to figure the "unwrapped mess" out in Photoshop. You can also bake
an "ambient occlusion" version of the UV, which makes very nice shading effect on the whole model, I blend the normal texture with it to get the final result.

Thanks again for the help guys, what should I build now? lol

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

Wow, a prop-modeler! Good job, we need more of you around. :smile:

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Why snark works.

Thanks! I'll try my best-est not to suck at it.
I'm finally useful!

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

Ok, I have a question... if any of you can help.

I made this model and I want it to act like a sawblade.
Someone said you can just get the sawblade's QC file, but I can't find it.



also, some of my models only work in DM if I set them as prop_physics_override.

here's my compile file>

$modelname "smack\psychore.mdl"
$cdmaterials "models\smack"
$scale 15.0
$surfaceprop "metal"
$staticprop
$body studio "psychore.smd"
$sequence idle "psychore_idle" fps 1

$collisionmodel "psychore_phys.smd"
{
$mass 150
$concave
}

$keyvalues
{
"prop_data

{
"base" "metal"
}

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

hehe... nvm... cancel.

found the line I needed in another forum somewhere, someone
decompiled the sawblade>

I added it to my QC.

$keyvalues { prop_data { "base" "Metal.Small" } physgun_interactions { "onlaunch" "spin_zaxis" "onfirstimpact" "lose_energy" "onworldimpact" "stick" } }

sweet! my models hurts alot now.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

I would like to know what lines I need to add to the QC file and where to make
a prop explosive. If anyone can tell me, thanks.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

awesome, i've been needing a pool table but never got around to asking anyone

edit:, some physics pool balls would be a nice addon

smackintosh, http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Prop_Data has all the info you need for exploding models. Making sense of the info, and implementing it, might be another story. :/

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i eat paint

yeah, making sense of that was not something I was good at. lol
I tried variations with

"Explosion Damage" "#"
"Explosion Radiation" "#"

The model was definitely not explosive... even though I had no error listed in the compile file. I was also trying to decompile a couple models I knew were explosive but I could not get the mdl decompiler to work.

I found a line in a random forum that said "use this line to make a prop explosive", but it didn't do anything, which makes me a sad panda>

$keyvalues { prop_data { "dmg.explosives" "1.0" "health" "1" "explosive_damage" "<amount to damage other objects/players, if you don't want it, set to 0 to be safe>" "explosive_radius" "<this is relative to the size of the model>" } }

Either that or I have to make it breakable with gibs first or something.

Thanks, though fishy. Maybe I'm trying to learn too much at once.

about the pool table, I did make a pool rack and a pool light, next are the balls, sticks, and wall mounted rack for the sticks.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

after much random hopeless searching, decompiling & testing... this worked>

$keyvalues { prop_data { "dmg.bullets" "X" "dmg.club" "X "dmg.explosive" "X" "health" "X" "explosive_damage" "X" "explosive_radius" "X" } physgun_interactions { "onfirstimpact" "break" } fire_interactions { "flammable" "yes" "explosive_resist" "yes" "ignite" "halfhealth" } }

sweet dizzle! also, the prop must be a "prop_physics" or "prop_physics_multiplayer".
It can't be a "prop_physics override". some models I was using would only show up using the "override" tag for some reason, so they were bad tests. oops.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

been playing around with bump maps & normal maps (baked on the UV
from Blender). Refraction tricks accidentally lead me to something I thought was neat...

an "ice" material, which I promptly applied to my spiked ball. :biggrin:



but I originally wanted to use the "predator" shader, to make it "cloaked",
I can only get it to work on static models though, which makes me a sad panda. :sad:

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

Made a breakable pumpkin, seems to break the way it should in game,
the pieces spawn at the exact place they should at the moment of breakage.
I still need to make the goo-ey insides and seeds.
I wish I knew how to make it splatter like the paint can does.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

The paint can has some properties defined in one of the model files. I can't remember exactly where, but if you extract the paint can model files, I'm sure you can figure it out. I'm sorry I can't tell exactly where this is done, but at least this should give you a place to start looking.

Nice models bytheway. :smile:

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Create-ivity - a game development blog

Not sure what app you're using to bake the ambient occlusion (looks like blender?), but try lowering the spread amount and raising the number of samples a little bit. Also lower the opacity of the AO layer in whatever app you're texturing in, the way it is now makes a lot of the skins too dark IMO (ex: the store display shelf).

The pumpkin looks great, can't wait to see it in action :smile:

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o

Thanks fellas. I'll have to do some hunting for the paint can model file or
info on it somewhere. Ambient Occlusion (yes, in Blender) doesn't always work as well as it should, I'm playing around with some of the settings.

The texture of the pumpkin seems off, I'll have to play around with the coloring
vs. some reference shots of real pumpkins. I'll send it to you to test if you want Baron, once I get it better. Its fun spawning stuff over and over in Gmod10 to test. lol

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

another question if anyone might know off hand...

I'm trying to make items or weapon ammo spawn when a model is broken.
Perhaps make a health vile or an smg grenade pop out when the pumpkin breaks.

$collisiontext
{
break { "model" "smack/pumpkin_break_gib1" "health" "20" "fadetime" "10" }
break { "model" "smack/pumpkin_break_gib2" "health" "20" "fadetime" "10" }
break { "model" "smack/pumpkin_break_gib3" "health" "20" "fadetime" "10" }
break { "model" "smack/pumpkin_break_gib4" "health" "20" "fadetime" "10" }
break { "model" "smack/pumpkin_break_gib5" "health" "20" "fadetime" "10" }
break { "model" "smack/pumpkin_break_gib6" "health" "20" "fadetime" "10" }
}

I would imagine that you could add a line in the gibs list for the item.
Searching for info like this with google is rendering no results whatsoever.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

Hmm...

Can you put the model into the editor as a func_breakable?

<div class="abouttext">Message submitted 3 minutes after original post:</b></div>
Another editor you could try for modelling is XSI.

If you want you can also purchase Neosis Interactive's instructional DVD that teaches you EVERYTHING about modelling with XSI for Source based games.

Very good purchase if you ask me.

The model is already breakable, in fact it breaks into 6 separate chunks that
appear at the right positions when it shatters.

I'm thinking that I may be able to sidestep adding anything into the QC by
making a func_breakable entity, (parented to the model and also with no draw texture), then telling the func_break entity to spawn X item or ammo when the model breaks. This way I could spawn different stuff for other copies of the model. This will be tricky I can tell.

I have XSI (Source Version) but I can't get a handle on it. I prefer Blender right now, but I may try to use that or Milkshape 3D when I want to do character rigging for Garry's MOD.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.

Oh geez. It's "Smashing Pumpkins into Small Piles of Putrid Debris: Source"

A "cluster bomb" for HL2dm, I'm trying to make the three feet
detach when the main unit explodes, scattering to meet their own random
targets.

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don't sweat the petty stuff,just pet the sweaty stuff.