NPC and Enemy models

[Verdite]

I thought i'd mention that SoM doesnt support normals. But if you look at the middle texture (beside the blue one - the normal) this texture would look great anyway. The texture wont bump out as great, but it'l look less flat due to its shading.

Just for reference to you, my fish model in game has... 991 vertices.

I dont think that poly reduction for you're skeleton would be a good idea. However you could render each section of bone and use this as a 256x256, then cut out the bones using the line method we both understand.

Ill attach the UV of the fish so you can get a better idea.

[HwitVlf]

Is it just me, or does that fishes eye follow you around the room? 

The restrictions against using ultra-high polygon models comes mainly form hardware limitations as opposed to SoM limitations. So I don't think there's a workaround. Even in new games, models are usually only around 1000 vertices each. Games like Resident Evil 5 that have a very high-poly player model have to scrimp on play-area and have small environments etc to keep overall poly-count down.

Like Verdite is saying, I think the best effects are going to come from having good textures rather than high-poly mesh. I like to start with high-resolution textures because they're easier to edit/paint without making things look blotchy. When I'm satisfied with the look, I downsize 256x256. The critter body I'm working on right now started as a cylinder with 10 divisions and is very low-poly, (~300 vertices so far), but it looks ok when you slap a decent texture on it.

I don't know if anyone has learned how to use UVPowerUnwrapLive yet (metasequoia plugin), but it makes it quite easy to setup decent UV texturing.

[dmpdesign]

@@

damnit, you guys are making leaps and bounds of progress and i cant keep up with all the posts, i need to quit my day job or something.

going to go in a corner and cry now.

[airflamesred]

I don't know wether this is up to standard but I'll send the file to you John for tweeks. The UVs are stacked quite a bit but managed to get it all on a 256

[airflamesred]

Info on Uv live would be useful John. I've read your notes but it looks buggy to me.

[HwitVlf]

That table is very nice! Having a combined table/chair Object in SoM would be very helpful. The table would have the Object's square collision and an NPC sitting in the chair would provide it's collision.

I'm converting the shackles to SoM format now- interesting, the one capital 'H' you used in the materials tag seems to make the shackles twitch when you tug on that bone.  I guess the tags are case sensitive.

I made a simple video with UVPowerUnwrap info here. Ha, you'll have to pardon my stammering, I made it before my morning cup of cofee  

[airflamesred]

Thanks very much for the vid John. The fog is now clearing.
I hadn't even thought about the H/h problem. I asumed the jittering was part of the constraint deal - seems you've sussed that one as well.

[HwitVlf]

I don't know wether this is up to standard but I'll send the file to you John for tweeks. The UVs are stacked quite a bit but managed to get it all on a 256

  Did your table ever get ready?

Mark, if I could mooch a little off your Metasequoa expertise- is there a way to make the polygons that are selected on the UV texture display become selected on the mesh? Sometimes I end up with a stray polygon in the UV display and It's a pain figuring out which face on the mesh it belongs to.

Lastly, is there a way to strip all material off a polygon? I seem to remember doing it in the past but I can't figure it now.
Thanks! 

[airflamesred]

Sorry John I'd completely forgotten. I'll fix the chair tex and send it tomorrow.

Well the only reverse selection I'm aware of is to enable 'select' underneath 'object' in the lefthand UV menu. This will show you the relevant vertex on the mesh.
As for stripping the mat - not sure. Whats your purpose?

I'm not fully clear on the mesure stick. Is one mqo=10cm?

[HwitVlf]

No problem at all about the table- I just wanted to make sure I didn't miss an email or something :)
That table is great by the way. SoM generally has a 'rustic' setting and your table fits in nicely, but has a little more 'class' than most SoM furniture so It's excellent for richer houses etc. I have a 'robber baron' type character in my game and your table is perfect for his house. 

Thanks so much for the 'select' tip! That's exactly what I was wanting.
As for why to strip materials- some of the bone-triangles needed for a SoM skeleton don't have a mesh attached so they don't need a material. When I make those triangles, Meta auto-attaches the current material which usually messes up the skeleton unless I "make new material > apply to said bones > delete new material so bone has no Mat". There's probably some obvious solution that I'm being too dense to see.

As far as the measuring stick, the simple answer is SoM uses a rough scale of 100 Meta units = 1 meter in SoM. SoM's editors only let you move objects in 10cm increments (aka 0.1 meters) so it's a good idea to make a new model's size be a multiple of 10cm (aka one band on the measuring stick). Otherwise, an item placed on the table top etc will be 'floating/buried'.