Hebert09

If the model is darker on the "correct" side than it is on the bottom, you can try flipping all the normals again. The "backside" of a polygon is always significantly darkened by the shader. Glad to hear it worked out though!!

Another theory: you might have some problem with your normals. Try opening the model in magos, edit the material, and make sure that the "two-sided" flag is checked. Try it ingame again and see if the faces are visible, but instead darker. If this is the case, these polygons have their normals inverted (the normal is a vector which determines which side is "up" on the polygon). If this turs out to be the problem, you can select the polygons which are "inverted", go to the modifier tab, and select "normal" from the drop-down list of modifiers - this will turn the polygon inside-out. Then, right-click on the modifier and press "collapse to". You can also send me the .mdx files so that i can have a look at them.

Alright, first of all, are you exporting with Max 5 + Art Tools, or NeoDex? Because this sounds like it might be related to the exporter, and it is hard for me to help you out with NeoDex as i said earlier. Anyhow, i have ever really seen this error before, but i know that geometry not properly linked to any bones will snap to the nearest available bone in the scene - this might be what you are experiencing. The Art Tools exporter usually fixes this automatically for you though, and it is safe to export unlinked meshes with it. Another issue may be model extents, which you can recalculate in magos model editor, but this should affect the whole model, not just one piece of it. Is there any chance you can guide me through the process you use to create your models? Preferably with screenshots. That way i might see where things go wrong.

I'm not sure what this "related bones error" is - it should be fine to attach several different meshes unto one bone (if that is what you are trying to do). The way i do it is usually to create everything as one mesh, and then detach the pieces i want to use other materials (depending on the situation). Optionally, you can try to combine the textures into a single larger texture, but ofcourse then you will not be able to benefit from texture tiling.

Is there no chance i can get you to download 3ds max 5? I know it like my back pocket, and animating in it is very easy. If you change your mind, here is the link i got it from.

Some tips for making erebor: try making a flat facade first and use the connect edge/target weld vertex tool to create the outline of it. Then, you can extrude some of the polygons outward to get the depth for the alcoves.

Ofcourse. Not any less possible than helms deep in any case! Did you ever get the modeling straight?

Happy Birthday man!

Happy Birthday! (Happy Birthday!)



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Happy Birthday Hebert

Helper or geometry should not matter. You don't use bone tools, instead there should be some kind of bone menu in the NeoDex drop-down menu. By the way, what is it you are trying to animate on those doodads?

If you look at the bottom of this link, you will find some files with samples in it. Perhaps some of those contain animations and hints on how to make them. Also make sure you have the latest version of NeoDex. I was unable to open your files, i think they may have been saved with a more recent version of 3ds max (mine is 2010). A root node is the same as a root bone, it is basically just a bone which all other bones are attached to. However, NeoDex does not recognize them as bones if they do not have any geometry attached to them. Instead, you can create some basic geometric object, like a plane, and just name it "bone_root" instead, and then use whatever neodex tool you use to label it as a bone. I really recommend you try to contact BlinkBoy, i think he can give you some basic pointers.

HI, how are you ? What about Helm's Deep ? Any news ?

If you want to upload it to the pastebin, you need to put it in a zip file. I am really not sure what it is you are doing, did you setup the controllers for the bones as instructed in the tutorial?

I am not sure how the axes would ever become non-perpendicular. Can you send me your max file? Perhaps i can try to see what you have done.

Send it to me and tell me what needs animating, and i can do it for you.

Again :>

You will have to ask BlinkBoy about most of this, but this is as much as i can give you:

*An object can only be linked to one other object.
*A typical skeleton is linked in a hierarchial chain, where your hand is linked to your elbow, your elbow is linked to your shoulder, your shoulder is linked to your chest, etc. In a character model, all bones (with a few exceptions) should be directly or indirectly linked to the root bone.
*Multiple objects can be skinned onto a single bone/skeleton. You may need to edit the bone weights though to make it appear correctly.
*Any geometric object can be defined as a bone. For non-character animations, i often use simple boxes.
*All bones must have names which start with "Bone_". The bones made by the bone tool do this automatically.

