Don Ott LCAD Game Modeling Class

Excellent materials and specular tutorials! Must read!

2010-10-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

Here are a few blogs / posts around the intarwebs you should bookmark and check out. Some great info on materials and specularity!

http://www.philipk.net/tutorials.html

http://www.manufato.com/?p=902

Great texture tips

2010-06-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

Check out these great writeups on some excellent texture tips. These are an oldies but goodies! Bookmark!

http://features.cgsociety.org/story_custom.php?story_id=4678

http://www.game-artist.net/forums/spotlight-articles/42-tutorial-hard-surface-texture-painting.html

Wealth of information regarding High Poly modeling and normal mapping theory

2010-04-16T10:45:00.000-07:00

You will want to bookmark these links.

http://wiki.polycount.net/Normal_Map

And here's another awesome wealth of info as well.

Click me!

Learn!

Creating a 2nd UV channel and setting up your lightmaps in Unreal

2010-04-14T16:42:00.000-07:00

Having a good, clean 2nd UV set is ideal for setting up a high quality lightmap inside of UDK.

I have created a video posted over at 3dmotive to help you with the process of copying your first UV set into your 2nd UV set, as well as some "do's and don'ts". You can find this tutorial here:

http://www.3dmotive.com/product-udk-lightmaps

Hourences has also saved me the trouble of completely re-writing this tutorial. This will guide you through additional steps and the process behind setting up your 2nd UV channel and lightmaps inside of Unreal. (FYI, there is no reason to apply a material to that second UV channel when it comes to lightmaps...)

You can find his written tutorial here:

http://www.hourences.com/book/tutorialsue3lightmap.htm

Bookmark these!

Easily creating a 2nd UV channel for lightmaps

2010-03-29T14:20:00.000-07:00

Original Written tutorial below. See above post for a video tutorial on this as well!

Before exporting your static mesh to Unreal (or any game engine that requires it), it is a good idea to have a 2nd UV channel so that Unreal can bake your lightmaps. However, going through and making a 2nd UV set can be time consuming, because who wants to unwrap their object twice?

Using these steps, you can easily duplicate the UVs you created the first time around, adjust a few settings, and quickly and easily have a successful 2nd UV set.

Always, always save your work and iterations so you can go back as needed if something goes bad.

Ensure that your first UV set is finished. This is basically the original UVs you created for texturing the first time around. The usual "rules" apply for UVW unwrapping. Here is my example UV's I will be working with. I have some UVs overlapped, and some UVs that are outside of the 0,1 space.

Save your first channel UV by clicking "Save", and give your 1st UV channel a name.

Next, change your UV to Channel #2, and press "Reset UVWs". When the message box pops up, press "Yes".

This will bring us to UV Channel #2, which will most likely look like a big mess. This is expected.

Next up, click on "Load" and browse to the UVs we saved earlier.

This will load our old UVs in, and you should be in Channel 2 now with a duplicate of your 1st UV channel.

Next, for our 2nd UV channel, we want to ensure that we have NO inverted faces. To select the inverted faces, simply press Select > Select Inverted Faces.

With the inverted faces selected, press the Mirror Horizontal button to flip the faces, so that they are no longer inverted.

Next up, we want to grab ALL of our faces, and let Max take some of the legwork out for us by packing the UVs. To do this, simply select Tools > Pack UVs.

When the options box pops up, I choose the following settings: Recursive Packing - Spacing: 0.01 - And I put a check next to Normalize Clusters, Rotate Clusters, and Fill Holes.

This will automatically pack your UVs into the 0,1 space, and ensure for you that nothing is overlapped as well.

The default packing that 3dsMax does is pretty good, but will probably need some cleanup. To ensure that I get the most pixel resolution as possible, I will usually go in and break some of my UV islands just a little so that I can repack. I try not to break any UV island down the middle, but anywhere a sharp angle occurs on the mesh is usually pretty safe to break. Start by selecting the UVs you want to break in Face mode.

Break those UV islands off by choosing Tools > Break.

