Making objects for TG2 (part2) transparency and illumination (of).

[TheBadger]

Hello.

transparency and illumination of objects in TG2

This thread is a continuation of a previous thread; http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=14244.0 a general look at modeling for TG2. It contains a lot of helpful information on making models and getting them into TG2.

This new thread is about more specific projects and questions. Including subjects the last thread left off on.

Beginning with glass.
There are many threads on this subject. Most of them are pretty old but contain a lot of helpful information and some good .tgc(s) to download.
Here are a few as a shortcut.
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=3977.msg41613#msg41613
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=9922.0
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=9954.msg103782#msg103782
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3997.0

Link one has a download from Cypher that looks very helpful. I will probably use it in the project I will use in this thread. To help illustrate a step by step. I my self have not done this before.

Here is a link to an image posted by Hannes, that proves what I'm trying to do in my project, is possible. And can look very good.
http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=14909.0


For the first part of this thread "transparency" and the first project "Glass"
I have made a House in Hexagon 3D.
For the 2nd part of transparency, I will use a 3D model of a plant.

Here is the house I will use for the glass project. It is the home of the main character from my mushroom forest project which began in the first thread. There are a total of three windows.
[attach=1]

The 2nd subject "illumination" refers to the use of objects as sources of light. And will build on transparency. For example; an object with a skin *like* texture that can *behave* as if SSS were applied. And from which light emits.

I hope this will be a useful thread to others.





[Edit]
There is a newly written explanation of how to get transparency of surfaces by dandelO in this thread: http://www.planetside.co.uk/forums/index.php?PHPSESSID=fdcc073f924ae32981fa0b1f088ebecd&topic=15018.0
Thanks to martin for witting it down.

[TheBadger]

Step 1

After looking at the other threads on glass, particularly link 1 by Cypher, I need to decide if I can apply the "glass effect'' to an object on my model. Or, apply Cypher's technique to an open space in my model.
If you look at the image of the house above, there are three windows. 2 have a paper thin object as glass. The upper window is an open hole in the geometry. I will try to work with both And post the results.

See ya in a few.


(EDIT) The two lower windows are also open holes in the geometry. But there is also a paper thin object in the windows that obstructs the view that the upper window does not have.

[TheBadger]

In addition to using a "Water Shader" to create glass, I found a tut in a Hexagon forum that shows how to use an Alpha image mapped to an object to create the look of a window. The window is then rendered in vue.

Here is the tut: http://www.geekatplay.com/flvplayer/player.php?pathinfo=gary/GrungyGlass
The part that talks about using photoshop to build the Alpha begins at 7:59 in. The part that shows how to use a alpha as glass in a render begins at 15:13 in.

I am still playing with a water shader. Can anyone tell me if the info in the tut above transfers to TG2?


(EDIT)

Ok, Im already running into serious problems. Half my geometry is completely disappearing  during rendering. This is not like the previous issues with missing geometry, this is something worse. see attached.

[attach=1]
[attach=2]

(Edit again ) Sorry guys, the model is giving me trouble in Mudbox and Maya too. Ill rebuild the part that is affected and try again.
Ruff start.

[Kadri]

Not sure but look here:

http://support.turbosquid.com/entries/253954-ngons-multi-sided-polygons

One sided polygon looking at the wrong side can make this too. Make them two sided to see if this is the problem.

Or maybe your quads are non planar. Try to triple all your object and see.

But be careful and do not save over your original model Michael

[TheBadger]

All better now
[attach=1]

Thanks Kadri The link gave me some general help.
The specific issue was number of vertices and points. For example, the roof had only one line at the top making a sharp point " ^ ". I had to remove that line and just use the two sides of the cube. So now the top of the roof is flat rather than sharp. The other walls had similar issues.

Ok, back at it.

[Upon Infinity]

Hey Badger,

I took your advice with Hexagon and ended up with exactly the same problem with my first model.  It must be a flaw with Hexagon.  Theoretically, it should work but doesn't for some reason.  My model was a sword and ended missing most of the blade.  I was able to fix it with smoothing, however.

[TheBadger]

Hey Badger,

I took your advice with Hexagon and ended up with exactly the same problem with my first model.  It must be a flaw with Hexagon.  Theoretically, it should work but doesn't for some reason.  My model was a sword and ended missing most of the blade.  I was able to fix it with smoothing, however.

Hi UI

I am not sure it is a flaw. The problem can happen in mudbox and Maya too. Something about the number of vertices and points. I would have to create the problem again and load it into maya to get the exact wording.

Smoothing is not a real fix for your model. Though that may allow you to load the file in TG2, if thats what you mean by fix.
The important lesson I took away from this is to not try and cheat modeling fundamentals.
in the case of your sword... If you had a real sword and  a magnifying glass, you would see that the sword tip is not a perfect point. At some level of magnification you will see that there is a flat part to the blade. Thus two vertices and not one. Smoothing almost certainly added faces to your model.

