Modelling

From UFO:AI

Contents 1 General 2 Style 2.1 Dimensions 3 Creating new models 3.1 Programs 3.2 Needed models 4 Modelformat 5 Characters 6 Links 7 Other programs 8 Patterns & Blueprints

General

3D-Models are used for items on the map (trees, cars, furniture...) - but they also be modelled via the leveleditor - as well as for the actors (soldiers, aliens, civilians) and their weapons & equiment. The main difference between misc_model and brushes (mapeditor models) are that a misc_model doesn't clip the moving automatically and doesn't throw shadows (atm)

Style

In this game we're doing fairly hard sci-fi that has to obey at least some of the laws of physics. We want to see much more 2001: A Space Odyssey and Space: Above & Beyond style than Star Trek or Star Wars.

Dimensions

• a player is 56 units tall
• 8 units equals 1 foot
• therefore, player is 7 feet tall

Creating new models

Programs

• AC3D
• Blender
• 3DSMax / Gmax
• Maya
• Cinema4D
• LightWave
• CharacterFX
• Wings3D
• XSI
• DeleD3DEditor
• MilkShape 3D

Needed models

See the Models/Maps section in the TODO/General page or any of the other TODO pages for upcoming versions for a list of needed models.

Modelformat

We use the normal Quake2 md2 format for our models. See the md2 entry for a longer description of the format and tools that you might find useful. We even support the obj, md3 and dpm basic features.

For those who are familiar with the md3 format and the tags used to identify geometry - we even support tags for md2.

The following numbers are rough guidelines for the various upper limits. They are already a bit dated now and by no means fixed rules. You can always ask a team member if your stuff will be ok.

Texture sizes

• Weapons/cars/big trees 512x512px
• small plants/ammo: 256x256px
• creating higher resolution textures would be the best. The prefered size for all textures is 1024x1024. If we then need them smaller, we can scale them down, but still have the high resolution version for changes and stuff like that.

Polygons

• cars: ~700tris
• big weapons: 200-500tris
• ammo: ~100tris
• characters: ~1000tris for body and ~300tris for head
• it would also be cool if you could provide different level of details for a model (different files for each lod - filenames encoded like this: filename_lod1.md2 (high res), filename_lod2.md2 (lower res), ....)

Sizes

• read about the levelflags UFO:AI uses, we should be able to hide some parts of a model if it is higher than one level in UFO:AI. This is why we have split some of the existing models into several smaller ones. This way we are able to set different levelflags for each modelpart in order to hide or display them as needed. For example streetlamps should be split into two parts. As an example see models/objects/construct/crane.

Skins

• see /Skins article for more information

Characters

See Character Animation.

Links

• GameMedia Repository
• Worldforge CVS Repository (gpled)
• Tutorial about quake2 model editor
• LowPoly Character Modelling Tutorial
• wikipedia
• Tutorials
• Max Realms
• Free and commercial tutorials
• Tutorials for Milkscape and Cinema4D
• Create MD3 Tutorial with 3DSMax]
• MD2 Information

Other programs

• UV-Mapping tool
• 3D modeling program that paint depths on to polygon models in real-time
• Sketchup.com
• 3D Object Konverter ~440 model formats are supported
• ProgMesh Mesh redrucer for 3ds files
• ngPlant Open Source plant modeling package

Patterns & Blueprints

• PaperToys
• BluePrint.com
• Blueprints