A gun for Fallout 3?

[grond]

UV unwrapping is proceeding, after I found a couple of mighty nice tutorials.

Here's the map for my own reference, and for certain parties who might need it: First Map map. It'll be a secondary reference map to the UV Map.

It's not finished; o no, not by a long shot. But I have hope now that it might be ready for texturing next week.

Here are the links to the nice tuts:

http://www.fallout3n...ile.php?id=4941 - video

http://www.fallout3n...ile.php?id=6107 - text

Back to hiding amongst vertices. More later.

[InsanitySorrow]

Good news is always nice to hear , Sounds like your making progress towards completing the normal map. Next thing to do is check to see if Fallout uses the same texture format and techniques as Oblivion (ie .DDS and Normal Maps), if so it should be a bit easier getting the textures done.

[grond]

Oi. This is so distracting.

I've been messing around with colors/textures, and none look right. So no pix yet.

And I went back in to Blender to try another UV map, because I was frustrated that the part I thought would be easy - the texture painting - has proved to be the hard part. I want detail, but learning to use the Gimp is somehow harder for me than it was with Blender ( maybe because of my supposition that it was going to be easy ).

Anyway, stay tuned.

[grond]

Next speed bump. I have Fallout 3 now, and I spent this morning trying to import the combat shotgun into Blender...finally got it to import, and now I see I must animate the trigger, Don's "gizmo" ( the magazine, or drum - keep yer head on, WT ) and make some kind of ejection port, so I'll go back under the hood of this weapon again.

I see that the trigger assembly is strangely detached from Beth's model, and there is at least one piece missing. If anybody knows what that's about, I'll buy you a round if you tell me.

I have more detective work to do. Stay tuned.

[donnato]

Next speed bump. I have Fallout 3 now, and I spent this morning trying to import the combat shotgun into Blender...finally got it to import, and now I see I must animate the trigger, Don's "gizmo" ( the magazine, or drum - keep yer head on, WT ) and make some kind of ejection port, so I'll go back under the hood of this weapon again.

I see that the trigger assembly is strangely detached from Beth's model, and there is at least one piece missing. If anybody knows what that's about, I'll buy you a round if you tell me.

I have more detective work to do. Stay tuned.

Heheh very groovey Grondo, I can see the amount of work in this. Yeah it makes sense that a moving doohicky activating a gizmo on an otherwise static construct would some form of animation. This is a good educational piece and I for one appreciate your sharing your info with us. The last pic looks epic and I can`t wait to see how the texturing looks. Any thoughts I might have on the "missing trigger part" would be just guess work on my part so I`ll leave it up to someone with one to look at and dig into.

[grond]

Thanks Don! I might have been better off making a 'dev blog' sort of thing. But I thought I'd be done by now. When I started this thread I thought I was almost finished.

I have Beth's textures now. I think I'll use them.

I've resized the gun and positioned it in Blender for animations.

I've ripped out the DRUM ( it's what Beth calls the doohicky/gizmo/magazine ) to grant Don's wish and will do the same with the trigger.

I need an ejection port so I can switch everything out with the combat shotgun in Nifscope. At least, that's what I've read you must do to get it into the game. I've also read that in reality you had to hold the old Jackhammer in a certain way or you'd get the ejected shell in the head. That kinda tells me where I can make the port.

More later.

[nottlong]

The ejection port should be on the side away from the shooter with the bullpup style of weapon you are making. It would be in front of the drum and in line with the barrel and needs to be of a size that a round could be ejected through it. Rounds are ejected to the side and slightly to the back to reduce the chance of one hitting the shooter.

[grond]

Right you are. I'm working on it right now, and UV RE-Mapping is going pretty well. The shotgun will have to share the combat shotgun animations for now. That drum's in front. So while you will grab a new drum, the motion will be a little off, but at least the shell's going to eject nicely.

[nottlong]

Sounds like you have a good grip on it. I do not play Falllout3,on my want list,so all I can is to offer suggestions.

[grond]

I just got the GOTY from Amazon for $37 this past weekend. Entertaining beginning! Keep your suggestions coming.

[WindmillTilter]

You're gonna have to put up a YouTube vid once you get it ingame, I'm looking forward to seeing this.

I have Beth's textures now. I think I'll use them.

If you want I can make you a custom texture when you've got the UV Mapping done.

I see that the trigger assembly is strangely detached from Beth's model, and there is at least one piece missing.

I don't have FO3, but if you want to send me the nif in question I may be able to figure it out.

WT

[grond]

You're gonna have to put up a YouTube vid once you get it ingame, I'm looking forward to seeing this.

Never thought of doing that, but I definitely will.

If you want I can make you a custom texture when you've got the UV Mapping done.

I have to unwrap the new drum and trigger, but the 'ejection port' (which won't really show the shell ejecting, unless I change it from its present shape, and maul the model again ) - it unwrapped very nicely. I'm learning this unwrapping slower than my usual snail's pace. But it's getting easy. For those BlenderHeads out there, I'm selecting some faces and separately unwrapping them, and combining 'project from view' with regular UV and 'smart projections'. I'm trying each one on each section of the model. I pick the one that doesn't look like a Jackson Pollack painting. Most of it is recognizable. Also, I've unwrapped the two dozen+ vents separately, and stacked them as one, because trying to paint them was extremely frustrating when they were part of the barrel. Yes, I cussed like a truck driver while selected their faces. You can only zoom in so much.

I'll be in touch with artisans like yourself ASA it's ready, which might even be by the end of the week.

I don't have FO3, but if you want to send me the nif in question I may be able to figure it out.

WT

Won't be necessary. I think the trigger's a separate model, since it's animated. Thanks WT!

[WindmillTilter]

I think the trigger's a separate model, since it's animated.

