[Hank]

Roma Loom, on 05 March 2013 - 10:41 PM, said:

Thanks! The meshes seem to be triangulated though, but that's must be Blender's exporter limitation or something. FBX is an excellent powerful format, seeing how Unity perfectly handles FBX makes me sad that EDuke32 still uses MD3.

Collada comes to mind, (even so I have no clue if this is even possible to implement into EDuke32, md3 is good enough). t's superfine, open source, Blender, Lightwave, Cinema 4D friendly and you name it.
I think FBX format sucks. It's controlled by AutoDesk and unless you use their fucking software you always end up with missing parts in your model. This is where the power comes from, it's a closed shop.

[Kyanos]

Since we're on the topic I vote md5, again. I bet it would cut these models down by more than half their filesize.

Ps. My first post in the thread. Great work Tea Monster, I'm glad these have finally seen the light of day. You kick ass!

Pps. May we please use your Duke model in our (ever-treading-forward) WGR TC?

[Roma Loom]

Hank, on 06 March 2013 - 02:16 PM, said:

I think FBX format sucks. It's controlled by AutoDesk and unless you use their fucking software you always end up with missing parts in your model. This is where the power comes from, it's a closed shop.

Yeah, FBX could be a shameful mess sometimes, for instance - importing a freshly exported FBX back into 3ds max can give you a flipped-normals faces even though they are visually fine and you will never know about the problem until lightmap is calculated for instance... And yeah.. the variety of FBX format versions is pure madness.

[Tea Monster]

There are loads of problems with FBX, unless you are using Autodesk stuff, of course. Having said that, it works great with Unity, which is great for Indies, so go figure!

I've used Collada for a lot of interchange with colleagues and freinds who use Maya and Max and that seems to work. The problem is that Collada also has a bewildering array of ways of doing things. It's slightly less buggy than FBX for use outside the Autodesk empire, but it too can give you some really strange results depending on what app you are exchanging with. I've done the same thing with Collada with Blender and got back something unrecognizeable compared to what got exported. Due to this, I would be loathe to have to rely on it to import and export models.I don't think there is any real way of doing this yet. Thankfully, there are big pushes in the Blender community to get both Collada and FBX better supported within Blender.

MD5 would be great for games. I would vote for this as a next format for EDuke. But because FBX is used all over the place, and because it supports far more factors than MD5, it would be great if we could use that with confidence. It would make it far easier for other projects as well, if we could get the kinks worked out of it for other software.

[Hank]

Tea Monster, on 07 March 2013 - 05:31 AM, said:

MD5 would be great for games. I would vote for this as a next format for EDuke.

Collada is built-in in True Space and Cinema 4D . but yes, fbx is all over the place. True Space is out of business and who knows about Cinema 4D. Body Paint is super for detailed clothing and hair.

So I change my previous vote from collada to md5. Yet, can this even be done with EDuke32?

[Tea Monster]

Sorry Drek, of course you can.

The two reasons for a new format are that md3 is slipping down the drain of history. This makes finding tools that support it a pain. This is where decent support of FBX is good - everything supposedly reads it and it is a (supposedly) well supported standard.

The other reason is that md5 and fbx both support bones. We would only need that if we had an updated animation system, or rag doll physics.

[Kyanos]

Thank you Tea Monster.

It's possible to use md5, the engine would need to do all the work drawing each frame, defined through skeletal movements. I bet there is a way to cache the results so that it only needs to be computed once. It would make high poly animated models like this much more efficient to package up and distribute.

[Steveeeie]

I would kill for the use of a different model format.

[Tea Monster]

There is noesis, but mehhhh.... It's nothing like having a direct exporter within your app of choice.

Secondly, there is the whole can of worms of normals. Current next-gen assets depend on smoothing groups. Currently, we can have problems with Blender and NPherno disagreeing over where the normals should be split. That can lead to disaster if you are not carefull. A format like MD5, which is specifically designed with next-gen assets in mind, should help with this.

Drek re-wrote Blender's MD3 exporter so that we could get the Cycloid and Duke models out the door. OK, that's a slight exaggeration, he wrote it for all Blender users, but the big thing for me was that it made working with next gen assets for EDuke 300x easier. Otherwise we would be working with Blender 2.49 - which is like trying to build next gen models with a wooden spoon.

Oh, I've been talking to Roma and I've come up with a solution to the problem of the Cycloid's shoulder pads. A new version with tweaked anims and drastically reduced shoulder problems should be issued soon.

