OpenUru - User contributions [en]

GUI Popups

2011-12-10T02:19:17Z

Andylegate: /* Let's Add Some Stuff */

GUI Pop Ups are things that appear on our screen that are not the normal game camera view.

For example, when you call up your KI menu, the game menu or your Relto Book are examples of a GUI Pop Up.

You also have things like: Linking books, the Bahro Linking Stones, Journals, Notes, Maps and Warranty cards.

Some of the GUI Pop Ups are quite complex (the KI menu), some are very simple (A note left on a desk). This tutorial will show you how to create a simple pop up.

----
===It's Time To Add Another PRP File!===

Most GUI Pop Ups have their very own prp file. There is a very good reason for this that I will show you later on. It has something to do with Python.

To add an additional prp file to your Age, you will have to go to your PlasmaTest\dat folder (or what ever you set your output folder to in the PlasmaMAX2.ini file. There you will find your Age that you've been exporting. Make a back up of these files, and then delete them.

Yah, you read right. DELETE them! You can not edit the .age file that is there now. It is no longer the text file you created to set up your Age, nor can you edit with a special tool like PlasmaShop or UruFun, as Max will get upset about this. So we're just going to create another one.

Open up your Notepad and create your file again, just like you did to start the Age, only this time, add a line like you see in my pic below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia30.jpg

Where I have circled in red is where you'll add your extra prp file. The name of mine is "tryingmap", you need to make up your own name and put it there. Make sure that you add the ",1" to the end of your line. For each prp file you add, you need to increment them up.

Okay now save your file like you would normally do for setting up and Age, and then open up Max and load your Age up, we're good to get started.

----
===Let's Add Some Stuff===

Okay, we need to add some stuff here to our scene. We'll be adding the object that we see in game while exploring (IE the note or map or pic, etc) and place it in our scene where the avatar can find it. Texture it with something you'd like to see up close and personal.

In my example here, I've made a plane and textured it with a photo:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia1.jpg

Now add it to your mainroom PageInfo and don't worry about anything else for it right now, let's make our Region now:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia8.jpg

You need to make a region that the avatar will enter to click on the object that is going to be your popup.

'''EDIT 4/24/2010: I'd like to point out that we do not need a region to make an object a clickable. We are only using the region as a CONTROL to make sure the Avatar is close to the object we want to click on. It would not make any sense to have the GUI Pop up happen from across the room. However, please note, you can make an object clickable without using regions (info provided by GPNMilano from the GoW ).'''

Now add it to your mainroom PageInfo, and while in the Component Manager, click on New > Detector > Region Sensor:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia9.jpg

Over in the Component Utils, you don't need to change anything, and can go with the defaults for now:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia10.jpg

Now we need to go outside our Age, to a place that the Avatar could not normally get to. You are going to make 3 things here:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia2.jpg

First make 2 planes, one bigger than the other. Have the bigger one rest a little bit below the smaller one. Apply the same texture as your object that your avatar is going to click on. On the larger plane, you need to apply a texture that is COMPLETELY transparent.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia3.jpg

Now we need to make a camera that points at the 2 planes you just made. Click on your Create Tab and select camera, Target, and then make the camera. Make sure you rename it to something useful:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia4.jpg

Orientate you camera so that it points to your 2 planes. Make sure that the target view extends down just past the 2 planes.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia5.jpg

Now we need to adjust the Camera's view as it sees the planes so with your camera selected, right click in the screen and select "Set View to Selected Camera"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia6.jpg

Now you can use the camera settings to adjust your camera View. The key is to make sure you "transparent" plane helps fill the screen. You don't want the "Void" to be visable in the camera. You can see I also have my view slightly canted:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia7.jpg

Once you have your view set up, you can hit the "T" key in the 3D view to snap out of the Camera view.

Now we have something important to do: we need to set the PageInfo on these 4 objects....but it's NOT the PageInfo that was set on all the other objects in your Age, so if you already applied PageInfo to your 2 planes, your Camera and Camera.Target, you need to go back and remove them.

You can either select each one of those things, or select them all at once, but in either case it's important to add a 2nd PageInfo to your Component Manager:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia18.jpg

This one will default to the name: PageInfo02. You can leave it at that if you want. You need to attach this to your Camera, the camera's target, and the 2 planes that we made.

Then for the PageInfo on each object that you've assigned PageInfo02 to, you need to go to the Component Utils and select it, and change the "Page" to the name of the page we added to our .age file!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia20.jpg

Okay, let's go back to the Object that our Avatar will click on. Select it, and call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Detector > Clickable:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia11.jpg

Now go over and select it in our Component Utils:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia12.jpg

Where you see in my pic where I have circled in Red, click on this button and then click on the region we made.

Now in the Component Manager, click on New > Logic > Python File

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia13.jpg

Go over to the Utils tab and select it. We need to tell it what file to use:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia14.jpg

In the drop down box, you'll want to select the file "xDialogToggle"

A new roll out box will appear below. Click on the button just below where it says "clickable", and a new box will pop up on your screen:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia15.jpg

You need to select the clickable you assigned to the object that that avatar will click on.

Then go back to the rollout box. In the box just below where it says "Toggle dialog - by name", you need to type in the name of the new prp file we made for the Age:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia16.jpg

Okay, now go back over to where we created our 2 planes and camera.

Select the camera and call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Camera > Fixed Camera

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia17.jpg

You don't have to set anything for this component.

Now in the Component Manager, click on New > GUI > GUI ID Tag

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia21.jpg

Over in the Component Utils, select the GUI ID Tag (have a good read at the warning, heh), and then in the box where it says "Tag Konstant" you need to type in the number: 99

Now go back to the Component Manager and click on New > GUI > GUI Dialog:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia23.jpg

Go over to the Component Utils and select our GUI Dialog component. You only need to do a few things here so don't freak out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia24.jpg

In the GUI Dialog roll out box, Make sure Age: is the name of your Age and that Name: is the name of that new prp file we made. Also, put a check mark where it says "Modal"
''Edit 12/09/2011: "Modal" allows us to have a GUI Pop Up without a Click Off panel. A Click Off panel would be a invisible panel located just behind our GUI pop up and allows the player to click on it to have the GUI pop up go away. It also keeps the player from clicking on other objects that might be visible. However, if we put a check mark next to "Modal" we enable it, and this allows us to simply make the GUI pop up itself what we click on to have it go back down again. It also keeps the player from clicking on anything else that might be visible, and from navigating the avatar while the GUI Pop up is visible. If you are attempting to make a GUI like a Telescope, the Teledahn Gun, or something like the Er'cana pellet ovens, DO NOT PUT A CHECK MARK HERE! If you do, your buttons in your GUI will not work.''

Then go up to the Tag Konstant box and type in "99" again.

Select the large Plane that you put your transparent texture on.

Now go back to the Component Manager and click on New > Detector > Clickable (what? when the GUI pops up, we click on it to lay it back down, remember?).

Over in the Component Utils, select your clickable and set it up like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia25.jpg

Now go back to the Component Manager, but don't click on new. Instead, open it up and find your GUI ID Tag that you assigned to the camera. Select it, and assign it to your plane too.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia26.jpg

Now go up to the GUI Dialog, and do the same thing. Select the one we assigned to the Camera, and assign it to the plane too.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia27.jpg

Okay, NOW we can add something new: click on New > GUI > GUI Button

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia28.jpg

Go over to the Component Utils Tab and select the GUI Button we just assigned to the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia29.jpg

Again, don't freak out, the only thing you should concern yourself with is where I circled in red. Make sure that one is selected.

And that's it. You have successfully created a simple GUI pop up. So export, your Age and give it a try. You should have something like my video below:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9TYIGEsph0 GUI Popup Video]

{{ALTutorials}}

GUI Popups

2011-12-10T02:15:17Z

Andylegate: /* Let's Add Some Stuff */

GUI Pop Ups are things that appear on our screen that are not the normal game camera view.

For example, when you call up your KI menu, the game menu or your Relto Book are examples of a GUI Pop Up.

You also have things like: Linking books, the Bahro Linking Stones, Journals, Notes, Maps and Warranty cards.

Some of the GUI Pop Ups are quite complex (the KI menu), some are very simple (A note left on a desk). This tutorial will show you how to create a simple pop up.

----
===It's Time To Add Another PRP File!===

Most GUI Pop Ups have their very own prp file. There is a very good reason for this that I will show you later on. It has something to do with Python.

To add an additional prp file to your Age, you will have to go to your PlasmaTest\dat folder (or what ever you set your output folder to in the PlasmaMAX2.ini file. There you will find your Age that you've been exporting. Make a back up of these files, and then delete them.

Yah, you read right. DELETE them! You can not edit the .age file that is there now. It is no longer the text file you created to set up your Age, nor can you edit with a special tool like PlasmaShop or UruFun, as Max will get upset about this. So we're just going to create another one.

Open up your Notepad and create your file again, just like you did to start the Age, only this time, add a line like you see in my pic below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia30.jpg

Where I have circled in red is where you'll add your extra prp file. The name of mine is "tryingmap", you need to make up your own name and put it there. Make sure that you add the ",1" to the end of your line. For each prp file you add, you need to increment them up.

Okay now save your file like you would normally do for setting up and Age, and then open up Max and load your Age up, we're good to get started.

----
===Let's Add Some Stuff===

Okay, we need to add some stuff here to our scene. We'll be adding the object that we see in game while exploring (IE the note or map or pic, etc) and place it in our scene where the avatar can find it. Texture it with something you'd like to see up close and personal.

In my example here, I've made a plane and textured it with a photo:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia1.jpg

Now add it to your mainroom PageInfo and don't worry about anything else for it right now, let's make our Region now:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia8.jpg

You need to make a region that the avatar will enter to click on the object that is going to be your popup.

'''EDIT 4/24/2010: I'd like to point out that we do not need a region to make an object a clickable. We are only using the region as a CONTROL to make sure the Avatar is close to the object we want to click on. It would not make any sense to have the GUI Pop up happen from across the room. However, please note, you can make an object clickable without using regions (info provided by GPNMilano from the GoW ).'''

