[Technical Talk] - Tutorials Sticky Thread

[Betlog]

Carry over from:
http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~polycount/ubb/Forum8/HTML/000644.html?00050

Here are some ancient tutorials i dug up.
Take with a grain of salt.
http://thebort.net/betlog/tutorials/

[bearkub]

*fap* stuck.

[GoK]

ok just wrote this up for someone on cgtalk... thought it might be helpfull for someone, feel free to piont out any mistakes and ill correct them

UNWRAPING WITH SIM CLOTH!

PART1
1 Make a box bellow your model
2 WHILE THE BOX IS STILL HIGHLIGHTED! click "create rigid body collection" in the reactor dock (should be on the far left by default)
3 the box will now act as a "ground" for any cloth that falls onto it!

PART 2
1 split up your model into the seperate perts of the uv map
2 make a sim cloth modifier in the stack for the part you want to unwrap
3 make an FDD 4*4*4 cage modifier in the stack
4 the FDD will be above the sim cloth modifier, you need to drag it down one in the stack!
5 highlight the FDD cage (turns it yellow) in the stack and and it will show in your view port around your model now drag the peice of model over your "ground" so the "open egdes face down and the normals pointing up! so when it falls it will fall roughly in place.
6 deselect your FDD cage modifier
7 While you peice of your model is selected click "create cloth collection" in the reactor dock
8 now click "preview animation" in the reactor dock, this will bring the reactor window into view (you should see both the ground and your peice of mesh, if you dont youv done something wrong)
9 now sellect simulation then play/pause (in the reactor window!!)
10 your peice of mesh will now drop into the "ground" and will flatten out, if you havnt been too silly with the size of the peice you cut off it should fall flat and pretty much be perfect for mapping if not tho you can RIGHT click on parts of the mesh in the reactor window to drag it around an flaten it out, kinda like flatening out sheets on a bed!
11 when you happy that its now flat select max then update max (in the reactor window!!)
12 now you will have the flattened peice in max, the cloth collection icon should still be highlighted.. you can delete it! and select your peice of model.
13 adda planner "uvw map" modifier to the stack of the peice of model (press "fit" in the roll out if you want shouldnt be needed tho!)
14 now... add an "edit mesh" and then an "unwrap UVW" modifier to the stack!
15 now select the little lightbuld icons (do they have a name?) for the FDD cage and the reactor cloth in the stack, you should note that you m,odel in the viewport should now look how it did when you first started.
16 now flatten the whole stack and add another "unwrap UVW" to the the new stack now click "EDIT" in the roll out and violla you got perfect UV's....

Or at least you should if you were reading properly and i didnt make any mistakes Hope this helps! If its needed i can go into more detail but iv tried to make this as simple as i could already (mabey ill put some screens up!) once youv done it once its EASY to do it again and works very well!

Not saying this is the only way to unwrap just my prefered way... i hate all those projection map thingy ma bobs they confuse me... i found this way very simple once i undestood it! please try it once and let me know how you got on.

Jody

[NoSeRider]

http://web.alfredstate.edu/ciat/tutorials/FacialExpressions.htm

http://www.cane-toad.com/tuteRig_Facial.htm

http://academy.smc.edu/3daet/resourcesFrameset.htm

http://www.learning-maya.com/tutorials.php

Maya resource tutorials.......if you live in San Diego you need them, or if you wanna move here.

[hawken]

any bones tuts guys? the tutorials in max 6 only cover how to make a leg work.

[Eric Chadwick]

Paul Neale has excellent advice about bone rigging in 3ds max (along with some handy tools too).
http://paulneale.com/tutorials.htm

Joan of Arc is pretty old, but still serviceable as a basic intro to 3ds max bones + skinning.
http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish...ing_base_01.htm

Some good general skeleton rigging advice here too.
http://www.anticz.com/learn.htm

[Synista]

http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=156460
http://st.burst.cc/
http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials/14033
http://www.planetquake.com/polycount/cottages/bladekiller/hairtut.htm

Hopefully this can be useful.

[Detritus]

At tut I wrote about viewport navigation in max. My first tut actually.

www.detritus.tk (http://www.detritus.tk)

[cholden]

This was original a paintover/message to Cheapalert, but I thought it'd make a great mini-tutor for beginner texture artists trying to get less blurred textures.


Solid shapes as selectable masks to enhance sharp edges

http://chrisholden.net/masklayer1.jpg

The original texture, on the left, does fine to sell the look of the character at a distance. Unfortunately, up close it's all a blur, making the original 1024x1024 no more affective than a 256 in game. As this is game art, it never matter really what it looks like in an editor, but it has to look perfect in game.

