Player Studio App(PSview) beginners guide

Beginers Guide to "PSview"(PS2 Player Studio app)
This is an intermediate level tutorial. This will not teach you any basic or more advanced skills, but will assume you already know them. It is written to be focused towards Blender users, but can apply to all PSview users.

For a more in depth guide, please check out THIS GUIDE made the one and only Binarycoder



"Where do I get PSview?"
All Player Studio apps are bundled with their associated games. For the PS2 app, the default location is C\Users\Public\Sony Online Entertainment\Installed Games\PlanetSide 2\PlayerStudio. You should see a PlayerStudio.exe in this folder. That's what you are looking for.

Currently, the standard instillation of this program is all kinds of borked. But you can still find an easily installable version of this app, provided by none other than JerreyRough

"I get an error message about textures"
Even though the program is packaged with the games, it requires some high resolution texture files that are not packaged with the program. For optimization purposes, they need to be downloaded separately, so as not to bog down the vast majority of Planetside players who want nothing to do with the Player Studio. You can get the files here: http://download.station.sony.com/patch/web/misc/PS2PlayerStudioTextures.zip. Extract the files to C:\Users\Public\Sony Online Entertainment\Installed Games\PlanetSide 2\PlayerStudio\PlayerStudioTextures(this is the default location, but it may vary)

"What other files do I need?"
-PlanetSide 2 body models & textures can be found here: http://download.station.sony.com/patch/web/misc/PS2_bodies.zip
-PlanetSide 2 head models & textures can be found here: http://download.station.sony.com/patch/web/misc/PS2_heads.zip
-PlanetSide 2 vehicle models & textures can be found here: http://download.station.sony.com/patch/web/misc/PS2_vehicle_models.zip

"I have the textures, but I keep getting an error message about textures"
There is currently a bug where the textures required for PSview are deleted every time you play the game. An easy work around is to put the texture.zip file you downloaded earlier into your /PlayerStudio folder, and extracting it every time before you start the PSview app. There are a few other work-arounds and suggested fixes, but this is the simplest work around.

"I have PSview open. Now what?"
The dirty little secret about PSview is that it really doesn't do much. It's basically just for preview rendering, and exporting. When you first start it, you will get a window that looks something like this:



You will need to start by loading an .fbx file. If you are using the latest version of blender(2.72b as of writing this) you should have no problem importing the base models you are working with. Once you have your model aligned to the base model. It needs to be properly rigged to the skeleton. It should be UV mapped with 3 seperate UV channels (1st channel is standard difuse/normal/specular; 2nd channel is for detail normals, and 3rd is for decals. The 2/3rd channel should not have overlapping or mirroring, have as few UV islands as possible, and no stretching or distortion.). NOTE: Vehicle UVs should but don't need to be as clean as Helmet UVs since there isn't as much going on.
1st UV channel example:

2nd and 3rd UV channel example:



Lastly, it needs one vertex color channel, which is used for detail/grundge intensity (white[value=1] is full intensity; black [value=0] is no detail/grundge)

For more info on UV channels and vertex colors, check out THIS THREAD by our resident expert Bishop.

Once you have your model properly set up, it's time to export. Your exported .fbx should include your model, the appropriate skeleton, and nothing else (although for preview renders, you don't need a skeleton, and may want to include the base mesh). I would recommend using the following export settings for Blender users (this is for most current version, 2.72b)

NOTE: for some reason, these settings will sometimes output the skeleton at an incorrect orientation. You should toggle the skeleton visibility to make sure it is aligned correctly. If it isn't, go back to blender, rotate the skeleton(and only the skeleton) appropriately, and re-export.


Once your model is properly loaded, you will need to add materials in the material window, and assign them to the model by first selecting the object in the the model window, and then selecting a material from the drop down in the inspector window.

After you material is set, you are ready to render. Here are some handy shortcuts, for setting up your render to exactly how you want it:
-Use alt+LMB to rotate the camera
-Use alt+MMB to pan the camera
-Use alt+RMB or scroll wheel to zoom camera
-use ctrl+LMB to rotate skybox (for lighting optimizing)
There doesn't seem to be an integrated render option (yet?), but you can easily hit Print_Screen, and paste into your image editing software of choice to get a preview image.

