Interlopers.net Forum - Half-Life 2 News & Tutorials

The update has changed the way the compiling process works a little. I think this could be fixed with changing your file paths but I haven't got it in front of me to figure out how. The Blender SMD tools plugin was made by a guy called Varsity on Facepunch. See if you can find his thread (it's titled "It's blender 2.5!"). I would guess there are already people posting in it about this problem. Seems like the tools just need a quick update to be in line with steampipe.

I changed the title to include full bridge because these handrails are part of a larger structure.

Thanks Black_Stormy, I will join face punch and try and find Varsity and the thread at some point. Yeah I hope it is just a quick update.

Re-padded the handrails texture it is not great but it will have to do for now. The seams seem to have gone, though one of the models still needs to have better seams. I will take on board for next time to give more padding to the model.



Some more questions:

I still need to add specular. I need to ask what is the steps I need to do. For example, is the first step, to copy one of the VTF images of the handrails turn it black and white using saturation then link it in the VMT file?

If possible I might need to ask some help from other modellers soon. To help with a bunch of models that I will need. I should have reference pictures for model I need if any one can help. I doubt anyone has time these days.

When creating a VTF what is a good Mipmap Filter to use as I just use Box but there are others like Triangle, point, mitchell, gaussian and many others what is a good mipmap to use? Does it depend on the shape of the model?

I have looked at the models I have made and I am worried about the collision mesh it looks incorrect should I worry about this, do I have to recompile the model.

Will I have to wait until blender can compile models again.

That second model looks like the phys mesh and ref mesh have misaligned origins. In blender, align the two objects so the meshes line up and then select the ref mesh and hit shift+s and select "snap to selected". Then select both objects and hit ctrl+shift+c (might be ctrl+alt+c or even shift+ctrl+alt+c) and click "origin to cursor".

Since the studiomdl uses the model origin points to place the models, if your meshes are aligned but your origin points aren't then you'll get a misaligned model.

With that first one it looks to me like your phys mesh is rotated (among other things, it's pretty fucked up). I'm guessing in blender they are all aligned nicely though. The reason it has come out like that would be because the object has been rotated in object mode. I'm pretty sure blender discards object rotation data when it exports the SMD, so you'll have to apply the objects rotation - I told you how to do this a little while ago. Also might as well make sure the origins are lined up too.

The other problem with that physics mesh is that it has been 'shrinkwrapped' by studiomdl because:
1. You haven't made it from convex shapes, or
2. You haven't declared $concave in the .qc properly, or
3. You haven't shaded it smooth, or
4. You have internal faces in the mesh, or
5. You haven't got UV and material data on the mesh.

But I'll put my money on number one.

finally, I think you should be able to compile models by manually dragging them onto your mods/games own studiomdl.exe. It's only the blender exporter that can't find the data it needs because it's using an old studiomdl.exe. You should still be able to compile using the new steampipe tools.

Thanks yes, I checked the canal gate in Blender and the origins were off. I done as you said by using the cursor and snapped both the ref and phys mesh origin's to the cursor.

Blender at least creates the SMD ref and phys.(redone the canal ref and phys smd)

Compiling is not working, I made a short cut on the desktop to studio mdl at common/HL2/bin (studio mld)

It won't create my model, I don't know what to do. And also it closes so fast I can't tell what happened

With that first one it looks to me like your phys mesh is rotated (among other things, it's pretty fucked up). I'm guessing in blender they are all aligned nicely though. The reason it has come out like that would be because the object has been rotated in object mode. I'm pretty sure blender discards object rotation data when it exports the SMD, so you'll have to apply the objects rotation - I told you how to do this a little while ago. Also might as well make sure the origins are lined up too.

For the 2nd models(a lot of my models collision meshes are like that)
Do I Need to, clear the object rotation using Alt+R you mentioned before to me about clearing object scale Alt+S perhaps I should do all that as well for all the models. sorry if I don't remember everything. I will apply reset rotation tomorrow.

if you scale it in object mode you can then hit alt+s to clear scale, and return it to its original scale (unless you hit ctrl+a and apply the objects scale). Either way you can scale it back up for export, or adjust the scale in the .qc.

ctrl+a > apply rotation.

Also if you are ever looking for a feature, press spacebar and search for it. Try it with this.

Hi,

Spent time redoing some things.

1-I have applied rotation and scale to the Ref and Phys meshes using Ctrl + a. Set them all to 0

2-I have redone some of the textures again.

3-I added a back face to some of the handles

4-I made sure all the origins are correct for each model ref and Phys

This is one of the phys meshes is this okay as a phys mesh, they are all squares?



I want to complie all the models (27) again I don't know what I need to do.

Using the studio model app at common/Half-life 2/bin studio mdl, it does not seem to work at the moment.

Seriously man. Look it up.

CONCAVE CONVEX Questions


Okay, I have been looking up convex and concave at.

http://www.rustycode.com/tutorials/convex.html

Cool explanation and help.

Right I need to build the phys mesh out of convex meshes in the tutorial above it gets a bit confusing.

At this point a lot of artists get the bright idea of just cloning the original mesh and using that as the collision mesh. This seems like a good idea except that then your collision mesh isn't convex!

This is a very common first time mistake among Torque artists. It is even further complicated by the fact that the Player can even walk on this collision mesh without too much difficultly. But if you were to shoot a Projectile at this mesh it would go right through!

So how do we create a collision mesh that matches up to our visible mesh and is convex? The secret is to use multiple collision meshes!

multiple collision meshes is the key word.

In my image below is this correct? I am adding an extra collision mesh so there is 2 collision meshes. Should I join these two meshes to form one phys mesh? For this handle I'm going to keep it simple like below.



Can I clarify let me know if this statement is correct.

When one extrudes it leaves an object hollow....this is not what is wanted. What is wanted is each object to be enclosed.

The below picture is not correct as these extensions were extruded and not closed


This should be correct each mesh is its own closed shape(I hid the sides so one can see the inside)



This has to be correct I am effectively creating half an arch out of convex meshes like the example.

An arch is a very concave shape and would be impossible to accurately approximate with a single convex collision mesh. Instead we can use several convex collision meshes and get a much closer approximation of the shape of the arch:

If this is not correct please show me how to do this correctly.
I can't seem to grasp concave and convex meshes

You were right Black_Stormy I had to redo all the Phys meshs again I am not sure if I got it right but seems okay in hammer. They are basic blocks what i had before it would not complie.







This is the bridge so far