After I "break" those faces, I will go ahead and grab all the faces and re-pack the UVs using the same settings as before. This time we got a bit better UV packing which will result in a higher quality lightmap.

As one last step I will always go in and scale EVERYTHING down just a slight bit in the UV box. It's a good idea to have a little bit of padding not only between the UV islands, but along the edges of the 2nd UV channel as well. Missing this step can cause some issues with the lightmap quality as well. Once I am happy with the pack, I will Right Click on the Unwrap UVW in the modifier stack and choose "Collapse To" to collapse the stack.

That's it! You should now have a clean 2nd UV channel ready for your lighting on your object in Unreal. Make sure you are following these rules as you are doing this:

ALL UVs are in the 0,1 space. (The blue box)
No overlapping UVs at all.
No Inverted UVs at all.
Every UV chunk has a slight amount of space between them. (Known as "padding)
A small amount of padding around ALL of the UVs between the UVs and the 0,1 border. (The blue box)

Happy times!

Don's Workflow steps for making a high poly game asset.

2010-03-15T16:32:00.000-07:00

I am constantly bombarded with issues of "My normal map bake didn't work!" or the final result being messy. If you want to succeed at baking normal maps, start with these step-by-step rules FIRST, and if you decide to deviate from them, have a good reason for doing so.

There are more than enough ways to skin a cat, but these methods work for me and I very rarely ever have any issues with my normal maps or high poly objects. ALWAYS be saving versions and iterations of your files. 3ds Max has a mission to crash on you when you least expect it, so SAVE OFTEN. This list assumes you are using UE3 or UDK as well.

Block in your high poly object FIRST. It's a lot easier to get the silhouette and scale issues taken care of before you start committing to making high poly work. This is a rough pass to block in the overall shapes and scale of the majority of your surfaces.
Make an awesome high poly object, keeping the Turbosmooth modifier on your stack when using it.
Finish it up with creative details as needed.
Make a new layer in 3ds Max and add all of your high poly to it. Name it Original High or something so you can keep track.
Select ALL of your high poly work, hold down Shift, and Move it in a direction in Orthographic view to copy all of it. This will make it easier later when we want to rebuild our low poly.
Now that you have a second version of your work, add this to a new layer in Max and call it Exploded HIGH.
Hide the Original HIGH layer.
Next up, "explode" your high poly pieces into manageable, individual chunks. This step is to address each chunk of what pieces you will be making a low poly object out of eventually. Obviously the more pieces you have the more triangles the final versions will be, but the more accurate it will be to the final object. Use according to your discretion and budget.
Next, copy each of these chunks (Control+V) and remove the turbosmooth modifier from each of them. As you are doing this, add each of these new objects to a new layer named Exploded LOW. This way, we can use the geometry we created from our high as the base for what will be our final low poly objects.
Clean up all of the edge control edges from your newly created low poly objects, and attempt to match the silhouette of the low according to the high poly. Remember - the closer you can match them, the more likely you are to get a better normal map. Keep your triangle budgets in mind.
When you are done at this point, you should have 3 layers - Original HIGH, Exploded HIGH, and Exploded LOW. The exploded layers should contain two types of objects - a nice clean high poly model and a low poly object underneath of it matching the silhouette as best as possible.
NOTE - When modeling your low poly object, avoid anything greater than a 90 degree angle as best as possible. Chamfer those edges! *****YES - there are methods for baking sharper angles. But to avoid as many issues with this and the lame workarounds and getting into a technical discussion of why you should or should not, first timers should stick with the rule for best results IMO.*****
Make sure you are addressing any polygon with more than 4 vertices. If you don't do this, Unreal will do it for you which can be bad. Avoid Ngons or "T-bones" as well.
Once all of your low poly objects are complete and you have closely matched the silhouette as best as possible, hide the Exploded HIGH layer.
Now that you have JUST the exploded low poly objects onscreen, select ALL of them and Right Click > Convert to Editable Poly just to ensure there are no modifiers left behind.
UVW Unwrap each of your individual low poly pieces. As you go through unwrapping each of them, move your UV chunks randomly off to the side anywhere in the UV window.
Select ANY of the low poly objects and use the Attach function to attach ALL of your low poly objects together.
Now you should have 1 single low poly object.
Reset X-Form on the object.
Give everything ONE smoothing group (Clear ALL and set every polygon to #1 to be safe)
Select every face and make sure it has Material ID #1 only as well.
Apply an Unwrap UVW modifier again and pack your UV's. I would highly suggest running MoP's Normalize UV script at this stage as well. (Scroll down in my blog for a link) The usual rules apply about UVW mapping.
Once your UVs are packed, make sure you don't have ANY inverted or overlapped faces on the 0,1 space. See my blog below for how this process works and some workarounds for overlapping / inverted faces.
Collapse to an Editable Poly.
Unhide the Exploded HIGH layer.
With your low poly object selected, bake normal maps as normal selecting all of the objects in the Exploded HIGH layer.
Using this method allows you to turn the Cage OFF and will generally get great results without the hassle of messing with a cage.
I prefer the Catmul-Rom filter with Supersamples turned on, using Max 2.5 Star for tests, and switching my Supersampler to Hammersley for my final bakes.
Once you have baked everything, it is safe to hide the Exploded HIGH layer.
From here, I duplicated the low poly object one more time into a NEW layer called Final LOW and move it off to the side along the same axis of my Original HIGH geometry.
Explode your single object back out into individual pieces once again. I highly suggest the "Explode!" script that I have listed below in this blog.
Apply your normal map to the object and check or any weirdness or smoothing on the pieces of this object.
The reason for re-exploding our object back out, is that now we can easily use the Align tool in 3ds Max, unhide our Original HIGH objects and quickly align our newly exploded low poly pieces to the original high poly model without having to re-create it with element mode.
Once all is aligned, hide the Original HIGH layer and you are done. You should have a perfectly aligned normal baked low poly object in the same worldspace as the original high.
As an added step, I will copy all of the re-assembled low poly pieces into yet another layer, and call that Final Collapsed LOW and attach all of the final finished geometry together before baking AO / exporting it to the game engine.
Drink a beer. Make some textures.

