Questions about how to create models

Adaven · Post by **Adaven** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 1:22 am

There is a little bit of concept art in Arisman Codex, but only a handful more than what MS had already released.

You can also use the free version of Softimage XSI (What the original dev's used) to open the Softimage scene files in the Arisman Codex and export from there.

When MS released the source code, they included .x versions of the models and .bmp textures. You can get them from the source code repository's art directory: http://svn.alleg.net/svn/AllegArt/branch/FAZDev/. Look under the "256" folders for most of the relevant content.

The Star Wars mod had a lot of small craft with 3-5k poly's. Probably not much reason to go beyond that for small things. 2k sounds like a good target, it's still 5+ times more detail than most of the original MS stuff.

If you get a good model made in whatever tool you want to use, someone here who knows milkshape would probably be willing to help you get it in game.

Bunnywabbit · Post by **Bunnywabbit** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 8:44 am

Hey, while you're at it; mind giving FIZ a hand with the memorial project?

fuzzylunkin1 · Post by **fuzzylunkin1** » Thu Feb 16, 2012 7:18 pm

I don't know anything about modelling, how hard would it be to write a blender script to export to the files we use?

Adaven · Post by **Adaven** » Wed Feb 22, 2012 4:52 am

Ask Kage about how he did the Milkshape Plugin?

Your_Persona · Post by **Your_Persona** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 4:19 am

http://sites.google.com/site/myallegiance/

There are a few links there to some content tools.

MDL Utility2 will open and display any allegiance content. Can export some of it to other formats.. Its opensource, so if you want to write an export for the 3d Model files to something you like, then you can.

fuzzylunkin1 · Post by **fuzzylunkin1** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 5:34 am

Thanks YP, maybe I'll make a Python port or something if I have time (which is short these days).

Then rewrite Allegiance in Python(PyPy)/Cython

.

raingriffin · Post by **raingriffin** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 3:03 pm

Ah, milkshape, yep it's crap. What's more it'll probably be hard to get the right scaling out of the exported model.

KGJV · Post by **KGJV** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 9:12 pm

There is one important historical thing that "new" people need to understand, and by 'new' I mean anyone who discovered Allegiance after 2004...so that's quite a lot of people

So that important historical thing to understand is that the Milkshape plugin was made before MSR released the source code of the game.
Back then I had to do reverse engineering on the MDL and CVH file formats , guess some parts and numbers and build the plugin from scratch.
Back then people started using the plugin and a lot of new models were added to the game.
Then in 2004 MSR released the source code of the game, including source of the models and the tools to build them.
At this point I already warned everyone to stop using Milkshape and the plugin but , well, human and habits, you know...

so almost 8 years later, when I see people still talking about the Milkshape plugin I'm scared

Do not use it. period. it's full of approximation and guesses and it has never been updated with what we learned from the source code of the game.

Forget it completely is the BEST way to do thing today. Or you'll end up with bugged models that will hurt the engine (performance, scaling, etc) and the gameplay (bad collisions, docking,etc).

As a matter of fact, I would highly recommend to NOT USE any 3rd party software, tool, library,<whatever> that manipulate the MDL or CVH files directly. Stick to the MSR tools. period.
You might hear otherwise here, but trust me you don't want to do that.

That been said, modelling for Allegiance is choosing 1st up to where in the 'modeling chain' you wanna go. I'd say there are 4 stages:

1. 3D modeling
2. Adding "Meta datas" (cockpit position, weapons position, garages, etc)
3. body optimization, "convexization", poly count optimization, scaling, LOD, etc
4. compiling

There is no need for one person only to do all these stages. You can stick to step 1 only for instance if you don't want to deal with the Allegiance specific stuff.

The last stage (4) is where the mdl/cvh are generated and , since we're using the MSR tools, it requires using .X file format. But before that, any tool or format can be used as long as in the end they can be converted without lose.

Stage 3 is important because the engine is 10 years old. Even on modern graphic cards it can deliver bad performances because it uses basic Direct3D and it works at a very low level (triangle) not using meshes or higher level stuff of Direct3D. For instance there is no geometry instancing at all so high poly models can dramatically hurt the game. For a station it can be ok but for ships or other objects you'll feel the difference in a "big" game. Try a highpoly Interceptor with no LOD in a 15vs15 DM game and you'll see.

So my advice is: forget the "old way" people will tell you about here and most important, it's really not a one-man job so if you're an "art person" stick to step 1, eventually step 2 too, and find help for the other steps. you'll save time and avoid issues.

Bunnywabbit · Post by **Bunnywabbit** » Sat Mar 03, 2012 9:17 pm

abandon the sacred ways of our ancestors?! Never!

Compellor · Post by **Compellor** » Sun Mar 04, 2012 8:34 am

KGJV wrote:QUOTE (KGJV @ Mar 3 2012, 04:12 PM) The last stage (4) is where the mdl/cvh are generated and , since we're using the MSR tools, it requires using .X file format. But before that, any tool or format can be used as long as in the end they can be converted without lose.

Do you have a recommended .x exporter? I've tried Truespace, and an older version of Blender (latest version doesn't have the exporter), and both are useable but have their quirks, and both require substantial alteration of the exported .x files by text editor. I searched for better options a few years back, but didn't find anything. I didn't include anything expensive in my search, though.

As to LODs, yeah, probably best if someone double checked that all models have proper LODs, maybe I'll bring that up for CC since that team has become a sort of unofficial artwork certification board. I'm not quite sure of the best way to do that - the various utilities that have been produced don't seem to give reliable info on facecount per LOD. At least, MDLUtility shows models with several LODs that all have around 1000 polys in each, and MDLView's LOD switch doesn't seem to work at all. I halfway remember being able to view LODs in MDLedit, but I guess I'll need to compile a recent copy since my old EXEs don't seem to be working on this computer, unless I'm forgetting something important about the command line operation. Did you know MDLedit doesn't even come up in a search of the wiki?

Man, why does this post give my deja vu?