Now add it to your mainroom PageInfo, and while in the Component Manager, click on New > Detector > Region Sensor:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia9.jpg

Over in the Component Utils, you don't need to change anything, and can go with the defaults for now:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia10.jpg

Now we need to go outside our Age, to a place that the Avatar could not normally get to. You are going to make 3 things here:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia2.jpg

First make 2 planes, one bigger than the other. Have the bigger one rest a little bit below the smaller one. Apply the same texture as your object that your avatar is going to click on. On the larger plane, you need to apply a texture that is COMPLETELY transparent.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia3.jpg

Now we need to make a camera that points at the 2 planes you just made. Click on your Create Tab and select camera, Target, and then make the camera. Make sure you rename it to something useful:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia4.jpg

Orientate you camera so that it points to your 2 planes. Make sure that the target view extends down just past the 2 planes.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia5.jpg

Now we need to adjust the Camera's view as it sees the planes so with your camera selected, right click in the screen and select "Set View to Selected Camera"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia6.jpg

Now you can use the camera settings to adjust your camera View. The key is to make sure you "transparent" plane helps fill the screen. You don't want the "Void" to be visable in the camera. You can see I also have my view slightly canted:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia7.jpg

Once you have your view set up, you can hit the "T" key in the 3D view to snap out of the Camera view.

Now we have something important to do: we need to set the PageInfo on these 4 objects....but it's NOT the PageInfo that was set on all the other objects in your Age, so if you already applied PageInfo to your 2 planes, your Camera and Camera.Target, you need to go back and remove them.

You can either select each one of those things, or select them all at once, but in either case it's important to add a 2nd PageInfo to your Component Manager:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia18.jpg

This one will default to the name: PageInfo02. You can leave it at that if you want. You need to attach this to your Camera, the camera's target, and the 2 planes that we made.

Then for the PageInfo on each object that you've assigned PageInfo02 to, you need to go to the Component Utils and select it, and change the "Page" to the name of the page we added to our .age file!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia20.jpg

Okay, let's go back to the Object that our Avatar will click on. Select it, and call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Detector > Clickable:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia11.jpg

Now go over and select it in our Component Utils:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia12.jpg

Where you see in my pic where I have circled in Red, click on this button and then click on the region we made.

Now in the Component Manager, click on New > Logic > Python File

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia13.jpg

Go over to the Utils tab and select it. We need to tell it what file to use:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia14.jpg

In the drop down box, you'll want to select the file "xDialogToggle"

A new roll out box will appear below. Click on the button just below where it says "clickable", and a new box will pop up on your screen:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia15.jpg

You need to select the clickable you assigned to the object that that avatar will click on.

Then go back to the rollout box. In the box just below where it says "Toggle dialog - by name", you need to type in the name of the new prp file we made for the Age:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia16.jpg

Okay, now go back over to where we created our 2 planes and camera.

Select the camera and call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Camera > Fixed Camera

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia17.jpg

You don't have to set anything for this component.

Now in the Component Manager, click on New > GUI > GUI ID Tag

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia21.jpg

Over in the Component Utils, select the GUI ID Tag (have a good read at the warning, heh), and then in the box where it says "Tag Konstant" you need to type in the number: 99

Now go back to the Component Manager and click on New > GUI > GUI Dialog:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia23.jpg

Go over to the Component Utils and select our GUI Dialog component. You only need to do a few things here so don't freak out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia24.jpg

In the GUI Dialog roll out box, Make sure Age: is the name of your Age and that Name: is the name of that new prp file we made. Also, put a check mark where it says "Modal"
''Edit 12/09/2011: "Modal" allows us to have a GUI Pop Up without a Click Off panel. A Click Off panel would be a invisible panel located just behind our GUI pop up and allows the player to click on it to have the GUI pop up go away. It also keeps the player from clicking on other objects that might be visible. However, if we put a check mark next to "Modal" we enable it, and this allows us to simply make the GUI pop up itself what we click on to have it go back down again. It also keeps the player from clicking on anything else that might be visible, and from navigating the avatar while the GUI Pop up is visible.''

Then go up to the Tag Konstant box and type in "99" again.

Select the large Plane that you put your transparent texture on.

Now go back to the Component Manager and click on New > Detector > Clickable (what? when the GUI pops up, we click on it to lay it back down, remember?).

Over in the Component Utils, select your clickable and set it up like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia25.jpg

Now go back to the Component Manager, but don't click on new. Instead, open it up and find your GUI ID Tag that you assigned to the camera. Select it, and assign it to your plane too.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia26.jpg

Now go up to the GUI Dialog, and do the same thing. Select the one we assigned to the Camera, and assign it to the plane too.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia27.jpg

Okay, NOW we can add something new: click on New > GUI > GUI Button

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia28.jpg

Go over to the Component Utils Tab and select the GUI Button we just assigned to the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia29.jpg

Again, don't freak out, the only thing you should concern yourself with is where I circled in red. Make sure that one is selected.

And that's it. You have successfully created a simple GUI pop up. So export, your Age and give it a try. You should have something like my video below:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9TYIGEsph0 GUI Popup Video]

{{ALTutorials}}

Importing Blender Objects To Max

2011-11-22T12:53:48Z

Andylegate: /* Getting The Tools...... */

You may ask yourself: Why in the world would I want to build stuff in Blender and then export it to use in Max?

It's a good question. Why WOULD anyone be crazy enough to do that?
Well I for one, am crazy enough to do that. It's because I got so used to using Blender to build things, that I still to this day build many of my rendered objects and terrains in Blender.

Another good reason is if you have a Age that you built before in Blender (or were still doing so before switching to Max), you may want to get it from Blender to Max so you can use Cyan's Plugin.

That or you could start all over from scratch in Max........What? What's that? Did I just hear a lot of groaning? Don't worry! There is a way to export an ENTIRE Age that you may have built in Blender to Max....

----
==Exporting From Blender==

There are several different ways that one can use to go about this. The method I'll be explaining here I refer to as the "FBX Method"
GPNMilano first brought this up as a way to export objects from Blender so that you can import them into Max. The nice thing about using this method, is the fact that you export multiple objects (a whole Age if you want to), and they will be kept separate, maintaining their UV mapping.

==='''Getting The Tools......'''===

There are 2 things that you will need in order to do this. You need the FBX Plugin for 3DS Max, and you will need the FBX Converter.

The FBX Plugin for 3DS Max is what allows you to import FBX files into your scene in Max. Now with Open Source, Cyan's Plugin is available for more recent versions of 3ds Max. As such, I am listing links for the plugin for each version of Max:

''Please note: all these plugins are for 32 bit version of Max, as only the 32 bit version will work with Cyan's Plugin''

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/FBX200611_1_3DSMAX70_WIN_ENU.exe FBX Plugin For Max 7.0]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx200611_2_3dsmax80_win_enu.exe FBX Plugin For Max 8.0]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx200611_2_3dsmax90_win_enu.exe FBX Plugin For Max 9.0]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20093_3dsmax2009_win.exe FBX Plugin For Max 2009]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20102_1_3dsmax2010_win.exe FBX Plugin For Max 2010]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20113_1_3dsmax2011_win.exe FBX Plugin For Max 2011]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20122_3dsmax2012_win.exe FBX Plugin For Max 2012]

Please know that at this time there is no Plasma Plugin for Max 9.0 or Max 2009 at this time.

The FBX Converter will take the FBX file that you export from Blender, and convert it to a version that Max can handle.

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/FBX200611_1_CONVERTER_WIN.exe FBX Converter for Max 7.0]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/FBX200611_1_CONVERTER_WIN.exe FBX Converter for Max 8.0]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx200611_2_converter_win.exe FBX Converter for Max 9.0]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20093_converter_win.exe FBX Converter for Max 2009]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20102_converter_win.exe FBX Converter for Max 2010]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20113_1_converter_win.exe FBX Converter for Max 2011]

[http://images.autodesk.com/adsk/files/fbx20122_converter_win.exe FBX Converter for Max 2012]

Once you have downloaded those 2 files, install them. Then you'll be ready to use them.

==='''Going From Blender To Max'''===

You may be asking yourself: why do this? Why not just build everything in Max?

That's a good question. And really, you should take the time to learn how to make things from scratch in Max.

But, there are several reasons you may need to import things from Blender to Max:

It may be that you like to build your stuff in Blender, because you've gotten so used to it's interface and how things work there, but at the same time, you desire to use Cyan's Plugin with Max to actually build your Age with.

It may be that you had a LOT of work put into an Age in Blender, but now you are wanting to bring it into Max and use Cyan's Plugin to make the Age.

It could be that someone else is making stuff for you, or has put objects in a repository, but they are Blender Objects, and you want to get them into Max.

So there are many reasons.

However, and you need to brace yourself for this:

While the FBX method will allow you to import an entire Age from Blender to Max, you will have to reapply the Materials and their textures. However you won't have to re-do the UV mapping.
All the ALCScripting that you had in Blender for use with the PyPRP exporter for making Ages will be gone. But that's okay, because applying Plasma Components to your objects in Max is very EASY.

So let's get started....

First you need to THINK about what it is you are wanting to do:

Are you exporting a single object? A few objects? Or is it an entire Age?

The reason that you need to think about this, is because when you import the FBX file into Max, your objects will be very "ghost" looking (very transparent), until you give them a material and texture again.

If you're importing just 1 or a few objects, that won't be a problem. But if you are trying to import an entire Age, you'll end up loosing things as you texture others. You can always find them by hitting the "H" key while in the scene view and a list of all the objects will pop up.......and that will help you find what you're missing....that's IF you took the time to rename all your objects in Blender.....else what you'll have is a list of:

Box01
Box03
Box04
Box05
Cylinder02
Cylinder03
etc, etc, etc.

So if you're going to import a entire Age, I would recommend breaking it down into smaller sections (selecting a limited amount of objects to export) in Blender, and export them one at a time.

'''Note: there is another good reason to always give your objects unique names. If you leave things labeled like the above list, later down the road, if you build something else in Blender and want to import it into the same Age in Max, if you again, left the names, you'll have a big error trying to import it into Max. Having 2 seperate objects with the same name will keep the import from happening. ALWAYS give your objects unique names!'''

So you've got your object, or objects selected in Blender that you want to export. Simply go up and click on File > Export > Autodesk FBX (.fbx) in Blender:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/expimp1.jpg

A new box will pop up. Look at the top of this box, as it's asking you if you want to export just the objects you have selected, or the entire scene. Default is the selected objects.
I don't normally mess with anything here and just click on the Export button at the bottom:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/expimp2.jpg

A directory will show up, asking you to name your FBX file and what folder to put it in. Once you have done that, you have exported your objects or Age to an FBX file. Please note, that if you do a entire Age, it can take a few minutes to export!

