Lesson 1
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Character basics - each character mesh in FF/FFVTTR has its own directory. In each there will be a minimum of 3 items;
1) A file named "character.nif" This is the 3D main model of the character, as well as any seperate items added to it - seperate weapons, hair, hats, etc. For both games, the file MUST be named as above or the game won't see it.
2) A file named either "keyframes.kf" or "character.kf". The first is for FF and the second for FFVTTR. This contains the animation data for the character. The file MUST be named corrrectly for the game being used or the character won't animate.
3) A directory named "skins", with a subdirectory named "standard". Inside the "standard" directory will be at least one texture file for the character. the texture or "skin" for the character is a picture that is pasted on the 3D model to give it its features, uniform and make it who it is. the file should be either in .tga or .dds format. It MUST be in this location to be seen by the game. It should, but depending on how the character was created, match the main character name. IE for the "male_basic" character, be named "male_basic.tga"
Additional items that may be in the character's folder;
1) A "head.nif" - this is the 3D model used for the talking heads seen in the small windows in game.
2) Some type of .txt or .nfo file, describing the charcter and conditions for use.
3) Additional textures in the standard directory to skin any additions to the main character, such as a weapon, cape, hat, etc.
4) Additional directories under "skins" for alternate versions of the character, or to turn him/her into a different character all together.
5) An additional texture with a basic grid network of the character to help skinners for that 3D model. The wireframe can be placed on top of the texture to grid it.
6) Additional 3D models of the character (rare) giving slightly different versions of the character.
7) Additional textures in the standard directory for lighting - glow, reflect and lightmap. These should be named to match the main texture.
8) A portrait file in any of the directories under skins for the small picture used in game.
Blender
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Blender is a free 3D graphic program that works with the file format used by FF and FFVTTR, as well as many other programs and games. We'll be mainly limiting talk to how it relates with FF/ FFVTTR.
Install Blender and it's required programs either by following my setup here;
Run Blender and it should come up with a brief popup picture and then the main screen.In the center of the screen is a pink outlined square. Blender will always start this way.
Holding the middle mouse button down and moving the mouse, you'll see that the square is really a cube in 3d space. Its outlined in pink because it is the active, selected object - the one you would be changing/ working with if there were more than one object on screen.
The cube is called a "primitive" - a basic shape used to create more complex items. Other primitives include shapes like cones, cylinders and pyramids.
With the "Num Lock" key on, the keypad is setup to give some basic views of the item in 3D space;
7 - Top View
1 - Front View
3 - Left Side View
4/6 - Rotate on Z axis
2/8 - Rotate on Y axis
5 - Change Basic Grid View
Also,
Middle mouse button down with "Shift" - move the 3d view without rotation in any direction
Middle mouse button, scrolled - zoom
Middle mouse button, scrolled, with "shift" - move the 3d view up and down without rotation
The othe 2 objects on screen on system items, representing camera and lighting. Not really used for our purposes.
We won't be needing the cube so use the hot key "X" to delete it. This removes any selected object.
Next, we'll import an FF 3D model to look at how its setup. Because of the way they were made, most of the default Irrational models won't work in Blender, but altered ones will. In this case, I'll be using Beyonder's "female_basic_boots", which is simply the "female_basic" model with flared bootcuffs on it.
Click on the "Files" button on the upper left of the screen, and then on the popup menu on "Import", then on "NetImmerse/Gamebryo" .This will bring up an explorer type window. Direct it to where your "character.nif" is located, click on it to select and hit the "import" button on the upper right. The next screen is the import options screen. Just use the default settings and hit the "OK" button.
The nif will take a little bit to load and when done, you will automatically be taken back to the main screen with the nif in the center. It will normally appear in a top down view, so hit the "1 " key to go to front view.
You'll see that there are 5 main seperate items that make up the nif.
1) The Bounding Box - used by the game for collison detection, be it environment or other characters. Usually used in FFVTTR, less so in FF
2) The Selection Box - used by the game so you can click on your character and give commands. Usually used in FFVTTR, less so in FF
3) Various Editable Meshes/ Biped objects - Frankly not sure what these are used for - collision, animation, weapon damage. Probably something simple. Anyone?
4) The Armature - the skeleton of the model. When the character animates, you are actually moving the bones in the skeleton. You attach the main character model to the bones in a process called "rigging" or weight painting. Since the parts of the mesh are attached to the bone, when it moves, the mesh moves. Just like real life.
5) The main character model - The 3D model of your character seen in the game, what makes the character who he is.
We'll look a little deeper at the armature and then the model.
Hit the "A" hot key until nothing is highlighted, then right click on part of the armature, turning it pink. Most of the armature is unseen since its inside the mesh.
Hit the "N" hot key. This will bring up the "transform" popup panel with information on the highlighted item, divided into 3 main groups.
The first group of 3 is the X/Y/Z location of the mesh. You'll want the mesh to be at or close to the origin point (0/0/0) so that it will appear in game inside the selection ring at ground level. An outside mesh brought in may have its 0/0/0 point away from the origin, and you'll have to move it there.
The second group of 3 is for rotation on the X/Y/Z axis so you can spin it as needed.
The third group of 3 is for enlarging/ shrinking the mesh in any of the 3 axis. The link button below lets you change the size of all 3 at once. Two things of note;
1) If you resize the axises by different amounts, the mesh will not export. You can solve this by hitting "Ctrl"+"A" and choosing the top choice from the menu. This sets the new size as default with the mesh being 100% of that new size. If you resize the armature, all items rigged to it will also resize, and they may need to be rezeroed as well.
