blackjack-VS-

Last night i reproduced your tutorial (which is very handy to make plp get used to shader passes,etc), but couldnt figured a way to make a simple cube to show up in the viewer with the material i just had created... i solved the problem easily just copy/pasting one of the bis brdm rtv file, renaming it to cube.rtv and then opening it with text editor and made textures path follow my cube textures folder. lauched viewer and there was my cube!.. so today i opened the not working rtv file from last night, and all the fields with the ticks were blank, and so the 2 passes!! i recreated the material 1 again and overwrited it...reopened the file and still blank... i went to the bismodels folders, tryed 4 or 5 rtv's and same thing happened...just diffuse or force diffuse active... SO, what's happening?? its probably me doing something wrong, or it could be my system not running material editor ok... when material editor is opened, i dont have an icon on the top bar, i have a white square instead (the windows screwed aplication icon)... in the other hand i'm not sure what exactly i should see in rtv file after saved..i open bis rtv's and i see 2 shader passes there, with the normal and spec texture path writen... did anyone experienced this ? this isnt kind of a problem, because there's templates avaible for all the arma materials. but i would like to double check that i can trust the material editor.

i would like to give my opinion on this matter and i know ii was suposed to be posting in the "moved" thread, BUT the thread u pointed us is closed now...any new path for it? Also would like to ask if there's any official thread from bis, where "official" players like me who bought the original game, can ask for a "fix" to this cheating issue? And i cant agree with you guys when u say that "go and play in a private server" is the solution...99% of the players start on a public server ( i also did), since back in the days of ofp. From there u know other players, and then maybe move to a private squad. luckly i'm one of those players who found a nice "home" back in 2003 with ofp. till now i play with the same 25 guys, but once in a while we opened the server for some new blood refreshing. not having that as an option (opened servers with minimum security), seems to me as a HUGE handicap to our favourite game. I´m sure that BIS is thinking on a fix to this plague, since they know pretty well HOW vital it is to have an healthy/unsuspicious mp community. Again sory for posting here, but the moved thread is locked... Nice gamming to everyone!

This is a great help, thanks a lot Linker Split!

Great to see u back Placebo! i have 1 request btw...give the bis crew some stress, so they can find a way to finish the cheating avalanche in arma servers. public servers are just to risky at the moment, so plp are settting servers to private/pw, which is understandable. Good luck and ty for being here again!

I also dont like to see someones work plagiated, specially if it's a free model with author permission to use at will. it could be mine..Believing in dinamax, if it really is someone else model, so why dont tell it in 1st place? doing a texture is hard enough, so its still valuable... i'll wait for hawk's answer...meanwhile...nice head!

Thats a good question/idea, last night while playing i decided to swim some 200m and wasn't couting with losing weapons... Probably with some scripting we can avoid weapons from disapear...But a scubadiver addon would be very nice indeed...

i installed o2 then the bis models to a diferent path then the default one, and i got those exact error messages. then i went back and unrar straight to p:\ . i then opened all the bis p3d file without any problem. About o2, in the 30min i spent around it, seems to me that u cant just open your OFP p3d's in buldozer directly. they probably need material files associated, with shader information and materials proprierties. did u tryed to import just the mesh in 3ds or obj? Another stuff i tryed was to export the bis models to xsi, in 3ds format. i tryed it with the a10, and o2 exported the mesh splited in 2 selections inside 1 .3ds file... basicly o2 broke all the polygons in triangles, and mesh1 is the "twin" of mesh2. At the end of the exporting o2 gave a message saying that object was suceffuly exported in 2 meshs. so i presume this is a normal behavior? anyone exported the bis models yet!? i double check this by opening the 3ds file with deep exploration.its a bullet proof aplication that deals with all the 3d files, and the a10 was still split in 2 meshs...in DE i converted the 3ds to .xsi and imported again in xsi. this time the a10 was perfectly scaled, and the center point was right between the weels in 0 . that was really cool at least! I've solved the 2 mesh's problem by merging the 2 meshs in 1 new mesh and autoweld vertices...never saw that happening in a 3d file. Another bad stuff is that i couldnt find my uv's, but i'm gona retry over and over with the settings till i figure out. gona test some more see ya soon. TY again bis for the powerfull tool.

just got from work and saw this great new. gona download pronto and mess around a bit. Thank you very much BIS!!

It's an impressive work, something so sensible like paper really looks like metal/rubber/wood on this guys hands. Few months ago i found this Link while searching for blueprints references. It can be really helpfull for the modding teams. it has hundreds of unwraped models, rdy to be printed/cuted/glued. its somehow a reverse modeling technique but it can work ok.

Oh well...why i'm not surprised?...to all the others, i know it's not nice at all to see your work beated by some less quality 5min screenshot (winner doesnt even owns the screenshot "rights"), but that's why i dont usually participate in contests...u never know what's the jury likes... Congrats! to the winner anyway...

Oh well...why i'm not surprised?...to all the others, i know it's not nice at all to see your work beated by some less quality 5min screenshot (winner doesnt even owns the screenshot "rights"), but that's why i dont usually participate in contests...u never know what's the jury likes... Congrats! to the winner anyway...

If my memory is correct i guess o2 grid is made of 1mX1m squares. My advise is to draw a simple cube of 1m in o2 then after conversion with p2ms, open it in max. then in max, use the measure (ruler) tool and take note of the cube dimension=X Then in max grid proprerties, make 1 max grid unit = X . U can try the oposite method..make 1 unit cube in max(make sure grid settings are set to meters) then export the 3ds (scalling of 1:1). open in o2 and measure the cube. that way u will exactly know what's the scalling factor that max is doing by default. then everytime u want to export something to o2, just scale it by that value, and voila... Hope i could hlep, good luck

Usually the rule is to have 1 large texture for 1 model, instead of 10 small textures for 1 model. But if u have many models (your situation) u shouldnt have 1 big texture with small spaces of uv for each model. if u make it that way, 1 small tree will call a 1024x1024 texture, instead of the tiny one...that X the number of trees u have will overload the performance with many videocard calls of the big texture...i think this is general rule considering video cards...at least it is in my 3dengine.. So my advise is to keep the tiny textures, instead of merging them.