You are done with Blender at this point.

==='''Using The FBX Converter.....'''===

If you were to load up Max and try to import the FBX file you just exported from Blender, you'll mind that Max will crash on you. That is because the FBX version that Blender exports is not compatible with 3DS Max 7.0
So we need to use the FBX Converter you just installed.

So load up the FBX Converter and take a look at my picture below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/expimp3.jpg

First, pay attention to the 3 tabs located up top. You have "Convert To FBX", "Convert From FBX", and "Convert FBX to FBX"
It's that 3rd tab that you'll want: "Convert FBX to FBX"

Once you are in the right tab, go down and click on the "Add" button. This will open up a directory tree. You need to navigate to the folder where you exported your FBX file from Blender, and select that file.

'''Note: You can have multiple files here, but if you are converting like a whole Age, I don't recommend it, as the conversion is going to take a long time.'''

Once you've added your exported file, you will see it appear in the top box (where my red arrow is). Sometimes, especially if you exported a whole Age, or lots of objects, it will take a few minutes to appear (I've had one take 20 minutes, but that was a HUGE age file I was converting).
The point is, you CAN NOT do anything else until you see your file appear there.
Once it has, take a look again. See where my green arrow in the picture above is? Notice how it's putting the converted FBX file in a folder marked "V5" ? This is automatic, you don't need to create that folder, the converter will do it for you. The reason this is important is: the FBX Converter will take your fbx file from Blender, convert it, and then save the converted fbx file to a folder called "V5" THAT WILL NOW BE LOCATED AS A SUB FOLDER IN THE FOLDER YOU HAD THE ORIGINAL FBX FILE IN!!!

Sorry, not yelling, just making sure you understand that. Later, when you are in Max and go to import, if you forget this, you'll try to import the unconverted FBX file instead, and Max will crash.

Now you can go down and click on the "Convert" button at the bottom:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/fbx4.jpg

You need to wait for the message at the very bottom of the screen to show up. You should have "0" errors. If you see a number other than 0, something is wrong, and you need to go back and try exporting from Blender again.
The conversion process could take a LONG time if you have a very large Age you are converting.

Okay, we are done here. Time to move on to 3DS Max.

==='''Importing Into Max....'''===

So here we are in Max. If you are going to import an whole Age, you don't need to load anything first. If you are adding stuff to some existing work in Max, load the scene you are working on up first.

Then click on File > Import

A directory tree will pop up. Navigate to the folder where you exported your FBX file to....and then go to the "V5" folder that the FBX Converter put the converted FBX File:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/fbx5.jpg

When you have selected the file, a BIG box is going to pop up. The only thing you need to worry about in here is where you see my red circle in the picture below. You need to change this drop down box so that it says "No Conversion"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/fbx6.jpg

Then click on the Ok button.

Again, if you are importing a whole Age, this could take a few minutes.

Once it is done, you see your object or objects, and as you can see from my pic below, they will look "ghost" like. They will stay this way until you assign a Material to them:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/fbx7.jpg

One last thing:

'''blend_root'''

This is a object that will appear in your Max scene when you import this way. It looks like a little box, but "blend_root" is ALWAYS it's name. You need to select it, and delete it. Do NOT forget to do this! If you don't, and you need to import something later down the road, you'll get an error on import, because it will be trying to import a 2nd "blend_root" and I told you, all objects must have unique names!

Hope this helped.

{{ALTutorials}}

Using Boolean Function

2011-08-08T17:09:29Z

Andylegate:

===Using Boolean Operations===

If you want to "cut" a mesh of one object with the mesh of another, you can use the Boolean Operand to do this with. A good example of using this, would be cutting open a door or window in a wall. A much larger example would be to cut a large ocean mesh so that your island will fit it.

A video version of this tutorial is available [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1an0rENu70 here].

In my simple example here, I have a plane that is my wall and I want to cut a circle out of it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut1.jpg

I create the mesh I am going to use to cut with, a cylinder:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut2.jpg

I then move the cylinder so that it completely intersects the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut3.jpg

I then go to the Create tab, and select Compound Objects from the drop down menu:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut4.jpg

Then I click on the Boolean button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut5.jpg

Since I have the cylinder selected, it is already Operand A. We want to make the Operand "B - A", which means "Subtract Mesh A, from Mesh B"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut6.jpg

We now need to pick what object is going to be Operand B, which is the plane. We click on the Pick Operand B button, and in the 3D window, click on the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut7.jpg

As you can now see, we have a nice round hole cut out of our plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut8.jpg

{{ALTutorials}}

Animation Events

2011-08-07T20:54:46Z

Andylegate: Created page with "An Animation Event is a detector that we can use to have something happen, because an animation happened. This is very useful if you want something to happen in game, not because..."

An Animation Event is a detector that we can use to have something happen, because an animation happened. This is very useful if you want something to happen in game, not because the player directly made it happen, but because of something else that they did.

This tutorial assumes that you are familiar with making basic animations of objects, and uses elements from my tutorial on Interrupting Animations.

For a Video version of this tutorial you can click [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tifio1vOmOA here].

Let us take a look at my scene below. I've added a "Door" that has an animation that makes it swing open:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Animevent1.jpg

I have a PageInfo component and a animation component on it. Nothing else special is required.

What I want to happen is, I want my blue cylinder I made that rises up and down, to have the door suddenly swing open when the cylinder get's half way up.

Now, I could use animations to just have the door swing open at that point, but this is a much simpler way to do it. The game is going to detect when the blue cylinder is half way up and then open the door for me.

So I select my blue cylinder, and I open up the Dope Sheet for it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Animevent2.jpg

Now, what I have done is add a Key Marker to it, right at frame 150 (which is the half way point of the animation). Unlike the start and end markers, I have given this marker a different name:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Animevent3.jpg

It is important to do this! If you give the marker the same name as your start and end marker, it will not show up where we need it later! Once you have made this marker, we need to add the detector.

For this I selected one of my region sensors. You do not have to apply it that, you could apply it to the cylinder or anywhere really. But I wanted to keep things together. To add an "Animation Event" component, open up your Component Manager and click on New > Detector > Anim Event:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Animevent4.jpg

When I attach it, I then select it and look at the roll out for it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Animevent5.jpg

You will have to pick the animation and object, and once you do so, you will see your markers appear in the Events box. This is why it was important to give your event marker a different name than the start or end markers. If you gave it the same name, it would not show up here. I selected the marker as you can see from the above picture, meaning that point in the animation is when I want the Animation Event Detector to detect.

Now I make a new logic responder. In this one, the detector will be my Animation Event:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Animevent6.jpg

And of course the commands for the responder is to open the door.

That is all there is to it to get this started. I'm sure you can imagine all sorts of neat puzzles you could have using this, including multiplayer ones where a 2nd player has to do something to help other players!

The following is a video showing you the end result:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGQUsavPMa4 Animation Event Video]

{{ALTutorials}}

Interrupting An Animation

2011-08-07T20:52:32Z

Andylegate: Created page with "This tutorial will introduce you to making an animated object stop it's animation, and reverse it, without it starting over at the beginning. It assumes that you already know how..."

This tutorial will introduce you to making an animated object stop it's animation, and reverse it, without it starting over at the beginning. It assumes that you already know how to make an animated object.

If you link in to Gahreesen, you will remember how in the power room, we had to step on a plate to make a cylinder rise up, and if we stepped off the plate, the cylinder would begin to lower. We are going to re-create that same effect here.

A Video version of this tutorial can be watched [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6TOLvpj5Po here].

===The Objects===

If you look at the picture below, you will see that I have a blue cylinder. It's about 10 feet high, but I have it sunk into the ground to where it just peeks out. The cylinder also has a animation, in that it will raise up to almost it's full height in 10 seconds (300 frames).

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop1.jpg

The other objects that I have, is a small plane, close to the ground. It will represent the "plate" that the avatar steps on. We also have 2 sensor regions here, one right on top of the other one.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop2.jpg

Select one of the boxes that is going to be a region sensor, and apply that component on it. In the roll out for it, make sure you put a check mark under "Trigger On Exiting Volume" only. We want this region sensor to only trigger when you leave it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop3.jpg

Next, select the other box and make it a region sensor to, but make sure you put a 2nd region sensor component on it. In it's roll out, make sure you put a check mark under "Trigger On Entering Volume" only. We want this region sensor to trigger only when we enter it, but not when we leave it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop4.jpg

Now open up the Component Manager and create 3 logic responders. Name them in a way that makes sense to you. I have my labeled so that one is the "Starting" responder, one stops the animation and makes it drop, and one stops the animation and makes it rise:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop5.jpg

You can attach these responders to what ever object you like. I have mine all attached to one of my regions sensors so I can see them all.

Select the responder that is going to be your "Starter" responder. Make the detector your region sensor that triggers on "Enter" only. Give it the following commands: Set Animation Forward, Play Animation, and Enable Responder. The animation is of course our cylinder. We are going to use the "Enable Responder" command to turn of this very responder however as you can see in my picture below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop6.jpg

Why did we do that? Because we do not want this responder to be "on" anymore after it is first triggered. Instead, another responder will take over. Think of it like the starter motor on a car, once you get the engine cranked, you do not want the starter to still be running.

Now select the responder that is your Stop and Drop one. The detector for it needs to be the sensor region that triggers on Exit only. Give it 4 commands: Stop Animation, Set Animation Backwards, Play Animation, and Enable Responder.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop7.jpg

The animation commands are all for the cylinder of course. The Enable Responder needs to turn on the 3rd responder, our Stop and Raise responder as shown in my picture above.

Now select the 3rd and last responder. It's detector needs to be the region sensor that triggers on Enter only. Give it 3 commands: Stop Animation, Set Animation Forwards, Play Animation:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Stopndrop8.jpg

As you can see from my picture above, I have removed the check mark where it says "Enable". This will have the responder start off as "Off" until it is turned on by the 2nd responder.

That's all you need to do for this. Of course there is texturing and adding sounds, etc. However you can now export and give it a try. Here is a video of how it looks:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1s9DOvfcgQ Stop and Drop Video]

{{ALTutorials}}

Basic Object Animation

2011-08-07T20:44:55Z

Andylegate:

This tutorial assumes you do not know how to animate an object that you have made in Max. It will cover how to place a simple animation on that object.

