Texturing an NPCharacter (fault with)

Tue Apr 20, 2004 9:18 am by Moonhead

Hello all,

I guess this is not a problem that will interest most of you, but I'm gonna ask anyway.

Because I am bored of seeing the same guys & girls in Sirius' bases, I've added a few body.dfm's to the game (by copying-and-renaming existing ones, re-texturing them and use the utf-editor to import the new textures and rename the relevant nodes and their contents, to make sure there is no conflict when the original body.dfm is in the same space.)

This is a fairly easy, though boring job. I've made six ones that function okay. I'm especially pleased with my female Order suit (it bothered me that the Order didn't employ any women).

But now, with the 7th, a remarkable and (to me) unexplainable fault has occured: there seems to be a gap at the left chest of the guy, and a 3d-model hardpoint seems to be just in front of him, at short distance. So it looks like he has a cut in his jacket and the fabric points forward. Besides this ugly fault, the game has no trouble handling the dfm, although it seems that it's slightly too low (there is a very small, yet visible space between the body and the guy's neck, which isn't the case when using the original file.)

To make sure this fault wasn't because of a damaged file, I created it anew, from a new copy of the original (ku_edo_body.dfm) and it happened again!

So the texture files seem to have damaged the 3d-model... The only thing I can think of, is that the original textures had a property that was lost in the proces (I used Photoshop to modify them).

Does anyone have a clue?

The thing that really bugs me is not that I cannot use this file, but rather that I don't get it how a texture would affect the form of a model.

Thanks in advance!

Edited by - Moonhead on 4/20/2004 10:22:49 AM

Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:19 am by Accushot

Hmmm...you've got me. Sounds like it's a problem with the 3d mesh, try it with a different one, preferably one you've used already, see if it makes a difference. It could be that, in the original story, that part of the body wasn't visible so wasn't polished. I've had the same problem with a bartender, he had no detail on the legs and no feet, so he looked pretty odd walking around

Other than that, I haven't got a clue.

Tue Apr 20, 2004 10:57 am by Moonhead

Hello Accushot,

The file I used was ku_edo_body.dfm and I can use the unmoddified version of that without the problem... So it indeed seems that one of my texture files screwed up the 3d-mesh, and that it was not a coincidence (because, doing it again lead to the same problem.

Now I know very little of 3d-modelling, but I woudn't think that were possible. Errors I expected would have been that the textures look ugly, or were transparent or so, but not that there would be deformity.

Hmm.... maybe the names / references I used triggerd something... I read somewhere that the name "glass" in a node name (this was about ship modelling) gave the texture a transparency, even if the texture file was not transparent. So the node names / filenames can have some influence...

Now, I used the "nf_sam" to replace "ku_edo", so maybe "sam" triggers some function. Like, there is a guy with some kind of ornament on his chest, maybe the "sam" is reserves for such a thing... Although I've used "sam" for another char, without a problem.

Anyway, thanks for the reply! I will try it with by replacing "sam" with something else.

Wed Apr 21, 2004 6:31 am by illero

what kind of textures did you use? the standard .dds?

also the original model may have been used in some way that was not appropriate for it... as in they didn't weld the vertexes or something so that when you put a texture on it that is not standard in the game it shows the error in the original model, the texture map that is used for the model does not fit properly with the other... etc..

have you tried more textures than just the one you used to modify it with? and if so what happened when you used those

Wed Apr 21, 2004 8:33 am by Firewing

Will you put those new bodies for download?

Wed Apr 21, 2004 9:32 am by karatekid88

Yeah! Make a bodypack! lol! (Would be good though)

Illero here, made a whole model of a character! (Not for use in FL i dont think though.)But still! Those are hard to make!

(Yes. You do know me, Illero. Do you know who I am?)

I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
-----------------------------------------
According to radiometric dating I am a lot older than you think

Edited by - karatekid88 on 4/21/2004 10:33:40 AM

Thu Apr 22, 2004 12:09 am by illero

I am thinking it has something to do with ballpark franks and the condoment that is put on them other than, ketchup, sourkraut, relish, pickles, or chile.

Thu Apr 22, 2004 1:29 am by illero

The new body is for use in FL but I have not completed it yet... it is about half way done.

Thu Apr 22, 2004 1:44 am by Moonhead

illero,

I exported the character's own tga's (character textures don't use the dds-format; you have to manually create the smaller versions), altered it's color in Photoshop, and imported it again at the proper place. My intention was just to alter the body from green to purple, no new things or ornaments or so (have no idea how to do that anyway).

Firewing,

I don't think they would be worthwile, as most of them are little more than hue-shifts of existing textures (e.g. I've made a marine blue version fo the, originally green, Rheinland elite. The one that don't work is a purple version of the ku_edo body. Too bad that fault is in it, as it looks nice) They look adequate, but they're not awesome new things or so.

The female order suite might be nice though. Although it's also just another texure for the Li_hatcher body if'I remember correct (I made that one months ago), I dedicated more time to it than to the others.

Now how would I do that?

Thu Apr 22, 2004 3:10 am by Firewing

So? You don't have to make completely new models for a re-texture job to be good.
Female Order suits...those I will need....

Thu Apr 22, 2004 8:58 am by karatekid88

LOL! You are correct. Illero. It is me... MR. Mayo! LOL!

I don't care to belong to a club that accepts people like me as members.
-----------------------------------------
According to radiometric dating I am a lot older than you think

Thu Apr 22, 2004 1:24 pm by Moonhead

Firewing,

I can mail you the female Order suit if you like; it's only 487 KB. You should put it in DATA\CHARACTERS\BODIES and add the following paragraph to DATA\CHARACTERS\bodyparts.ini :

[Body
nickname = pi_orillion_female_body
mesh = characters\bodies\pi_orillion_female_body.dfm

Then you can refer to in mBases.ini as usual.

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