For the middle image, I created a new layer and drew in the shape of the beak. (This allows me to Ctrl+click on that layer anytime in photoshop and have a selection for that shape.)
The idea is to make a solid shape layer for each shape of your character.
For example, with this character a mask for the beak, eye, nose, cheek, lower jaw. (It's good to have several shapes that do not touch in a single layer, later this will speed up the painting process.)
These shapes are often the same as the wireframe, which makes the process of making them fast! /images/graemlins/smile.gif

The on the right shows the process at work. By having the selection ready to go,I was able to quickly smooth out the beak, and enhance the edges without affecting the surrounding texture. It is also very useful to expand, contract and invert this selection to get those perfect edge highlights clean.

Be careful not to over-do this process. The character should still retain overall shape.


Here's another example image of a 128 box, of using inverting and contracting of selection to get specific lighting edges:

http://chrisholden.net/masklayer2.jpg

This was all dodge and burn on greyscale, and a very basic example. I am much more in favor of color picking and painting. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Eric Chadwick]

Good stuff Chris!

If you're using max and Photoshop, I find PSDPathUnwrapper to be a great way to get those selections automagically from the UVs...
http://www.rpmanager.com/freeTools.htm

[GoK]

i was thinking last nite bout how i forgot to download that psdpath converter thingy and ill never find it now... ierd how things happen like that!

jody

[cholden]

Ok, this turned out a lot bigger than I thought it would. Originally, I was trying to help Warhead out by showing him some maya basics. It kept expanding, so I decided to organize and release it. So here we are, a 50 step tutorial on basic modeling, uv/texturing and normal mapping in Maya 6.

http://chrisholden.net/tutor/tutshell.htm

Still refining this a bit, may be some errors. Again, the quality of the art is very basic, this is purely a techncial tutorial.

and props to Jeffro for his normal mapping tutor that showed me in the first place.

[CrazyButcher]

subdiv modelling a female

http://www.secondreality.ch/tutorials/modelling/body/body01.html
http://www.secondreality.ch/tutorials/modelling/hand/hand01.html
http://www.secondreality.ch/tutorials/modelling/leg/leg01.html
http://www.secondreality.ch/tutorials/modelling/foot/foot01.html

[cholden]

Wrote this for brome-diddies today. It's a very basic concept for turning photoshop clouds into rocky normal maps. Should be handy for those new to normals, and possibly informative to those who already know.

http://chrisholden.net/tutor/rocknorm.htm

[Eric Chadwick]

Chris, it's funny I just comped together a quickie for someone along the same lines... although IMO it works better with Nvidia's normal map filter.

1. Default fg/bg colors (D key).
2. Filter > Render > Clouds. Repeat until you get a pattern you like.
3. Sample on some cracks or painted forms, if you like.
4. Filter > Nvidia Tools > NormalMapFilter. (get it here (http://developer.nvidia.com/object/photoshop_dds_plugins.html)).
5. Adjust the Scale amount, using the 3D Preview to see how strong you want it to be.

Here's a super-simple example...
http://www.ericchadwick.com/examples/images/normalmap_rock.jpg

Alternatively you can use a 3D model to create normal mapped rock texture. I found if I model the macro-size details, then sample on a tight-detail map like that one, I can get some good results. Also I found it helps to model with tiling in mind, creating a square camera to preview it through, and making sure edges line up.

[Eric Chadwick]

Per128's subdivision modeling PPT and 3ds Max tips:
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=55657&an=0&page=1

[cholden]

I added two new tutorials, modeling a low poly gun and character model. Both are part one, with more parts to come as they are completed.

http://chrisholden.net/tutor

[Keg]

http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/tutorials/light01.htm

More for 2d painting, but there's probably still uses for it.

[ribrado]

Does anyone know any sites for a environment texture tutorials? and books suggestions as well. I want to get better with texturing...and have a long ways to go.

thanks!

[Striff]

Rib, I don't know of any free tutorials specificaly for enviro texturing, but I would recomend this book :

Digital Texturing & Painting

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735709...ks&v=glance (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0735709181/104-0894955-5257510?v=glance&n=283155&n=507846&s=books&v=glanc e)

There are only a few walkthroughs (for Maya), but it is a good book to get a foundation.

I would also recomend this Gnomon DVD:

Texturing Painting : Weathered Surfaces

http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/dvds/pca02.html

[ribrado]

thank you so much. I'll check em out

[Eric Chadwick]

Great Photoshop tutorial I just came across...

The Aging Process
Age Progression of a Female Face
http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161116&page=1

[kat]

Two tutorials (a bit of self pimping, sorry 'bout that heh) both are primarily aimed at level designers wanting to do texture assets for maps but may be useful to you polygon pushers.