I've made a blue cylinder here, and what I want it to do is rise out of the ground:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim1.jpg

Once it is made, I move it to where it is just poking out of the ground. This will be where the beginning of the animation happens:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim2.jpg

Now we need to look at our frame rate bar. This is located towards the bottom of your screen. Default in Max is 0 to 100 frames. I've made mine 0 to 300:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim3.jpg

This is important as when you go to export your Age, you MUST have this bar set to the longest animation that you have in your Age. My cylinder will use 300 frames to animate (30 frames = 1 second, so the animation is 10 seconds long). However, if I have another object who's animation is say, 1000 frames, then the frame bar MUST be set to 0 to 1000 frames.
To change this, go to the bottom right of your screen and click on the little icon that looks like a window with a clock in it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim4.jpg

This will cause a window to pop up. In this window you can set the frame length. Look at my picture below for this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim5.jpg

Now we need to set our Key Filters. The Key Filters are used to set what type of animation information we are going to use: Position, Rotation, Scale, Material, etc. If you click on this button here in my picture below, you can set your Key Filters:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim6.jpg

It will call up a little window, where you can place check marks of the animation information. I'm very lazy and just have it set to "All", but you can set it to how you like. Just remember, that if you go to animate another object, and you only had "Position" selected, and your new object will rotate, you will have to come back here to change that (hence why I just leave it set to "All" all the time, but that is how I like to do it):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim7.jpg

If you have your object placed where you need to start the animation and you have it selected, then go down and click on the button marked "Set Key":

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim8.jpg

When you do, it will turn red. So will the screen just above your Frame Bar:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim9.jpg

This is to let you know that you are in "Animation" mode.

Make sure that your frame bar is set all the way back to Frame 0. Next, go down and click on the button that looks like a Key:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim10.jpg

This will set a Key at frame 0 for you on your object:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim11.jpg

Now move your frame bar to where you need it for the end of the animation. In my case, the animation will end at frame 300, so I have moved the bar to there;

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim12.jpg

Next: Move the object to where you need it. In my case I moved the cylinder up along it's Z axis, as that is what I want it to do is rise up. You may have your object do something different, like move differently, or rotate:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim13.jpg

Now go back down and click on the button that looks like a Key again, this will put a key at the last frame:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim14.jpg

'''Note: you MUST make sure that you have already moved your object how you want it BEFORE you place this key!'''

You can now go back down and click on the Set Key button again, to turn it off:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim8.jpg

Now we need to place a Animation component on our object. Open up the Component Manager, and click on New > Misc > Animation:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim15.jpg

In the roll out for the animation component you have several options:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim16.jpg

There are 3 to pay attention to: Autostart, Loop and Animate On Global.

'''Autostart''' - Placing a check mark here will make the object animate as soon as a person links into the Age.

'''Loop''' - Placing a check mark here will make the object's animation play over and over.

'''Animate On Global''' - Placing a check mark here will have the object's animation be stretched out over the time of the Age. If you have the length of the Age's day set to 24 hours in the .age file, then your object's animation will take a full 24 hours to complete (this is mostly used for Day / Night cycles like in Eder Gira).

I want my object to not animate until the player does something, and I do not want it to loop, so basically I do not need to do anything here.

Next however, I need to set up Markers in the Dope Sheet. Go up and click on the menu where it says "Graphic Editors" and in the drop down, click on Track View - Dope Sheet:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim17.jpg

This will call up a box that looks like the picture below. Scroll down and select your object that you are animating:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim18.jpg

Now we need to add a Note Track. Go up in this box and click on Tracks > Note Tracks > Add:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim19.jpg

Now go down and select the Note track we just added to our Object:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim20.jpg

Now we need to put our Markers in. Go up and click on this button here:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim21.jpg

On your note track, place a marker at the beginning frame time and at the ending frame time:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim22.jpg

Next, right click on the first marker you placed at the beginning frame. A small box will pop up. Make sure it says Frame 0, and then in the box, you will need to type a message. You will need to make up a name then type in @start:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim23.jpg

Close the little box, and right click on the other marker at the last frame. You will see another small box pop up. This time make sure it shows Frame 300 (or what ever your last frame is) and use that name you made up again, only this time, end it with @end:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basicanim24.jpg

And that is that! You object is now animated. How you trigger the animation is completely up to you.

{{ALTutorials}}

Basic Object Animation

2011-08-07T20:38:28Z

Andylegate: Created page with "This tutorial assumes you do not know how to animate an object that you have made in Max. It will cover how to place a simple animation on that object. I've made a blue cylinder..."

This tutorial assumes you do not know how to animate an object that you have made in Max. It will cover how to place a simple animation on that object.

I've made a blue cylinder here, and what I want it to do is rise out of the ground:

[[File:Basicanim1.jpg]]

Once it is made, I move it to where it is just poking out of the ground. This will be where the beginning of the animation happens:

[[File:Basicanim2.jpg]]

Now we need to look at our frame rate bar. This is located towards the bottom of your screen. Default in Max is 0 to 100 frames. I've made mine 0 to 300:

[[File:Basicanim3.jpg]]

This is important as when you go to export your Age, you MUST have this bar set to the longest animation that you have in your Age. My cylinder will use 300 frames to animate (30 frames = 1 second, so the animation is 10 seconds long). However, if I have another object who's animation is say, 1000 frames, then the frame bar MUST be set to 0 to 1000 frames.
To change this, go to the bottom right of your screen and click on the little icon that looks like a window with a clock in it:

[[File:Basicanim4.jpg]]

This will cause a window to pop up. In this window you can set the frame length. Look at my picture below for this:

[[File:Basicanim5.jpg]]

Now we need to set our Key Filters. The Key Filters are used to set what type of animation information we are going to use: Position, Rotation, Scale, Material, etc. If you click on this button here in my picture below, you can set your Key Filters:

[[File:Basicanim6.jpg]]

It will call up a little window, where you can place check marks of the animation information. I'm very lazy and just have it set to "All", but you can set it to how you like. Just remember, that if you go to animate another object, and you only had "Position" selected, and your new object will rotate, you will have to come back here to change that (hence why I just leave it set to "All" all the time, but that is how I like to do it):

[[File:Basicanim7.jpg]]

If you have your object placed where you need to start the animation and you have it selected, then go down and click on the button marked "Set Key":

[[File:Basicanim8.jpg]]

When you do, it will turn red. So will the screen just above your Frame Bar:

[[File:Basicanim9.jpg]]

This is to let you know that you are in "Animation" mode.

Make sure that your frame bar is set all the way back to Frame 0. Next, go down and click on the button that looks like a Key:

[[File:Basicanim10.jpg]]

This will set a Key at frame 0 for you on your object:

[[File:Basicanim11.jpg]]

Now move your frame bar to where you need it for the end of the animation. In my case, the animation will end at frame 300, so I have moved the bar to there;

[[File:Basicanim12.jpg]]

Next: Move the object to where you need it. In my case I moved the cylinder up along it's Z axis, as that is what I want it to do is rise up. You may have your object do something different, like move differently, or rotate:

[[File:Basicanim13.jpg]]

Now go back down and click on the button that looks like a Key again, this will put a key at the last frame:

[[File:Basicanim14.jpg]]

'''Note: you MUST make sure that you have already moved your object how you want it BEFORE you place this key!'''

You can now go back down and click on the Set Key button again, to turn it off:

[[File:Basicanim8.jpg]]

Now we need to place a Animation component on our object. Open up the Component Manager, and click on New > Misc > Animation:

[[File:Basicanim15.jpg]]

In the roll out for the animation component you have several options:

[[File:Basicanim16.jpg]]

There are 3 to pay attention to: Autostart, Loop and Animate On Global.

'''Autostart''' - Placing a check mark here will make the object animate as soon as a person links into the Age.

'''Loop''' - Placing a check mark here will make the object's animation play over and over.

'''Animate On Global''' - Placing a check mark here will have the object's animation be stretched out over the time of the Age. If you have the length of the Age's day set to 24 hours in the .age file, then your object's animation will take a full 24 hours to complete (this is mostly used for Day / Night cycles like in Eder Gira).

I want my object to not animate until the player does something, and I do not want it to loop, so basically I do not need to do anything here.

Next however, I need to set up Markers in the Dope Sheet. Go up and click on the menu where it says "Graphic Editors" and in the drop down, click on Track View - Dope Sheet:

[[File:Basicanim17.jpg]]

This will call up a box that looks like the picture below. Scroll down and select your object that you are animating:

[[File:Basicanim18.jpg]]

Now we need to add a Note Track. Go up in this box and click on Tracks > Note Tracks > Add:

[[File:Basicanim19.jpg]]

Now go down and select the Note track we just added to our Object:

[[File:Basicanim20.jpg]]

Now we need to put our Markers in. Go up and click on this button here:

[[File:Basicanim21.jpg]]

On your note track, place a marker at the beginning frame time and at the ending frame time:

[[File:Basicanim22.jpg]]

Next, right click on the first marker you placed at the beginning frame. A small box will pop up. Make sure it says Frame 0, and then in the box, you will need to type a message. You will need to make up a name then type in @start:

[[File:Basicanim23.jpg]]

Close the little box, and right click on the other marker at the last frame. You will see another small box pop up. This time make sure it shows Frame 300 (or what ever your last frame is) and use that name you made up again, only this time, end it with @end:

[[File:Basicanim24.jpg]]

And that is that! You object is now animated. How you trigger the animation is completely up to you.

{{ALTutorials}}

3DS Max Plugin Tutorials

2011-08-07T20:35:05Z

Andylegate:

==Andy's 3DS Max and Cyan Plugin Tutorials==

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/icons/wip_30x30.PNG '''Please Note: This area is under construction.'''

----

===Setting Up===

*'''[[What You Will See In Max]]'''

*'''[[How To Use Max]]'''

*'''[[How To Start An Age]]'''

*'''[[After You Have Exported From Max]]'''

*'''[[Linking Rules]]'''

*'''[[Common Export Errors]]'''

----
===Blender To Max===

*'''[[Importing Blender Objects To Max]]'''

----
===Your Age and Python===

*'''[[Python Files And Your Age: Please Read!]]'''

