Players Studio: What Program(s) To Design Items?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by SqueakyCT, Oct 26, 2012.

  1. SqueakyCT New Member

    Title says it all. What program(s) does one need to design the OBJ and other file types for submission to Players Studio?

    (Now back to getting ready for Hurricane sandy>)
  2. Rouan Augur

    Blender is a free 3D modeling program.

    GIMP is a free photoshop-like tool.

    That's pretty much all you need... other than lots, and lots of tutorials.

    http://www.everquest.com/player-studio/faq

    Edit: Also, GIMP is freaking censored? Are you REALLY that concerned SOE that someone is going to start talking about being a on the forums?
  3. SqueakyCT New Member

    And I thank you, Rouan. All I had to do was look and not be lazy. Thanks for the info. Time to get a-tinkerin'.
  4. Cakvala Augur

    I use 3DS Studio Max 2013 and Adobe Photoshop CS 5 !
  5. Toquillaw Augur

    I plan to use Walmart cards and just buy them from others. :p
  6. Jyve Augur

    Can also use something like;
    http://www.pixologic.com/sculptris/
    to mock up an object, and export into Blender later. Be aware though, that the way it sculpts like clay, it WILL have a crazy amount of polygons you'll need to trim later. But for playing with 'clay' to get a feel for something, it's very fast and (compared to many 3d apps) easy.
  7. Shillingworth Augur

    Pretty much any 3D editor worth using will export to obj format, it's an old format that has been used for a long time.

    My workflow goes a bit like this to help you figure out what you need, as well as some good practice tips:
    - First I put together a mesh that only represents the silhouette of an object, any more is a waste due to how our visual cortex reconstructs geometric detail, in some cases it can confuse our senses. That last statement you've probably experienced a few times when you were looking at something, thinking something looked off, but couldn't quite pin down what.
    - Next I add all the detail I want to a cloned copy of the mesh. If there's a wrap around a hilt I actually carve out the seams and wrinkles of the fabric used in the wrap. This mesh will not be used in-game, instead it's used to generate a normal map. It's absolutely important that this mesh maps up to the exact same textures as the lower detail mesh.
    - Once I have both meshes to my liking I push them through ATI Mesh Mapper to generate a high quality normal map. A lot of newbies to creating normal maps make the mistake of using a diffuse texture as a height map and some tool to convert it to a normal map, this is 100% wrong and downright stupid. I also generate an ambient occlusion map in ATI Mesh Mapper to use as the baked in shadows of my diffuse and specular maps, you'll want to play with the parameters of this so that it's just barely strong enough to hint at the shape when fully lit, different materials will require different parameters and I advise keeping notes of what parameters work for what materials.
    - After that I borrow a friend's DSLR camera to go snaps some photos to use as reference textures. For this I use a linear polarization filter (can be bought for around $5 in sheets the size of writing paper), do not pick up circular polarized filter as it wont work. You'll have to steady the camera pointed at your reference material, I suggest a tripod, and turn the filter between shots. What happens here is that diffuse light (color of the surface) is reflected in a particular polarization angle that's very different from the polarization angle of specular light (reflected color). This will get you physically correct colors, which is more important than mesh detail to the human eye.
    - Then I bring those photos into Photoshop and use the clone tool to plaster them into the textures, I load the ambient occlusion into both diffuse and specular textures as the top layer using Multiply as the blend operation. This will bake in the subtle lighting cues that ambient occlusion provides, further increasing the perceived quality of the model when textures are applied to the mesh.
    - After that it's just a back and forth between my 3D modeling kit and Photoshop to do touch ups, I try not to make any large changes at this point, only small changes like areas of the model that aren't responding to light properly.

    I also do an extra step for complex materials like velvet and slimy surfaces. I use dithering patterns as an extra Multiply blend layer on top of everything in photoshop for the specular texture. A checkboard pattern blown up with a bi-linear filter makes for a very realistic velvet look when combined with cloth specular values, or a very realistic slimy look when combined with plastic specular values. Play with different dithering pattern to see what you get, it's amazing how much of a difference a subtle pattern can make.
  8. Gamersinclair New Member

    Shillingworth could you provide a link to that ATI mesh mapper? Personally I am using Crazybump for normal maps which gives me a pretty good look but I am always looking to improve. I will have to use some of those tips as I am sure my normal maps are severely lacking.
  9. Shillingworth Augur

    Sure, they changed the name awhile back to GPU MeshMapper, sorry if that confused anyone.