Addon Developer Workshop

[max power 21]

Welcome to the BIS Forum Addon Dev Workshop Thread.

This thread is for posting work in progress materials for critique, or for getting peer opinions. The idea is addon makers, can post shots of their raw assets in order to find out where they stand and what they can improve on, or to get help solving problems. Steel sharpens steel, or so they say.

Here are some ground rules:

WIP Material ONLY - This thread is for posting WIP materials for meaningful comment only. The asset in the shot must be clearly WIP. Posed shots of lounging units with the WIP rationale being 'oh, I haven't finished the wound textures yet' will result in administrative action.

Post with an Objective - This thread is for offering / getting critiques, problem solving, or getting other advice in addon content development. Please let us know what you want to get out of our responses.

No Promoting - Please post your promotions for your near completed addons in the promos thread. You can also feel free to start your own addon thread at any time.

Absolutely NO SPAM - This is not the place for non-constructive spamming. Comments such as 'I came' will be treated as spam.

Post Only Your Own Work - Posting the content of others without permission can result in a ban. If the work is a result of multiple people, please give appropriate credit to all participants.

Obey the Rules for Content Posting - Currently, the maximum image size is 100 kb. The Forum does resize them, however, it does not automatically put them below the kilobyte limit. The forum rules for posting content are listed below.

§6) No posting of explicit images

No posting of pictures containing porn, real killing, mutilations, wounds, carnage, and other disgusting/explicit images. This also includes links to pages that contain such images. If you are in doubt, contact a moderator via private message before posting. You won't be banned for checking out if a link is ok to post if it's a genuine request.

§15) Do not hotlink images over 100kb (102400 bytes) in size

Do not link images over 100kb using the IMG tags to display an image in your post. If you wish to post an image larger then 100 kb feel free to post the URL instead of hotlinking.

§19) Videos/Movies

No Video/movies, either posted or linked to shall contain any of the following.

Porn, real killing, mutilations, wounds, carnage, and other disgusting/explicit footage. If something offensive is being shown in cartoon form it shall be treated as if the imagery were real and not simply cartoon. This also includes team killing or anything glorifying deliberate and or anti-social behaviour on any Public or Private server.

§20) Posting addon/mod other content without permission

For many years this community has been known as the premium addon/mod creating community, people work tirelessly and in great detail to create fantastic addons/mods/missions/campaigns to release for free so that everyone benefits, including Bohemia Interactive. There are a few simple rules in place to provide the respect to these creative people/groups that they deserve:

The first and most fundamental rule is that you must seek permission to alter someone's work, to mirror it or use it in any way other than for personal use. No permission, no editing, no mirroring, no adding to your mod pack, no editing and sharing around your private squad, none of that is acceptable.

Obviously we cannot unfortunately control what people do outside of these forums, however on these forums you must follow this rule, if a person/team post a thread to share an addon/mod using content from someone else without permission and we receive a complaint then the mod thread will be closed until the issue is resolved and the forum member(s) risks being permanently banned from these forums for taking someone's work without permission.

This isn't just limited to re-using content in addons/mods/missions however, it's not acceptable to edit someone's work without permission and then to post screenshots of it on the forums (even if the edited addon/mod is purely for personal use), it's also not acceptable to edit someone's work, or use someone's work in any way that you don't have permission for and then to create videos which you post on these forums, doing any of the above without the permission of the original creators risks a permanent ban, for individuals, for whole mod teams or squads.

Edited February 23, 2012 by Max Power

[max power 21]

Okay, thread cleaned up. Let's try this again.

[Fox '09 14]

I'll start off

I'm working on some trousers for a new soldier base model, this is modeled after the regular BDU trousers. The pocket flap normals are fixed now, but aside from that what do you guys think? Are the proportions correct? And perhaps a more precise question, do you think a smoother, low poly model would be more appropriate for normal map creation? Though there are some bumps and bits around the model it's nothing major. I was thinking if I could bake a displacement map and somehow apply that to the model, (even just slightly) it would give a better effect. I'm afraid it's (the low poly) too low poly though, and If I want to do it it may be not worth the extra.

[nzdfcrash 33]

They look good so far fox. I don't see too much issues apart from some smoothing of parts of the model required around the back of the legs and ass.