----
===Materials and Texture Tutorials===

*'''[[Materials and UV Editing in Max]]'''

*'''[[Using Multi / Sub Materials]]'''

*'''[[Making Stencils]]'''

*'''[[Basic Material Animation]]'''

*'''[[Using The Details Feature]]'''

*'''[[Vertex Painting]]'''

*'''[[Environmental Maps aka Reflections]]'''

*'''[[Light Maps in Max]]'''

----
===Modeling Help===

*'''[[Using Boolean Function]]'''

*'''[[Plant Help]]'''

----
===Animating Objects===

*'''[[Basic Object Animation]]'''

*'''[[Interrupting An Animation]]'''

*'''[[Animation Events]]'''

----
===Sprites and Billboards===

*'''[[Sprites and Billboards in Max]]'''

----
===Distributor Tool Function===

*'''[[Distributor Tool]]'''

----
===Wind===

*'''[[Vertex / Pixel Shaders (aka Wavy Grass)]]'''

----
===Exclusion Regions===

*'''[[What Exclusion Regions Are And What They Do]]'''

*'''[[How To Set Up And Use Exclusion Regions]]'''

----
===Fog Settings===

*'''[[How To Set Fog In Your Age]]'''

----
===Wavesets===

*'''[[Wavesets: Reflective, Ripply Water]]'''

*'''[[Wavesets: Tips and Help]]'''

----

===Avatar Actions===

*'''[[Avatar Oneshot Animations]]'''

*'''[[Foot Prints and Ripples]]'''

*'''[[Avatar Sitting]]'''

*'''[[Avatar Swimming]]'''

*'''[[Ladders In Max]]'''

----
===Avatar Clothing===

*'''[[Reward or Takeable Clothing]]'''

----

===Game Logic===

*'''[[Using Sensor Regions]]'''

*'''[[Making Clickables]]

----
===Special Python Files===

*'''[[Python and Responders: Please Read!]]'''

*'''[[xSimplePanel for Max]]'''

*'''[[xDynamicPanel for Max]]'''

----
===Sounds===

*'''[[Avatar Footstep Sounds]]'''

*'''[[3D Sounds]]'''

*'''[[Non-Spatial Sounds (Music, Ambient)]]'''

----
===Lights===

*'''[[Basic Light and Avatar Shadows]]

*'''[[General Tips and Help]]

----
===Soft Volumes: Vis Regions, Light Regions and Sound Regions===

*'''[[About Soft Volumes]]'''

*'''[[Vis Regions: Controlling When Something Is Rendered]]'''

*'''[[Light Regions: Controlling The Light On The Avatar]]'''

*'''[[Sound Regions: Controlling What The Player Hears]]'''

----
===Particles===

*'''[[Snow Fall]]'''

*'''[[Rain Fall]]'''

*'''[[Steam and Smoke]]'''

*'''[[Particle Flocks (Eder Kemo Bugs)]]'''

*'''[[Particle Blockers: Keep It From Raining Inside]]'''

----
===Animations Using Bone Systems===

*'''[[How To Use Wind and Cloth Reactors]]

----
===GUIs===

*'''[[GUI Popups]]'''

*'''[[Multiple GUI Popups]]'''

----
===Subworlds===

*'''[[Making Subworlds (Elevators and Rides)]]'''

----
===Journals and Linking Books===

*'''[[Making Linking Books and Journals In Max]]'''

----
===Global Animations===

*'''[[Global Animations: Day / Night Cycle]]

----
===Multiplayer Environment===

*'''[[Multiplayer Tips and Considerations]]'''

*'''[[Toggling A State]]'''

----

Return To: [[Worlds]]

Plant Help

2011-08-06T20:09:04Z

Andylegate: Created page with "One of the things you may have run into while making your Age, is problems with Plants like trees, especially if you have tried to use 3DS Max's Plant Library, or other free mode..."

One of the things you may have run into while making your Age, is problems with Plants like trees, especially if you have tried to use 3DS Max's Plant Library, or other free models that you can download that people have made in Max. Part of the problem is that the plant will be treated as one mesh, with X amount of faces. Cyan's plugin will not export anything over 20,000 faces. Some models with their leaves for say a tree can easily exceed that ammount.

The thing to do would be to isolate certain faces of the model and detach them to their own mesh, say the trunk first, then the branches, etc, etc. So instead of one large mesh with too many faces, you will have separate meshes with lower face counts.

If you have tried to do this with the plants located in Max's Plant Library, you may have noticed how tedious this can be. I'm going to show you a much quicker way to separate the meshes.

----
==Create A Tree==

Find a place that we want to place our tree. Select AEC Extended for the object type:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants1.jpg

Then click on the "Foliage" button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants2.jpg

I've decided to do a Elm tree, so I click on it to highlight it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants3.jpg

I then go down in my 3D Scene window and click where I would like the tree to me. As you can see, my screen suddenly fills up like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants4.jpg

This is because Max makes the plant unreasonably HUGE. The tree is over 360 feet tall!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants5.jpg

If I click on the modifier tab, I can call up the tree's attributes and adjust the height to something a bit more resonable, say like 25 feet:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants6.jpg

Now the tree looks a lot better as far as it's size is concerned:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants8.jpg

Now I will rename the tree to "Elm1":

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants9.jpg

We are going to make 2 copies of this tree. With the tree, right click in the 3D Scene window and select "Clone":

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants10.jpg

In the box that pops up, you can see the name has already been appended to Elm02. Make sure you click on "Copy" instead of "Instance" (this is because if you pick Instance, any changes made to one copy will be reflected on to the mesh you cloned from. We do not want that, so make sure you use Copy):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants11.jpg

Once you have made this copy, go ahead and make another copy, Elm03, so that we have 3 trees now.

You may have noticed that when you did this, the leaves changed to look like a blob, like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants12.jpg

Do not worry, as the reason for this is due to the settings in the modification tab. If you take a look in the "View Canopy Mode" box, we have "When Not Selected" marked:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants13.jpg

Change the mark to "Never" for all 3 trees.

Now, starting with "Elm1" selected, in the modification roll out where it says "View", remove the check marks from Leaves and Branches:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants14.jpg

This will make only the trunk visible for that model. Now right click in the 3D window and select Convert and then Editable Mesh:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants15.jpg

In the Modifications Tab, you can select Faces or Polys, and then select all the faces of the trunk. Once you have, click on the Detach button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants16.jpg

A box will then pop up, asking want to call the trunk (default is Object01). I've changed to to ElmTrunk and then clicked on okay:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants17.jpg

We just make a Trunk Mesh for our Elm tree!
We still have the original Elm1 selected, but we do not need it anymore, so hit your Delete key and get rid of it (yes, do it).

Now select the 2nd Elm tree we made, Elm02, and in the Modification Tab, under View, remove all the check marks except for Branches:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants18.jpg

Now repeat the above steps: Right click in the 3D window, convert to a Editable Mesh, Select all the faces of the branches, then Detach, and call them ElmBranches.

Then delete Elm02 mesh. We do not need it anymore.

Can you see the next part coming? That is right, select the Elm03 mesh, in the Modification Tab, remove all check marks in the View box except for Leaves. Convert it to a Editable Mesh, select all the faces, and then Detach them, calling it ElmLeaves. Then delete the last Elm03 mesh.

As you can see, we now have a Elm tree, that has 3 separate meshes, Trunk, Branches, and Leaves, each one under 20,000 Faces. Now all you need to do is apply materials and textures to them!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Plants19.jpg

----
'''I did all this, but the Branches or Leaves mesh still has way too many faces!'''

You will then need to edit the mesh again, select like half the faces and detach it again, so you end up with more than one set of leaves or branches. I have had to do this with some plants too.

{{ALTutorials}}

Using Boolean Function

2011-08-06T20:01:58Z

Andylegate: Created page with "===Using Boolean Operations=== If you want to "cut" a mesh of one object with the mesh of another, you can use the Boolean Operand to do this with. A good example of using this,..."

===Using Boolean Operations===

If you want to "cut" a mesh of one object with the mesh of another, you can use the Boolean Operand to do this with. A good example of using this, would be cutting open a door or window in a wall. A much larger example would be to cut a large ocean mesh so that your island will fit it.

In my simple example here, I have a plane that is my wall and I want to cut a circle out of it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut1.jpg

I create the mesh I am going to use to cut with, a cylinder:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut2.jpg

I then move the cylinder so that it completely intersects the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut3.jpg

I then go to the Create tab, and select Compound Objects from the drop down menu:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut4.jpg

Then I click on the Boolean button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut5.jpg

Since I have the cylinder selected, it is already Operand A. We want to make the Operand "B - A", which means "Subtract Mesh A, from Mesh B"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut6.jpg

We now need to pick what object is going to be Operand B, which is the plane. We click on the Pick Operand B button, and in the 3D window, click on the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut7.jpg

As you can now see, we have a nice round hole cut out of our plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Boltut8.jpg

{{ALTutorials}}

3DS Max Plugin Tutorials

2011-08-06T19:59:16Z

Andylegate:

==Andy's 3DS Max and Cyan Plugin Tutorials==

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/icons/wip_30x30.PNG '''Please Note: This area is under construction.'''

----

===Setting Up===

*'''[[What You Will See In Max]]'''

*'''[[How To Use Max]]'''

*'''[[How To Start An Age]]'''

*'''[[After You Have Exported From Max]]'''

*'''[[Linking Rules]]'''

*'''[[Common Export Errors]]'''

----
===Blender To Max===

*'''[[Importing Blender Objects To Max]]'''

----
===Your Age and Python===

*'''[[Python Files And Your Age: Please Read!]]'''

----
===Materials and Texture Tutorials===

*'''[[Materials and UV Editing in Max]]'''

*'''[[Using Multi / Sub Materials]]'''

*'''[[Making Stencils]]'''

*'''[[Basic Material Animation]]'''

*'''[[Using The Details Feature]]'''

*'''[[Vertex Painting]]'''

*'''[[Environmental Maps aka Reflections]]'''

*'''[[Light Maps in Max]]'''

----
===Modeling Help===

*'''[[Using Boolean Function]]'''

*'''[[Plant Help]]'''

----
===Sprites and Billboards===

*'''[[Sprites and Billboards in Max]]'''

----
===Distributor Tool Function===

*'''[[Distributor Tool]]'''

----
===Wind===

*'''[[Vertex / Pixel Shaders (aka Wavy Grass)]]'''

----
===Exclusion Regions===

*'''[[What Exclusion Regions Are And What They Do]]'''

*'''[[How To Set Up And Use Exclusion Regions]]'''

----
===Fog Settings===

*'''[[How To Set Fog In Your Age]]'''

----
===Wavesets===

*'''[[Wavesets: Reflective, Ripply Water]]'''

*'''[[Wavesets: Tips and Help]]'''

----

===Avatar Actions===

*'''[[Avatar Oneshot Animations]]'''

*'''[[Foot Prints and Ripples]]'''

*'''[[Avatar Sitting]]'''

*'''[[Avatar Swimming]]'''

*'''[[Ladders In Max]]'''

----
===Avatar Clothing===

*'''[[Reward or Takeable Clothing]]'''

----

===Game Logic===

*'''[[Using Sensor Regions]]'''

*'''[[Making Clickables]]

----
===Special Python Files===

*'''[[Python and Responders: Please Read!]]'''

