Posted: Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:19 am Post subject:
Does anyone use Blender here?
Just out of curiosity, does anyone use Blender to create assets for C&C mods?
I recently started to use it again after 5 years (stopped using it back then because of the horrible UI and decided to concentrate on 3ds max) since they have updated the UI and made it more stable and it has a LOT of features. The modeling itself is faster than in 3ds max, it's now easier to use and I was quite surprised by that.
I have a plan, yet not certain, to create a render template to it so perhaps that'll bring more 3d modelers to C&C mods. QUICK_EDIT
I use Blender a little bit, but for higher poly stuff than C&C things. I was similarly scared off by the old and awful UI, but I do have to admit now that it has a bunch of really nifty features. QUICK_EDIT
Well it took quite many hours to create this template for TS assets. It has the same idea as the 3ds max template, you append (in 3ds max 'Xref') the model you want to render, hide the 'plane' object, hit render key. To render shadows you unhide the plane, turn off AA and ambient occlusion, and assing 'Hiding blue' material to your model and finally hit render key.
Great Job Arnold!! Maybe I should reinstall and try blender for TS modding some time. I dunno how you made them but I really wanna know how you make them. QUICK_EDIT
Thanks! I'll write about how I made the template later.
I've made some changes to next version, something like: everything below z=0 won't be rendered and to switch between sprite render and shadow render you just have to set "Plane's" Pass Index to 1 and turn off AA and assign the blue material to the model. The "Plane" is now invisible to camera so it won't bother at all.
EDIT: there is actually a second method to render shadow frames, you just turn the model's Pass Index to 1 and turn off AA.
Always wanted to have that in 3ds max but I just didn't have any idea how to create that, closest thing to that is animating a slice modifier to hide everything below the cut area. You can also benefit from it by cutting a hole on the plane so you can render models that works underground. QUICK_EDIT
Yeah, how does the underground aspect work with this template? I haven't really done anything like this with the slice (knife?) tool in Blender, so I don't really know how well it emulates the one in 3dsMax. QUICK_EDIT
Look up the size (dimensions) of the plane in the template which is 70x70 and then you create a new plane in that size. Then you have your model that has underground parts. You create a new mesh that is exatly the same sized as the part that goes underground. Then you add boolean modifier to that mesh and select the plane to have an union with and finally apply the modifier. Then delete the original plane (as the union has cloned it) and select the union mesh and go to edit mode. From here you delete the mesh and leave the plane area. Now you have a hole.
Then you open the template and append the model and the plane. After that you restrict rendering from the template's plane and apply the plane blue material to the new plane. QUICK_EDIT
In the future I'll create a new topic about Blender templates for TS/RA2 when I release the "stable" version.
Note: In version 1.02 one cell is 2 Blender units.
@DarkVen: So the way I created this template:
Camera: Took camera coordinates and angles from TS template made with 3ds max. Made the camera orthographic Made some tunes with a box mesh so the width in render is same as the TS cell width 48px. Also shifted the camera in Y axis a bit.
Lighting: Same coords as the 3ds template, but different lighting setting in overall. Over half light from the sun and the rest from environment light and ambient occlusion (to create minor cool effect), raytrace gather to 10.
Render settings: 640x480 resolution, Shading alpha to Sky, AA to 11x catmull rom, output to RGB (instead of RGBA).
Plane: This is better than in 3ds max, you actually don't have to hide the plane in order to render without shadows, you just turn the plane's Pass Index to 1. Also assign a blue material with 100% intensity to it. These are controlled by nodes.
Nodes: This is where the magic happens, you can remove the AA effect against background when rendering without shadows and the model without assigning blue material to it in order to render shadows, you just have to turn model's Pass Index to 1. Look at the attached image to see what I did here. This is actually post-rendering work. ID mask is the one that removes either the plane or the model from the rendered image.
Never Mind I found I had DA foundations too _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
Thanks so much for this. I've actually been working on something like this for the past 3 days with no progress. How difficult would it be to modify this for a 1:1 (1 BU -> 1 cell) ratio?
EDIT:
After using this for a bit I am confused (and running into a strange drawing glitch(?)).
Does the .blend you attached include the node setup or do we have to do that? _________________
Tore wrote:
Oh noes Nod32 must have found some GDI32 in the art.ini file!
3ds Topic Clicky Last edited by Palkia323 on Thu Jan 23, 2014 7:44 pm; edited 1 time in total QUICK_EDIT
Yeah DA, I found them. I thought the ones were LKO's, but in my archive of downloaded material I found yours. _________________ I am authorized to send out the TMP Studio, PM ME IF YOU WANT IT And check this out, these were sent to me for help with terrain and zdata help along with TMP Studio/Builder
Great!! I could find myself some time today since it's Friday here, I could spend more time in practicing for blender. Just reinstalled so I could begin already.
DonutArnold wrote:
Note: In version 1.02 one cell is 2 Blender units.
I'm using version 2.69 here. How many blender units approximately for Tiberian Sun an/or Red Alert 2 anyway? QUICK_EDIT
Thanks so much for this. I've actually been working on something like this for the past 3 days with no progress. How difficult would it be to modify this for a 1:1 (1 BU -> 1 cell) ratio?
EDIT:
After using this for a bit I am confused (and running into a strange drawing glitch(?)).