Accurately offsetting overlapping UV chunks in 3ds Max

2010-02-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

In many cases when baking textures, (AO, normal maps, etc) 3ds Max sometimes doesn't like the idea of overlapping UVs. The following steps can show you how to quickly identify your overlapping faces, and accurately move them outside of the UV space required for baking.

The thing to remember is that it won't matter if your UV islands are outside of the box when rendering or putting this into a game, because of how the UV coordinates tile. BUT, when baking, sometimes you can get bad results if your faces are overlapped in the 1,1 UV space.

Step 1 - Save and backup your work always.

Next, you should identify what faces in your mesh actually ARE overlapped. Remember - at least ONE of your UV islands should still be in the UV window, but all the other overlapping copies can be moved outside the UV window.

After you have identified what faces actually are overlapped, the next step is to leave at least one UV island in the window, and move the overlapped faces off to the side. One quick trick that I do, is simply click ONE of the UV islands with "Select Element" turned out, then HIDE that face so that we can manipulate the remaining overlapping UV chunks and have one "safe" UV chunk left behind.

With a single UV island left behind, the last step is to move the rest of the UV chunks off to the side. To do this, follow these steps:

Be cautious to do it in that order, and avoid scrolling your mouse wheel or clicking anywhere else, as this dialog box can be finicky at times. When you are finished, you should have one clump of overlapped faces off to the side, and if you Right Click > Unhide All, your original "safe" face should be left behind. All done!

Fixing an excessively triangulated mesh

2009-11-05T09:50:00.000-08:00

I had a student ask about how to fix a mesh that was over triangulated. This technique can be helpful for fixing a mesh that has been over-triangulated for whatever reason. Bare in mind this isn't going to work 100% of the time the way you want it to, but can be very helpful to get the bulk of cleanup done for fixing meshes like this.

