Hi there!

[pitiponk1]

Hello everyone, I've been lurking around the forum for the past few weeks, and there was just so much win that I couldn't resist registering.

I'm playing Wz2100 since my childhood and it has always been the staple game i install whenever i'm on vacation/away from my main desktop. Thus you might understand I have a nearly religious love for this game as I'm sure do most people on this forum.

The thing that really got me lurking here was following Jorzi's thread (viewtopic.php?f=33&t=5136) with it's 4 year long dedication and awesomeness (srsly someone give this guy a medal already).

Actually i'm entering a Game-Developper bachelor course this year and as we get a lot of personnal work and projects around I thought I could help with the project to sharpen my creative edge.

I don't have much experience right now, played around with sketch-up, gimp, paint.net and a bit of programming (Java & C++ both @ babbling levels) but I will aquire many skills during the next 3 years (and hopefully after that as a game dev ) and I have a great hunger to learn and create.

If anyone could be bothered to take a bit of time explaining what to do to my noob self, I would be more than happy to help doing anything my ability can reach.

EpicWallOfText-Hooooo!

[Jorzi]

Thanks for the compliments

If you want to get into 3d modelling I totally recommend blender, it's free, open source, fully python scriptable and much more powerful than stuff like sketchup. In fact, it's even used in some professional environments where it competes with autodesk & other high-end products.

For the AR mod, I use almost exclusively blender & GIMP, although I have been thinking about moving to other promising 2d softwares such as Krita. (I think Krita might be better, I just use GIMP because I have already established an efficient workflow with that software and it gets the work done)

So yeah, as a graphics guy, that's all the advice I can give for now (note that all my recommended softwares are free)

[pitiponk1]

Yup I actually tried to get into Blender a few years ago, I just didn't have the drive behind me to just sit and learn to use it back then (also I was in high-school and just trying stuff up with a meh-like attitude). I just listed sketch-up because I actually have experience using the thing (got a few school related projects done with it) and to say I do have some kind of spacial awareness .

I'm not sure if I can start using it right now (not on my main desktop, using a 10y old laptop on vacation) but i'll be sure to use it when I get back for the school term in a few weeks.

Quick question, do you have a tutorial you would consider ''good'' that you could recommend me? I remember googling around when I used it back a few years ago and getting nowhere. Also, do you need some programming skills in your usual workflow? I know I'll be learning java, C# and other stuff for Unity but I've been eyeing C programming for a while now so I'm wondering if It's worth investing time in for now.

[Jorzi]

Spatial awareness is a fairly valuable skill actually, and your hardware isn't really that important, although having a numpad in your keyboard helps with the hotkeys. A mouse with a wheel/mmb is also quite important for comfortable modeling. Other than that, blender runs on quite old hardware (especially for lowpoly modeling).

As for tutorials, there's a lot of good stuff on youtube, but I think I have previously recommended the site blendtuts.com
For example, basic interface tutorial (I checked it and it's quite a nice intro) http://blendtuts.com/2010/06/blender-25-interface.html

You will find that modeling in blender requires no programming skills whatsoever, but if you're interested in scripting stuff, blender gives you unrestricted python access to almost all of its functionality. This also means people are writing new tools and addons all the time, for example "bolt factory" gives you perfect models of standardised bolts and nuts as primitives and I use it all the time for 3d printing.

[pitiponk1]

Thanks a lot for all the advice

I'm actually fearing blender will not work on the pc I am currently using (the 10y old laptop's GPU intel 82852 does not even support WZ's current version of openGL )

hardwaremasterbation
but I get my main laptop back from service in a few days (asusG71Gx, gtx260M) so I'll be able to start getting used to the UI. My main desktop I'll get to when i move has a Gtx780 so I'm not worried about perfs.
I also keep a R.A.T 7 on me all the time and my main laptop&desktop both have numpads
/hardwaremasterbation

(Oh yee of open platforms belief, witness my legacy of randomly throwing money upon random monitors )

[Berg]

Seeing as how Jorzi has you setting up for blender etc ...you might want to look at the reference information in the wiki..
http://developer.wz2100.net/wiki/Artwork
http://developer.wz2100.net/wiki/ModsAndMaps
http://developer.wz2100.net/wiki/PIE_models
Good luck from Berg

[pitiponk1]

Hey, just making a lil update so you guys know I'm not dead ^^

Aside from actually moving places through half of europe (had a bit of trouble finding a place to stay), I'll get my workstation back in a couple of days and i'll be screwing around in blender to get used to it.

I'll prolly make another update when i'll have done my first real model in blender and later when i've done something linked to WZ. Cheers

[pitiponk1]

Just a small update to say that I actually work on 3DS max now due to having classes for it in my school. I've gotten around pretty basic shape manipulation and spline work. Now I still have zero knowledge on texturing, light mapping, bump mapping and whatnot, but I'll be getting there eventually. Now i need things to train on, might as well be something useful. Quick question for the scaling. Do I try to make it real-world-like, (i.e. make my 5m high tree irl 5m high in 3dsmax), another scale base (i.e. 1/2* or 2*irl scale) or is it a total non-issue? Never mind, found it here: http://developer.wz2100.net/wiki/Creating3DContent

I might start with the tree, just scale a deformed spline, did it with a bullet in school and got a good result.
[Edit] made this quite quickly, can't figure out how to reduce the tris number without making it awfully ugly:
[Edit2] nvm I'm an idiot. forgot to remove segments on the base plate thingy, down to 158/158/84.
Right now it has faces on the underside of the leaves but i might re-make it as basically stacked cones with no face under them, might dramatically reduce the tris number without being visible ingame. Btw is the base plate even needed?



can't figure out what the ECM turret is, didn't play for a while. Is it the Nexus link? EMP cannon? EMP mortar?

[Terminator]

can't figure out what the ECM turret is

Its turret that "hides" units\structures from enemy sensors (like jamming system). Its a experimental turret that can only be added to master version via MOD.

[pitiponk1]

Oh right. This explains that. Well I could try something. The main problem there will be the polycount imo but I'll see what I can do. Anyone got a size reference for the turret's 3d model using the same scale I used on the tree? (The one I found on the 3D models tut page) preferably the sensor turret's Base radius. Thx ^^

[Jorzi]

A few steps to get you into the workflow:
-download WMIT
-go to your warzone installation folder, find the file called base.wz, extract it with your favourite zip-program (7zip is good & free)
-from the extracted folder, go to components\weapons. Weapons are split into turret (the static part) and "barrel" (the part that moves up & down). Turret parts have filenames starting with "tr" and barrel parts start with "gn", a list translating most of the pie files can be found here: https://sites.google.com/site/iluvalar/wz/pielist (be aware that the nexus link turret is also called ecm in the filenames)
-open the pie file in WMIT, add the folder "texpages", from the extracted base.wz, into the predefined folders for texture selection.
-once you get the file into WMIT, save it as .obj
-you can now import the model into 3ds max for reference.

[pitiponk1]

Thx a lot. I'm in school right now but I'll try that this evening.

[Berg]

just a PS to jorzi post
When you are going to edit a pie file make sure you open the pie file in a text editor of your choice and scroll to the bottom of the data in the file there you will see a list of connectors make sure you add them back to your new model you can adjust the co-ordinates to suit your new model.
Also the co-ords XYZ are not in that order for the data in co-ords it is XZY.

[pitiponk1]

Welp, this is all Chinese to me right now but I'll try to figure it out. It may become clearer when I see the files back @ home

[bendib]

Welp, this is all Chinese to me right now but I'll try to figure it out. It may become clearer when I see the files back @ home

To a chinese guy it probably looks like English.