Mondkalb's "How to create an Addon from scratch"

[Daffe 0]

Allright i'm clueless :rolleyes:

Where does the "TUT_Wand1_CO_tga" come from, how is it created, i don't seem to understand at which stage it's created, i can't find any information in the tutorial about 'how' to create it.

maybe a simple misspelling, is it suppose to be TUT_Wall_CO_tga?

Thanks btw :D

[mondkalb 1087]

Are you serious? There is a whole chapter about that...

Srep Five: Creating the texture

Please, just read that frickin' tutorial completely... :mad:

[Daffe 0]

Hahaha woow i'm sorry, didn't get that you jump in the chapters.

Yes i'll read the whole tutorial first then patch it together(i was simply reading up to down following the downward path.)

Thanks ;)

[Meatball0311 79]

I dont have photoshop.. but I do have GIMP... I also downloaded the plug in to do a UVMap

Two questions though:

1. Are you familiar with this and can you explain how to install the plug in.

2. And if you are familiar with GIMP.. can I have a brief description how I would Create the UV-Map?

[DaSquade 0]

how I would Create the UV-Map

I guess you mean 'normal map' right?

If so, i think NXZshadow or NZX (damn i always get confused who is who :d ) posted a nice tutorial on the forums. Could be it is under the ArmA 1 section.

Anyway, texture based normal maps are made out a height/bump texture where shades of white/grey/black form the needed 3D info. Often a bit tricky and limited, but most of the time you can get away with it. The plugin then converts these grey values into a normal map.

There is a nice alternative to the plugin.

Crazybump (standalone software). Sadly only the trail version is free for 30 days if not mistaken, but the full version is worth its money imho. It allows to view the maps on the flow on .obj files and imho you can controle the result better (several stages of detail). Beside that it allows you to make spec maps and occlusion maps (haven't really tried out the spec maps and result). Ambient Occlusion maps are foten better rendered in a decent 3D program.

*Sorry to topic poster for getting offtopic.

[beton 2]

Maybe you want to look into this...

ftp://ftp.armedassault.info/armad/docs/Betons_groundtexture_tut.pdf

it is for groundtextures but it explains the creation of normalmaps with gimp.

Just play around ant try

[gms 0]

Nice, Beton. Arma2 uses nopx texture. Do you know how to make one?

I made a sample.

http://rapidshare.com/files/378525637/pisekpoust_detail_nopx.7z.html

[beton 2]

Well, i´m definitely no texturegod. When i made groundtextures for my maps i tried to make them nopx but did not find a way to make them look nice. So i sticked with nohq and i think they do the job as well as nopx.

If anybody knows how to make nopx with gimp... please make a tut...gms??

but we are going oftopic i think

[askingmachine 10]

Are you serious? There is a whole chapter about that...

Srep Five: Creating the texture

Please, just read that frickin' tutorial completely... :mad:

I agree with Daffe.. you shouldn't have to read the whole tutorial if you name your steps by one, two, three...

I read and make. I start from first step and move to second... and then there comes this "wand01" texture... WTF is that I thought... four hours I spent searching, guessing and thinking what it could be... I even tried to use my browser's search tool to find if there's somewhere else mentioned TUT_Wand1_CO.paa but no... you mention it only once... I now know that WAND is germany and it means WALL, but if you read your own tutorial.. you can see that you have first used word WALL and then it changes to WAND...

Please, fix this, I'm sure that many other 1st time @ Oxygen 2 will be frustrated with that wand texture which comes from nowhere... We read from up to down, no down to up.

Edited June 18, 2010 by askingmachine

[W1nters 10]

And in the end, in what point you make TUT_Wall_ruin.p3d? and how?

[TRexian 0]

Hey, Mondkalb! I owe you a thanks (or seven)!

Thanks to Leopotam's Blender tools, I'm going back through some of my old models with an eye toward using them in ArmA. Your addon tutorial was indispensable! I've relied on many different ones over the years, some of them for the same information, but yours really put it all together for me. Specifically, the parts about the rvmat (normal and specular maps in particular) I had never successfully done before.

It may not be much, but here is my first result.

This first one looks good, but was a mistake. (Links because > 100kb.)

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c114/TRexian/JTD/testing/JTD_Cemetery_normalmap01.jpg

This is without the "mistake." I just need to figure out what I did to get the first one. I think I had it point to a non-existent _co texture in the rvmat....

http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c114/TRexian/JTD/testing/JTD_Cemetery_normalmap02.jpg

And, of course, the Leopotam Blender tools... :) Model in Blender (with about 5 minutes of tweaking in O2), texture and normal map in Gimp, and the specular map in TexView.

Thanks for the tutorial!

[jens198 0]

Hi guys,

I#m trying to follow Mondkalbs' steps through this (nicley done tutorial). I'm currently stuck with the UV-map chapter.

According to MK tutorial (Step 4), I should "hit the „Simple Unwrap“-Button () and it'll look like this:"

But instead I get something like this:

I'm pretty sure I mixed something up while selecting the correct faces in the preceding step.

Switch back to O2, again... select using the „Vertice-Selection tool“ in your „Top“-view the upper side of the whole Doorframe (Excluding the door!). Now switch to the „Touch Faces modus“ (). Select the other side of your wallsegment (You've already selected the back of it, now the front has to be selected) while holding the "Ctrl"-key in the "3D"-View. If everything went well, it shoud look in the "Top"-view like this:

@Mondkalb: Can you describe it a little bit more in detail which faces/vertices must be selected to get the same results as in you tutorial pictures. A little bit of background information what we are exactly doing here would also be very much appriciated.

