Modelling: Making and Exporting Overgrowth

[GhostDance101]

I thought I would make a tut on how to make and export overgrowth. The process will vary greatly depending on what you are trying to make. but in this tut I will just make a simple tree.

The tools I will be using are :
3ds Max 9 with the poe2 tools
Photoshop CS3


Modeling the Tree


Well I start off by drawing out a cylinder. In this example I used 8 sides And 5 height sections. Then converted it into an editable poly.
Scaled and rotated the verts in till i got what I wanted.



Draw out a plane for the leaf texture. I used 4 height segments. But depending on what your trying to do it you might do it differently.




Press M On the keyboard to bring up the material editor. click on one of the ball things to select it, then click where it says standard.
Click on BF2Staticmesh2.
Then add you leaf texture into the base slot. drag this onto your planes. You will need too add a Unrap-UVW modifier and adjust it to the texture your using.
I wont be covering uv mapping in this tut. check Rhinos post for more info.




Click on the hierarchy tab then on affect pivot only. then move the pivot point to the bottom of the steam. do this for both.



Then adjust the verts on the planes to give the branch a curve.



Add another BF2Staticmesh2 in the mat editor for the truck. I'm going to use base, Detail and Ndetail slots. Make sure the base texture is
just a gray scale image as it will make the lod match much better.
The detail texture must be named like so: tile_junglebark_03_de.dds. With tile_ as a prefix.
If your planing to just use the base slot. You will need to add the pr texture null_de.dds on
the detail slot. So it wont sway like the leaves.
Then Do your uvmaping...





Then You will need to move, rotate, and clone your leaves planes it to position. Tbh this part is a bit of a dark art, and it will take some experimentation to make it look good.




Once you have it like you want it. Rename the truck to whatever the tree is to be called. Then with the trunk selected use the attach function to merge all the leaves.
Then position the tree so the leaves are centered to the middle of your max scene. Recenter the pivot point for the tree to the center of the scene.






Then with your tree selected. Use the PoE2 Utilities. Under wizards click on Staticmesh to do your hierarchy for you.



Then make sure you export into the Vegitation Folder or it will not work as veg!!!



Load up the editor and take a look.



The reason you want to export it at this early stage is to make sure it looks good. Before spending time making the cols and lods .


The Cols

Select your tree in element mode. Select the trunk and clone via copy to an new object. Call it col0 (which is the projectile collision mesh).



Rename a blank texture slot wood or trunk and drag it onto your col mesh.



Add a multires modifier to the mesh. click generate then reduce the verts. still making sure to keep the basic shape.



Now to got to tools-Channel info and clear the uv coordinates for channel 2 and 1 . Then collapse all in the stack.


Now as there are no solid branches sticking out of the truck. The physics and Soldier mesh can just be clones of col0.
Clone the col0 mesh two more times naming them col1(which is the Physics mesh) and col2 (which is the Soldier mesh)



Next delete your hierarchy leaving just your tree and 3 cols, select all these and run the staticmesh wizard again.



Now you export it like before. And reload the editor or click reload Geometry if you still have it open.
In the tweaker bar select default then Material maps.Then select your material, I'm using the tree trunk material.



Last thing to do is edit the jungle_tree_06.con file and add an anchor point. Do the same for the jungle_tree_06_col.con. On this tree the anchor point is 1.6 meters higher than we want it.
so add:
ObjectTemplate.anchor 0/-1.6/0


(Example only don't copy and paste!)
jungle_tree_06.con code:

GeometryTemplate.create StaticMesh jungle_tree_06
CollisionManager.createTemplate jungle_tree_06

ObjectTemplate.create SimpleObject jungle_tree_06
ObjectTemplate.saveInSeparateFile 1
ObjectTemplate.creator COM:Administrator
ObjectTemplate.collisionMesh jungle_tree_06
ObjectTemplate.mapMaterial 0 wood 0
ObjectTemplate.hasCollisionPhysics 1
ObjectTemplate.physicsType 3
ObjectTemplate.geometry jungle_tree_06
ObjectTemplate.anchor 0/-1.6/0

include jungle_tree_06.tweak

jungle_tree_06_col.con code

CollisionManager.createTemplate jungle_tree_06

ObjectTemplate.create SimpleObject jungle_tree_06_col
ObjectTemplate.saveInSeparateFile 1
ObjectTemplate.creator COM:Administrator
ObjectTemplate.collisionMesh jungle_tree_06
ObjectTemplate.mapMaterial 0 wood 0
ObjectTemplate.hasCollisionPhysics 1
ObjectTemplate.physicsType 3
ObjectTemplate.anchor 0/-1.6/0

include jungle_tree_06_col.tweak

I'll be adding Info on making the lods soon.

[IronTaxi]

great contribution.. I migth even make some overgrwoth now that I dont have to go through Rhino!!

:P

[Outlawz7]

Would be nice if you wrote what programs are required, I can guess that's 3ds Max obviously, but to select the bf2staticmesh from the materials, don't you need to dl some bf2 3ds tools beforehand and install...?

[DankE_SPB]

Originally Posted by [R-CON]Outlawz

Would be nice if you wrote what programs are required, I can guess that's 3ds Max obviously, but to select the bf2staticmesh from the materials, don't you need to dl some bf2 3ds tools beforehand and install...?

i think you need this
RapidShare Webhosting + Webspace
there is a link somewhere in community modding section but i'm to lazy to look for it now, so i uploaded it for ya
also look here
Bf2 Tools For 3ds Max - Setup - Official BF Editor Forums

[Outlawz7]

Cheers

[Rhino]

very nice GD! good to see that all that work I put into you is paying off

[GhostDance101]

Thanks Guys.
I still need to add the part about making the lod which will be the longest part . Will probably end up editing it a few more times before I'm done.

[Amok@ndy]

i read this tut over and over but i cant find the step how i get the texture on both sides of the faces
would be really nice if anyone could explain this to me
€: ok seems like i should practise my britishenglish after reading it 50 times i got this lol

and is it necessary to name the texture tile_ ?

The detail texture must be named like so: tile_junglebark_03_de.dds. With tile_ as a prefix.

thx for help
greez @ndy

[Rhino]

providing the texture only has a colour texture and no detail, crack or dirt etc and is exported into the Vegetation folder it will have the texture on both sides of a face.

[Amok@ndy]

is there a chance to let the leaves sway slower ?