*'''[[xSimplePanel for Max]]'''

*'''[[xDynamicPanel for Max]]'''

----
===Sounds===

*'''[[Avatar Footstep Sounds]]'''

*'''[[3D Sounds]]'''

*'''[[Non-Spatial Sounds (Music, Ambient)]]'''

----
===Lights===

*'''[[Basic Light and Avatar Shadows]]

*'''[[General Tips and Help]]

----
===Soft Volumes: Vis Regions, Light Regions and Sound Regions===

*'''[[About Soft Volumes]]'''

*'''[[Vis Regions: Controlling When Something Is Rendered]]'''

*'''[[Light Regions: Controlling The Light On The Avatar]]'''

*'''[[Sound Regions: Controlling What The Player Hears]]'''

----
===Particles===

*'''[[Snow Fall]]'''

*'''[[Rain Fall]]'''

*'''[[Steam and Smoke]]'''

*'''[[Particle Flocks (Eder Kemo Bugs)]]'''

*'''[[Particle Blockers: Keep It From Raining Inside]]'''

----
===Animations Using Bone Systems===

*'''[[How To Use Wind and Cloth Reactors]]

----
===GUIs===

*'''[[GUI Popups]]'''

*'''[[Multiple GUI Popups]]'''

----
===Subworlds===

*'''[[Making Subworlds (Elevators and Rides)]]'''

----
===Journals and Linking Books===

*'''[[Making Linking Books and Journals In Max]]'''

----
===Global Animations===

*'''[[Global Animations: Day / Night Cycle]]

----
===Multiplayer Environment===

*'''[[Multiplayer Tips and Considerations]]'''

*'''[[Toggling A State]]'''

----

Return To: [[Worlds]]

XSimplePanel for Max

2011-07-30T13:32:48Z

Andylegate: Created page with "If you've explored my Age Neolbah, you've most likely come across my keypad that opens up the door leading to the elevator. If not, then you should have come across something lik..."

If you've explored my Age Neolbah, you've most likely come across my keypad that opens up the door leading to the elevator. If not, then you should have come across something like it called the Kadish Vault Control Panel, where you punch in the correct "code" to have the vault doors open.

Both are controlled with Python files. The button animations, glowing symbols, sound effects, yes, that is all done with Plasma components you put in Max. However, knowing what buttons the player has pushed, and if they are in the correct order, what to do if they are, and what to do if they are not, is all controlled by Python.
The python files used in Neolbah and Kadish are custom made. Cyan made the one for Kadish of course, and Neolbah's was made for me by D'Lanor. You could technically pull either python file and use it, but you would have to edit it so that it would work with your Age and your puzzle.

But there is no need to go through all that as D'Lanor has made a special "Global" python file that you can use instead. It will not require you to edit it at all.

You can use it however, doing so there are some "rules" to observer:

*Your puzzle can have up to nine "buttons" (or whatever you are using) or less. But it can NOT handle more than nine.
*Players must click on the "buttons" in the correct order (so if the solution is 13579, they must enter that, not 39175 or anything else).
*All the "buttons" must be pressed before the solution is checked. You ''could'' throw in some "fake" "buttons", but all "buttons" involved with this python file must be pressed by the player.

----
===What You'll Need===

What you are going to need is, the xSimplePanel python file. You can get it from the latest version of the OfflineKI downloaded from Drizzle. It will be in the GlobalAddon.pak file.
Or if for some reason you are not using the OfflineKI, you can download it from [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8951343/GlobalAddon/GlobalAddon.zip Here].

Please note: D'Lanor has asked that you do not include these files with your Age's python .pak file, nor distribute these files, as any updates he makes to them could cause a conflict.

Once you have the files, you will need to place a compiled and uncompiled ( .py and .pyc) copies of it in your export folder that has all the python files you use for Max.

Once that is done, you can start Max and use it.

----
===Using xSimplePanel===

You will of course need to set up your puzzle involving your "Buttons", get it all textured and animated, and set up the responders for each button, a responder for a correct answer and of course a responder for the wrong answer.

Setting that all up is beyond the scope of this tutorial (and would keep me from my dinner!).

However, I DO need to show you that, all the responders that you set up for your "Buttons", you need to look at this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/XSimple1.jpg

That's right! There is NO activator in the detector box. Do NOT put one there! The python file will be controlling those responders.

Now you need to select an object (I think I used my keypad's frame), and open up your Component Manager. Click on New > Logic > Python File and assign it.

Then in the roll out for it, click on the dropdown box and find and select xSimplePanel:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/XSimple2.jpg

(Please IGNORE the fact that in the picture above you see a different python name!)

If you look at the picture above, you will see a bunch of buttons. All the ones that are labeled "Act: Button 1, Act: Button 2, etc" click and pick the clickable for your button (if you don't have 9 of them, just leave the ones you don't have alone).

On the buttons that says "Resp Button 1 Down, Resp Button 2 Down, etc" click on each of them and pick the responder you made for that button (again, if you have less than 9 buttons, just leave the ones you don't have alone).

Now look at this picture:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/XSimple3.jpg

You'll see a button for: "Resp All Buttons Up", this is where you put your responder that basically "resets" all your buttons.

Then, in the text box that says "Solution Sequence", you need to put in what your solution is, based upon the order of your Buttons.
I don't CARE if your "buttons" are actually frogs that say "Croak!" when you click on them. I don't CARE if they are actually simply different colored thingys!
The "Solution Sequence" is the order of what was pushed first, then 2nd, then 3rd, etc. So if you have 5 "buttons" and they are: Green, Red, Blue, Yellow, Cyan, the solution will depend on how you listed them in the Act: Button 1, Act: Button 2, etc above!

So if the color sequence I just listed is the order you used to pick Act: Button 1, etc, then you would have:

Green = 1
Red = 2
Blue = 3
Yellow = 4
Cyan = 5

And if your solution sequence is: Blue, Green, Cyan, Red, Yellow, then you need to put THIS in the "Solution Sequence" text box:

31524

Understand? If not, get a hold of me over at the GoMa forum and I'll try to help explain it better (but don't get me started on Frogs......Big Frog, Little Frog, Fat Frog.....).

The next 2 text boxes are used for what ever SDL states you've set up in your SDL file. Here is how mine are set up:

<source lang="python">
STATEDESC Neolbah

{
VERSION 5 # New Elevator Mechanics

# Elevator Door Puzzle

VAR INT neolButtonsPushed[1] DEFAULT=0
VAR BOOL neolDoorUnlocked[1] DEFAULT=0
</source>

As you can see, the SDL varible for "neolButtonsPushed" is a INT, and this is what keeps track of what button the player has pushed.

The 2nd SDL varible, "neolDoorUnlocked" will set if the player has solved the puzzle.

If you want the player to have to do the puzzle over again, even if they solved it (like Neolbah, the keypad is to open the door, so you have to enter the code in every time you want to use the door), then put a check mark where it says "Replay if solved?"

Where you see "Click time-out" will be defaulted to 1 second. This is if you have more than one sound emitter that plays for you Buttons, to make sure they get done playing their sound before the player can click on another button. You can play with this if you need to.

You can leave the check mark off of "Init SDL on first update" alone, unless your puzzle is "paged" in later (like this is not a full Age, but you are using this in Pahts with a Shell).

Now, last thing. You will need to add another Python File component to an object, and select Cyan's Global python called "xAgeSDLBoolResp":

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/XSimple4.jpg

That's pretty much it!

{{ALTutorials}}

Multiple GUI Popups

2011-07-30T13:23:03Z

Andylegate: Created page with "This tutorial will show you how to have more than one GUI pop up at a time. Examples of this would be like a stack of notes on a desk. Realistically, you'd pick up the stack and..."

This tutorial will show you how to have more than one GUI pop up at a time.

Examples of this would be like a stack of notes on a desk. Realistically, you'd pick up the stack and go through them.

That is what this will do. When the note pops up, you can click on it, and you'll see the next one, and the next one.

Before you try this however, make sure you have followed my tutorial on [[GUI Popups]] first.

----
===What You'll Need===

You will need a new "Global" python file that does not come with Uru, but can be found in the latest version of the OfflineKI that you can download from Drizzle, in a file known as "GlobalAddon.pak". If you are not using the OfflineKI, you can also download the file from this link [http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8951343/GlobalAddon/GlobalAddon.zip Here].

Please note that this file was created by D'Lanor, and he asks that you do not include it in your Age's python .pak file, nor distribute it in anyway as it could conflict with later versions of it.

The name of the file that you are going to need is "xMultiDialogToggle.py". You will need to extract it, and have both a compiled and uncompiled version of it in your export folder where your other python files are for Max.

----
===Using xMultiDialogToggle.py===

Once you have your GUI's set up, as I show you in [[GUI Popups]], you'll be doing something slightly different.

On your clickable object for you pop up, you'll need to add a python file by opening up your Component Manager and clicking on New > Logic > Python File.
Then in the Utils Tab, select the python component and look at the roll out. Click on the drop down box and select the "xMultiDialogToggle" file:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Xmultidialog1.jpg

click on the button that says "(none)" and select your clickable for your GUI pop up. Then in the text box below that, you will need to type in the name of each of your GUI's, separating each one by a comma:

AndyNote1,AndyNote2,IslandPic

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Xmultidialog2.jpg

Leave the check mark where it says "Only one user?" out, unless you only want one person at a time to use the GUI popup.

That is all you need to do!

{{ALTutorials}}

How To Use Wind and Cloth Reactors

2011-07-30T13:13:20Z

Andylegate: Created page with "This tutorial was created by Embreon from the GoW. You can see his original tutorial [http://forum.guildofwriters.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4961 Here]. This tutorial does not cove..."

This tutorial was created by Embreon from the GoW. You can see his original tutorial [http://forum.guildofwriters.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=4961 Here].
This tutorial does not cover how to create Bones, but how to use them with reactors to create realistic wind moving cloth.