Thanks a lot in advance,

Jens

[mondkalb 1087]

Basically you just need to select all faces that "are" the front-side and the back-side of the model.

To show this at the example of a die:

If the die would be your door-model, you'd have to select the sides (or faces) of the die that show the numbers Six and One. (The faces opposite to each).

Then right click into the view of O2 that shows you the selected faces upfront (Standing directly in front of the die's face showing Number Six).

Now head on over to the UV-Screen and hit . That should produce the result shown in the picture.

I hope that example helped. :)

[ziiip 1]

Hi, why is it that every time I close the UV editor, the texture I loaded disappears from it? :icon3:Thanks.

Edit: sorry for the lame question. And yes, I have read the tutorial.

Edited January 31, 2011 by ziiip

[mcmatrix 10]

Firstly many thanks to @Mondkalb for all the effort that has gone into this tutorial.

There are a few points however that I would like to make to help new 3D modelers like myself from getting very frustrated...

Firstly be patient and be prepared to spend some time getting used to O2...it is a challenge at times...

Secondly in Step Four: Creating the UV-Map..

The tute reads..."Now load a texture to the UV-Editor. To do so, click on „Filter“ -> „Browse new texture...“. Select your „TUT_Wand1_CO.paa“.

There is no „TUT_Wand1_CO.paa“ this is incorrectly written - it should be „TUT_Wall_CO.TGA“ . What I did notice was once you have loaded the "TUT_Wall_CO.TGA" into O2 as written, it does convert to the .PAA extension as written however in UV Editor when you browse for the Filter there is no „TUT_Wand1_CO.paa“ and there is no explanation on how to save the TGA as a .paa.

I used the original „TUT_Wall_CO.TGA“ and eventually got the EMF exported.

The screenshots are in German which are reasonably easy to guess what it is all about as long as you are using Photoshop. I have tried this using GIMP 2 and it is very difficult to work with the examples given in German photoshop screens...especially when one does not understand what is being done - perhaps a brief outline of the principles...so it is not so product dependent.

I have not read any comments from anyone yet who has finished this from start to finish but perhaps some of the more experienced modelers can assist in editing this article to help us beginners...

Once again I would like to express my thanks to @Mondkalb for sharing this extremely important and valuable article.

TRIX

[ghorip 10]

Hello, im new in addons maker and recently i was trying to create my own addons, and one thing still bugging me is about memory LODs thing.

I have my character model in 3d max, and when i convert it to oxygen 2 i have no idea what gona i'm doing (i'm new with O2), i got no problem with texturing but im blind with LODs thing, mind if anyone have the tutorial for it ?

[[frl]myke 14]

http://community.bistudio.com/wiki/LOD

[becubed 24]

Can someone please enlighten me as to what the _DT file is for. The whole texture section of this guide is a bit on the confusing side due to the use of so many texture layers to produce the final texture. I do think one texture, while it may not have produces as nice a looking result, would have made this part easier to follow.

Thanks for any help and thanks Mondkalb for taking the time to do such a detailed guide.

[mondkalb 1087]

You can always leave out the complete RVMAT section, it is entirely optional, but many consider using RVMATs as mandatory as it does so much good to the overall texture appearance/quality.

So if you feel RVMATs are too complicated, start without them, and once you've finished the rest of your work, have another try with RVMATs. There are plenty of other RVMAT tutorials around this forum section.

[becubed 24]

OK I'll hunt around now I have a magic search term.

I know nothing about modelling so knowing what I need to find out about is a hitch. Part of the problem is also that I don't have photoshop so I'm trying to follow along with GIMP.

Thanks again for the guide, I've always wanted to give content creation a go and it's the perfect start for me.

[Robster 11]

I have come to the point I need some working doors in my buildings... and after following last parts of this tutorial I got stuck with animations... when taking a look at this I got confused about models involved:

There we see a door.p3d... Do I have to create a new separated model for doors and delete my model's doors??? I'm sorry if I'm asking stupid questions...

Edited May 1, 2012 by Robster

[det0x 10]

Great tutorial. Thanks Mondkalb!:)

[meshcarver 12]

Hi all,

I've followed this tutorial, but when it comes to the putting it inBulldozer to see it with the normal maps etc, then I get

"Cannot load texture TUT_Wall\TUT_Wall_NOHQ.paa"

I have the normal map created, but also when I press CONTINUE, then object looks all black..?

All my PAA's, P3D and RVMAT is in the same project folder btw...

Does anyone know why this cannot find the texture please..?

The RVMATs path seems fine to me..?

FIXED: Schoolboy error- I had "s" on the end of a "wall" filename- syntax error in effect...

Edited September 1, 2012 by meanmachine1

[TheGreatBenji 1]

Thanks, this helped me alot!

[VovoNauta 1]

Monk is a genius on maps. But the translation (German-> English) a bit complicated. Some files are still named in German.

I did the tutorial, BUT NOT I open the door or the thud!

-Someone managed to make it work?

-Question: Can you see the animation of the door opening bulldozer?

YES!! solved.

....."The comments in this file should help. When the „Model.cfg“ is finished, you can go into bulldozer and try out the

animation. But first select the 0.000 lod, otherwise you'll see another Lod. Now go into bulldozer, hit the middle mose

button and use your mousewheel...."

- Has a simple tutorial for doors?

Tks!

Edited December 21, 2012 by VovoNauta