Kuribo64
Views: 19,850,948 Home | Forums | Uploader | Wiki | Object databases | IRC
Rules/FAQ | Memberlist | Calendar | Stats | Online users | Last posts | Search
03-28-24 02:22 PM
Guest:

0 users reading How do I shade? | 1 bot

Main - Archived forums - General SMG hacking - How do I shade? Hide post layouts | New reply


mustafa
Posted on 11-01-14 11:35 AM Link | #50518
Hello Everybody
Can someone explain to me how I can shade my models in sketchup? The models always look plain and boring, but how do I shade and export so that obj2bdl can understand? If I most shade in blender does anyone care to explain to me how? Youtube doesn't help that much :)
tHANKS!

KoopaTroopaMan
Posted on 11-01-14 01:53 PM Link | #50519
I don't know. You could maybe make another version of the texture and edit it to add shade.

Splitwirez
Posted on 11-01-14 02:17 PM Link | #50520
Posted by Rainbow Mario
I don't know. You could maybe make another version of the texture and edit it to add shade.

Uh...learn. Learn to vertex colours.

cosmological
Posted on 11-01-14 05:32 PM Link | #50529
So in Blender there is a mode called vertex paint. Once in that mode press "t" to open up a menu. It should have a brush as well as a color wheel. In that mode you have a brush that you can use to paint the vertices of the model. It is most useful to have a gray scale for it and you paint on the vertices.

You can also have it tint the vertices different using the colors of the color pallet. I don't recommend this one as much. I've only used it for transitions between dirt and rock and BoB and to give a running rust feel in Sky High.

Here's some tips to make your levels look good.
- Shade around any sharp edges or transitions in textures, it helps mask the otherwise very noticeable changes.
- Pick a direction for the Sun to be coming from and shade along every edge that would be shaded normally.
- Do what feels best. If something produces a weird jagged edge don't use ot. A player won't be looking for the utmost consistency especially for a fan made level.

____________________
Long live the new Kuribo64

Slacker
Posted on 11-01-14 05:46 PM (rev. 3 of 11-01-14 05:57 PM) Link | #50534
Posted by cosmological
So in Blender there is a mode called vertex paint. Once in that mode press "t" to open up a menu. It should have a brush as well as a color wheel. In that mode you have a brush that you can use to paint the vertices of the model. It is most useful to have a gray scale for it and you paint on the vertices.

You can also have it tint the vertices different using the colors of the color pallet. I don't recommend this one as much. I've only used it for transitions between dirt and rock and BoB and to give a running rust feel in Sky High.

Here's some tips to make your levels look good.
- Shade around any sharp edges or transitions in textures, it helps mask the otherwise very noticeable changes.
- Pick a direction for the Sun to be coming from and shade along every edge that would be shaded normally.
- Do what feels best. If something produces a weird jagged edge don't use ot. A player won't be looking for the utmost consistency especially for a fan made level.

cosmological is definitely a guy to talk to about this stuff since he's a Blender guy. Nice.

I am just gonna put in some background here for information.
To shade a model you will need to use obj2bdl version 0.4. Good ol' blank made this specifically for using vertex colors on 3D models.

Vertex colors are what allow models to appear "shaded" in SMG. They go "ontop" of textures and change how textures are displayed. So "painting" something like grey "ontop" of your textures will make a texture look darker and consequently, more in shade.

Unfortunately, blank's fix for vertex colors relies on a Blender script he wrote to output his "extended" .obj format. This filetype is like a normal .obj with vertex color data in it. obj2bdl v0.4 knows how to work with this extended format to put vertex colors on you models. Really, the takeaway here is that you need Blender to output this special format.

So if you really want to work with Sketchup, (which I wouldn't advise since its kinda bad), you could output a format that does output vertex colors and can be read by Blender. Next from Blender you output the special format and move on with obj2bdl v0.4 to get "shaded" model .arc files. Done.

I am not familair with Blender, so you're kinda on your own with that... I know .DAE's can (depending on the program) export vertex colors along with .FBX's. You will have that filetype yourself, so I'm not much help there. Does Sketchup even handle vertex colors?

Of course, you could just learn Blender. However, Blender has a bit of an icky user interface that makes it a bit of a pain to learn.

