1 model or multiple? [Solved]

How to create models in XSI and other 3D applications and make them work in Battlefront 1 & 2. Post models, tips for application usage and share anything XSI, 3DMax, SketchUp, etc.

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Kingpin
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1 model or multiple? [Solved]

Post by Kingpin »

Quick question here, I have been working on modeling whole entire maps. I was wondering if it is easier and has less bugs if you do it all in one model or make several models and connect them in ZE. I know the stock maps are split up, but they are hard to rebuild in ZE. I was curious about all indoor-modeled maps, like Mav's Rebel Ops: Lusankya map or RepSharpShooter's Coruscant: Palpatine's Office. Thanks for the advice.
Last edited by Kingpin on Wed Sep 14, 2016 6:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: 1 model or multiple?

Post by JimmyAngler »

What I've found is if you model your map in, export them in their relative position under a 0,0,0 null. Then, in ZE, you can change the grid snapping size to something large, and place the pieces at a specific point, with them fitting together as you had exported.
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Re: 1 model or multiple?

Post by Marth8880 »

You essentially have to split it up into pieces of roughly 5,000 triangles or less or else not only will you experience a lot of collision issues, it'll crash ZE as well.

Perhaps the biggest thing you need to consider when creating modular maps is how it'll be lit: whether it'll be lit via baking lighting into the texture maps or into the vertices as vertex colors, or if you'll stand for the nasty standard dynamic lighting. I briefly discussed my process in this video at around 5:30:



And here's how to do it:




A few pointers/notes:

- You'll want to make sure that you tessellate your meshes enough. If they're not tessellated enough, the baked colors won't have enough space to spread out accurately and it won't look very realistic. Example:

Image


- For whatever reason, when Zero Engine reads vertex color information, it seems to shift each color channel to the previous channel or something when it renders the mesh in-game (i.e., R becomes B, B becomes G, G becomes R). It's incredibly stupid, annoying and counter-productive, I know, but hey, it could be worse. :P You just have to work around it by adapting and iterating. Anyways, for example, this is how Europa's Reception looks in XSI:
Hidden/Spoiler:
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And this is how it looks in-game:
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Image
- You'll have a much easier time modeling interiors if you turn on Backface Culling in XSI. What it does when it's turned off is it renders the front-facing *and* back-facing sides of polygons. What it does when it's turned on is it renders only the front-facing sides of polygons. The setting is located in the Performance tab of the Display Options menu here:
Hidden/Spoiler:
Image

Make sure "Backface Culling" is ON.

Image
Go ahead and keep in mind and read the following documentation on the matter:
https://sites.google.com/site/swbf2modt ... /art_guide
https://sites.google.com/site/swbf2modt ... 2_lighting

You'll also want to check out the videos on Global Illumination and Final Gathering found here: viewtopic.php?p=445372#p445372

Let me know if you have any questions about how to go about any of this.
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Re: 1 model or multiple?

Post by Kingpin »

Thanks Marth, this is very helpful! I first want to say that I am not modeling in XSI; I use it to import, add render types to textures, and export. Will tessellating my models require a second model, or is this something I do with my pre-existing model in XSI? And I will test splitting up some of my old models using that trick, Jimmy. Thanks guys!
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Re: 1 model or multiple?

Post by Marth8880 »

Kingpin wrote:I first want to say that I am not modeling in XSI; I use it to import, add render types to textures, and export.
Fair enough, but you're most likely going to need to use XSI to bake your lighting. I'm not sure if Blender or other programs are able to export to a format that XSI can import that keeps vertex color information. (FBX might, but I'm not sure if XSI Mod Tool 7.5 includes the FBX plugin)
Kingpin wrote:Will tessellating my models require a second model, or is this something I do with my pre-existing model in XSI?
No. It's not so much that you're "tessellating your models" but rather you're making sure that they're tessellated enough for baking lighting into the vertices. As minilogoguy18 would put it, you're "adding unneeded vertex's", Image except this is something that's *good* to do in this case. Basically, think of increasing tessellation as increasing the density of vertices and edges in order to make your polygon distribution more even.

Example of even polygon distribution:
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Image
Example of uneven polygon distribution:
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Image
Additionally, here's another good example of increasing tessellation:
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Image
With that said, you obviously shouldn't go *overboard* with it, the general rule of thumb for SWBF2 being to stay under 5,000 triangles for each building mesh.


Oh, and by the way, several things I forgot to mention before:

- You're probably going to want to learn how to set up portals/sectors for your map, especially if you start running into issues with flickering props and whatnot. (You can visualize the portals/sectors in the debugger by typing vis.debugdraw into the console. Useful for seeing how exactly the portal/sector system works.)