2) Instead of resizing the main mesh itself, you should resize the armature, and the mesh will resize with it. If you just resize the mesh, it won't fit the armature anymore and may give strange results.
Next,at the bottom of the screen is a menu bar. Grab the bottom of the bar with the mouse and pull it up the screen. This area has a number of panels with different functions depending on what mode you're working in. You can change the size of the panels with the +/- keys and move them left/right with the mouse.
Above the panel area on the bottom menu bar, select the button with the word "Object Mode" in it. This is the mode we are in now. We want to change to "Pose Mode". Pose mode is used to check the rigging of the mesh and to set up animation poses. Blender doesn't work well with the way FF/ FFVTTR does animation so we won't be using it that much.
Once you are in Pose mode, find the Armature Panel at the bottom and turn on the "X-ray" button. This allows you to see the bones inside the mesh. In pose mode, you can select an individual bone instead of the whole skeleton. Selecting the right upper arm with the right mouse button, it will highlight blue.
Next, hit the "R" hot key. In Pose mode, this acts as "rotate" . With "R" selected, you can move the mouse and the whole right arm will move, the bones and the mesh attached to it. If you select the right forearm next and repeat, you'll see that the forearm and everything below will move, but not the upper arm. If any part of the arm was not rigged correctly to the arm bones, it would not move and would stretch to the arm as it does move - as if someone had nailed that part to a spot so it wouldn't move. Also note that the other meshes tied to the arm part of the armature move with it.
In Pose mode, if you were rigging an armature to a new mesh that didn't quite match the old one, you could use Pose mode to match the positions of the 2 meshes to match and even change the length of the bones to match better, but this must be done before you attach the armature to the new mesh, or the mesh would change size with the bone as well. More of that in Lesson 3.
We'll leave the armature and take a look at the mesh itself. Go back to object mode and then select the main mesh so its highlighted. On the "Object Mode" selection box, now select "Edit Mode" to go there. You'll see the mesh change into a lot of points and lines glowing yellow, looking pretty messy. Hit the "A" hot key to deselect all.
Zoom in on the mesh using the mouse wheel. If you right click on one of the points, it will turn yellow, with any lines connected to it turning yellow as well. This is called a "vertex", or "vertex point". This is the basic of any mesh. The more vertex points ,the more complex the mesh.
Holding down the "Shift" key, select another adjacent point. It will also turn yellow and there should be a solid yellow line connecting the two. Last, hold down the "Shift" key again and select a third point. More solid lines will appear and the space in between will turn pink. This is a "face" or as more commonly known, a "poly", short for "polygon" When a mesh is talked about as being "high poly" or "low poly", its referring to the number of polys in the mesh. At the time the game was made, 2000 was considered pretty high and would push the system, causing slowdown. Today, this is considered low poly.
On the upper part of the screen, right of center, is a tally of vertexes, lines and faces for the mesh thats being edited - current selected / max present.
Next we'll take a look at rigging, or "weight painting". For a mesh to work correctly, every vertex in it must be assigned to a bone in the armature. Since this is a working mesh, this has already been done.
Hit the "A" key to unselect all. On the far left of the panels is one called "Vertex Groups .This is where you would rig or weight paint the mesh. Rigging is done by grouping a bunch of vertexes together and assigning them to a bone in what's called a "vertex group"
Click on the selection button on the upper left and you'll see a list of all the vertex groups for this mesh. Select "upper arm right". Now hit the "Select" button on the panel and you'll see all the vertexes, along with the accompanying lines and faces, that belong to that bone turn yellow and pink. "Deselect" turns the selection back off. The "Assign" and "Remove" buttons above allow you to select a vertex and either add or remove it from the vertex group. Each vertex must be assigned to at least 1 vertex group, but may be assigned to more than one. Vertexes at joint areas like the knee or elbow are an example. Total weight to for a vertex at most is 1.0 (100%) - if you assign the vertex to 2 groups at 1.0 each, it will average them out as if you had assigned them to .5 to begin with.
You can also look at how a mesh is rigged by leaving the "edit" mode and going to the "Weight Paint" mode. This will show you, by color, how each group is weight painted on the mesh. Bright red represents the max weight of 1.0 . you can also select a brush and weight paint an amount from the "N" panel and weight paint by hand in this mode. I prefer doing it in edit mode, but that's a personal choice.
Of the other modes you can use, one is the Texture Paint mode. With this, you can actually change the texture of the mesh by painting on it with a brush in 3D. This would probably very useful for skinners, but I have little experience with it.
Sculpt mode lets you move the vertexes around to change the shape of the mesh, but you have more control if you do it in edit mode.
Vertex Paint lets you actually paint the vertexes themselves with color, painting it without the use of a skin.
Next to the mode button is a small box where you can choose how the mesh is displayed on screen.
Textured - show the mesh with the texture applied. The texture must be in the same location as the mesh.
Shaded - Shows how the Blender lighting affects the mesh.
Solid - default view of the mesh as a solid object
Wireframe - shows the basis of the mesh as lines, without the vertexes showing.
Bounding Box - shows the bounding box as a square, hides the mesh. Not sure of its use.
This concludes lesson 1. Hopefully there was some useful information in it for you.
Lesson 2 will deal with some outside programs that can be used for meshing and skinning.