[image]

Since you are going to have work through Blender in either case here is what I know. I am using Blender 2.70a. When you open up Blender, you've got your main window where your 3D model is. Select the model you want to shade. At the bottom of this window more over to the left side, there is a button that says object mode. The above picture is how you get to this. Click that and go to Vertex Paint Mode. Now you can paint colors on to (shade your model). When you're done, head to File > Export > Extended Wavefront. This is blank's special filetype and you will need to have his script installed to have that option. Documentation for how to do that should be somewhere on this site.

It's a somewhat difficult process. Expounding upon cosmological's tips, this is a geometry based process. What I mean is that to get more detail with shading, you will need more geometry (triangles/quads) to make more convincing gradations. I'm just kinda throwing words since it would be better to show you or something, but that would be difficult.

Hope you can get up and running with this stuff. Good luck.

Splitwirez
Posted on 11-01-14 05:56 PM Link | #50543
Posted by Slacker
Posted by cosmological
-snip-
-response snip-

And I'll now add that Whitehole can't display models created with obj2bdl v0.4, provided they have vertex colours. So, you should generally create a separate version of the planet using obj2bdl v0.3 or lower for use in Whitehole...unless of course the level editor in question is Anarchy in the Galaxy, in which case *applause* .

Slacker
Posted on 11-01-14 06:14 PM (rev. 5 of 11-01-14 08:43 PM) Link | #50545
Posted by Splitwirez
And I'll now add that Whitehole can't display models created with obj2bdl v0.4, provided they have vertex colours. So, you should generally create a separate version of the planet using obj2bdl v0.3 or lower for use in Whitehole...unless of course the level editor in question is Anarchy in the Galaxy, in which case *applause* .


Partially true. Yes, some versions don't, but some do. I am using v1.1.2 (The Whitehole "about" doesn't seem properly maintained), and v0.4 models work fine.

[image]
Image from Whitehole version 1.1.2.


Though having a lower version is a smart move. The version I am using does not support area selection and what not... So you may have to work with a version of Whitehole that doesn't show vertex color models to do more stuff for gameplay. I mention the workflow in a post about [url https://kuribo64.net/?page=thread&id=1681]water.[/url]


Splitwirez
Posted on 11-01-14 06:22 PM Link | #50547
Posted by Slacker
Posted by Splitwirez
And I'll now add that Whitehole can't display models created with obj2bdl v0.4, provided they have vertex colours. So, you should generally create a separate version of the planet using obj2bdl v0.3 or lower for use in Whitehole...unless of course the level editor in question is Anarchy in the Galaxy, in which case *applause* .


Partially true. Yes, some versions don't, but some do. I am using v1.1.1 (I think, the Whitehole "about" doesn't seem properly maintained), and v0.4 models work fine.

[image]
Image from whatever version I have.


Though having a lower version is a smart move. The version I am using does not support area selection and what not... So you may have to work with a version of Whitehole that doesn't show vertex color models to do more stuff for gameplay.


Uh...okay, I didn't know that. 1.1.1 seems to be basically like 1.3.1, except without area editing.


Those grassy planets are AWESOME!! Kind of a simple form of epicness. Did you make them?

Slacker
Posted on 11-01-14 06:33 PM (rev. 2 of 11-01-14 06:35 PM) Link | #50548
Posted by Splitwirez
Uh...okay, I didn't know that. 1.1.1 seems to be basically like 1.3.1, except without area editing.


Those grassy planets are AWESOME!! Kind of a simple form of epicness. Did you make them?

Thanks. I did model those planets as a test for a script I was working on a while back.

Wasn't aware that there even was a 1.3.1... Where'd you get that?

Back on topic:
I'd also like to add that I heard of some tool in Blender that calculates "dirt" with vertex colors for you. "Dirt" just means that corners where planes meet would be darker than flat expansive surfaces (if I remember correctly).

I'm not sure where to find the tool/option so I'd suggest finding another Blender guy for that. I heard it got removed in later versions of Blender since modern games don't rely as much on vertex colors. The term ambient occlusion gets thrown around for more modern stuff. Not applicable to SMG.


Splitwirez
Posted on 11-01-14 06:39 PM Link | #50549
Posted by Slacker
Posted by Splitwirez
Uh...okay, I didn't know that. 1.1.1 seems to be basically like 1.3.1, except without area editing.


Those grassy planets are AWESOME!! Kind of a simple form of epicness. Did you make them?

Thanks. I did model those planets as a test for a script I was working on a while back.

Wasn't aware that there even was a 1.3.1... Where'd you get that?

