Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

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morningstarring
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Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

Post by morningstarring »

I've never done any 3D modeling but there are a few level specific assets and easter eggs I'd like to put in my levels. would making new assets be to difficult for someone with no experience?(i'm going to try either way) and is there a beginners guide already on this forum? send me a link or two and I would greatly appreciate it. :mrgreen:
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tatu
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Re: Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

Post by tatu »

Making new models is pretty advanced stuff. Most modelling programs have a steep learning curve and there is tons of tutorials if you search online.
I don't believe we have any tutorial for it because of that.

I would recommend Gmax, which is a free version of 3ds Max, as it allows export to TPM. Blender is something free a lot of people use but it is really tricky to get those models into Trespasser.
I personally use Sketchup Make (2017 free version, last non-online version), and export those models into 3ds Max for texturing and optimization. Sketchup is really simple to use but you still need to texture the model in Gmax or 3ds Max, and that is a learning curve as well. I only learned that myself this year. :P
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Re: Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

Post by Draconisaurus »

Hey - on the Discord server, "RAPTOR" does lots of 3D modeling. I recommend asking him.
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Re: Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

Post by enigma »

Definetly go for gmax, its a few limitations, but probably won't ever face them. Think it was certain modifiers and tools that make some things easier.

Could probably write up a quick guide on some use like materials, poly editing and exporting it.
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Re: Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

Post by morningstarring »

I guess i'll mess around with gmax and see if it's something I feel like delving into. I don't want to make anything too complicated. some simple objects and the like.
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Re: Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

Post by Nick3069 »

I know this thread is nearly a year old, but I thought I'd give some pointers and useful links to get started in case other people are interested in 3D modeling.

3DSmax/Gmax are some of the easiest 3D modeling software to learn to use, that being said, they are still very complex, I've been using them for nearly 2 decades and I still have a relatively small understanding of how they work, I tend to keep with the tools and techniques I'm familiar and confortable with. Because they've been around for so long, there are tons of video tutorials online. Unfortunately, Gmax is no longer supported, and 3DSmax is 215$/month. :pirate:

If you're completely new to 3D modeling, try playing around in anim8or first, it's free, uses very little space on your drive, is portable (doesn't need to be installed), and is simpler.

SketchUp is extremely simple and especially useful for making buildings and blocky furniture, organic things like plants and animals are trickier to make. The free version only exports to .STL (which will destroy your texture mapping) or COLLADA .DAE format.

LithUnwrap is very useful for mapping textures to models. The version freely available online is the very outdated 1.3 version, the latest version released was 2019, but I missed out on that one and I use version 2017. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to share version 2017 publicly because the program got rebranded as Ultimate Unwrap 3D and is no longer free.

Blender is free and good to have. I have no idea how it works, but I have it installed and use it to convert models from uncommon file formats (like .DAE) to .OBJ file format. :P There is also a .TPM importer/exporter add-on available. With the fall of Gmax, this is currently the only available, free tool with Trespasser compatibility.

MeshLab is another tool that is free and rather simple. I find it more useful for 3D printing than for game models though. I use it as a model viewer.

Trespasser has extremely small scale compared to most games, I think machf said 1 unit in 3DSmax is equivalent to 1 meter in Trespasser. Most 3D modeling software don't like working with such small models and might not render them properly, so you'll have to scale your models up to work on them, then shrink them back down when you're done before exporting them.

I think Trespasser's poly limit is 2048 per object, but unless the object is a large dinosaur or a building, you should stay way below that. Another thing to keep in mind when modeling for Trespasser is the texture limitations: 8-bit color palette bitmaps with a maximum texture resolution of 256x256. So let's say you're making something like a building with different colored rooms and paintings on the ceiling, à la Hammond's mansion, to have a good level of detail and to not mess up the colors you'll want to assign multiple bitmaps for different parts of the building. Tiling textures can also increase the level of detail without actually increasing the resolution or the number of textures.
Of course, those limitations can be bypassed with CE, but I would still recommend following them in case people want to play with ATX instead.
Last edited by Nick3069 on Thu Oct 14, 2021 8:35 am, edited 2 times in total.
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tatu
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Re: Point me to a beginners guide to making new tres models

Post by tatu »

Nick3069 wrote:SketchUp is extremely simple and especially useful for making buildings and blocky furniture, organic things like plants and animals are trickier to make. The free version only exports to .STL (which will destroy your texture mapping) or COLLADA .DAE format.
I recommend getting the last version of Sketchup Make, which is the last desktop release. Saving in Sketchup 2015 format allows you to import it into 3ds Max. :)
Active project: Trespasser: Isla Sorna
Status:
BE-PH1: Released
PH2-IT: Pre-released
PL-SUM: In production

"...there used to be more benches, but InGen's workers removed them during the evacuation in the name of framerate."
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