Edited February 26, 2012 by NZDF CRASH
because i can

[max power 21]

Looking good Fox. It looks like you could smooth out some of the mesh as NZDF CRASH mentioned. Optimally, you could also use the meshflow to define the form of what you're going for better, but I think this is suitable. I was looking on the internet for examples of mesh flow for drapery, but it seems like all the art available in a casual google image search turns up polygon grids for trousers. One thing to look out for is in these renders, the man's front seems indistinguishable from his back except for the pockets. The anatomy of the area has a little bit of a bias towards the front.

For instance:

This is a woman's anatomy but you can see here that the lower part of the torso is shaped a little bit like a kidney bean. The spinal arch leans the torso a bit to the front and makes the butt stick out.

It may be hard to see in this small image but further to that forward bias, the shape of the pelvis can be characterized as a bucket tipped to the front 45 degrees or so.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jAHrmbvyBec/TiqAPgtubxI/AAAAAAAAAWg/7vhc9MOozS4/s1600/LowerTorsoMsmall.jpg

This is a nice if not somewhat exaggerated drawing of what I'm talking about. Here, I think the legs are quite overwrought but this is the kind of bias you can use to give your man a bit more anatomy and liveliness. Soldiers ought to have big legs anyway.

Another thing you can do is define the trunk and separate the legs with a couple of strip of polygons as scene in these images:

http://wiki.polycount.com/BodyTopology?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=topo_StreetCop1_MashruMishu.jpg

Actually this first image shows some of the drapery of the pants being defined as I was looking for earlier...

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7vQ93w-4eL0/TuZHR0IlwZI/AAAAAAAAAF4/BuCYx8ZEe1I/s1600/body_cage.jpg

Don't worry about what's going on in the upper thighs of this character I don't know what he's getting at with those edgeloops.

This meshflow defines the form a but better and is better for deformation, but I think arma characters are rarely seen doing slow motion jumping split kicks so dwelling on those details is not necessary.

---------- Post added at 18:21 ---------- Previous post was at 17:59 ----------

I think I should add a word of caution about making topologies too different from BIS's if you're using BIS textures, or textures made from BIS textures. I was recently making a head. I planned to reference BIS textures but use a new head model with topology that I thought would be easier to control at modelling time, since I don't have a 3d scanner handy. At unwrapping time, this turned into a huge nightmare. So, with all my fancy talk about anatomical topologies, don't stray too far from BIS's way of doing things if you intend on using BIS textures or texture derived from BIS's.

Edited February 28, 2012 by Max Power

[Fox '09 14]

Thanks max for the insightful response.

I see what you're pointing at in respect to the anatomy, especially with the pelvis area. My main concern is the clothing dynamics on trousers below the butt. When standing straight up it is generally pretty flat but it seems to create a bridge between the butt and the leg, sometimes a bit wavy. If there is a question I would pose it would be if I should model it to be more anatomical / general shape or a firing position specific pose, since you can't really chew gum and walk at the same time. It is this balance I'm always concerned about.

As far as BIS topology style, I'll keep that in mind as I intend to do some more detailed arm models to be used with T-shirts etc. Not sure about the textures but nonetheless It may come back to haunt me if I don't make sure of it.

[PuFu 4600]

when it comes to topology for cloths, i always found the Garment tool in max to produce the best results:

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fig/0580230208026.png

left side - triangles. rights side garment topo.

http://i.imgur.com/0rHYy.jpg

Last time i have tried to create a realistically looking pair of pants (for a short animation though - so i had no concern regarding its polycount - but this could be easily used for a HP model to be retopo for LP), i went cloth simulation way, defining the seams and stitching lines myself, trying to achieve a better folding pattern. The end result was ok, although had to manually adjust it quite a few when i was done with it.

Edited February 28, 2012 by PuFu

[Fox '09 14]

My friend works with 3ds, I'll perhaps talk to him about that tool, seems worth a go. Thanks guys, I'll absorb this information and see what I can come up with. :)

[Cabbagebasher! 10]

i thought it be good to post my very earlie stages of my WIP noob attempt at making a addon, atm i have a few capbadges and a pretty decent beret. my plan is to make a Royal Marine addons ace friendly but a bit more old school with combat 95 uniform and webbing. but atm now i figured out the best way to make capbadges its my main objective to make a collection of them for relese. so here a few pics

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/DK717/ParaCapbadgeRender.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/DK717/RAFCapbadgeRender.jpg

http://i765.photobucket.com/albums/xx296/DK717/RoyalMarineCapbadgeRender.jpg

these was mapped in 3ds max with the help of adobe programs. i can get them imported to O2 but its a program i not figured out yet.

