dim3 Forum

Hi,

I am trying to get an understanding of the Animator workflow. I modeled a space ship in Wings and imported as an .obj. Textures stayed, so far so good.

My real issue is that Animator refuses to save, giving me a message saying something like "could not be saved. folder locked or missing. do not start the app from the .dmg file". I wonder what that means.
I have set a hitbox, but I have not set an animation or bones yet (because the spaceship doesn't have one yet). I see "default" under meshes and "new hit box" under hit boxes.
EDIT: Issue solved. I created "Data2", but not "Data2/Models".

Another issue: I see I can set X, Y, Z scales of the model, but I see no unit. Sure meshes have no size, but still I want to set something for scale purposes. In what terms do I have to think here? Let's say I want to set something like "3x the size of the player model seen from above". Or do I have to think like "1/20 the size of my 1680px screen" and then calculate?

Another thing: Where exactly is the documentation of all those setting for shader, animated texture frames, glow, bump etc. Looks very interesting, but I don't see the docs in the engine file package and I don't find it on the website.

One more thing: I can't re-assign materials to polys in Animator, is that correct? I see my model has a material assigned wrong, so I want to correct that. Is that possible? Kind of a not so optimal workflow if you couldn't. Go back to Wings, re-assign material, export to .obj, import in Animator, set *everything* again

EDIT:
Where do I add permanent light objects to the model? For my space ship I want a light glowing when it is moving and multiple lights blinking always. Do I set particles for the model in Animator or in scripting? Like a trail that the ship leaves during moving.

Bradamante Wrote:Another issue: I see I can set X, Y, Z scales of the model, but I see no unit. Sure meshes have no size, but still I want to set something for scale purposes. In what terms do I have to think here? Let's say I want to set something like "3x the size of the player model seen from above". Or do I have to think like "1/20 the size of my 1680px screen" and then calculate?

If you're using an old version, it's in percent. You can see the actualy model size at the bottom of the model window.
Now if the model has an x size of 2000 and you enter 200 in the x field of the "scale" dialog it will make the
model 4000 x in size. In one of the newer updates you can actually choose to scale to a certain size, so grab the latest version.

Bradamante Wrote:Another thing: Where exactly is the documentation of all those setting for shader, animated texture frames, glow, bump etc. Looks very interesting, but I don't see the docs in the engine file package and I don't find it on the website.

I don't think that there is one. Most of the stuff is probably learning-by-doing. :P
I was going to write an animator tutorial once, but I somehow never got to it. :/

Bradamante Wrote:One more thing: I can't re-assign materials to polys in Animator, is that correct? I see my model has a material assigned wrong, so I want to correct that. Is that possible? Kind of a not so optimal workflow if you couldn't. Go back to Wings, re-assign material, export to .obj, import in Animator, set *everything* again

Animator is (as the name suggest) for animating models and not modeling/texturing them. You will have to switch back to your modeler for that.

Bradamante Wrote:EDIT:
Where do I add permanent light objects to the model? For my space ship I want a light glowing when it is moving and multiple lights blinking always. Do I set particles for the model in Animator or in scripting? Like a trail that the ship leaves during moving.

The lights will be controlled from the final script, not the model. If you just want blinking "spots", that don't actually cast light, use Halos instead. You can also do that by script.

Hm thanks for the input. Yeah I downloaded Animator just recently, scaling is there.
This Halo thing .. how is this done? I played the demo and one of the objects with a Flare/Halo/Shine around it was the lamp hanging from the ceiling. I guess that is what we both mean. Looking at the model in Animator or looking at the files I don't the a Halo/Flare/Shine

You said lights are controlled from the script, OK. But how do I add the light in the first place?

Another issue: I imported my space ship with the UV map into Animator. It asked my where the textures are, I navigated the app to them. Everything imported fine. I saved the thing. Quit, re-open, chose the space ship - the UV texture is gone! Empty spaces in the row of textures where it has been before.
I copy the texture in the appropriate folder. Nothing. I try to re-assign the UV texture, the file does not appear in the choser. I make the name shorter. Suddenly the name appears in the choser for re-assignment. But selecting it it gives me the message that it was unable to read the .png file.
What's going on here?!

EDIT: Issue remains with a new created spaceship. Imported UV texture disappears upon re-opening. However it was correctly copied to the right folder by Animator.
Opening the mesh.xml I see a
which would be correct.

Importing the model in a map as a scenary and previewing in the engine, the UV texture is not there, the appropriate parts are invisible. The other textures, however, are there. They reside in the same folder as the UV map.

Is the png a square of 2? (it doesn't have to be square, but the sides have to be 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096....).
If so,
Click the texture boxes in the animator (NOT double click), when you see a bunch of polys selected double click that one and set the correct texture there.

It's probably something wrong with the format.
Animator should actually display a warning dialog and cancel the import procedure, if there's an error, so I don't know what this is.
Make sure the PNGs are RGB or RGBA and nothing else. (You can change that in almost any image editor. I recommend GraphicConverter for small things like this. (Google for it, if you dont have it already.)

@ccccc: why aren't you on irc anymore? :P

ccccc Wrote:Is the png a square of 2? (it doesn't have to be square, but the sides have to be 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096....).
If so,
Click the texture boxes in the animator (NOT double click), when you see a bunch of polys selected double click that one and set the correct texture there.

Nope, does not work. Replacing a different texture works, though.

I mean, I was delighted because suddenly at least the UV texture imported and got correctly displayed. Save, quit, re-open -> UV gone.

Bink Wrote:It's probably something wrong with the format.
Animator should actually display a warning dialog and cancel the import procedure, if there's an error, so I don't know what this is.
Make sure the PNGs are RGB or RGBA and nothing else. (You can change that in almost any image editor. I recommend GraphicConverter for small things like this. (Google for it, if you dont have it already.)

@ccccc: why aren't you on irc anymore? :P

Mac OS X' Preview app says it is RGB, 2048x2048, 8 Bit, PNG - as it should be.

Is there a max limit for the file name?

Bradamante Wrote:Mac OS X' Preview app says it is RGB, 2048x2048, 8 Bit, PNG - as it should be.

A texture that large might not be supported on your video card (for OpenGL.) That could be the problem, I'd try a quick test -- back it up, then reduce it to something like 256x256 and try again.

[>] Brian

OK, I will give it a try later.
However my Intel iMac comes with 256 MB ATI Radeon X1600. The iMacs have always been weak on graphics, but in Artlantis I had 2K x 2K textures before, if I remember correctly I even tried 10K x 10K once.

Yeah that's definitely supported by your card. Regardless of what the file type says, open it in a preview, photoshop, or graphic converter and file->save as PNG with alpha. That way you can make sure the format is correct. Also, I am not sure if you can change depth on png, make sure the depth is 72 dpi.

Just to throw it in: Animator crashes upon opening a supposed model folder from the start-up choser.

The folder structure is:
Data2/Models/Ship/
----------/Bitmaps/
---------------------/Textures/ (etc.) (files in them)
----------/Shaders/
... but no mesh.xml etc.

EDIT:
Maybe good news. Importing the Alien Scoutship (new model) into Animator it works as usual including the UV map. Save, quit, re-open -> UV pic still there. This time it's a 1024x1024 px, not 2K.
I will see if it remains. I will model on, later I try going back to the problem model (Alien Freighter), resize the UV to 1024 and then re-import.