I had a car radio in my ofp addon. it was adapted from Y2k3 HMMV. it needs some very simple .sqs files in the final pbo, and basicly it plays the .ogg files just place ogg files inside a subfolder called MissionName\Music. So that means u can play diferent ogg files per mission, which is cool because u arent limited to a few musics. It plays just scrolling action menu and "play track1". Let me know if u want this feature on any addon u make.

Havent played Arma enough to notice any "not so good" animation, but i'm sure you found a lot of polishing to do. I'll try this as soon as i can, and report if needed. Very good to know ur still around Sanctuary,keep the good work! Edit: oops i forgot this was ofp related...my bad! but i still play ofp sometimes so i'll test them anyway!

Very cool tutorial Linker Split, easy to read and understand...I think i'll finally try to import some models and see what happens with the textures. What's still missing are the named selections list, and an updated o2 version, but i'm sure bis is working on that.. Thanks for putting this tut up, really apreciated!

ty for the "help" panda, my only purpose of trying the tool is to have an idea of what's the triangle count of bis models, just before i start any project. i'm not aware of any bis addon list with the lods polycount. if there's one already then its useless for me to use this tool, and i'm sory for asking...

had no idea there was a tool like this to get game contents...i tryed on arma but i guess i'm doing something wrong...i placed a hmmv next to the sealine, then frame and capture. what i have is a list of models with strange names, but i cant find the hmmv there. it seems to capture a large portion of the island meanwhile...i checked the textures folder and hmmv textures were there. any idea of what i'm doing wrong!? i just want to capture the hmmv and other ground vehicles so i can have an idea of the polycount... ty for the tool link anyway, i apreciated.

Enigma to give you a straight answer to the question "but besides a program like cs2 what do i need to make textures?" i will say none! photoshop is the reference, relating textures and photo editing, so since u have alot of experience with it,i'm sure you will be welcomed in any mod comunity.Texturing is considered by the majority of plp who ever trys 2d/3d's the hardest part of process. i work with gimp (free software) and it does it all i need relating my textures. but cs2 is way more powerfull, so ur lucky i guess! About tutorials, there arent any for arma and textures(that i'm aware) but better search on wiki. textview2 was released this week, so maybe there's tutorials on the way. meanwhile i'll pass u a link which is very interesting to read (4pages). it's a hints&tips for "how to do right" a model for nextgen game. so if ur skills at cs2 are good u wont have many problems with this addon stuff.! to BIS comunity Tutorial under tutorial section

I was a max user till i wanted to buy 2 licences for work...few months ago i had to choose which software i had to buy, and after a "survey" on several ,xsi convinced me with the unique price of 500$dolars for a foundation licence, all the functions it has and the fast learning curve for a max user i was. The cinema4d newest version is around 500$ to, and its an excelent software to.i guess there's no bad softwares at all at the moment on the market, but there's diferent prices for sure,compared to maya and max who are still expensive. imho max is still the most complete/compatible package for gaming, even that xsi is getting really high level with the gigapoly feature and all those craps...but max comunity/plugins are still the strongest and will probably be. Good luck with max and hope to see ur addons soon!

Synide about the specular map, it depends on the diffuse texture u have and how complex it is....but there's some tricks u can try, and maybe u can get a decent specular texture... what i would advise is:open the diffuse texture and go to the colors-desaturate (this is for a greyscale specular map, so no colors on the specular here). now go to colors-levels and colors-curves. try to balance it so u can have strong transitions from black/white. i usually avoid the grey tones, so u can have a notorious transition on the specular. i havent checked the specular maps on arma, so it depends on the shader proprierties, but usually white means full specular and black means no specular. if u want to retouch just a small portion of the texture, create a selection around it, and play around with levels/curves.... meanwhile from all the tutorials i saw, speculars are always made "by hand", so i guess this is the hardest part of the process of texturing... good luck and i hope i coud help

i use GIMP, its not so powerfull like photoshop, but it does all the work, and its FREE!

hey deadmeat i'm sory if sound pretensious or anything with my 2cents... i just sayed what i've read/listen from the many professionals around the gaming world. having a high poly model as a base usually is the best way. for small details u have "handpainted" method, but for gears, uniforms, faces and other "organic" shapes u need the high poly reference like or not. My point was to give cl10k a "hand" on this subject and since u seem to domain this subject so well, i'll keep silent... Good luck cl10k and i hope to your work soon!

hey deadmeat i'm sory if sound pretensious or anything with my 2cents... i just sayed what i've read/listen from the many professionals around the gaming world. having a high poly model as a base usually is the best way. for small details u have "handpainted" method, but for gears, uniforms, faces and other "organic" shapes u need the high poly reference like or not. My point was to give cl10k a "hand" on this subject and since u seem to domain this subject so well, i'll keep silent... Good luck cl10k and i hope to your work soon!

sup everyone, i guess some wiki about normal maps would clarify some of the minds here...the bump map technique u mentioned is the nvidia plugin for photoshop and gimp, that usually works good for hatches and small details. the high poly/low poly normal map capture is always the best option for a quality model. I use XSI from softimage at work and home, and its really nice and easy to make the tranfer of all the maps from the high/low poly models(ultimapper). cl10k i strongly advise u to grab xsi 30 days demo fully working, and give it a shot with ur maya models. u can find a short video tutorial on their homepage inside the new features area.