Friday, November 1, 2013

Get a decent 'Nitrous' viewport output with diffuse / normal mapped meshes in 3DS MAX

1. Use BITMAP for material's "Bump" mapping slot instead of "Normal Bump" map type.

2. Use higher resolution (e.g. 2048*2048) PNG bitmap type for baking normal & diffuse light maps.
3. For default scanline render driver, it goes to 3DS mode by default. While for my ATI card only supports 'Nitrous' driver, I get a 'tip' (so generous for Autodesk!!) from official site, I need to use 'Realistic' instead of 'Shaded' mode for viewport rendering to get a decent baked mesh render output.


4. for Normal Map, set 'Blur' to lower value e.g. 0.3 ~ 0.6 and 'Blur offset' to higher, let's say 1.0



Monday, May 27, 2013

Photoshop /3ds Max hot keys & game asset creation practice

0. Ctrl + Right Mouse Click-> create mesh primitives.
1. F12 - translation short cut
2. Freeze a bounding box - create a bounding box for modeling the real mesh which wouldn't be modeled with unexpected portion or form when you extrude some vertices or scale up/down the mesh accidentally.

See through the object.
3. Unfreeze object -> select object -> right click ->object properties -> Display a box
4. Freeze again

Check SNAP Quad setting
5. Shift + Right click -> check
   -> no Grid point
   -> check Vertice
   -> check Snap to Frozen Objects
   -> check "Enable Axis Constraints in Snaps"

6. Snap 2.5D, snap on Z-axis when you are doing in X&Y axes.
??That way, I don't accidentally snap something up onto Z-axis when I only want on X&Y.

7.a A - angle snap for rotation.
7.b S, moving edge/vertex snap to a grid, [Tools->Grid and Snap settings-> option->enable axis constraint]
8. Space bar - selection lock, any modification will lock onto selected object.
9. G - turn on/off the grid

10. UVW unwrapping
      if you find that the connected side for the UVW unwrapped texture is not what you want, just simply flip the object/mesh by rotating the orientation. For example, if you found the top face is not the connected polygon to the sides' faces and it's at the far remote on the unwrapped UVW, just rotate the mesh up side down, it will do you a favor after unwrapping.

11. Alt + x, see through Mode
12. Ctrl+Shift+Z, fit all meshes to screen.
13. Ctrl+Shift+S, Nitrous Texture Tweak
14. set desired current screen, F -> T -> F, set current view as Front view.
15. Ctrl + c, connect segment, after select parallel/multiple segments.
16. Alt + Q, hide un-selected.
17. selected a edge, Alt+L, select the whole loop from that edge.
18. [Ctrl + Shift] Left Click, if you select a vertex/face in a loop, this can select all vertices/faces on a loop.
19. Ctrl + W, Target weld
20. Shift + W, weld
21. Alt + W, Toggle quad view Or specific view with fullscreen
**** 22. Double click on an Edge, select a loop of the edge in a row. !!!important!!!
23a. Select Edge/Vertice, Ctrl + I, invert selection on same mesh
23b. Select Edge/Vertice, Alt + I, hide unselected.
24a. Select Edge / Edge Loop Ring, Shift + E (i.e. extrude perpendicularly) Or
24b. Select Polygon, Right click -> Insect. (i.e. adding scale-down face inward along the same polygon)
25. In UVW unwrap editor,
    a. S - Stitch
    b. D - detach
Note: In 3ds max, select multiple faces, scale on normal axis Or set "Make planar" are the same way to flatten all of the planes.
** move the pivot to center of mesh for alignment to other mesh
*** Ctrl-Shift-x
**** Editable mesh->select face/polygon -> Mouse Right Click-> Select "Inset" properties 
(Note: sometimes we don't want to create edge loop by "shift-f" as it's cannot create the loop around the whole edge of mesh in a time, we need to use "Inset" over on the polygon instread.)