Cool that makes sense. You probably already thought of it, but if it's a seperate model you can likey use the same animation with your new trigger, instead of reinventing the wheel in Blender. Unless of course you want to do it for the learning experience, animation is FUN.

WT

[grond]

Cool that makes sense. You probably already thought of it, but if it's a seperate model you can likey use the same animation with your new trigger, instead of reinventing the wheel in Blender. Unless of course you want to do it for the learning experience, animation is FUN.

WT

I'd love to be able to tinker with the shotgun animation so that the drum change is where the Jack's drum is. That would be cool.

Meanwhile, it's been slow going. Until this morning:

I've been imagining there was a button in Gimp that would color the gun the way I want it. Not exactly that, but I've been thinking there was a gun metal texture out there that would be perfect. Until this morning. I finally figured out that I need to paint the gun! So I'm doing it. The problem with this is that Gimp doesn't keep layers when saving, so I have to make copies of the map because I have to paint directly on it or I'll lose the template when I want to go check out the texture on the gun. It's the first color try. There's a scratch at the top rear of the sight, if you can see it.

I'm determined to work out how to grade the colors in spots so in places it looks worn to the metal. That's going to be a while. But ain't it almost looking not cruddy?

[greenwarden]

Looks gorgeous, Grondy. Your progress is inspiring.

[donnato]

Comming right along Grondo. Did you imagine that this would be this much work when you began? It looks like I`ll have 4 days during the T`giving holiday to get back into the Blender.

This is so impressive bro, can`t wait to see it finished,and the you tube idea is great.

[grond]

No I had no idea that this would hurt so bad. Blender was easy - this Gimp stuff is hard. It won't save layers as dds, so I painted on the UVmap. Then I made a .psd save that the layers work on, and I can paint on a layer over the map, but then of course Blender won't open a psd file. So for a while I've been using the .psd, and copying it over to a .jpg, then saving the .jpg, then checking it out in Blender. But now I've decided to separate all the vents, so I can add detail, and I tried to copy part of the map over to the template .psd ( because it has the work I've done so far ) but I think it didn't work, and what's worse, I might have lost the map layer. But I have to go above ground for a while. BTW, the details I've added look very very...

Thanks for the support Ma'am!

[WhoGuru]

So this is where you've vanished too. Looks fantastic Grond!

[WillieSea]

Still a highly anticipated gun for me! I loved the pancor in FO1 and 2.

I am sure I saw a mod with a shotgun where the drum was in the back. I wonder if they made an animation for it? hmmm

[InsanitySorrow]

Looking good grond , I am sure I heard somewhere that GIMP has a format simialr to a .psd where you can store an image including all layers , As long as you saved a .psd format the Map layer should still be present, maybe you hid the layer?

[Koddiak]

And boom goes the dynamite.

Very nice.

[grond]

So this is where you've vanished too. Looks fantastic Grond!

Yay! Thanks dearie...Tell the boss I miss him.

Still a highly anticipated gun for me! I loved the pancor in FO1 and 2.

I am sure I saw a mod with a shotgun where the drum was in the back. I wonder if they made an animation for it? hmmm

Don't tell anybody, but there's a nice lil bunch of weapons here. There's a later model Jackhammer, too - very nice model - and puh-lenty of other weapons. That mod gave me ideas for the ejector, and the drum. But it's a later model, like I said, so mine looks very different. Go get it, Will! It uses the combat shotgun anims, meaning the drum is replaced from the front, not the back. I don't really mind, but if I can change it, I want to try. I don't know of many FO3 mods, so I have no idea if one's around that has the bullpup drum animation.

Looking good grond , I am sure I heard somewhere that GIMP has a format simialr to a .psd where you can store an image including all layers , As long as you saved a .psd format the Map layer should still be present, maybe you hid the layer?

Thanks IS! I did hide the layer! But I found it, so everything's okay. I had the opacity way down, and couldn't see it. Yeah, Gimp has .xcf ( I think that's the extension ), but Blender can't open them either. If you want to mess around with it, lemme know.

And boom goes the dynamite.

Very nice.

Thanks!

[WindmillTilter]

Gimp has .xcf ( I think that's the extension ), but Blender can't open them either. If you want to mess around with it, lemme know.

While it's a bit of a pain it's WELL worth the work to have 2 versions of the texture. I do all my work in the native format of the software psd/xcf whatever, this ensures both that you have all the content and you're not damaging your file. The whenever you want to preview in blender do Save As... and use jpeg or whatever you want. You can keep overwriting that file with Save As... as you make changes, just make sure you do Save (in native format) before you shutdown.

It is a bit of extra clicking but in my opinion it's more than worth it. Don't forget that besides loosing your layers blending effects etc. whenever you save with compression (dds, jpeg, tga, almost everything) the compression process degrades the file. It's not really visible in one save made from an xcf, but if you keep opening and saving the same compressed file it will start to look pretty bad after a while.

Just my $0.02 worth. ;-) It's really looking awesome btw, leaves me very embarassed when I think of my first model.

[grond]

Here's my routine: I have a .psd. I make changes there, and select all/copy, and paste it all onto my test .jpg. Then go into Blender.

But as I find I have to move faces to eliminate stretching, I make a new map .tga, then save it as new background in the painted .psd, then change it there, then copy/paste the painted layer to the .jpg... many extra mouse clicks, many copies for safety.

If I'm ever happy with the colors I'll save the .psd as the final texture. One thing I have yet to think about is the mipmap situation. Beth's texture maps have 11 layers!

Here's one of mine. The handle won't look like a big mint, nor will the ejection port look like a Wint-O-Green Lifesaver.

[DarkRider]

Looking good! You should look into using metallic textures and cutting/pasting the right shaped pieces into the texture map to give it a heightened realism effect. Here's a great site for textures: http://www.cgtextures.com/