Back on topic:
I'd also like to add that I heard of some tool in Blender that calculates "dirt" with vertex colors for you. "Dirt" just means that corners where planes meet would be darker than flat expansive surfaces (if I remember correctly).

I'm not sure where to find the tool/option so I'd suggest finding another Blender guy for that. I heard it got removed in later versions of Blender since modern games don't rely as much on vertex colors. The term ambient occlusion gets thrown around for more modern stuff. Not applicable to SMG.

What was the script? What did it do?

Um...MrRean's 1.3 and 1.3.1 builds? Hello?

Well, that's an unfortunate loss. Would've been quite useful.

Slacker
Posted on 11-01-14 06:58 PM (rev. 2 of 11-01-14 06:59 PM) Link | #50552
Posted by Splitwirez
What was the script? What did it do?

Well its a pain to test models in game. I have been meaning to write a tutorial detailing the full process but never got around to it. I still don't know a lot.
But you have to model the thing. Export the model to .obj. Run obj2bdl on your output. Get the BDL. Run collision creator. Get the KCL/PA pair. Put em in a folder to pack. Pack them using RARCPack. Get a bad .Arc. Run Yaz0enc on the bad arc. Get a good, but derpy named arc. Rename the arc and then put it in ObjectData.

What I wrote takes your obj and spits a usable arc into ObjectData while cleaning all the gross intermediary files. I'm lazy. Less hassle if you're testing over and over. Made that image from a test for the script with v0.4 models. So yea. It's just a "glue" script, I can't deal with the Model GUI stuff.

Posted by Splitwirez
Well, that's an unfortunate loss. Would've been quite useful.

Again I'm not sure about that...You would have to talk to a Blender user. I don't use Blender for any serious modelling. It's powerful, but I use other software so I wouldn't know.

Splitwirez
Posted on 11-01-14 07:39 PM Link | #50555
Posted by Slacker
Posted by Splitwirez
What was the script? What did it do?

Well its a pain to test models in game. I have been meaning to write a tutorial detailing the full process but never got around to it. I still don't know a lot.
But you have to model the thing. Export the model to .obj. Run obj2bdl on your output. Get the BDL. Run collision creator. Get the KCL/PA pair. Put em in a folder to pack. Pack them using RARCPack. Get a bad .Arc. Run Yaz0enc on the bad arc. Get a good, but derpy named arc. Rename the arc and then put it in ObjectData.

What I wrote takes your obj and spits a usable arc into ObjectData while cleaning all the gross intermediary files. I'm lazy. Less hassle if you're testing over and over. Made that image from a test for the script with v0.4 models. So yea. It's just a "glue" script, I can't deal with the Model GUI stuff.

Hmm...sounds a lot like the Full Model Importer...

Stomatol
Posted on 11-01-14 07:46 PM Link | #50556
Posted by Slacker
I'd also like to add that I heard of some tool in Blender that calculates "dirt" with vertex colors for you. "Dirt" just means that corners where planes meet would be darker than flat expansive surfaces (if I remember correctly).


Can be found here:

[image]

Splitwirez
(post deleted) #50557

Slacker
Posted on 11-01-14 08:31 PM Link | #50564
Posted by Splitwirez
Hmm...sounds a lot like the Full Model Importer...

Yup. It's just tailored to my needs a bit more since my file system is a bit odd. Again, I'm lazy and I wanted files to just go where I needed them to go in one shot and clean up all the junk that's left behind. The tool I wrote also works with command line args rather than have Python prompt you, since I am an awful typist.

Also, it was a learning exercise which will hopefully help my with my future stuff. Programming practice I guess. Funny thing was that the first iteration of the tool was a batch script which was painful.

Posted by Stomatol
Posted by Slacker
I'd also like to add that I heard of some tool in Blender that calculates "dirt" with vertex colors for you. "Dirt" just means that corners where planes meet would be darker than flat expansive surfaces (if I remember correctly).


Can be found here:

[image]


Oh! Very helpful. It's in my version, but for reference what version of Blender are you using?

Stomatol
Posted on 11-01-14 08:34 PM Link | #50565
I use 2.70, but I think it's still left in the newer versions


Main - Archived forums - General SMG hacking - How do I shade? Hide post layouts | New reply

Page rendered in 0.031 seconds. (2048KB of memory used)
MySQL - queries: 30, rows: 142/142, time: 0.009 seconds.
[powered by Acmlm] Acmlmboard 2.064 (2018-07-20)
© 2005-2008 Acmlm, Xkeeper, blackhole89 et al.