This tutorial is on reply #42 but with no pics. By the looks of the addresses for the pics, they were never there.
I am going to attempt to re-create this tutorial on another thread because this thread is dead. Maybe this should be removed from the Stickys or Pins.
Major Stress wrote a great thread on Texturing for Sins and IMO all questions for texturing should be posted there (this thread is dead). Keep the thread alive and vote for a Pin. I also copied his quote as a great introduction to the tutorial.
First of all there is the title.
Tutorial: Model creation, texturing and importing into sins.
This tutorial has 1 link to a modeling tutorial thread and does not cover modeling at all. I will add links to the [Tutorials] XSI 3D Modeling thread which has the Lost Tutorial and many more. So the new title will be:
[Tutorial] Model Texturing and Importing into Sins
Original Part 1 what you need
To start your mod, and modeling you will need this 3 things.
1 XSI Mod Tool (its free) If you don’t know how to use it there is a link to videos which will tell you everything you need to know this tutorial will not teach you how to model, well except the lost tutorial.
http://www.softimage.com/products/modtool/
2 Forge tools provided by Sins.
http://www.sinsofasolarempire.com/downloads.aspx
3 A graphics control tool like Photoshop or Gimp.
For Photoshop you will need DDS Nvidia Plug in.
http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html
That’s all you really need to start moding, good now im done… JK
First off go to the Forgetool and open Documentation Folder there will be 3 PDF’s.
1 One will tell you about useful tools and shortcuts that can be used in XSI Mod tool ( I didn’t look through it but u should if you don’t know how to use Mod tool)
2 Second will provide information on how to export the model u made in XSImod tool into .XSI Format so then you could convert it into .mesh format (standard format Sins uses)
3 the third PDF will tell you general info on moding sins. Read it it got lots of usefull info on getting you started.
To make this clear I will not focus on obvious things described in PDF’s above or what’s covered in Help section of XSI mod tool but rather what you can’t find easily, especially Texturing (most confusing and least described part of modeling for sins)
This Part 1 will now be:
[Tutorial] Model Texturing and Importing into Sins.
This tutorial is going to focus on everything that was left out from the documentations in the Forge Tools provided by Sins and also will include helpful tricks.
| Know that you can use ANY modeling program to create your mesh. Be it 3DS Max, Lightwave, Maya, Blender, etc. etc. However to make it ready for import into sins you must finish it in XSI. This is mainly because of the tangents, and the way XSI assigns materials to the mesh. Which means your modeling program must be able to export into a format XSI can import. .Obj is a good choice. If that fails then Direct X format will work as well. I have had bad luck importing .3ds into XSI. The mesh becomes corrupt, and I don't know why. |
Major Stress
|
|
To start your mod, and modeling you will need this 3 things.
XSI Mod Tool
A free 3D modeling and animation package for creating non-commercial games and "modding". Used by game developers (including IronClad) to create 3D characters, levels, props, and animation.
|
 exe - 445MB |
Forge Tools
This package contains tools used by the development team to create maps & other content included with the game. It includes the Galaxy and Particle Forge tools.
|
rar - 31MB |
Image Editor
Use any image editor that can edit the .dds format. This will require to download a DDS plug-in for most image editors.
Adobe Photoshop with the DDS Nvidia plug-in
|
Gimp (free)
with the DDS plug-in
|
That’s all you really need to start modding. Get more Sins Modding Tools.
First off go to the Forge Tools and open Documentation Folder there will be 3 .PDF files.
SINS modset.pdf will tell you general info on modding sins. It has lots of useful info on getting you started.
Modding XSI to Sins Commands and Shortcuts.pdf will tell you about useful tools and shortcuts that can be used in XSI Mod Tool. There is lots of XSI modeling tutorials on the [Tutorials] XSI 3D Modeling thread.
Modding XSI to Sins Modding Supplement.pdf will provide information on how to export the model made in XSI Mod Tool into .XSI format so then you could convert it into .mesh format (Sins standard format).
To make this clear I will not focus on obvious things described in PDF’s above or what’s covered in Help section of XSI mod tool but rather what you can’t find easily, especially texturing.
I uploaded the PDFs to the Sins Wiki so they should open in any browser
Now I have to start to texture so I can get screen shots.
Original Part 2
Texturing and you.
Before you get excited about this, start by watching the videos in the link below.
Things you need to do before creating UV map
Your object should be Merged.
New Part 2
Texturing
Texturing or skinning, as referred to by people is quiet simple and hard at the same time. In the world of modeling and texturing, skins are called UV maps. They determine how a texture is stretched over the 3d model. So the first thing we will do is create UV map and get it ready to be colored. There is an in depth thread on Texturing for Sins by Major Stress or the Sins Texturing post with lots of tutorials.
I recommend watching a two part tutorial series from Noesis Interactive. Using Softimage/XSI, learn shading, painting, and mapping techniques with a car door as an example. This lesson will be very useful to anyone interested in creating textures for 3D objects. Watch the 2 parts on the web page or download the 2 parts.
[Videos] Texture Painting with Softimage/XSI Part 1 Part 2
Ok lets start. Your object should be Merged before creating UV map.
Step one.
Go to your Forge Tools Documentation folder and open Modding XSI to Sins Modding Supplement.pdf. Then go to Section B - Creating UV Map. Follow first 3 steps and you have created your UV map. This is where you start to see the limits of this documentation.
Step 2.
Now that there is a UV map, how would you go about rearranging it (I call it tearing apart). This is where you have to set up the texturing window. First of all start by enabling several useful tools.
First you want Tearing mode on (Ctrl-T)
Polygon Selection Filter
Highlight Overlaps and Highlight Coverage’s (this will highlight all the polygons that have another polygons covering on top of them which mean those polygons will not be textured, to find them look at the buttons that are pressed in the tool bar in the screen shot bellow)
The texture screen should look like this (You might want to experiment with different set ups until u find the one you like, but I prefer this set up, also if the the UV map doesn’t look like it’s the shape of the model from the top which ever side you want to pull it apart then select all the points and click on sub projection button (circled in picture below) and pick different projection, xz, yz, xy and etc. )
