New 3D Artist (Kwama Forager)

[DMKW]

Glad you liked the link. I assume you saw all the other concept art on the site also but just in case ...there is 3 pages of TES3 official art here

http://www.imperial-library.info/gallery/

[SACarrow]

Well I tried to export the forager using NifTools 0.2.16 in Max9. I deleted everything but the left forager, centered it at (0, 0, 0), converted the tex to DDS and exported without collision. Here's the NIF, the tex and some screens. The main thing is that the UV map is really hammered in the model. An interesting data point is that I exported the model into 3DS and imported it into Max8 and the map was distorted in exactly the same way. Did Autodesk alter mapping drastically between 8 & 9?

Very puzzled,
Steve

[IAMTHEEMPEROR]

Wow, looks like a kwama forager that was just beat down by a large club. Conversions are very annoying sometimes. And you're sure it was the right converter?

[Ibsen's Ghost]

Originally posted by The Modax JagoWow....just....freaking awesome designs... I am SSSSOOOOOOO working on those. MW the way it was meant to be! I can totally see how they had to compromise on the concept due to tech. limitations, but things should be more free now.

This sounds delicious. I can't wait to see what you come up with, Jago!

[amorilia]

Very impressive!

Steve, have you already looked into havok for this model (of course, occasionally, people do want to hammer these creatures )?

Let me know if there's anything I can do on the export coding side of things. Creating fully havoked Oblivion creatures is very tricky, and I've been looking to upgrade the Blender import and export pipeline to make this process a lot less tedious. I would be glad to help out for instance with the creation of a havoked skeleton.nif for this kwama model.

Cheers,
Amorilia

[The Modax Jago]

Hey,... yeah... I'm aware of the problem with the textures.

I'm moving out to an apartment so I'm a little busy right now.

[SACarrow]

NP. RL can be annoying like that. Thanks for checking in.

BTW I'm working on mapping your trees and ev1 is working on textures for them.

Steve

[SACarrow]

It's been a while, but I've just started playing with trying to get the forager in-game again, since TMJ is moving and we all know that's's a good way to kill a couple of months.

The problem seems to be that the Max scene that I have contains 2 UV mappings: 1 for the normal map and 1 for the texture. Since I believe that this model was started in ZBrush and then imported into Max, the normal UV mapping occupies the first UV channel. That mapping is utterly different from the texture mapping, so when I naively exported the forager, the normal UV mapping was used for the texture mapping 'cause NifTools only supports one UV channel (or set). For that matter, it seems that Oblivion only supports one UV set itself, with the normal map found with the "_n" convention.

I was able to use the Render to Texture feature to produce decent-looking diffuse and normal maps. Then I was able (or so I thought) to change the map channel for the texture from 2 to 1 by loading the texture UV map on channel 1. Upon exporting using NifTools, however, I found that the UV mapping was again messed up, but in a different fashion. From eyeballing the bad mapping, it seems as though the loaded map was broken apart in some manner. My guess (and that's all it is) is that since the UV mapping is not associated with the mesh from the beginning of the modifier stack, that the exporter is breaking it up somehow.

If anyone has a clue, I'd love to hear it. If anyone qould like copies of the scenes, texes or NIFs, just let me know.

Very confused again,
Steve

[SACarrow]

Well, I bought a copy of Ultimate Unwrap 3D Pro, which allowed me to "swap" the 2 UV mappings. Then I re-imported that file and was able to export the forager. Of course then I realized it was literally as big as a house, so I scaled it down by a factor of 8. After resetting transforms a couple of times, I was able to get the forager static in-game. Following are some screens, including one with a quiver for scale and another "remap reminder" shot. I've put a 7Z up on FileFront with the model, textures and a test ESP dependent on OB only. Just cow testtree 0 0 to get there and see it.

We're still a long way from a fully-fledged creature, but we now have something to work with. Feedback is welcome and necessary.

Thanks,
Steve

[Ibsen's Ghost]

I, for one, am delighted to see this coming along very nicely indeed! If I had the time myself I'd see what I could do to get this ugly little dude animated. I can't wait to see what Modax makes of the Kwama Warrior and how that looks in-game.