I don't know if this is the right place to ask *, with the addition of all the new forums and such, sorry if it isn't. Anyway, I've just been tinkering in gmax, making some new lightsaber hilts and I've been trying to make a curved one, anyway I was wondering if there was an easy way to connect the face of one Ngon to the face of another, to make a smooth transition from one Ngon to the next, because so far I have just been trying to drag vertexes and putting them near the other face.... yea yea yea, stop laughing I've never modeled anything before, not even plastic models with glue...LOL. Any help would be greatly appreciated.


* this is indeed the right place to ask :) Just to clear things up: only moderators & admins can post in the tutorial forums. If you want to discuss a tutorial, then just start a thread like this one - Darth333-

line them up like you want select one of them and go to modify then right click it and hit attach then select teh other piece

Thanks Sep. I'll try some more tinkering tonight.

Before you attach the pieces don't forget to remove the polys that are not going to be seen. However if you can its always better to build the model from a single piece. I found that out the hard way myself.

I did too when my first model ended up being 27 pieces.... With some advice from svosh I redid said model in about 1/4 of the time it originally took me, in two pieces.

Is it possible to make a curved hilt look, just using one piece?

Originally posted by Mono_Giganto
I did too when my first model ended up being 27 pieces.... With some advice from svosh I redid said model in about 1/4 of the time it originally took me, in two pieces.

What we do with out svцsh :)


Is it possible to make a curved hilt look, just using one piece?

Yes it is. Here is an example of what a simple single piece ngon can turn into one piece. ALWAYS (http://gallery97455.fotopic.net/p10251739.html)

Sweet T7, Now I'm reading cchargin's replacer tutorial, and I'm a little confused, so just a few questions....

The hilt model we want to unlink, is originally named: lshandle01, or similar correct?

Where do I find the "parent" of the original hilt?

And how do you get the Ngon to bend smoothly like that T7?

Many extrudes , and then shape it by moving the verts. It can take a bit of time to get it to look the way you want but it is the best way to do it.

The hilt model we want to unlink, is originally named: lshandle01, or similar correct?

Yes. Just select the old hilt and hit the unlink button(don't worry about it parent). Now to link your hilt, select your model hit the linker button and link your model to the animation dummy (its the blue box to the side of the blades mesh.

Okay thanks T7, I'll see what I can do

Here is a W.I.P. look at the model, I am going to be testing this in game and if it works then all that is left to do is add the details(which I'll probably need help with), and texture it (probably need help with this too).

Clicky (http://img159.exs.cx/img159/1161/test3ko.jpg)

UPDATE: the basic model works in-game HORRAY, I'll start working (asking for help) on details later on tonight or tommorrow, thanks for all the help so far T7

How would I go about making and "ignition button" for the lightsaber, and just sticking it on the model? Oh and I'm guessing that to add ridges, I would just need to increase the number of extrudes?

For the button, I either use a boolean and extrude or make a new 6 sided ngon with the box Auto Grid checked. Then make 1 extrude, convert it to edit mesh and attach this new piece to the rest of the model.

Personaly I prefer using a boolean and extrude, but for a small piece like this its easyer to just attach a new object. :)

ummm I got a slight problem.....

Didn't happen the first time.... (http://img184.exs.cx/img184/9776/help5pm.jpg)

in case you can't tell, the lightsaber is ignited in mid-air...... because the hilt is invisibly attached to his forearm?

Originally posted by maverick187
ummm I got a slight problem.....

Didn't happen the first time.... (http://img184.exs.cx/img184/9776/help5pm.jpg)

in case you can't tell, the lightsaber is ignited in mid-air...... because the hilt is invisibly attached to his forearm?
Did you reset your saber's pivot points to match the old hit and then resetXform, before linking to the old hilt's parent (blue box)?

I wound up just positioning my model to "lay over" the old hilt (make sure it's aligned in all the windows - Top, Left, Perspective, etc.), and then doing steps #7 - #11 of cchargin's replacer tuorial...

Ahhhh, I see I think I may have linked the saber to the old parent before I reset the pivots points and hit resetXform, thanks ChAiNz.2da, just fix this problem, skin and texture the sucker, and my first model ever and mod in a long time will be released, which will leaveme with only the task of practicing to make better models in the future..... well first I need to finish this one, thanks again..... I feel like I did when I first learned to mod in May last year....lol

hey, If you plan on modding TSL then this is the perfect time to practice.