any way feedback on the idea is welcome,

[bad benson 1733]

looking solid. not much to see modelling-wise (no wireframe no smoothing). although i'm a fan of putting a lot of detail into the model rather then the texture to give it a good silhouette myself, i'd suggest u bake those badges into the normal map. alone the contours of them take up so many polies. i don't think it's worth the effort considering the effect it will have.

what i would do is continue modelling them and even model every tiny detail. then bake it into a normalmap and use that on the model of the beret/cap or whatever u'll put them on. that way u'll get more detail and much less polies. baking flat stuff is fairly easy. check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFSXtjFI9ig&feature=related

P.S.: hope my english makes sense :o

[Cabbagebasher! 10]

looking solid. not much to see modelling-wise (no wireframe no smoothing). although i'm a fan of putting a lot of detail into the model rather then the texture to give it a good silhouette myself, i'd suggest u bake those badges into the normal map. alone the contours of them take up so many polies. i don't think it's worth the effort considering the effect it will have.

what i would do is continue modelling them and even model every tiny detail. then bake it into a normalmap and use that on the model of the beret/cap or whatever u'll put them on. that way u'll get more detail and much less polies. baking flat stuff is fairly easy. check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFSXtjFI9ig&feature=related

P.S.: hope my english makes sense :o

thanks Bad Benson yep that make sence as i looked into a few videos my self,

well i decided to go with a Royal Fusiliers capbadge and hackle, making slow but good progress so hopefully have some thing to show at least soon

[mach2infinity 12]

I apologise for the quality. I've only started the previous evening and it's only to get the rough shape of the head:

Front

Side

Reference material:

(unidentifiedenemy.co.uk)

(from the Konami game)

Blender has been mentioned as a possible alternative/supplement programme. Is it worth it?

I've included additional photos merely for point of reference as not everyone would be familiar with them. I'm not sure how to proceed with the head. Whether I need a lot more points just to give a nice and rounded curve to the head? Or whether I need to use a feature/function which I haven't yet used?

Edited March 30, 2012 by Mach2Infinity

[PuFu 4600]

;2126281']I apologise for the quality. I've only started the previous evening and it's only to get the rough shape of the head:

Front

http://img59.imageshack.us/img59/5553/infantrycasteheadmodel.th.jpg

Side

http://img269.imageshack.us/img269/2681/infantrycasteheadmodel1.th.jpg

Sorry to say mate' date=' but at this very moment that is not a head, it is a blob...

Blender has been mentioned as a possible alternative/supplement programme. Is it worth it?

It's free....so sort of yeah, it is, that is a proper modelling software opposed to O2...(no pun intended, you will still need O2...)

I've included additional photos merely for point of reference as not everyone would be familiar with them. I'm not sure how to proceed with the head. Whether I need a lot more points just to give a nice and rounded curve to the head? Or whether I need to use a feature/function which I haven't yet used?

Quite a few more. Especially if you are gonna use it as a proxy (have a look over BIS human head first).

[max power 21]

O2 can be quite difficult to work with. If you keep at it, though, it's capable of producing some pretty neat stuff. I would look into blender, however.

[PuFu 4600]

O2 can be quite difficult to work with. If you keep at it, though, it's capable of producing some pretty neat stuff. I would look into blender, however.

I really think that using O2 for organic shapes, such as the body of that alien, is like cutting your own and sticking them very close to the source of the said cut...

That said, for this sort of geometry, i would make a HP first, then retopo the LP. It should be a lot easier to get a proper high quality and detailed mesh

[mach2infinity 12]

Thank you guys. All constructive opinions are welcome, no need to apologise. I don't want to dilute the thread further, so I shall only post here next when I have something of a sufficient quality and standard. :)

[rocket 9]

Most of the "look" of your model will come from the shader, i.e. the combination of the normal, specular, and fresnel. You need to give careful thought as to how you will create these. For most models, the appropriate way to generate this is to make a high resolution (in the order of 100k - 1000k polygons) model and then "bake" it onto your low resolution model. This helps with generating the diffuse, ambient, specular, and normal maps - essentially leaving you with touching up the textures once baked.

You're blob would then be exported into something like Mudbox, with the details carved out into a million polygon model. This is then baked into the normal map, and the ambient map.