(Big Image, get ready for the download)

Introduction to 3ds Max 2010 - High Poly Modeling

2009-11-04T09:03:00.000-08:00

Hey guys and gals. I just finished editing my first "intro" video to high poly modeling. I cover a lot of the basics of edge control and the Turbosmooth modifier. My next high poly video will cover some more advanced tricks and techniques as well as using modifiers to your advantage when doing high poly modeling.

http://vimeo.com/7430823

New video blog - Basic normal map projecting - Lesson 1

2009-10-28T08:23:00.000-07:00

Check out the video for the basic introduction to the baking process for normal maps. I cover the entire process from start to finish for baking high poly geometry normal map information down to a low poly.

http://vimeo.com/7305572

Getting started with UDK - Bringing your mesh into the Engine

2009-10-04T04:21:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, make sure you have downloaded the latest version of UDK. It is free of charge, and can be found here:

http://www.udk.com

Next, our good friends at 3dmotive.com have provided an in-depth tutorial for the basics of importing content into UDK. You can find the (free) video tutorial by following this link:

http://www.3dmotive.com/product-udk-importing-content

If you have questions, don't hesitate to ask!

-Don

Using and installing the Normal Map filters for Photoshop

2009-10-04T02:48:00.000-07:00

For those of you using Photoshop CS3 or below, click here for the link to download and install the nVidia Normal Map filter.

Once installed, you should be able to run the filter in Photoshop as needed. Here are the basic settings that I use to get started with normal map settings. Feel free to adjust them as needed.

For those of you who have Photoshop CS4, the nVidia plugin is not available. You can, however use the xNormal filter which works for CS4, as well as other versions of Photoshop.

You can download the xNormal filter here - http://www.xnormal.net/Downloads.aspx

Once you are inside of Photoshop, you will find the xNormal filter under Filter > xNormal > Height2Normals. Here are some of my basic settings for "average" hand painted normal map stuff. When playing with the amounts in xNormal, don't forget to keep clicking the "Update" button to see a preview of your changes.

Your Portfolio Repels Jobs.

2009-09-28T22:26:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in setting up a portfolio or are currently wanting to improve your chances of landing a job in the Gaming Industry, this thread is required reading:

http://boards.polycount.net/showthread.php?t=39516

Script - Explode Elements back into individual meshes

2009-09-28T19:50:00.000-07:00

Ever find yourself having attached a bunch of stuff together and wanted to go back and re-explode the mesh?
Do you hate having to find each individual Element and clicking "Detach" a thousand times? This script fixes that.

MAXScript > New Script.
Copy / Paste the text below into the blank page.
Press Control +A to select all of the text.
Left-Mouse click and drag this into your custom Toolbar.
To rename your button / change the icon, Right Click the button > Edit Button Appearance...
To use - Select your mesh, and press the tool button and then press Detach! which will break all of your elements back into individual objects.
Rejoice and be glad.

(

rollout rolTest "Detach Elems"

(

button btRun "Detach!" width:90 align:#center offset:[0, -2]

function detachToNodes oPoly =

(

if (classOf oPoly != Editable_Poly) then

throw "Wrong input in function: detachToNodes()"

local iNumFacesLastElem = 0

local baElemFaces = #{}

local sName = ""

while (true) do

(

baElemFaces = polyOp.getElementsUsingFace oPoly 1

sName = uniqueName oPoly.name

polyOp.detachFaces oPoly baElemFaces delete:true asNode:true name:sName

if ((polyOp.getNumFaces oPoly) == 0) then

(

delete oPoly

exit

)

if (keyboard.escPressed == true) do

throw "** escape key pressed **"

)

on btRun pressed do

(

local currSel = selection as Array

for obj in currSel do

if ((classOf obj) == Editable_Poly) then

detachToNodes obj

)

) -- End Rollout

createDialog rolTest 96 27 style:#(#style_toolwindow, #style_border, #style_sysmenu)

)

Setting up your prop for a decent render

2009-09-28T10:21:00.000-07:00

If you want to showcase your model with a render from 3ds Max, there are a few things you can do to improve the overall quality of the render so that it doesn't look so bland. These are some basic suggested settings that should get you started. Once you are comfortable with these settings, feel free to tweak them until you get something that works for you.