Skill level - beginner to intermediate

Creating normalmaps from photos
http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/how-not-to-make-normal-maps-from-photos-or-images.php
This tutorial runs through the in's and out's of why you shouldn't do it, or a least makes you aware of what can happen if you do.

Creating normalmaps from images
http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/textures/making-normal-maps-from-images.php
The 'best' way (the basic principle involved) to use 2D artwork to create normalmaps.

[cholden]

Cleaned up my tutorials page (http://chrisholden.net/tutor/tutors.htm)

and added a 3 page tutorial on creating a normal mapped environment

http://chrisholden.net/tutor/util_how_render1t.jpg (http://chrisholden.net/tutor/util01.htm)

It's a pretty hefty addition.

[cateaic]

Thanks for posting that Chris! Very nice tutorial =)

[Kovac]

http://kovac.flyingtemple.com/tutorials.html
A basic introduction to normal mapping in 3D Studio Max originally written for the Torque Developer Network. It also gives somewhat an explanation on how the techniques work and all steps needed to properly generate them. This is my first tutorial so if there's any huge errors or anything please contact me at Kovac1274@gmail.com and I'll fix it immediatly. Hope this helps some people.

[kat]

Video modelling tutorial for Blender 3D (http://www.katsbits.com/tutorials/blender/making-terrain-objects-video.php) (low poly terrain section). Vids are broken down into sections; vertex blending, exporting, UVWmapping etc. so you can grab the one you have most interest in.

[gavku]

I only just stumbled upon this over at cgtalk really cool digital anatomy painting (Photoshop) tutorial By Nebezial.

There's quite a few pages....the majority of the stuff can be downloaded here as a PDF.

http://www.elbandersnatcho.com/modules.p...nload&cid=1 (http://www.elbandersnatcho.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&r eq=viewdownload&cid=1)

[Snowfly]

Art lessons from a master!

http://www.geocities.com/~jlhagan/

[Jeremy Lindstrom]

[ QUOTE ]
I only just stumbled upon this over at cgtalk really cool digital anatomy painting (Photoshop) tutorial By Nebezial.

There's quite a few pages....the majority of the stuff can be downloaded here as a PDF.

http://www.elbandersnatcho.com/modules.p...nload&cid=1 (http://www.elbandersnatcho.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Downloads&file=index&r eq=viewdownload&cid=1)

[/ QUOTE ]

looks like they aren't downloadable anymore. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[Eric Chadwick]

Great intro to animation fundamentals.
http://www.cartoonster.com/
Found this in a search for a neighbor's son who wants to be an animator. It's aimed at kids, but even a seasoned pro might learn a thing or two.

[Frankie V]

A few video tutorials I did to practice making video tutorials. /images/graemlins/wink.gif


http://www.3d-frankiev.com/maxtuts/max8_video_tutorials.htm

[Ged]

a few nice newbie friendly walkthroughs of making buildings for CitiesXL. Its not exactly tutorials because they dont explain the methods much but I found it interesting to see the workflow being used and wanted to share it.

http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?/content/view/36/2/lang,en/
http://www.citiesxl.com/index.php?/content/view/1/32/lang,en/

[Marcus Dublin]

http://www.marcusdublin.com/ParagalisBannersmall.jpg

Creature tutorial covering my personal workflow for 3d modeling, 3d sculpting, retopo / optimizing, UV’s, normal map generation, light map generation, and texturing: http://www.marcusdublin.com/ParagalisTutorialPage1.html

[Ged]

really useful and informative video collection on concept art by a mythic artist

http://www.youtube.com/user/daarken#play/user/0A8590A6809E217F/0/I8tn6oMcr3Q

[Gav]

My latest "Making Of" describing my workflow for my DW4 entry:

http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorials/bishop/

[NyneDown]

Really kool walk through man...I enjoyed reading it =)

And thanks for the shout-out at the end...it made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!

[Slave_zero]

Here is the video-tutorial for #1 DW Entry. I don't know if the link wasn't already posted somewhere else on polycount, but anyway. It's a tutorial so it can be mentioned here.

The videos show in brief overview how the charackter was designed and modelled.
There is some really awesome modelling going on there. Absolutely outstanding work.

http://slipgatecentral.livejournal.com/25838.html?mode=reply

[00Zero]

Slave_zero, thanks for posting that up. such an awesome video, cant believe i missed it.

man , this guy is so good. brings tears to my eyes.

[Veizer]

Great tips from the video, thanks Slave_zero I didn't know that he has already updated

[haiddasalami]

Just found this presentation on MEL for animators. Also some great stuff from Insomniac...

http://www.insomniacgames.com/research_dev/articles/2010/1525305