----
===How to create a cloth that moves realistic on wind.===

For this tutorial we are going to use certain aspects from 3Dsmax , such as Reactor, the cloth modifier, bones and skinning
methods. It’s best to practice with an easy cloth fist before you start working on complex models.
Starts by making a box at the size you want your object to be, and increase the amount of segments. The more segments you
will give your object the more detailed it will be, but keep in mind that it’s going to be a lot more work ! For this tutorial I made
min 5 high.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/1_2.jpg

When your box is the way you want it to be apply a cloth modifier to it, which can be found in the modify tab as “ reactor cloth “ .
Hit the + next to the cloth modifier and it will open up its tree, and display vertex. Click on vertex and select the two top vertices (
this is where the cloth is going to stay fixed to the scene) and hit Fix Vertices.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/2_7.jpg

To be able to let Havok ( the physics engine of 3dsmax ) calculate how the cloth is going to react to gravity we need to apply a
“cloth collection” and that is found on the reactor toolbar

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/3_26.jpg

If you don’t have this toolbar go to: Customize -> Customize User Interface and unhide the reactor toolbar

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/4_4.jpg

Hit the gear icon on the Reactor toolbar that say’s “ create animation” Havok will then calculate how the cloth is going to move.
When it’s done you can see the result when you move the time slider on the bottom. The animation time is set standard to 100
frames, if you want to increase this time, go to the Utility tab and then to Reactor to increase this time.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/5_14.jpg

For the wind effect you need to add a Reactor Wind that can also be found on the Reactor toolbar

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/6.jpg

Put is in your scene with the arrow pointing towards your object.
The speed setting of the wind in the modifier tab depends on the size of your cloth so I can’t really tell you how strong you will
have to set this value. Just play around with them until you have what you want!
Now that your cloth is moving as you want it to be it’s time to add some bones. You can find then under the system create tab ->
normal -> bones. And add the bones on the vertical lines off your object !

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/7.jpg

The first bone you create is the parent, all the other will follow the bone above itself. When the bones are in place it’s time to
animate the bones according to the moving cloth. Since Plasma does not know what to do with animated vertices we need to
skin the object. Animating the bones works the same way as animating any other object. Just hit the auto key on the timeline
and animate every bone to match the cloth. You can do this on ( for example ) every 5 or 10 frames.
When all your bones are animated, delete the cloth because skinning does not seem to work with Editable poly( In the picture I
am, but that just to show you about the skin modifier ) objects. So create a new box at the same size as you cloth used to be !

Now its time to add the Skin modifier, that can be found on the modify tab under “skin”

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/8.jpg

Add all the bones to your object, to let the object know which bones to follow and not. For each bone you need to set its
envelope. This is the region the bone will affect the object. The regions will overlay each other, that is normal. Set all the bones
to have a certain amount of effect on the box.
When this is done, apply an “Animation” component to all the bones and set it to play the entire animation and to loop it. Also
add a “No show” component. Export your age and look at what you made ;)

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Gordijnen.png

That’s about it..
The trick is of course to make your cloth move in such a way that It’s loop-able and detailed enough.

Good luck

{{ALTutorials}}

Reward or Takeable Clothing

2011-07-29T23:07:06Z

Andylegate:

'''Credit where credit is due! This tutorial would not have been possible without the help of GPNMilano, who did a LOT of indepth work on this and provided me with much information when I started learning how to do this. Credit also goes to Austin and Mark DeForest (aka Chogon) from Cyan for the information and help given by them.'''

Before you get started with this tutorial, '''PLEASE''' read the following!

This tutorial is not for a beginner in Age creation. If you have just started and are still learning how to even just model and texture your Age, you may want to get more practice in before you attempt this. The process is complex.
You will not be able to use this with any of the stand alone Uru games (POTS, Uru:CC), nor will this work correctly with ALCUGS or UU type servers. You must have access to a MOUL based server in order to test what you are making due to changes in the Avatar's bone structure that were made. This is mostly due to the files I'm providing as the Avatar bone structure is based upon the MOUL avatar. If someone were to change the structure to what is used in the stand alone and ALCUGS, then you would be able to use the information here. But if you try to use it, you will find that the avatar will not look right when you put the clothing on. Instead you'll look like some deformed, mutant Bahro!

This tutorial is not meant to show you how to make clothing meshes that will fit the avatar, but instead assumes that you already have those. In the files I provide, will be a set of meshes for some pants so that you can follow along and give it a try. The documentation provided comes from Cyan, and has a wealth of information in it, including how to make the clothing meshes. Textures for clothing are special too, and must be a certain size and layout depending on what type of clothing / accessory you are making.

There are a couple of things that I have discovered while doing this: I have not been successful in making certain types of clothing, such as Jump Suits. The way the bone structure is made, it does not like once piece clothing. Combining the legs with the torso or the torso with the head (like a diving bell suit) causes problems with the avatar when it animates in game. This does not mean that it is impossible (I have learned not to use that word when it comes to Plasma and the Uru Community), however someone will have to figure out a way to makes those.

Finally, this method that I am going to show you involves adding prp files to the GlobalClothing Age. Trying to place the clothing in your Age will not work, as the Plasma Clothing material type will not export into the Age. I realize that this could cause problems, especially on a server where more than one Fan Age will have clothing. However, until someone figures out a way to work around this, it is the only way I know for it to work.

Enough talking from me. Let's get to work. There is a LOT of information to get through.

----
==Files You Will Need==

You will need to download at least the next 2 files:

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max]

This is the animated bone structure of the Male Avatar for MOUL.
http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth1.jpg

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/basic_avatar_female.max basic_avatar_female.max]

This is the animated bone structure of the Female Avatar for MOUL.
http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/avieCloth2.jpg

If you already have clothing mesh you have made and want to use, that is great! If you do not have any, then you can use this file here, which is just some basic pants:
[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/pants.max pants.max]

You do not need this file, however this is what you should end up with at the end of the tutorial:
[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/PantsNeolbah.max PantsNeolbah.max]

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/avatar-documentation.pdf avatar-documentation.pdf]
This is Cyan's documentation on the Avatar for making clothing.

The following are python files made by Mark DeForest (aka Chogon) and can be extremely useful:

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xOpenCloset.py xOpenCloset.py]

This file will allow you to let the avatar link to the Relto closet without having to go to Relto, and when they are done, will link back into your Age.

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xSaveClothing.py xSaveClothing.py]

This file will save what the player is wearing to the client's hard drive before they put on whatever reward clothing your Age offeres.

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xReturnOldClothing.py xReturnOldClothing.py]

This file will return the clothing that was saved to the client's computer in case they want to change back to the clothes they were wearing just before they put on the Reward clothing your Age offered.

----
==Getting Started==

Okay, before we dive right in, I want you to take a look at the pants mesh that is in the file I provided in the above link, even if you are going to try and use your own clothing mesh, there is something important that you will need to understand. When you open up the pants.max file, you will see this in the 3D Scene:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth3.jpg

As you can see there are what looks like 3 sets of pants. In reality there are 5, as 3 of them are all sitting in the same place.
The coloring of the meshes is very important, as it helps you keep track of what mesh is what:

The Red mesh, is considered High Ploy or High Faces. This will be your highest resolution of your clothing Mesh.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth4.jpg

The Green Mesh is considered the Medium Poly or Medium Faces mesh.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth5.jpg

The Dark Blue Mesh is considered the Low Poly or Low Faces mesh, and will the the lowest resolution of your clothing Mesh.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth6.jpg

These 3 meshes will sit on top of one another, and must fit over top the Avatar Bone system. The remaining two meshes that are light blue and what I call Tan are Morphing Meshes. The sit just off to the side. Light Blue is the skiniest avatar, and the Tan is the fattest avatar (don't get offended.....Tan would be MY clothing color!!! heheheh).

We also need to do something before we get started. We need to make a GlobalClothing.age file and put it in our PlasmaTest export dat folder.

Open up Notepad and use this:

<source lang="Python">
StartDateTime=0000000000
DayLength=24.000000
MaxCapacity=10
LingerTime=180
SequencePrefix=-5
ReleaseVersion=0
Page=Female,2
Page=Female01,4
Page=Female02,5
Page=FemaleXP2,8
Page=Male,1
Page=Male01,3
Page=Male02,6
Page=MaleXP2,7
Page=MaleNeol,11
</source>

As you can see, I have added a Page to the GlobalClothing Age, and it is called MaleNeol, you can change this to fit whatever your Age is called. Make sure you save it and put it in your dat folder of your PlasmaTest.

----
==Merging The Files==

I need you to keep this in mind: We will be using the Male avatar for this tutorial. '''BUT!''' You '''MUST''' do what you are about to do all over again for the Female avatar! You MUST have 2 versions of your clothing for the players. If you do not, and only make it say for Male, any Female Avatars will not be able to put on the clothing and vice-versa.

Open up the BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max file in 3DS Max:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth1.jpg

In this file, I have done many things for you already and you will not have to do them. The bone structure system is animated, and the Parent to Child hiarchy is already in place (except for your clothing Meshes, more on that later). The 5 nice looking avatars you see below the bone structure are what is called the Smoothing Bases, and used to be in a separate file. Cyan used XRef to reference them. However, for our purposes, it was easier to just merge them with this file so they are always there.

The bone structure of the Avatar is not just for their body, but both this file and the female file have the bone structure for the Relto Book in place.
'''DO NOT REMOVE THE RELTO BOOK BONE STRUCTURE!!!''' This can cause problems with the appearance of the player if you do!

There are 4 Dummy Boxes: one between the bone structure's feet, called "Male" (the one in the Female file is called "Female"). The 3 boxes to the left are called "High", "Med", and "Low"

Okay, let us get the clothing mesh into this scene. Go up to your menu bar and click on Plasma, and then click on Merge. Find and select the Pants.max file you downloaded. Now your scene should look like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth7.jpg

As you can see, the Red, Green and Dark Blue pants are all right on the Bone system. If you used your own clothing mesh and they are not, you will need to move them so that they are! This is for later when we "Skin" the meshes to the Bone structure.

Once you get the files merged, you need to select everything in the scene and attach a PageInfo component on everything that does not have it. Change the Age name to GlobalClothing, and the Page that you made.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth8.jpg

----
==The Smooth Bases==

Okay, we are going to do some work with the Smoothing Bases here. I could have done it all for you, but then where is the fun in that? Go down and select all the meshes for the Red (High) Smoothing Avatar:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth9.jpg

Now open up the Component Manager and click on New > Render > Smoothing Base and attach it to these meshes.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth10.jpg

Rename the component to what you see in my picture below. Renaming the components is also a MUST to help keep track of things!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth11.jpg

You can leave the Roll Out for it alone as the default settings are fine.

