Hiya,

I'm working on the UV and texture map for my Miyamoto Musashi (http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115572) model. What I want to know is, is it more efficient to make one big UV map, or to give each section its own UV map? My UV map is 1024x and looks like this: http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/upload/wip/2003/10/22-871727.jpg)
Here is the color guide: http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/upload/wip/2003/10/22-871684.jpg)
And here is the model: http://www.firedragon.com/~lwg3d/upload/wip/2003/10/19-601032.jpg)

Thanks for any suggestions!

Cheers,
James

well, i hate to do this.....but you obviously have more experience with this than me, so though i have no advice to give on this matter, i would like to ask if you could look at a few threads and see if you could possibly give me any help :) i am fairly new at all this, as i have worked primarily with skinning in the past.....and not too much with modeling, or programming the files that actually load the skins.....but as the SP experience in this game is so different from most games of this type, one must adapt and learn new things.....

so if you wouldn't mind taking a look at these threads to see if you can answer any of the questions, i would be eternally grateful....

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115178)

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115449)

http://www.lucasforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=115850)

also, what is your primary model editing program.....(as i do not currently have the knowledge or experience to construct ones of my own i am looking for a program that will open existing game models, and allow advanced viewing and editing tools, while allowing the models to be recompiled and exported as necessary)

and nice work by the way.....i look forward to seeing the finished product.....

and my opinion counts for very little, but i think you would have better results from multiple uv maps.....you have more flexibility and room to work....not to mention more accuracy and the ability to take advantage of higher resolution texture maps.....it's just a bit more time consuming and requires more planning.....so it's really up to personal preference i guess

Well, I know nothing of editing Jedi Academy files - I only know about general 3D modelling/skinning/texturing. What I know about editing as it pertains to Jedi Academy is from tutorials (mostly the the JK2 tutorials at Polycount.com). So, unfortunately, I can't help you on any of your questions.

As for editing, I like Lightwave 7.5 for all my modelling/UV needs, and I do any texture/2D work with Photoshop. Lightwave, being a professional-grade 3D app, is about $1200 USD (although that is dirt cheap compared to SoftImage|XSI, Maya, or 3DS) and it (in my opinion) has a superior workflow and interface to Maya/3DS. I'm in college, so I was able to buy a full copy of Lightwave for cheap ($400 USD) from journeyed.com. The only downside to Lightwave is that it is often ignored when it comes to content creation for games, despite it being technically superior (again, IMO) to 3DS. I'm going to have to find a way to move the model from Lightwave to JA - there is a LWO to MD3 converter, and I can open MD3s in gmax, but gmax (so far as I know) has no way to edit bone weights. Hope that helps :) I can't help you with coding but if you have a modelling question I'd be glad to help ;)

Cheers,

James

Regarding UV Maps:

I asked the question mostly because I wonder if JA will allow a single surface character using one UV map. All the models in the asset pk3 files use multiple UV maps. I was wondering if that was because of dismemberment/segmentation? Meaning, if you use a single large resolution texture map, will you get wierd results with segmenting/dismembering that you wouldn't otherwise get with multiple UV maps? Also, are you _required_ to have multiple surfaces for characters (to define the segmentation regions) or can you use one surface and let the engine determine segmentation regions based on tag placement? Sorry if this question is sort of confusing, if you need I'll try and clarify it more :P

Cheers,

James

Hi jodonnell nice work there unwrapping is a pain in the A** anyways You will need the tools for JO to compile your model , To .glm format in Icarcass. As far as I know you will need to use max or if you can output a .3ds mode from light wave with a plugin maybe..( it’s been a while since I have used lightwave 6.5) any ways download the model compiler and read Tim applebee’s tutorial on modeling for jedi Outcast. Good luck and a simple tool to use for some conversions is milkshape 3d look for it on cnet.com Unfortunately it doesn’t have the .glm exporter but you can open the glm files and convert to .3ds .obj .LWO

As for the texture map stick with what the originals look like ex: make a separate torso from the head and legs ...ect

Any questions check out the modeling forum for JO

Good luck and may the force and patients be with you :)

http://download.com.com/3000-2121-10152487.html) get milk shape here

svцsh

Thanks svosh. I have Milkshape and most import/export related functions are no problem. The only problem I have is bone weighting - is there ANY way outside of 3DS I can weight bones? I downloaded gmax but I can't import the root.xsi into it. Is there an XSI importer for gmax? Or is there a way to export root.xsi from Milkshape and preserve the bone data for use in gmax?

I've printed out and read Tim's tutorial a million times (well, not the printing part :P) and I still don't 'get' what to do with tags. Where do I put them, etc. Do these tags just float in space, unconnected to the mesh?

Yes, I think patience is going to be a major part of making this work :D Thanks!

Cheers,

James