A Little Help Please

[Erykgecko]

ok, At the risk of being flamed because its already been asked a thousand times, I'm gonna ask anyway, I've been browsing the forum for over an hour and still havent found anything that really helps.

basically, I just started modelling, many thanks to deSty for his colt911 vid tuts, im currently about half way through, they are fantastic and have given me a good start into modelling with xsi.

I'm now looking forward to what comes next after I've completed the weapon model. I'm guessing before it can be incorporated into a game it will first need animations for firing, reloading etc. The only animation tutorials I've been able to find all deal with animating a character. So my first request will be to any tuts on animating objects like weapons in xsi.

I guess then comes skinning, I havent really looked for any tuts on this yet as i'm sure theres thousands out there, but if anyone wants to save me a little time then please link me.

I'm not sure if this comes before or after skinning, but I guess somehow you have to get your model out of xsi and into a format that source can understand. I've seen the valve exporter on the xsi site to go with xsi mod tool, is it simply a case of exporting with this? if not, again, a tutorial to that would be most appreciated.

Then I guess finally comes actually putting the model into the game, I read the official valve sdk documention that tells you how to do this and i gotta say, very user unfriendly, I doubt that i'd be able to successfully put a model into the game following that, so again if anyone has links to tutorials showing you how to do this, you would be making my day.

So thats pretty much all I'm asking for now, it would be nice if people could post links to tutorials so that the whole process of starting with nothing to getting an object in game could be seen from start to finish and followed by people willing to put in the time and effort to learn it.

anyways, thanks in advance and apologies for the long post.

 

[mindless_moder]

first modeling > then skinning as u say > then animation > then export it to the smd file format.

 

[twentyknives]

if you want some how to on skinning check out my thread called "general texturing" a little bit below this one - i just posted some great video tutorials i found on unwrapping and skinning.

 

[Erykgecko]

thanks, I'll go take a look now.

Nearing completion of the model now following the tuts, and at least i know now skinning comes before animation

 

[Erykgecko]

right, i got modelling down, i got uvmapping and skinning down, and I've even managed to turn a knife i modelled into a prop_physics and put it in a map and shoot it across the floor.

I'm so proud *wipes tear from eye*

so now i guess things get a little more complicated with animating and stuff, and indeed i've hit a snag.

My original idea was to extract the smd's from the original css knife and import that in xsi and look at how it all worked then hopefully switch their knife for mine.

only trouble is when i import the smd all i get is a lot of dark greenish crosses, no objects, i cant figure out what i'm missing and cant find anything about the valve importer plugin.

does anyone have any ideas where im going wrong or what im not selecting somewhere? or any tutorials that might point me in the right direction.

I guess a screenshot might help.

as you can see, lots of green crosses, no arms or knives.

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[superlou]

Hey, you exported from XSI? I could really use some advise on that. I've made my model and textured it (very basic model) and exported a smd for general, physics, and animation. I wrote a qc file and successfully (i think) compiled the model. It shows up in my mod's models folder. However, when I open it up in model viewer, it is scrunched up and does not display the correct textures, even though I am fairly certain I have created the VMT and VTF files correctly. I have been at this stage for about 5 days now and could really use some pointers.

Thanks,
Louis

 

[noldevin]

usually, you have to set the scale to 3-8 in the qc file, a lot of times a model that looks huge in xsi shows up tiny in game. if that doesnt help, i cant help you any further.

 

[Erykgecko]

hey,

ok, first off ill point you to the tutorial i used to get my model into the game



very good tutorial, takes you through making a prop physics from start to finish. you say your model is scrunched up? did you set the $scale in the qc file? and as for textures, I almost pulled my hair out getting mine to work, i had correct vmts and vtfs and everything pointed to the right place, finally i stopped went back, read the tuturial again, and found i'd missed an important part, you have to actually "bind" the material to the model it seems in render mode, previously i was just doing it in model mode, so although the texture showed up in xsi, it didnt when i exported it and compiled it.

That tutorial is excellent btw, it also shows basic uv mapping and texturing, So i suggest you take a look at that.

XSI modelling and animating seems to be some kind of mystic black art though, the tutorial (read - Decent) are very hard to find. I've finally discovered basic movement animation in xsi, however i cant seem to attach it to the model so that it moves in the model viewer. I guess I shall just continue to search, and i still cant figure out why i just see green +'s but I hope this helped

 

[superlou]

That tutorial looks awsome. It even said what to do when the model was square. So I did what he said. But it's still square and no texture. Oh well. I will send him an email. Thank you for responding.

If i have any hair left in my head by the time this adventure is over i will declare it a victory