Does the .blend you attached include the node setup or do we have to do that?
Shouldn't be hard, you just double camera's orthographic scale and from 3d view properties section "Display" you drop scale to 0.5 to get the grid right (2x2 grid size for 1 cell is more usable).
Could you attach a screenshot from the drawing glitch? And it does include the nodes, so you don't have to create them by yourself.
DarkVen9109 wrote:
Great!! I could find myself some time today since it's Friday here, I could spend more time in practicing for blender. Just reinstalled so I could begin already.
DonutArnold wrote:
Note: In version 1.02 one cell is 2 Blender units.
I'm using version 2.69 here. How many blender units approximately for Tiberian Sun an/or Red Alert 2 anyway?
Nice! I'm using Blender version 2.69 too. The current template is created for TS assets and 2 BUs = 1 cell. I'll create the RA2 version as soon as the TS template is "stable" enough. QUICK_EDIT
New version:
-Added contrast node
-Added switch which allows you to render between model and shadow (Switch on + Plane's Pass index: 1 = render model; switch off + Model's Pass index: 1 = render shadow)
-Fixed lighting (now more similar to 3ds template)
-Fixed camera position (dunno how I kind of screwed that, lol)
Notes: when texturing your model and to get the best render result, make sure its material settings are set to:
-Diffuse Intensity: 1.00 (texture amount of visibility, default is 0.8 which makes texture only 80% visible)
-Specular Hardness: 15 (makes model less plain)
-Shading Emit: 0.2 (material brightness)
Damn thanks Arnold! But lolz, I dunno where to start this time. I don't know what should I choose to make a 3D unit. Pencils aren't a proper one. I was trying to render this one anyway. QUICK_EDIT
I was wrong in using the word "glitch" as it seems to be a setting that I cannot find to revert.
This rendering confuses me between backface selecting and normals being flipped. Could you give me the name/location of this so that I may revert it?
(Sorry, I didn't realize the image was so large.)
Also I have noticed (maybe you intended this?) that unless you set the pass index of the blue plane to 1, the nodes seem to be useless as the geometry is still anti-aliased against said plane (including shadows). _________________
Tore wrote:
Oh noes Nod32 must have found some GDI32 in the art.ini file!
Damn thanks Arnold! But lolz, I dunno where to start this time. I don't know what should I choose to make a 3D unit. Pencils aren't a proper one. I was trying to render this one anyway.
You're welcome! Start from something simple.
Palkia323 wrote:
I was wrong in using the word "glitch" as it seems to be a setting that I cannot find to revert.
This rendering confuses me between backface selecting and normals being flipped. Could you give me the name/location of this so that I may revert it?
(Sorry, I didn't realize the image was so large.)
Also I have noticed (maybe you intended this?) that unless you set the pass index of the blue plane to 1, the nodes seem to be useless as the geometry is still anti-aliased against said plane (including shadows).
Did you create this model in a new file and after that appended it in the template? Could you describe everything you did to make this problem happen since I don't get this problem to appear with my template?
And yes, it is intended because Blender doesn't normally AA against background, so setting pass index of the blue plane to 1 makes it disappear. The AA against background is actually partly Alpha and the ID pass node actually recognizes that too it can be either turned on or off, and in this case it's turned off to create the same "Don't AA against background" option than in 3ds max, just a bit different route. QUICK_EDIT
New version:
-Added contrast node
-Added switch which allows you to render between model and shadow (Switch on + Plane's Pass index: 1 = render model; switch off + Model's Pass index: 1 = render shadow)
-Fixed lighting (now more similar to 3ds template)
-Fixed camera position (dunno how I kind of screwed that, lol)
Oh and when rendering shadows, turn off AA from the rendering tab. QUICK_EDIT
Well the way it is right now is because I'm slowly creating this template piece by piece (like fixing values/bugs and adding new features) and that I basically started to use Blender again beginning of the year and after 6 years (and back then I was quite rookie with Blender too).
And it can be automated, I just have to learn and write some scripts. QUICK_EDIT
1. Open template
2. Append your model (Shift+F1): modelfilename.blend\Object\ Select all except camera and light.
3. To render without shadows: turn plane's "pass index" to 1 and hit render. Hit F3 to save the rendered frame.
4. To render shadows: turn plane's "pass index" back to 0 and select the model you're rendering and turn its "pass index" to 1 (if you have multiple models you have to do it one by one, I'll include a shortcut in the next version). Now go to Node Editor and turn off Switch. Turn off AA and render. QUICK_EDIT
Joined: 22 Nov 2010 Location: Iszkaszentgyorgy, Hungary
Posted: Thu Jun 18, 2015 3:53 pm Post subject:
Can I use these gifs? D: _________________ "If you didn't get angry and mad and frustrated, that means you don't care about the end result, and are doing something wrong." - Greg Kroah-Hartman
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Past C&C projects: Attacque Supérior (2010-2019); Valiant Shades (2019-2021)
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WeiDU mods: Random Graion Tweaks | Graion's Soundsets
Maintainance: Extra Expanded Enhanced Encounters! | BGEESpawn
Contributions: EE Fixpack | Enhanced Edition Trilogy | DSotSC (Trilogy) | UB_IWD | SotSC & a lot more... QUICK_EDIT
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