Asset creation
Contents
Test Flight
So, You've made it through the Map_Editing and the lengthy New_Art pages, following it to the letter, and have it all working? If not, please go at least to the latter and make sure You have it all properly set up.
Here we will discuss an most simple asset to be built. We produce merely an Container. Its purpose is to just have an grasp of the art pipeline and to have it done quick and easy.
Asset creation in free software
The free software movement is going strong lately. Never before could we choose an production grade suite for the cost of literally nothing. Let us harness this power for the moment and see what can be done with software free of charge (and guilt).
Blender
Most meticulous part of the art is produced in blender3D.
Luckily Blender is an dependable tool, and does not crash often. Although one can't overdo Ctrl+s.
Open blender and use the box that is present as the default scene. This object makes a good start for an container. enter edit mode by pressing [tab] key and by pressing [a] key several times, ascertain all of the nodes are selected. Select a view to easily move the box so it "touches the ground" instead being half way inside of it. press [tab] to return to Object mode and find the material properties tab.
/TODO/
-material
-UV mapping preset
-Save to PNG
-load the PNG into the initial texture for the UV
-Paint the texture in blender initially (stencil, creation of soft brush and hard brush)
-Export the texture to SVG (for applying final decals)
-How to make bump-maps too - if necessary
Inkscape
- opening the UV preset
- editing in the surfaces (clip, pattern, import bitmap)
- exporting back to PNG
Blender
- importing the UV bitmap (PNG)
- how to adjust it if necessary, what spoils the UV and what does not.
Inkscape
- producing black & withe UV map copies
GIMP
- Adjusting the colors of the black & withe UV maps to become bump maps, normal maps or specular maps...
Blender
CryEngine naming conventions and art precautions explained
- preparing the art for export (steps and measures)
- exporting to Collada(DAE, options which and why set or not)
- exporting to lightvawe (OBJ, options)
Collada
- Once the art is exported as a Collada file (*.dae) the file is to be found with the Windows Explorer.
- Select the *.dae file and open the right click menu - select export to cryengine (DAE to CGF) in the context menu.
- an command prompti will open for each file selected (yes more can be converted concurrently)
- upon completion of the process the prompt expects an [enter] key to close itself.
if you sort the view by creation time, on top of the list new *.cgf and *.mtl files will appear.
if one examines the newly created *.mtl file, one will find it references the *.png file(s) right bellow holding the map(s) of the material(s). Remember those for then next section
GIMP
Remember the *.mtl and *.png files from the last section? Excellent! we will now deal with those:
Cryengine 2 and Sandbox 2 can't handle *.png files for no obvious reason. Luckily they handle *.dds and *.tif files,for which we have readied our plugins.
- select the *.png files of interest.
Selecting creation time for the sort of the view will put them close to the top of the list.
- in context menu select open with GIMP
- once certain of the file in process, in GIMP's File menu select Export as...
- in the file export dialog edit the filename to replace the .png by an .dds
- make sure the file format is determined "by extension"
- click export, a new dialog will appear asking for compression and mip map creation among other options
- select DC1 for compression
- select create mip maps
- commence the actual export of the file
- close the file without any changes saved
repeat until done for all files. Each *.png file will have it's *.dds sibling.
This procedure is referred to as export (to DDS) with GIMP
File Manager
For each object the belonging *.cgf *.mtl and *.dds file is to be located and copied to the place it will be referenced from (usually the map's folder).
The MTL file is to be edited for the bitmap names to be adjusted. This can be done in the Sandbox2 editor when the object is already imported into the map. In the material editor just select the according material and adjust the file in the maps section. Usually it is the Difuse map and it will usually have an *.png entry. The proper DDS bitmap is to be found in the map folder. This will allow for the bitmap to be distributed alongside the map.
Sandbox2
- the editors likes starting from scratch (Save, Exit, Run, rE-load Map = SEREM)
- the copies get corrupted all of sudden (copy1, copy 11, copy111, copy1111) and daily backups, version control
- importing the asset from inside the map folder (new assets are those not included with the game - so the only place left is the downloadable map folder)
- correcting materials (material editor of Sandbox2 updates edits in real-time - like Gnome and GTK apps)
- checking if corrections are properly applied (SEREM)
Asset creation with professional tools
While professional tools of such mileage (~10 years) are plagued by many short comings, still there is no match for the level of feature support versus them. The only way to import animations into Sandbox2 are the professional tools (yet).
3D Studio Max
- make box
- export UVs
Photoshop
- process the maps from 3dsmax
- produce height, bump and normal maps
- export for cryengine compatible formats (DDS,TIF)
3dStudioMax
- apply the UV maps created in the Photoshop
- export the object to cryengine from within 3dsmax
Sandbox2
- check the created object in the editor
- locate it on the filesystem
OS file manager
- copy the files (graphics file (cgf, cga), textures (DDS, TIF, TGA) and material (MTL) files) to the map-local folder( new assets are those not included with the game - so the only place left is the downloadable map folder).