Yo

I am not sure, depends on what kind of error you are getting. Are you sure you set everything up as specified in the NeoDex manual? I think you need to use one of the tools to register them as bones in the exporter. You should not collapse the skin modifiers. Also, make sure you have a root bone, i think this is important in NeoDex. Use the link tool to link stuff to it. Personally, i only use Art Tools Skinning, since well, i am using art tools. But if you can learn how to use normal skinning, that would be much better since it is much, much more flexible and also lets you see how the mesh will distort during animation.

Btw, this is my favorite tile so far. The new wood also looks much better.

Looks nice as it is.Keep working mate I love my Stronghold

Oh and Happy new year!!!!!

lol, that sounds cool but really complicated. The requirements for animations in wc3 are quite strict, and mocap usually renders many unnecessary keyframes which you have to trim off using special software (i think NeoDex might support this though). Overall, i recommend you to start with the basics and build up some skill before you try on mocap.

Well, you can have one file with the animated bone structure in it, and then import and rig other meshes onto it. Just export and import them as .3ds. Exporting animations is less recommended, they often get screwed up. Still, you could always use oinkerwinkles anim transfer tool from the "finished" model to your new one. If you ever find a tile with the appropriate texture, don't worry about the color. I can tweak that for you to make it look right. Know though, that tiles with footsteps in them will not tile well since the detail is too recognizable.

It is ALWAYS recommended to use bones instead of animating directly, since if you ever want to change the geometry of the object you will break the animations otherwise. And yes to having a separate tile texture, but no to this specific one. It looks a bit too bland. Keep working though.

Not really, though i recommend checking out the tutorial section, that is how i learned. You are using NeoDex, right? I think there is a rigging tutorial for that somewhere. The basics are this: you set up some bones, link the mesh to them through a process called skinning, then you press a button called "auto key", then you just move the timeline cursor and move/rotate/scale the different bones, and keys will be automatically created. Voila! Then you use the graph editors>dope sheet to add some animation keys, to mark where animations start and end. Just read up some on it and i can give you tips later. About the shading, it can be solved another way. You can use an ingame gradient texture and skin it onto a second mesh, which is roughly identical to the original mesh, but "on top of" it. Then you set its filter model to "modulate". It requires some extra polies, but it usually doesn't push up your file size that much (polies require much less space than texture).

I think it's looking good. If anything, the planks look a bit too saturated and warcraft-y in the second pic, you might want to tone the colors down. Also i see that you also have no shading in your texture, but that is fine. It is always a hard balance between making a stone texture you can use for anything, or making multiple textures with shading incorporated. For your project, this will work nicely. I hope you are also making walls and towers to match with these?

Yea, have some unclosed story, maybe they are planing something! But overall, it was a great movie! xD

Finally got to see battle of the five armies, was pretty good. I felt the battle and endin could have been a little longer, as soon as the battles over so to is pretty much the movie. What happens to bard and the arkenstone etc... Felt there were some unclosed storylines. But all in all a pretty good movie and ending to a GREAT saga.

I think stereo mix is neat since you get exactly what you hear with exactly the settings you have specified to record with. It is also good since you can frankly record sounds from anything, thus steal some cool sounds from videos, games, or anything alike.

Look, first of all, the frequency sample rate should totally change the quality. If it doesn't, you did something wrong. A tip is to do the following: install RealTek audio drivers. Enable "stereo mix" as standard input channel in your sound manager. In Audacity, open up the settings/property/whatever menu and set the audio source to "stereo mix", channels to mono and sample rate to 22050. Play the soundtrack at the same time as you are recording with audacity. What it will do is to record your outgoing audio channel (what you hear in your speakers) and also merge both channels to mono (so sound quality should be unchanged). When you save it, make sure you change bitrate to something suiting, try lowering it gradually as you export it (64kbps should be absolutely lowest) and listen to the mp3 file until you get a good mix of file size and qualty. This works for any kind of sound you want to sample.

are you going to finish your version of minas tirith?

