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Bringing it into an engine
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Bringing it into an engine // Game Development
Post by RonHiler // Dec 23, 2008, 6:14am
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RonHiler
Total Posts: 30
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Hey guys,
Sorry for the newbi-ish question, but I'm trying to wrap my head around this before I get too involved. This is in terms of game design. I'm a programmer (not a modeller, though I try sometimes), so my interest here is in getting a model into my engine.
So in tS I create some geometry, I UV map it, I have the texture and materials all done. I rig it and give it a few animations. Maybe I even associate it with a shader or two. Perhaps I could even write some scripts for it in tS?
So great, it looks finished in tS. Excellent. Now what? How does one go from there into one's game world such that the geometry is there, the UV mapping is there, the texture and materials are there, the animations are available for the engine to run at the appropriate time, and so on?
I've programmed D3D engines before, I can get a world to appear on the screen and have the ability to have the player move around a "camera" on that world, so no worries there.
So I need to take that next step, getting the models from my modelling packing into my game. Any advice? |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 23, 2008, 6:55am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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Hi Ron
Are you using your own programmed engine or one already made. A lot depends on the engine. For darkbasic pro for instance I can save out the directx file from ts, bur I have to run it through ultimate unwrap to get the textures to display right in dbpro. Game engines are kinda finnicky I find and you have to find the right workflow for each one. I doubt any shaders or scripts from ts will carry over to a game engine. I know dbpro uses its own type of shaders. But with the collada and directx export from ts + a good conversion program like ultimate unwrap pro and you should be able to get into almost any engine. |
Post by v3rd3 // Dec 23, 2008, 7:06am
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v3rd3
Total Posts: 388
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Depending on the engine you are using there are tools that may help you move file formats that can be exported by TS into your chosen engine. Most of these tools will likely get the geometry into your engine in a usable format.
Generally, I would not expect to have the uv etc work on the first crack simply owing to differences in units of measure. Most likely native tools for the engine will have to be involved or a solid 3rd party piece (milkshape??). My own research shows you can move .X, Lightwave or 3DS Max objects into most game engines with varying degrees of success. All of which can be generated using TS.
I am trying to figure a lot of this out myself as well. I have an interest in creating a multiplayer map for the Call of Duty series with custom content and am trying to sort out how I might use TS as part of the pipeline. I do not have the budget for some of the high end tools that might be used for this type of project and find TS has the best modelling environment among less costly tools.
Other than that I am trying to interest the team at the Reality Factory to harness the power of TS. At one time there was a tool that moved objects from an earlier version of TS into RF. RF is based on the Genesis 3D engine. Such a tool would interest many indie developers.
As I find out more I will post here and read anything anyone else has to offer on this subject. |
Post by RonHiler // Dec 23, 2008, 8:40am
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RonHiler
Total Posts: 30
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Up to now I've always coded my own custom built engines (with varying degrees of success), but at this point I'm kind of in the "been there done that" sort of mode, and am considering going with a prebuilt solution, perhaps Torque. I feel like I'm done coding engines and want to make a game already :)
So it's dependent on the engine, huh? I guess that makes a certain amount of sense.
I've used UU3D before, and as I remember it supports a fair number of file formats. So if I build something in tS, UV map it in UU3D, I could probably pull it over to Torque? Perhaps with a bit of adjusting of the UV map in Torque (if it can do that).
Thanks for the advice guys, I really appreciate it. I'm still very much in pre-design mode right now, and am trying to get an overall picture of how the workflow will go, so this helps a lot.
If anyone has any other tips, I'm glad to hear them. |
Post by 3dfrog // Dec 23, 2008, 10:31am
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3dfrog
Total Posts: 1225
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yes ultimate unwrap has a torque exporter too. It works, I have tested it and got my ts model into torque with the uu3d exporter. Here is another cool engine, not well known, but I plan on getting it soon:
http://www.profenix.com/eng/index.html |
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