Off Topic Productions

#exec TEXTURE IMPORT NAME=BarrelFire2 FILE=Models\BarrelFire2.pcx GROUP=Skins // logs, SKIN000001
#exec MESHMAP SETTEXTURE MESHMAP=HDTPBarrelFire2016 NUM=2 TEXTURE=BarrelFire2
#exec TEXTURE IMPORT NAME=BarrelFire3 FILE=Models\BarrelFire2.pcx GROUP=Skins // dirt, SKIN000002
#exec MESHMAP SETTEXTURE MESHMAP=HDTPBarrelFire2016 NUM=3 TEXTURE=BarrelFire3

Maybe this?

I've been busy with school, so I haven't been able to make much progress on the model. After I successfully import it into GMDX, I'll get to work on the bushes.

I'm having zero luck importing the model in. The first time, it did import, but the model was all glitched out and it just looked like a mess of polygons. The second time just crashed UE. What's even weirder is that WotGrealExporter can view it perfectly fine. I'm importing through 3DS.

EDIT: I think it's because I forgot to mirror the model? I'll have to test it later. Here's the 3DS file and texture.
https://puu.sh/syYyG/c2611ae56b.3ds
https://puu.sh/syYyI/e500eebe28.pcx

Nah, mirroring is just mirroring. Did you create model from scratch or edited vanilla?

KlauZ wrote:Nah, mirroring is just mirroring. Did you create model from scratch or edited vanilla?

From scratch. I think it's because of polygon clipping (Which if I remember correctly, causes the model to glitch out).

I'm trying to develop a module for generating NPC animations, and I'm at a very early stage. I've already made a preliminary constrained dynamics solver for a skeletal rig, so I can generate all kinds of physics-based animations for the rig. The big bottleneck point for getting these into the Unreal Engine is associating such a rig with the mesh points.

Can anyone brief me on exporting the mesh points for a basic NPC model? I want to see if I can develop some programming to automate the mesh association, as it could be used for more generic animation tasks involving skeletal rigs.

Hey RoSoDude.

Sounds like you're working under the assumption DX/unreal uses skeletal "bones" rigs, that you can then manipulate for a realistic physics model? That technology wasn't available in DX's day, or at least was rarely used in games anyway. More to the point, Unreal 1 didn't support skeletal rigs.

Would you consider improving GMDX's object physics further than what I managed, if the NPC physics falls through? Would be a lot easier to do.

Deus Ex (and Unreal Engine 1 in general) uses Vertex animation, so if you're looking to make a converter, I wish you luck because there are alot of limitations (The animation has to be kept within a box if I remember correctly, and actually importing animations is not easy at all.).

Cybernetic pig wrote:Hey RoSoDude.

Sounds like you're working under the assumption DX/unreal uses skeletal "bones" rigs, that you can then manipulate for a realistic physics model? That technology wasn't available in DX's day, or at least was rarely used in games anyway. More to the point, Unreal 1 didn't support skeletal rigs.

Would you consider improving GMDX's object physics further than what I managed, if the NPC physics falls through? Would be a lot easier to do.

Bogie wrote:Deus Ex (and Unreal Engine 1 in general) uses Vertex animation, so if you're looking to make a converter, I wish you luck because there are alot of limitations (The animation has to be kept within a box if I remember correctly, and actually importing animations is not easy at all.).

No, the plan is actually to do everything (rigging, dynamics, turning that all into mesh point specification for vertex animation) outside of Unreal Engine, porting it to the right format, and giving it to Unreal. The basic conceit being that I think it'll be easier for me to program the physics solver and learn how to make a shitty animation module myself than learn how to use another animation program with a compatible input/output format. In the past I've made my own Finite Element solvers for arbitrary geometries and nonlinear deformation (sets of 1D curves only though), so this seems within reach for my abilities.

The current plan is to make a program that can take a set of vertex points from an NPC model and assign the appropriate weights to the points for a skeletal rig I've made. From there, it's trivial to move these points around according to the constrained dynamics of the rig. There are other bottlenecks which could severely limit this approach, though. If it proves more trouble than it's worth, I'll switch gears to in-engine possibilities for object physics.

What I'll need is a sample export file for a NPC mesh, and also an input file to Unreal for an animation so I know what I'm supposed to mimic.

Exported DeusExCharacters.u: http://www.mediafire.com/file/8r66f6ug4 ... ters.u.zip

Contains the meshes, import lines etc.

If you can pull this off, that'd be awesome.

Cybernetic pig wrote:Have you used the 3ds2de (3ds max to deus ex) conversion program? Which is also likely what causes UVmapping to break, but there you go.

So I finally did the sensible thing and exported my package back into .3ds format to check that this was the case. Unsurprisingly, all UV coordinates had been reset.

Looking at Tack's page here my best bet now is to look into Milkshape or get ahold of 3ds2unr, if anyone has that stashed away somewhere.
Crossing my fingers that someone here has an easier method of conversion.

I never experienced any 'breaking' uv maps for far. The only issue is that the low precission, and it's suboptimal use sort of end up odd for textures. Also there are a lot of faulty exporters available. As I tried UModel for exporting to James Mesh Files (*_a.3d/*_d.3d) it at least moved all textures groups by one, etc.

I ended up using the james mesh exporter code Smirftsch gave me and we never had any issues with rebuilding packages. Early this year I wrote an 3ds file exporter, which 3ds2de/unr can consume again as input (at least if it is fixed, otherwise the vertex aliasing can break animations badly). I posted quite some stuff in my 'minor stuff worth menitoning' thread about the stuff.

If anyone wants to export directly to *.3ds, I can either just extract them or upload a recent build of HTK, though it should be in the last build I posted anyway.

For the other way around, I would be glad if someone could contribute either a Max or Maya 2016 sample project, which does works with ActorX vertex mesh export, so I can use that for testing/adding dx vertex mesh format support to it, etc.

/edit:
As a side note: Don't try to go the way over the unreal james mesh format, which just uses 11:11:10 bits instead of 16:16:16 for the vertex coordinates. This isn't sufficient, and you end up with that low precission that way.

Mortecha's Stealth Pistol redesign (unskinned): http://media.moddb.com/images/members/1 ... 952/n1.png

Looks very nice, I think it's even better that the silencer is external. Good job!