**** Face to Grow: select 1 Face -> click "grow" from the right down menu.

Photoshop Tips for UVW texturing
1. Ctrl + i - invert color (e.g. black background+green lines => white background+pink lines)
2. Ctrl + Shift + u (i.e. saturate to turn to grey lines)
3. Ctrl + L (adjust grey level, usually used in blueprint to highlight those outlines)
3a. Ctrl + +Shift + L (auto-level, bring out the contrast of entire image)
4. double click the background layer name to template -> blending mode to "Multiply" -> lock that layer
5. Z - zoom in/out
6. Ctrl + d - deselect
7. Ctrl (move) + alt (drag & duplicate) / + shift (to lock moving direction)
8. Ctrl + left click on "layer thumbnail" - to select that layer element alone.
9. g - gradient / paint bucket
10.x - toggle color.
11. Ctrl + right click to select layer
12. Ctrl + t - transform (+shift to snap the angle for rotation) + ENTER to finish transform
13. Ctrl + e - flatten / combine / merge layers
14. TAB - maximize working window
15. Space + left click - pan over the layer
16. Ctrl + R - rulers
17. i - ink sample
18. w - magic wand tool
19. m - marquee tool
20. m + select + ARROW keys - nudge or move slightly
21. v - move
22. ctrl + shift + n - new layer
23. e - erase
24. ctrl + -/+ - zoom out/in
25. ctrl + 0 - fit to screen
26. ctrl + g - group
27. t - text input
28. [ or ] - decrease/increase size, for example brush size
29. f - toggle full screen
30. TAB - toggle full screen & toolbars
31. F7 - (in full screen mode)layer menu toggle
32. Ctrl + u - hue/saturation (in any layer)
33. In-Between layers, Alt + Left Mouse Button, making layer Stencil / back layer see thru' upper layer's pattern.
34. Ctrl + J, duplicate layer instantly
35. Ctrl + Shift + u, remove color / desaturate
36. Ctrl + i, color inversion
37. Ctrl + u, hue/saturation/brightness control
38. Ctrl + g, group layers in the layer menu
39. Edit->Define Pattern => Shift + F5 (fill pattern)
40. Ctrl + d, deselection, anything
41. Ctrl + Alt + i, change image size
42. Ctrl + 0, zoom full screen
43. Ctrl + ', turn on Grid = View->Show->Grid

Friday, April 12, 2013

Cautions for importing Blender FBX to Unity3D

I'm using Blender 2.64 for modeling but exporting them to Unity3D 4.x for makgin game.
There are few discrepancies for them.

1. By Default, the scale for FBX imported model is 0.01, weird!
So, you need to create a folder under "Assets\Editor" and place the following script.


  1. using UnityEngine;
  2. using UnityEditor;
  3.  
  4. class MeshPostprocessor : AssetPostprocessor {
  5.  
  6. void OnPreprocessModel () {
  7. (assetImporter as ModelImporter).globalScale = 1; /* whateverNumber */
  8. }
  9.  
  10. }

2. As exporting the model to FBX format, check the "Forward option" as "Z forward", as the setting is "-Z forward" in Blender while in Unity3D is "Z forward".

3. By default, meshes in Blender is 2x2 sized comparing to those in Unity3D, you need to scale down them by 0.5 for all dimemsions (i.e. x:y:z).

4. And texture images files cannot be FBX-exported to Unity3D automatically, you need to use a software called "FBX converter 2013" embedded those image textures into the FBX files before "asset-import" to Unity3D.


Thursday, March 21, 2013

Sincere advice for an Indie game developer

This may be a good recommendation for a game start-up, especially for Indie, even, for ME!


Essential Indie Lessons
Thought: If you think about starting a project as a hobby and don’t want it to last a few years, or if you don’t have somebody to coordinate a bigger team, think twice about adding a 3rd dimension to your game and rather think about a great 2D game concept that can be realized with a small number of people (i.e. typically a programmer and an artist). Of course this insight isn’t true for all projects. If you found a great way of focusing and reducing gameplay, visual style or environment complexity, you might be OK with a small team. Take Rat King Entertainment for example. They’re a team of 2 and make the awesome Tri 2, a 3D platform puzzle game I’m looking forward to seeing released. So a 3D game might work if you have a unique approach to your game and stay focused on your very own niche and limited scope.

http://www.design3.com/component/k2/item/2547-essential-indie-lessons