In OFP times, you could get away with generating the model directly and painting the diffuse/normal yourself - but with the modern shaders it becomes increasingly obvious and can result in a very problematic look. Your 3D object essentially just provides the basic shape, with the actual detail being provided through the normal/spec/fresnel combination. Once you get this high -> (bake) -> low workflow working, the whole process becomes quite straightforward and it is a good way to model, even for low-poly simple objects.

Your high-poly model is generated any way you want, with no regard to UV space or polygon limits. You make the object "look how it does" in real life. This then allows you an excellent starting point as to where/how to generate your low-poly model. You can then assign you polygon budget more effectively, as you can see where you need to commit polygons. The further benefit is consolidating your textures and materials. You can lay your UV's out all at once, get the scale correctly assigned, and split parts out into appropriate materials, balance and adjust it all, THEN generate the textures. This efficiency really helps when assigning UV space.

Oxygen is then your "final step" in the addon development process, where you configure the parts, assign materials, test-and-adjust as necessary - bring it all together into your final addon.

[Alwarren 2767]

;2126281']Blender has been mentioned as a possible alternative/supplement programme. Is it worth it?

I use Blender myself. It works reasonably well, I use subsurfaces for modelling and then snap-to-object to remodel the low poly variant.

The most important thing is to use an external program (in my case xNormal) to bake the normal maps. If you do it with blender, export to O2, and press F5 to readjust the normals (since the export somehow messes them up), a blender-baked normal map doesn't work correctly, but xNormal's do.

[max power 21]

xNormal is a wonderful program.

[CameronMcDonald 146]

xNormal is a wonderful program.

+1. Also very good if you are just starting out and would like to easily make AO maps.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

The most important thing is to use an external program (in my case xNormal) to bake the normal maps. If you do it with blender, export to O2, and press F5 to readjust the normals (since the export somehow messes them up), a blender-baked normal map doesn't work correctly, but xNormal's do.

?? I have no problem using Blender to bake normal maps.

Though at times it may require a test to check the x,y are in the correct orientation. Axis can be flipped either when baking or later by inverting the proper colour channel.

[Alwarren 2767]

?? I have no problem using Blender to bake normal maps.

Though at times it may require a test to check the x,y are in the correct orientation. Axis can be flipped either when baking or later by inverting the proper colour channel.

What are you using them for? I mean sure Blender can bake its own normal maps, but once I exported them to P3D and re-import into O2, the normals are messed up and I need to press F5 to get them aligned correctly. The result, however, is slightly different from what the normals are within Blender, making e.g. the rectangular areas on the PMAG appear to bulge out.

If I bake with xNormal, they work.

Might be that I am doing something wrong. I set all faces to smooth because otherwise seams are visible on the mesh after baking.

[pathetic_berserker 4]

Sry Alwarren I'm having a little difficulty visualising your problem

I'm using Blender to do everything then using leopotams blender/O2 plugin to go to O2. The mesh I export tends to use edge splits on smooth faces rather than flat faces, and vertex normals are a liittle wierd on import but I usualy do a quick cut paste to refresh.

As for the actual tangent space normal map generated in blender, its just a texture so remains good as long I don't change the UV mapping.

If your not satisfied with the results your getting it maybe some other setting ie, 'bias', 'distance' , and for unwanted seams probably 'margin'

Do you by chance use Leopotams blender/O2 tools

Might be better to delve into the problem there instead of hijacking this thread.

http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?105516-Blender-import-export-plugins

Maybe something is getting lost here in translation so to speak.

[vynom 1]

I work currently on a Hk45.

it´s harder as i thought.^^

I make it to practice but when i finished the model, i will try to make my first addon out of it.

Now i get my first problem... i made a picture, cause it´s to hard for me to explain it on english.^^

My current Model:

I know, the gun carriage (english for Pistolenschlitten?/used google translator for it:rolleyes:) is a bit messed up. i must make a new one but first i want to solve my little problem.

My reference: ( http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-uoQFjl5nAvY/TsUVdEA3CiI/AAAAAAAAEAA/JV35qC0yi2E/s1600/HK_45_1.png )

And my problem:

I can´t change my profile settings and avatar, is that normal?

I hope my english is not so bad how i think it is :)

[roberthammer 582]

vynom - very nice model :)

btw those two parts are part of the frame - i will show you some pics , hopefully they will help you

http://zombietacgear.com/?tag=hk45 and http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/de/HK_45C_Threaded_Barrel_Rear_View.JPG

also if you need more and detailed pics of it - you can find them here http://lundestudio.com/hks.html

Edited April 10, 2012 by RobertHammer