As for sound, no one expects you to have a complete track in the map. Download Audacity with LAME mp3 plugin, import the sound into it, and change the sample rate to 22050 Hz. Then, selecting a section and pressing shift + space, you can listen to how that section would sound like if looped. Find a section whic seems to loop passably well, or which at least contains a cohesive piece of track (should be no longer than 45 seconds). If it loops poorly, you can select the end and start seconds and use the "fade out" and "fade in" filters respectively. Export the track as .mp3 at something between 96-128kbps (whatever sounds best and doesn't distort the track too much). Oh, and make sure you merge the stereo tracks to mono, otherwise your file will be twice as big. My music tracks usually end up at about 200-250kb.

Hm, Local Files? It would need to be present in the player's wc3 directory though. It however could be seen as an optional add on.

Like selecting all melees to instantly proceed to the gates while microing the heroes. ;_;

btw archers very weak... the scroll removes the lag yes...but i cant see anything on main gate haha.

xD i always use arrows to move camera

well,i didnt use the scroll, i skipped the cinematic and when i try to play alone, keeps selecting all rohan heros automatic...i use desktop.

It's pretty good. ~30 fps when scrolled.

Nice update.

I still do suggest you use an active icon for Aragorn's area buff skill. Also, please be forgiving. ;_; I suggest you not spawn Uruks for empty player slots (no computer player specified).

I'll check it when I have time.

Oh thank you so much that was what I was looking for! Now I will make many skins for my project!

Thanks! Yea, it's! xD

I have already made footman (peasant militia) and it automatic reskin ranger unit that i saw you have !)

So maybe u want to upload it ? U need help to test it or something else ?

Yeah, like i said, use them to overwrite a ground texture. Then make an invisible dummy building use the ground texture so that you can use it as a doodad.

Yeah, to be frank, many of your sounds were of so poor quality that you might equally well have done without them. I'd rather spend that filesize on a proper lotr soundtrack (for this you can use mp3) or something else. Anyhow, here is a link to the tiles, along with some grass doodads i thought might fit. I did not have any rock tiles, but i did have some decals. The concept of decals is the following: you create a dummy building, with no model or pathing, locust, invulnerable, etc. Then you use your decal texture to overwrite a building ground texture, such as the demon gate or gold mine. Finally, you can use this ground texture on your dummy model to "paint" high res textures onto your map! Just use them with moderation.

I tried it, it looks cool. I would like it though if you replaced the ground texture with a custom one, i have some for you if you should want them. Also i felt like the defenders were a bit few, but maybe that is just me. It would also be nice if you had some more items in the shop, and if you could somehow make the shops more visible (right now i had to select random stuff to find them). Finally, when i played as Aragorn i noticed his abilities were a bit boring. Mostly just healing and passives. The most fun abilities to me are the ones that do AoE damage or knockback, or which stuns groups of units... it would be nice if there were some more of these.

Nice, I'll get to testing it soon. Sorry once again. >.<

Good Joob with Helms Deep !

Yeah, both positive and negative.

The thing about destructables is that they have some different rendering properties from doodads. This is something that cannot be overworked with just model extends. So yeah, the doodad approach is the only valid one in this case it appears.

This has to do with the model extents. Open it in Magos Model Editor, go edit->calculate extents. If this doesn't work, go edit->mode properties, and manually scale all extents x3. If this STILL does not work, make it into a doodad instead of a destructable, if you need to have it walkable you can always add a destructable copy underneath.

oh that. It|s not an error but a warning. NeoDex is giving you the hint that you haven|t declared any animations. It therefore, will create a default animation for your model to run in-game.

oh max 2015 needs a patch for it to work (or an old version of neodex).

Anyways, could you describe the sequence error? NeoDex may get in trouble with other games modeling toolkits. It has some little problems with Sc2 Art Tools, for instance.