^^^^^^^^^^

Well it all depends T7, I will definetly buy TSL and will probably mod a little bit, but if I get accepted to the college of my choice I probably wont have the time to do any extensive mods, but thats a different story. ;)

OKay so I read svцsh's tutorial for skinning, but I had some problems, I'll try again later, but my question is, do I have to select every polygon on the saber model and detach them one at a time?

No, You do not want to detach every poly that would take forever. What you want to do is look at your model and decide which parts will need more detail and you section it up accordenly. Maybe svцsh will pop in and give you professional advice.

Here is an example of the uvmap I made for Obi wan hilt (http://gallery97455.fotopic.net/p11211671.html) Now if you look at how the map is laid out you ca see the way I grouped the polys. Each of those sections in the UVmap must be physically detached to element on the model in edit mesh mode.

WOW, that looks a lot more complicated then the stupid box skin job I did in the tutorial...lol, I guess I'll give it a whirl this weekend and see what I come up with, I've skin 3 or 4 boxes so I'm gonna take the rest of the night off, and pick it up tomorrow probably, thanks for the help T7, oh so about how many poly's did you have to detach and map for that saber?

At the time that model was around 1800 polys but then I did a personal sanity check and reduced it by half. So I actually mapped that model twice, but that one was easy I just used cylinder in UVmapping and then applied UVW unwrap so it was pretty flat in the uv editor.

Its really all a learning proccess, if you get stuck just keep at it and it will all flow together eventually.

Basically split it up in logical chunks stuff that can be mapped safely as one go for it. But things like a button switch box or a belt clip you should detach all sides so the mapping won’t be cheap. what I mean is some times in games there is one side of an object not intended to have it’s polys mapped the same as just around the corner a good example I have see in most games is the back side of a sword the thin back side most often is mapped with the pixels from the side of the blade making the back side not so attractive depending on the texture some time you would never know. Often in a FPS game and the effect you get is like a stretched or smeared texture on the ploys that should be mapped correctly.

t7's hilt uv is a perfect example you can see the ploys and how he has parts separated logically to allow the texture the best way to be mapped.

hope all this helps :)

svцsh

Hey good to see ya again svцsh, and thanks for the advice, I'll tinker some more tommorrow, and let you guys know if I need more help, thanks again.

Okay I got my model, looking how I wanted it, but I tried to uvw map it and skin it and I got nothing, I need a little help, here (http://img198.exs.cx/img198/2117/uvwhelp2na.jpg) is a picture of the model in gmax, I need some help with everything though, basically what I tried was detaching the polys of the hilt that I labeled as being a "specific", and I tried some cylinder uvw wraps, but I tried to skin it and when I put it back in gmax I just got that white looking color.

Have you assigned the first material slot to use your skin in the diffusion map box?

After you make the .tga for your model click the grey square to the right of the diffusion slot colour box and chose bitmap now double click bitmap and browse to find your .tga make sure file type is targa or you will never find it ;)

There are a few buttons you have to hit for the skin to show up in max /gmax one is assign map to selection when your model is selected [mouse over the buttons below the material slot squares to find it I think it’s the third one in, but max is closed atm so…]

The other is make sure the show map in view port button [checkered cube button is pushed down ]

hope this helps ;)

svцsh

thanks for all the help, but I've just about had it, I've tried skinning this thing at least ten times now, and I can get and see my skin in gmax, when I put my skin in gmax it never comes out how I want it to look... grrrr.

I finally skinned the damn thing in gmax, but when I put it in game the skin didn't show fully.... anybody know why?

.................................Uh,
....................what?:confused: :confused: :confused:



T7 EDIT: did you have a specific question to what is being discussed.

Originally posted by maverick187
I finally skinned the damn thing in gmax, but when I put it in game the skin didn't show fully.... anybody know why?

Does the skin look deformed in-game, I'm thinking that your problem is that you didn't detach all the polys that you separated so what happend is some of the verts wielded when the model was written.

I've tried to skin this model sooo many times and it is jsut frustrating me.... sooooo much. Could someone take a look at the model for me, if anybody has the time?