1. Start by changing the render filter to Catmull-Rom, and turn on the Global Supersamplers. (F10 to bring this menu up, under the Renderer tab) The settings below are the settings I generally use:

2. Next up, lets create a ground plane so that we can get some shadows for our object. Start by creating a Plane, and place it directly underneath your prop. It doesn't matter how many iterations or edges it has, and the size only needs to be a bit bigger than the object, so that any shadows that are cast onto it can fit.

3. Once you have made the plane object, choose an empty Material slot in the Material browser, click the "Standard" button and change this to "Matte/Shadow", and apply this to your ground plane. This material tells the ground plane to receive shadows, but will not be seen once we go to render the scene.

4. The next step is to create a Light to shine on your object. Under the Standard Lights, create a Target Directional Light and aim it at your prop. Here you can adjust the color, multiplier, (which is the light brightness) as well as the Hotspot and Falloff settings. You want to ensure that the beam fully covers your object. These are my settings for my light:

5. Once I have created my first light, I generally like to copy that light and have it pointing somewhat in the opposite direction. (Select the light, and hold down Shift and drag it across to copy it) This will ultimately be used to offset the light intensity and keep us from having pure black shadows. This is a basic 2-point light setup.

6. Once the two lights are in place, I will open the Light Lister (On the main Tool List, choose Tools > Light Lister) From here, I can manually adjust my lights without having to go back and forth in the scene.

7. With the light lister open, I will adjust a few things - I turn Shadows on for the primary light and increase the Map Size resolution, ensure there are NO shadows for the secondary light. Also, you want to change the multiplier so that they aren't casting the same amount of light. I generally do at least half brightness (or less) for the secondary. I also give my lights a little bit of subtle color (don't over-do it!)

8. That's it! Frame your object and render. Feel free to adjust any of the light brightness or colors to improve your renders...but you should have a nicely lit object in your scene with shadow casting.

Quick Script - Apply Reset XForm and collapse stack (3ds Max)

2009-09-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

This script can be added to your toolbar to run a quick Reset Xform and then collapse the stack. To install this script correctly, start by opening MAXScript > New Script.

Inside the Script window, paste the following script into a blank page:

macroScript Macro7
   category:"DragAndDrop"
   toolTip:""
(
   if ($ != undefined and selection.count == 1) do

   (

   ResetXForm $

   maxOps.CollapseNodeTo $ 1 on

   )

)

From here, select File > Save, and save it in your 3dsMax2010/Scripts folder. Name it "ResetXForm" or something you will remember.

Next, go to Customize > Customize User Interface, the Toolbars tab, and then scroll down until you find your ResetXForm script in the list.

Drag that function to an existing custom toolbar. (I discuss how to create these below, in both my workshop notes and the interface video I created.)

Done! You can now do a 1-click Reset X-Form and collapse the stack on your model. If you are like me, you reset the X-Form constantly when modeling. (If you ever have problems with bevels, chamfers, a LOT of modifiers not working correctly, or a whole mess of Editable Poly functions, Reset XForm will usually fix it)

Floating geometry VS. Closed geometry - Example triangle counts

2009-09-23T02:01:00.001-07:00

3ds Max Workflow Video Tutorial 1

2009-09-23T01:20:00.000-07:00

This is a tutorial video I made awhile back with a few tips and tricks to the interface for 3ds Max. I cover a lot of this in my workshop document below, but if you prefer to watch a video instead, here you go!

It's filmed in "HD" and is about 17mins. If I get a positive response I will continue the series and attempt to cover all of my workshop. Let me know what you think!

3ds Max Workflow and Interface Tutorial Pt. 1

Create a simple Wireframe render for your 3d asset

2009-09-21T17:12:00.000-07:00

1. To begin with, save your scene as something else. Call it "Wireframe_Render". If something breaks, you can always go back.

2. Select everything in your scene, Right-click > Convert to Editable Poly.

3. Start by attaching all of your pieces together so that you have only 1 mesh. You can do this easily by selecting any piece of your object and using the Attach function.

