Need Some Advice.

[Epifire]

Hey guys. I am just now getting into modeling for the Source engine, and I am in need of some help with learning XSI 7.5 Modtool. I have modeled a lot on older games but here are some things I never got the hang of for making a Source model.

First off I'll state what I wanted to build, and then I'll finish with my questions regarding all of this.

So first I am making a mod where some laboratory test tubes would come in handy as physics _props. Mainly I wanted to make some small, glowing, glass containers that would be able to break if you dropped them.



So now to my questions. I have little to no knowledge on exporting to mdl, and setting it up a physics_prop, so bare in mind this is my first run at this.

Things I wanted to do for these props would be...

Make transparent bottles with a glowing liquid texture inside them. Issues with that is I don't have any textures like that, and I do not know how to activate alpha textures in XSI to work properly.

And last I needed them to break with physics debris, and maybe a decal that's a puddle of the liquid that was inside it. So for this I need to know how to make physics debris, that correspond to my prop, and maybe figure out the decal effect (but the decal is not entirely necessary).

I have had experience in some old games, (and once upon a time) I also watched the Noesis Interactive video on the time bomb prop if any one remembers that. I can no longer find that video, as it became unavailable through XSI.

So basically I need a run down on how I could do this, and thanks in advance.

[Gary]

Models so simple, I would use kHED to make these instead of learning something as bulky as XSI. Though, XSI would be useful for more complicated or animated models.

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... n_Overview

http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki ... ustom_gibs

[Epifire]

Alright well that's a good start, I found the XSI addon I was looking for. As well as some good overview.

But like I said I still need to know in actual steps or procedures on some of my issues I talked about. For instance adding an alpha texture to the glass bottles, and learning how to implement custom gibs debris.

The only thing I do know (for modeling to Source) is some foggy procedures in rendermapping, and getting rid of a models clusters. I do know the XSI 6.0 interface very well. The only reason why I moved onto 7.5 was due that 6.0 (modtools only) had a rendermap bug.

Other then that, I could really use some "do, and do not do" sort of guidelines.