- Be sure that you don't create shadowvolumes for your building meshes. Having them cast shadows will have a huge impact on your frame rate, and there's no real need for them anyways. With that said, it's totally fine and normal if small props cast shadows.

- You can actually adjust the intensity (opacity, basically) of shadows with the following ENVFX file parameter: https://pastebin.com/Z45Dci7K (For quick iteration, you can adjust the intensity and see what it looks like on-the-fly by typing shadow.intensity value into the debugger console, obviously replacing "value" with a number. In fact, many ENVFX parameters have this capability, like HDR and Blur. Worth noting that these are only temporary adjustments and won't be saved with the map or anything obviously lol.)

- Disable your map's terrain unless you actually need it. Doing so will increase your map's performance. The option to do so is in the Terrain Properties window in ZE.
Hidden/Spoiler:
Image

Image
- When you set up the lights in XSI for baking, you should set them up the same way that they'll be set up in ZE. What I mean by this is every spot, point, and directional light in XSI should be rotated, positioned, and colored exactly how they will be in ZE. Just keep in mind the lighting limits of Zero Engine when you're setting up the lights in ZE. (see the first bullet point under the "Misc Topics" header in bf2_lighting)

- Here's the RenderMap preset that I use for baking vertex colors into Europa's meshes, though I'm not sure if it'll work for other versions of XSI (I'm using Softimage 2015). To use it, save it to %userprofile%\Autodesk\Softimage_2015\Data\DSPresets\Properties, and then load the preset in a RenderMap's properties window like so:
Hidden/Spoiler:
Image
- Here's the GI-/FG-ready preset that I use for Europa's point lights, but again, I'm not sure if it'll work with other versions of XSI. To use it, save it to %userprofile%\Autodesk\Softimage_2015\Data\DSPresets\3DObjects, and then load the preset the same way you loaded the RenderMap preset:
Hidden/Spoiler:
Image
For more information on what the different RenderMap and light settings do in XSI:

http://docs.autodesk.com/SI/2015/ENU//i ... ty1002.htm
http://docs.autodesk.com/SI/2015/ENU//i ... ty8519.htm

(I should really just start my own "tips & tricks" thread, eh? Image)
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Re: 1 model or multiple?

Post by Kingpin »

Makes sense about the polygon distributing/tessellating. Just curious, I have had models in the past where textures have been strangely messed up, and looking back, these polys were very poorly tessellated. Could this be an issue?
Marth8880 wrote:- You're probably going to want to learn how to set up portals/sectors for your map, especially if you start running into issues with flickering props and whatnot. (You can visualize the portals/sectors in the debugger by typing vis.debugdraw into the console. Useful for seeing how exactly the portal/sector system works.)
No clue what that means :oops:

Also, I figured I would have to bake the lighting in XSI. Can I ask though, what is wrong with using dynamic lighting from ZE or in the .odf? I am not experienced at all with setting up lighting, and outside of the documentation that shipped out with ZETools, I haven't found much info on the site.
Marth8880 wrote:(I should really just start my own "tips & tricks" thread, eh? Image)
I bet you could just make a thread with this info, or an admin could throw it in the FAQ. This is very helpful. Thank you so much marth! :thumbs:
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Re: 1 model or multiple?

Post by Marth8880 »

Kingpin wrote:Makes sense about the polygon distributing/tessellating. Just curious, I have had models in the past where textures have been strangely messed up, and looking back, these polys were very poorly tessellated. Could this be an issue?
Technically, yes it *could* be *part* of the issue, especially if the UV clusters covered a really huge space, but I wouldn't count on it. The issue was probably related to having more than one UV projection in the afflicted objects.
Kingpin wrote:
Marth8880 wrote:- You're probably going to want to learn how to set up portals/sectors for your map, especially if you start running into issues with flickering props and whatnot. (You can visualize the portals/sectors in the debugger by typing vis.debugdraw into the console. Useful for seeing how exactly the portal/sector system works.)
No clue what that means :oops:
https://sites.google.com/site/swbf2modt ... rtalsystem
Kingpin wrote:Also, I figured I would have to bake the lighting in XSI. Can I ask though, what is wrong with using dynamic lighting from ZE or in the .odf? I am not experienced at all with setting up lighting, and outside of the documentation that shipped out with ZETools, I haven't found much info on the site.
There's nothing *inherently* bad with using dynamic lighting from ZE, it just basically always looks terrible and completely unrealistic.
Kingpin wrote:This is very helpful. Thank you so much marth! :thumbs:
ahah of cause np ^^
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Re: 1 model or multiple?

Post by Kingpin »

Thanks Marth, I am going to play around with this for a few weeks.
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