4. Once everything is attached, create a new flat gray-shaded material and apply it to your object. Give it a little specularity if you want for flavor. To do this, open the material browser (hotkey M) and with your object selected, click the Assign Material to Selection button.

5. Make a copy of your object and name it Wireframe_Object or something that you can remember. To quickly copy your object, press Control + V with your object selected.

6. With your Wireframe_Object still selected, apply a Lattice modifier to it and adjust some of the parameters. See the screenshot below for my settings. (The Radius amount will differ depending on the size of your object)

7. Apply a simple black material to your Lattice object, pose and render your image! (Hotkey to render is F9)

Hope that helps!

Free texture downloads! Visit these sites daily!

2009-09-20T04:52:00.000-07:00

For your daily dose of free textures, visit these sites!

CGTextures.com

Mayang's Texture library

Keep in mind there is a daily limit on how much you can download, so get into the habit of getting all you can each day to build up your texture library!

Mental Ray - Ambient Occlusion walkthrough - 3dsMax 2011 and earlier

2009-09-20T04:40:00.000-07:00

When rendering Ambient Occlusion for 3dsMax 2011, the following steps should be taken. Read below for earlier versions of 3dsMax (2010 or before).

First and foremost, ensure that you have no inverted or overlapped UVs in your primary 0-1 UV square. The following blog post can help you with ensuring you move your overlapped UVs outside of the 0-1 square: http://donott-lcad.blogspot.com/2010/02/accurately-offsetting-overlapping-uv.html

Once your UVs are not overlapped or inverted, start by bringing up the Render Setup. (Hotkey - F10)
Switch to the Common tab.
Scroll to the very bottom, and expand Assign Renderer.
Click the "..." next to your Production renderer settings, and when it says "Choose Renderer", choose Mental Ray.
Switch to the Renderer tab, and adjust the Samples per Pixel. Higher = better, but longer to render. I generally keep mine at Minimum:1 and Maximum: 4.

The object you are baking is a single mesh - not a group, not multiple pieces. Everything is attached.
Next, with your object selected, bring up the Render to Texture dialog. (Hotkey - 0)
Make sure you turn "Use Existing Channel" on, and it is set to Channel 1.
Under Add, choose Ambient Occlusion (MR).

Next, specify where you want to save the file by click the "..." next to File Name and Type. 3dsMax will render the image and drop it here when finished. This should be a 24-bit image, no compression or alphas.
Specify how big you want the image to be. (512x512, 1024x1024, etc.)
Bump up the Samples for a higher quality render. The higher the number the more accurate the render, but longer it will take.
Ignore any error messages regarding a Target Map slot.

Ignore the rendered image on screen. Once the render is completed, browse to your computer where you told 3dsMax to save your file. You should have a black and white Ambient Occlusion map.
If you notice issues with sharp gradients or harsh shadows, check your smoothing groups, as well as the number of Samples as mentioned above.
That's it! Take this image into Photoshop and use it as a Multiply layer on top of your textures. Feel free to slightly blur it for the desired affect.

Here is another setup that can be used for 3dsMax 2010 and earlier.

(Click image to open it)

Photoshop "base" brush set

2009-09-20T03:39:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to a Photoshop brush set I have collected over the years. It has a lot of good scratches, stains, and grime brushes all in one set.

To install, simply drag and drop this into your \\Program Files\Adobe\(Photoshop Version you have)\Presets\Brushes folder, and open it like you normally would in Photoshop to use the brushes.

Enjoy!

Max Script to normalize UVs!

2009-09-20T03:12:00.000-07:00

For those interested, visit this thread for the normalize UV script that will re-size and re-scale your UVs in the Unwrap UVW window.

Modeling for Games - Workshop / Tutorial notes!

2009-09-20T02:59:00.000-07:00

For those of you interested, you can download the workshop notes that I covered Week 1 here!

Click me for notes!

Modeling for Games - Fall 2010 Syllabus

2009-09-20T02:07:00.000-07:00

You can download the class syllabus for the Fall 2010 semester here! Click me!