CREATING GAME ART FOR 3D ENGINES- P3

CREATING GAME ART FOR 3D ENGINES- P3: Iwish to thank the editing team at Charles River Media (Emi Smith,Karen Gill, Jennifer Blaney, and Jenifer Niles) for their help in gettingthis book publish-ready. Thanks, too, to my technical editor, MikeDuggan. Also deserving recognition are the guys who make the TorqueGame Engine available, GarageGames, who directly or indirectly madethis book and the accompanying CD possible. In particular, I want tothank Joe Maruschak at GarageGames for the great articles and forumanswers that have helped me and many others get a handle on this engine.I...
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CREATING GAME ART FOR 3D ENGINES- P338 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines FIGURE 2.26 Using axial scaling to reshape the end of the protrusion. If you want to snap to particular points, the 3D snap tool is useful. Set your snaps by right-clicking the Snaps toggle. Select the check boxes you want to use, and close the dialog by clicking the X in the corner. In Figure 2.27, snaps are being set to Endpoint and Midpoint. FIGURE 2.27 Snaps are being set to Endpoint and Midpoint for speed and accuracy. If the Snaps toggle is active, your cursor should snap to whatever points you have it set to; just get into the Cut feature and feel around with the mouse for the snap, as shown in Figure 2.28. Make sure to turn the Snaps toggle off when you are finished, because this tool can make normal work difficult if it is kept on. Chapter 2 Low Poly Modeling 39 FIGURE 2.28 Using the 3D Snap tool to snap to midpoints of an edge. In Figure 2.29, notice how the new edge created in the previous figure wasterminated by connecting it to two separate vertices. This potential T-junction hasbeen “tied off,” so you should not have surprises when you convert this model to anEditable Mesh at the end of this process. FIGURE 2.29 Cuts are completed with no T-junctions to be found.40 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines After you have the basic edges in place, it is easy to add volume and shape to the model by moving them out a bit, as shown in Figure 2.30. This is most accurately done from an orthogonal view like front, right, left, or top. FIGURE 2.30 Moving the new edges to add volume to the protrusion. Before this model is ready for unwrapping, it needs to be converted to an Editable Mesh. This significantly changes the look of the model, because each triangle be- comes more obvious. Triangles are not obvious on an Editable Mesh while selected; you have to click on the 3ds Max background, effectively deselecting the model, to see the triangles. It is a good idea to use the Arc Rotate tool to inspect the model from all sides to check the assumptions that Editable Mesh makes about where to put triangles. In Figure 2.31, the model has been converted into an Editable Mesh, and an inside edge is being turned using the Turn button, which is available when you are in Edge sub-object mode. First activate the Turn button, and then click the edge until you like the result. For clarity, two copies of the same protrusion are shown in this image. Edge number 1 has just been turned and used to look like edge number 2. The last step for this model is to convert it to an Editable Mesh and ensure that it still looks the way you want it to. Use the Arc Rotate tool to inspect the ways that triangles were formed, and turn any edges as necessary. In Figure 2.32, the power charger is ready to be unwrapped. Save the file as PowerCharger.max. A copy of this file with texturing applied is located on the companion CD-ROM. It is named Power- ChargerTextured.max, and it is located in FilesPowerCharger.ON THE CD Chapter 2 Low Poly Modeling 41 FIGURE 2.31 Turning an edge to further define the shape. FIGURE 2.32 The model in its finished state as an Editable Mesh.MODELING A WEAPON To model our weapon, a plane is created in the front view and an image applied to it to use as a template. This template will serve as a guide while modeling. It’s always a good idea to have references when modeling, texturing, or animating.42 Creating Game Art for 3D Engines Creating a Template to Model By Reset Max and set units under Customize, Units Setup to metric. Create a plane in the front view with Length equal to 200 units and Width equal to 550 units. Set Length Segments to 1 and Width Segments to 1. Use the technique discussed in Chapter 1 to apply a custom material to the object. The template material isON THE CD GunTemplate.jpg, found in FilesRaygun on the companion CD-ROM. In Figure 2.33, the Material Editor is being launched in order to apply the mate- rial to the plane. From this stage in the process, you can see that GunTemplate.jpg is 550 × 200 pixels. Knowing the ...