[Plagman]

Drek, on 07 March 2013 - 08:41 AM, said:

It's possible to use md5, the engine would need to do all the work drawing each frame, defined through skeletal movements. I bet there is a way to cache the results so that it only needs to be computed once. It would make high poly animated models like this much more efficient to package up and distribute.

What you describe would essentially be a MD5->MD3 converter built-in inside the engine, though...

[Kyanos]

Precisely ^
I think it's the ideal solution. Better than the voxel to poly converter for poly most lol.

[Plagman]

I'd rather write an offline MD5->MD3 conversion tool than doing that, if it's what people need. Are MD5 tools even that widespread compared to MD3 at this point? There wasn't a lot of games using that format, or a huge modding scene for them, either..

[Steveeeie]

Plagman, on 09 March 2013 - 11:13 AM, said:

I'd rather write an offline MD5->MD3 conversion tool than doing that, if it's what people need. Are MD5 tools even that widespread compared to MD3 at this point? There wasn't a lot of games using that format, or a huge modding scene for them, either..

I agree, I think we will be in the same boat if we use md5.

I would much rather something like fbx, this is the recommended format for the current Unreal engine, and is a breeze to export.

[Tea Monster]

MD3 is long gone, but MD5 is showing it's age pretty badly as well. For Blender users, with what Drek has done, we actually have a more up-to-date MD3 exporter than MD5. Again, that is soley due to the work of Drek in keeping it up to date. If we didn't have him to do that, making content for EDuke would be a hell of a lot more difficult. There is a fairly modern MD5 exporter for Blender, but again, it's been written by the coding team of a Doom 3 mod to help out their artists. All these old formats tend to be supported by the modding community for their own ends.

If you are keeping MD3 in the engine, there won't be much real improvement if we have to export in a different format. The only thing I can thing that would be an improvement would be if you could write in better normal control and the ability to define different surfaces.

The main person who is going to benefit from this is Steeevie and any future modders who use Autodesk stuff. Basically, you are best seeing what would make his life easier as the route to an MD3 is going to be much more tortuous than what we Blender users have to go through.

One thing to consider though is the future. Eventually, Drek and the guy who made the MD5 exporter are going to wander off into the sunset. What happens then? I am wondering if it may be better to make a converter for something modern and up-to-date such as FBX. If you are writing the converter, you could put in a few tweaks to accommodate Blenders quirks and then both camps would be happy.

[Mark]

I know it is selfish of me, but as much as I would like to see a newer model format I would be sad to see md3 go away. I'm an "old dog that learned a new trick" when I finally figured out how to use Misfit Model 3D for converting and creating md3 models. I tried numerous times to figure out how to run other programs including Blender and gave up in frustration. I guess I didn't receive the patience that supposedly comes with old age.

[Hank]

Well, you are honest.
My pet peeve with AutoDesk is the annual blood sucking update costs. Usually advertised as bargains, for only $1500 blah blah blah. Cinema 4D, $300 for two stations, via a smooth call, and it did actually improve on stuff. I can handle this, plus the required learning to effectively use Collada and Wavefront Obj files and another fav of mine ZBrush.

But like you, fbx is now advertised by Crytek as fucking standard, and apparently on Unreal and Unity, so we are slowly a thing of the past. All hail the sales team from AutoDesk, better start learning how to worship the new god FBX.

[Tea Monster]

The good thing about that, is that if FBX becomes a de-facto game model format standard, the nice people at Blender.org will HAVE to sort their asses out. Either that, or you dramatically increase the chance of someone else on another game project getting fed up and writing a proper pipeline for the app.

The more people who use FBX within Blender make the likely-hood of their being a decent im/exporter greater. It's only after Unity took up FBX that the current push to fix the exporter within Blender gained fresh momentum.

Mark. - I have used Misfit for tweaking MD3's and I know it's capabilities. How you produce the work that you do with that thing constantly amazes me.

[Kyanos]

I couldn't help myself, I voxelized your cycloid... May I use your md3 as the base for the voxel?

[Tea Monster]

Cool! I don't mind at all.

Just for future reference, if anyone wants to use my models for voxels, I have no objection whatsoever.

What I did mind at the time, was some of the '8-bit Mob' who were using my models for voxels, but would then go around the forum calling my models all sorts of rude names at the same time that they were making voxels for their project out of them.

