This may seem a silly question, but seeing as CE has it's own material editor for adding final finishing touches to 3D game objects, is there any point in using material editors that come with 3Ds max, Maya, etc.
Thanks for your reply, much appreciated. I've since found out that you must still use material editors in 3Ds Max, Maya, etc - but that then you must also use CE's material editor to add the final touches and so as to make sure that the model/s are compatible with it. For 3Ds Max I also found out that all models have to be UVW-mapped, what ever that means... I will find out ;)
He, he ;) I wish I had never started (almost...) but I did, so now I will continue ;) BTW, I also found out that in 3Ds Max there's Connect, Weld and Bridge. How many different ways do you need to put two objects together ;)
I've got deeper. I'm now getting to grips with the Material Editor otherwise things tend to look a bit plastic if you just go with the standard colour palette.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UVW_mapping - the best description I've ever heard of it was in a recent cgw magazine article... basically it's like dress making in 3d and 2d. You are essentially making a 2d design of the 3d images and editing them in photoshop with the 3d parts layed out in two dimensions, much like a real world dress maker or tailor would do with clothing in order to create the clothing they design. It's basically done so as to make the 3d image look nice and neat, and lined up because otherwise you end up with 2d creases where there's supposed to be flat polys, etc. as the image map doesn't match up with the 3d map. Along a similar line, 'baking' textures is another oddball 3d term used sometimes. That's a process whereby the lighting of a scene is 'baked' in to the image maps so that they don't have to take as long to render later on as rendering, especially with radiosity and true ray tracing can take a very long time. If the object is a static, nonmoving object the artist can bake the textures because the shadows, etc. won't be changing much after the first renders. It is a way to save time. The UVW or 'unwrapping' is more of a making sure the details are correct for the camera view. Want to get in to some interesting material editing. Look up darktree shader.
Thanks for the wikipedia link especially as all objects for CE have to be UVW mapped as I read the other day on this link. If you 'bake' the lighting into an object or scene how would you ensure that it matches the physics engine's lighting and radiosity parameters.
NP, glad to help, although tbh I needed to start this thread as I'm on a mission now with 3D modeling ;) Because many heads are better than just one or two so I'm trying to get ppl here interested in this, after all, anything to do with EU is based on it.
Since you are new to 3d, my suggestion is make some kick ass 3d models and put them on turbosquid, and similar places. I like TS since it's nice to newer folks - their regulations on what is ok to sell is a little less rigid than some other places. I originally was going to do that quite a bit but then stopped being so interested in 3d... Might get back in to it eventually. I have a ton of stock photos and texture photos on there. Baking - you can't know for sure. That's why it's mainly used for non-moving objects, etc. It's a cheat, just like most game engines use cheats instead of using true raytracing. True Raytracing would have tons of lag.
Snap! I discovered TS back in 2011 and signed-up to them, but at that time I knew nothing about 3Ds Max or any other modeling tool, but I was planning ahead;) Anyway, I've just about worked out how to 'attach' two or more objects to form one model but still keeping the original materials intact, so I'm not far from the point where I'll be able to do some good stuff and put them up on TSquid, which is a main idea to raise funds for a certain little project ;) On 'baking', yer I agree with that, I was also starting to suspect that there was a cheat involved, but as you say - this I imagine would only really work with non-moving or static objects. As for dynamic objects like vehicles, RP-grenades, weapons, I'm sure there's another set of lighting parameters to consider...
here's a couple of other cool sites you should check out. http://www.3dbuzz.com - see the vtms http://cgtalk.com also look around online. There's somewhere you can sign up for free magazine subscriptions to cgw and a few other industry mags. Have fun.