Smoothing is something you want to be very carful with. Smoothing always adds polygons to the model. In general the fewer polies the better. Try to get the look your after by creating as few faces as possible. And then only smooth when you really need it.

And don't think Hexagon is to much trouble. It really is the easiest way to learn basic modeling. Once you are sure you like doing it you can buy a package with fewer bugs and better support; Mudbox, zbrush, maya, 3dmax, and so on.

Acually I was pretty upset by my mistakes because hex2 is rather intolerant of  mistakes. Wait till you spend 3 days working hard on something only to learn you did it badly and have to rebuild part of it. The thing about it is, you wont make that mistake again! And the fundamentals are what we need to master. Then we can use any program we like.

Also remember to unfold your primitives as soon as possible. It is easy to unwrap a cube. It is hard to unwrap a house. Know what I mean?

[Upon Infinity]

Unfold primitives?  No, I have no idea what you mean.

While I know smoothing was essentially, a cheat, it did not really change the look of my object, so I have kept it for now.  I may go back and remodel, but I'm still learning and working my way through the tuts.

Although now, I have another issue.  I was attempting to sculpt out a building starting from a primitive and cutting sections away using the boolean function, but apparently the more I hack away at it with that particular function, the more unstable it becomes.  Does this mean I should not sculpt in this fashion, or am I doing it wrong?  For example, the house you constructed;  Is is simply an extruded house?  Is it hollow inside?

I know that these are not Terragen related issues, so I hope the moderators are a little lenient in this regard.  Or should I just e-mail you directly?

[TheBadger]

Hi UI,

I have the answer for you. I just went through the same problem. I'll PM you the solution. As for this thread I want to get back to the OP subject.

[Kadri]

Guys you might be talking about unrelated two things :

"Generally speaking "smoothing" is the act of shading (lighting) faces on a 3D model in such as way as to create the illusion of a much 'rounder' or 'fuller' structure; it should not be confused with a "smooth" sub-divided mesh (adding extra faces by sub-dividing the parent object) as both are functionally different in nature."

[TheBadger]

Guys you might be speaking about unrelated things :

"Generally speaking "smoothing" is the act of shading (lighting) faces on a 3D model in such as way as to create the illusion of a much 'rounder' or 'fuller' structure; it should not be confused with a "smooth" sub-divided mesh (adding extra faces by sub-dividing the parent object) as both are functionally different in nature."

Yes Kadri is correct.

I was referring to two things in Hex2 without being clear on the distinctions.

"increase smoothing" in hex will simply add faces by "rounding" the object. This is necessary for detailed sculpting. Once you begin sculpting, sculpting will add many thousands upon thousands of polygons to the mesh.

See here for a detailed example Via a comparison of hex2 and z-brush http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC7kKWR6Nws&feature=player_detailpage

Thanks Kadri. 

[Kadri]

I think threads like these might be good for other model making enthusiastic Terragenners.

It is Planetside's  forum of course but mostly we have to use objects in TG2 ,
so to a certain point i think they will not complain ; hopefully

[mhaze]

After seeing this thread I downloaded Hexagon again and was pleasantly surprised, however it is still buggy! I found that parts would not export as obj files and there was some messed up modelling from changed or aborted commands in the modelling process. It is on a par with Silo for bugginess but is free!  Taking great care with the modelling process and saving every stage as a separate file will enable you to pinpoint problems and give you a better chance or correcting your model rather than rebuilding it.  All in all though a worthwhile product with some useful tools, however, to get the best from it, I'd work through the tutorials above.

[Mandrake]

Make sure your polys are facing the right way, and don't use ngons.
You can check the first in PoseRay and get a better smoothing,

[masonspappy]

So, In a seperate forum TheBadger asked me to exlpain how I made the glowing globes in the attached image.  I use Blender for modeling, so I can only vouch for these instructions where Terragen and Blender are used together.  I also did not make the .tgd file - got that from someone here in the forums.
- First, load a sphere shape in blender.  Under "materials" set its diffuse color to solid black (Otherwise this won't work).
- subdivide the heck out of the sphere!!! 
- save the Sphere with a .obj extension, then import into terragen.
- under the 'surface shader' tab for the cone object,  click on the green plus sign to open the 'go to parts shader' dialog
-in the parts shader dialog select 'edit internal network'.
- Now insert the .TGC file included here.   ("File" > "Insert Clip File"...)
- Break the connection between the red material shader and the gray material box
- connect the output of the .tgc file to the gray material box
- now add a light source, color it ,  and position inside the sphere.

Not much more to it than that.
- Cam