Barking mad? Most likely.

My take on it was that if you want to use my models for your project, I'm flattered, just be polite about them.

EDIT: The above goes for sprite creation as well. I've even done a tutorial on how to do that somewhere on the forum.

[Kyanos]

Sweet, I just did the queen, I'll get on this next. I feel the same way about my Duke art as you. It's made for the community, and I'm always happy to see others put my stuff in game, with some permission first or at least a mention of it and a thanks. So thank you man, I'll do my best with it.

[Tea Monster]

Everyone is bitching about the hands on the Duke model. I went back to the original model by Mark Skelton and examined it. The gloves are removeable. It would mean re-baking the hands and adjusting the low poly model. I don't have to time to do this at the minute as I've already started my other projects, but I can try to get around to it at some point. I just can't promise when.

Sadly, the boots only seem to exist just past the cuffs. They would have to be rebuilt.

[Micky C]

Drek, on 11 March 2013 - 03:21 PM, said:

I couldn't help myself, I voxelized your cycloid... May I use your md3 as the base for the voxel?
Capture.PNG

That would look pretty decent if it weren't for those stray black voxels everywhere.

[lambdist]

I found only two things that is not the same. There are no "Nuke" sign on gloves and on belt. But it looks like 3DR model.

[ReaperMan]

Tea Monster, on 11 March 2013 - 04:42 PM, said:

What I did mind at the time, was some of the '8-bit Mob' who were using my models for voxels, but would then go around the forum calling my models all sorts of rude names at the same time that they were making voxels for their project out of them.

Who? Now im curious.

Edit: wow my grammar sucks.

[Striker]

How about supporting Unreal's PSA/PSK Formats? Those are supported in many modeling tools.

Plagman, on 09 March 2013 - 11:00 AM, said:

What you describe would essentially be a MD5->MD3 converter built-in inside the engine, though...

Dunno why one would want to do that anyway... Would be better to be able to manipulate the bones in realtime, for things like Ragdolls and whatnot.

[NucaCola]

How do I implement this to the rest of the mod?

[Micky C]

Technically the HRP isn't a mod, but there are 2 options.

1) Wait for an update pack.
2) Read through and figure out this: http://forums.duke4....toisesvn-guide/

[NightFright]

I am not checking the SVN too often lately. Depending on how much new stuff has been added, we might aim for a summer "refresh" release of the HRP. It would be great to have more models of this quality level, or at least Duke including all the bosses for starters.

It's sad to see Tea Monster go, but I guess there are reasons. Maybe he is focussing on Doom now? They could really need some models like this, too!

[Spirrwell]

Trooper Mick, on 15 March 2013 - 11:35 PM, said:

Technically the HRP isn't a mod, but there are 2 options.

1) Wait for an update pack.
2) Read through and figure out this: http://forums.duke4....toisesvn-guide/

3) The lazy man's\faster way. If you already have the latest HRP downloaded and installed (Otherwise go with option 2):

For Duke:
Step 1: Download the Duke.zip file in the first post and extract it somewhere.

Step 2: Add all of the files in Duke/Characters to your duke3d_hrp.zip in highres/sprites/characters EXCEPT for 1405_duke2013.md3, NewDukeDef.txt, and DukeNukem_blend.blend

(Optional, but conserves space) Step 3: Remove 1405_duke.md3 from duke3d_hrp.zip in highres/sprites/characters

Step 4: Download the current Duke model manually and add it to your duke3d_hrp.zip in highres/sprites/characters

Step 5: Download characters.def (copy all of the text and save it to a characters.def file) and add it to your duke3d_hrp.zip file in highres/sprites OR just modify the one that you have with the // DUKE specific section.

Step 6: In the place where you extracted Duke.zip, go to Duke/Screen and add all of the files to your duke3d_hrp.zip in highres/screen/menu EXCEPT for duke_endscreen_08_earth_blend.blend.png, duke_endscreen_blend.blend, and duke_endscreen_red_blend.blend.

[Fantinaikos]

Looking closely, the cycloid seem to need a small facial operation, looking at the original: http://the-goddamn-d...age/44908607331

As you can see, the head scalp is more "flattened", teeth and eye are definitely bigger, and cheeks have additional bionics. (ironically the old and less advanced polymost HRP cycloid model had complied with these parameters)
It's not just a matter of respecting the original, just for me it looks like a sleepy giant that is yawning? XD