If your render looks good, everything is oriented correctly, and there are no error messages, you are ready to export. Just click File/Export and do the dang thing. if there are no error messages, then congratulations, you have successfully exported a .soepsx file, and you are ready to submit it.

This tutorial is courtesy of the Connery 666th Devildogs, and with the help of threads posted by Syrah and PS2-Bishop. \(if you see any errors, please speak up, and i will do my best to correct them).

Good job on this Maybe syrah can move it over here when possible.

Thanks for this!

Dangit... I figured i would **** up something, but I didn't think it would be as simple as the wrong forum section.

Syrah, if you do move it to the general guide section, please edit the thread name to reflect that it is intended for Planetside 2.

Thanks for making this, Ebon!

The skeleton still doesn't import correctly into Blender (or PSView) though. Looks like a jumbled mess.

He's big boned.

Have you tried clearing the pose data and transformations before importing? I heard the character skeleton is kinda messed up, but haven't toyed with it yet

How do you clear the data before you import it?

Lol XD....I think maybe he means clear it while it's in Blender, but it doesn't seem to work anyway. It sorta just twitches a bit and, well, this:

Kill it!!! Kill it before it lays eggs!

ahh, okay, I see the problem. Your problem in blender is that you are using octahedron mode to view your armature. Octahedron is the default way of viewing armatures, and it's really good for building and editing them. But it's terrible for everything else, because it just gets in the way. I recommend using stick mode. You may or may not also want to enable x-ray, which will let you see bones, even inside of models. Pic related:



As for your skeleton in PSview, it looks like your exported file was too small, so you have a wad of short/fat bones that all blends in together. Try setting the scale to 100 when you export.

Use the Experimental FBX Import, select bones/armature, enter Pose Mode, Alt+R, Alt+G, to correct the rotations and basic T pose.

Export using the AutoDesk FBX export as indicated by Ebon Nebula. And thanks tons for that Ebon.

**Edit**
Pretty sure the octa or stick view is just about the render in the viewport. But it shouldn't hurt to change to Stick.

Nice guide Ebon. I was wondering how Bishop's guide was coming along but this will help get me started.

BLENDER process that worked for me with a body model. You need to install and enable the Import/Export Experimental FBX add-on.

-Import -> Experimental FBX (.fbx) with these settings:
all boxes Unchecked except
Automatic Bone Orientation

-Select Armature/Skeleton
-enter Pose Mode
-type Alt+R then Alt+G
-return to Object mode

-Change bone view mode to STICK in the Armature tab

-Select the Vertex Groups tab
-Click the plus sign next to Vertex Colors to add VertexColor for the model
-Click the plus sign next to UV Maps to add another UV map (rename map3)

-(Optional) I deleted all the armor. And set the body to Material in the material tab.

-Select the Texture tab
-Add three textures for the material the model uses each mapped to one of the three UV sets.

-Select the armature and model together
-Export-> Autodesk FBX (.fbx) with these settings:
all Unchecked except
Selected Objects
Scale 100.0
-Xforward Zup **EDIT** oops this seems not right with PSView DON'T change this
Apply Modifiers

Does this mean i can uninstall that abdomination that is 3dsmax? can I kill it with fire?

I'm still not clear on the Orientation settings on Import and then Export. It's a matter of which axis is up and which forward, and straightening that all out. What seems intuitive to me ends up with the skeleton having a different orientation in PSView.

I'm hoping we can get this in Blender.

still makes my psview crsah and die a horrible death

Yeah, I'm kinda looking forward to the more official guide myself. I'm sure it will be really helpful with the more advanced things, like editing materials and things like that. I just kinda wanted to do an approachable, easily understandable, crash-course style introduction for people trying to get their hands dirty with it. I'm glad people found this helpful.

Maya work perfect for me.

Finally got it I think, except for the face texture.