Now go and select all the meshes of the Green Smooth Avatar (Med), and attach a NEW Smoothing Base component to it too (DO NOT use the same one you just attached to the High mesh!). Rename it also so that you know it is for the Medium Smoothing Mesh:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth12.jpg

Repeat these same steps for the Dark Blue Smooth Avatar (Low), and again, rename the component.

Now go down and select all the meshes for the Light Blue (Cyan? heheheh) Smooth looking Avatar. This is the Morphing Mesh Smooth Base for our High Mesh. Repeat the steps above and attach the Smoothing Base component to it too, and rename it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth13.jpg

Then go over and select all the Tan Smooth Avatar, and again, repeat assigning the Smoothing Base component to it too, also renaming it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth14.jpg

This means you should have FIVE Smoothing Base components in the Component Manager now!

----
==The Parent==

Go to between the Avatar's feet and select the Male Dummy box that is there.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth15.jpg

If you then hit the "H" Key, you will see the selection box, and can see that just about everything is parented to the Male dummy box. The exceptions to this are the Smoothing Base Avatars.

You may notice that our Pants meshes are not either (or whatever Mesh you used). You need to select each one at a time, and parent it to the High, Med, and Low Dummy boxes:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth16.jpg

So select the Red Pants, and parent it to the High dummy box. Select your Green pants and parent it to the Med dummy box, and then select the Dark Blue pants and parent them to the Low Dummy box
The remaining 2 meshes (the light blue and Tan color pants) do NOT get parented to anything.

However, now it is time to work with them. Select the Light Blue pants. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Render > Snap To Base and assign it to them.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth17.jpg

Rename the component, and then in the roll out for it, click on the button below "Smoothing Comp Of Base Set" and then click on the Light Blue Smooth Avatar:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth18.jpg

Now click on the Tan pants and do the exact thing for them too (only make sure it's a NEW Snap To Base component, and this time click on the Tan Smooth Avatar):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth19.jpg

----
==High, Med, and Low Dummy Boxes==

Okay, time to mess with our High, Med, and Low Dummy boxes. Select the High one:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth20.jpg

Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Morph Layer and assign it as a component to the High Dummy box:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth21.jpg

In the Roll Out for it, you'll see a box called "Delta Meshes" and an Add Button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth22.jpg

Click on the Add button and then click on the Light Blue pants

''Wait. What the heck is "Delta Meshes"????'' "Delta Meshes are the meshes that we can morph or change to. "Delta" is the symbol used for "Change", and is used in math, physics and many other things.

Now assign a 2nd Morph Layer to the High Dummy, changing it's name, and in it's roll out, click on the Add button, only this time click on the Tan pants

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth23.jpg

What we just did is told the game that your pants can Morph down to as small as the Light Blue mesh, but get no smaller, and it can also get as big as the Tan mesh, but no bigger.

Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Morph Sequence, and assign this to the High Dummy box, and rename it too:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth23a.jpg

In the roll out for this mesh, click on the Neutral Mesh button and then click on the Red pants Mesh. In the Box that says Morph Layers, click on Add and in the box that pops up, select the 2 Morph Layers that are assigned to the High Dummy

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth23b.jpg

----
==Skinning The Bones==

Now it's time to "Skin" our Pants Mesh to the Bone structure. This is important because if you have messed with the Animation Bar, you've seen that the bones move, but not the pants:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth30.jpg

Let us start with the Red or High Mesh pants. Select them and then click on the Modifier Tab. We need to add UVW Mapping to this mesh. So do that:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth24.jpg

You do NOT need to edit the UV Mapping. Adding the Unwrap UVW modifier simply gives the mesh mapping coordinates and that is all we need.

Next, go up to the menu bar and click on Modifiers > Animation > Skin and give it that modifier:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth25.jpg

Open up the Skin Modifier. You see that you have a empty box and we need to put bones in there. We do this by clicking on the Add button I have circled in my picture below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth26.jpg

So how do you know what bones to add to what clothing mesh? I mean, to me, Pants should just need the Pelvis, Thighs, Calfs and that should be it, right?
Wrong.
Pants also need the Spine0 bone and the Feet. Here is what bones you should use for most clothing:

'''Hat or Helmet''' - ''Head, Neck, Spine2.''

'''Torso (shirts, vests, jackets, etc)''' - ''Neck, Spine0, Spine1, Spine2, All Clavicles, Upper Arms, Fore Arms, Hands, Pelvis.''

'''Pants''' - ''Spine0, Pelvis, Thighs, Calves, Feet.''

'''Gloves''' - ''Fore Arms, Hands, Fingers.''

'''Shoes''' - ''Calves, Feet, Toes.''

That should help you out some.

Now, you will need to do this to the Red (High), Green (Med), and Dark Blue (Low) clothing meshes: Add UVW mapping coordinates, and then the Skin modifier, and add the bones to the modifier.

The envelopes for the Bones are what Cyan has set for the pants all ready, however, if you are using your own mesh that you have made, or modified an existing clothing mesh, you will need to move the animation bar and make sure the clothing moves with the bones, line the next 3 pictures show:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth27.jpg

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth28.jpg

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth29.jpg

Now, if you moved the animation bar, and instead you got this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth30.jpg

It means you did not add the UVW mapping modifier (or you collapsed the tree. I have found that collapsing the tree can cause this problem), or you did not pick the correct bones!

Or you may have seen something like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth31.jpg

This means you did not do all the clothing meshes yet.

OR......

You more than likely will see this, especially if you are using your own meshes you made:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth32.jpg

If you see your clothing being stretched or distorted like this, it means you will need to adjust the Envelopes on the Bones. Don't worry, I'm going to show you how to do that.

----
==Adjusting The Envelopes==

In the modifier tab, open up the Skin Modifier and select where it says Envelope, select the check marks for Verticies, Envelopes, and Cross sections, and then the bone in the box you want to adjust:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth33.jpg

'''HEY! MY RED PANTS JUST TURNED BLUE!!!''

Relax, it's okay. The mesh has turned into a color field to show you where the envelope is reacting to the skin. Blue means that the bone will not move that area of mesh. As you increase your envelope, you will see a rainbow of colors where bright yellow means maximum movement from the bone.

As you can see from the above picture, our envelope is way too small to interact with the skin. We need to make it bigger. I like using the Cross Sections to adjust this, so in my picture below click and drag on one of the boxes I have circled:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth34.jpg

Now drag your mouse to make the circle bigger:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth35.jpg

As you can see, the pants mesh is changing colors to show us where it is being affected by the envelope. Make it big enough to include the area you need, but not too big! If you make it too big, it will start to affect the other pant leg and we do not want that!

Now go down and adjust the other cross section of the envelope to again what you need:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth36.jpg

Now check your other envelopes of the other bones and make sure they are affecting the skin like we need:

Foot:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth37.jpg

Thigh:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth38.jpg

Pelvis:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth39.jpg

After you have done this, you can move the animation bar and see how your skin is moving with the bones. In my pic below you can see we got the right pant leg to work correctly, but the left one still needs to be done:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth40.jpg

Okay, NOW do that for the other 2 meshes (you MUST set the envelopes for all 3 clothing meshes, Red, Green and Dark Blue)!

----
==Making The Clothing Material==

Okay now it is time to make the Clothing Material before we can go any further (as we will need some components that will need the materials).

Unlike what you are used to, Plasma Clothing does NOT get assigned to any objects in your scene like you are used to. There is one Material that needs to be applied, and that is either the Male or Female Pallette, but I have already done that for you.

Call up your Material Editor, and select a blank or new spot. Click on Get Material, and select New and then double click where it says Plasma Clothing:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth42.jpg

This is what the default material will look like:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth43.jpg

Go to where the Material Name is and change it to something. If you have looked through Cyan's Avatar Documentaion, you will see that they use a pretty good system for naming things. This is very important so you do not get confused as to what clothing you are dealing with, and if it's for Male or Female. Later, in your Age, you will be having to use this name, so WRITE IT DOWN!!!!!!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth44.jpg

I named mine MNeoPants, with the "M" meaning Male.

Next, in the Item Description box, you can put in a description of your clothing item here. It's not necessary to put anything here, but it will help you keep track of things:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth45.jpg

Next, in the Tileset dropdown box, you need to select what this Material is for. In my case it is for Pants, so I will select "Legs"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth47.jpg

Next, click on the Layer dropdown box, and select "Base". You have other things you can choose, but right now we need to set the Base Texture (default texture of the clothes):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth48.jpg

Now you can click on the button that says (None) and select your texture for you clothes. Notice how it says "Legs (512, 512)". That is because this texture MUST be 512 x 512 pixels! Do not try and use a different size, or else you will get a nasty message from the pluging telling you "No. Try again".

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth49.jpg

Let us talk about the clothing textures for just a minute. If you look at the documentation, it shows you how the textures are suppose to be arranged and the sizes. If you change the Tileset to other body parts, you will see different buttons pop up for them, AND you will see different textures sizes:

The Torso has 2 textures: Torso and Arms

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth50.jpg

The Head has several different textures: Eyes, Face, Extra Hair, and Hat

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth51.jpg

Now, the Pants (and other clothing), you can add Layers with the dropdown box. Remember how in the Relto Closet the player can change the pants color? And how they can change the Belt color? This is because you can add 2 more layers, Tint1 and Tint2, and assign different textures to them. Here is what Cyan has for the Kakki Pants:

''*Note: the following 3 textures are from Cyan and are being used for this tutorial and educational purposes.''

Base Texture:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Basepants.png

Tint1 texture for changing the pants color:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Tint1pants.png

Tint2 texture for changing the Belt's color:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Tint2pants.png

Okay, the next section is for Python. You can just put what I have for now. For GroupName you can make up your own if you like:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth52.jpg

And that is it. You do not UV Map the texture, as that is built in (and why the textures for clothing HAVE to be laid out in certain ways that the documentation shows you).

----
==Assigning The Clothes==

Now close the Material Editor (I sure hope you wrote down the name or names of your Materials), and select the dummy box between the Avatar's feet. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Avatar Clothing, and assign it to the dummy:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth53.jpg

Rename the component so it makes sense, and then look at the roll out for it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth54.jpg

For the box that says Clothing Materials, click on the Add button, and add the Material you made for the pants.

You will need to add 2 more Avatar Clothing components to the dummy (one for each mesh you have, Red, Green, Dark Blue), but they all use the SAME material!).

Now go down to the LOD box, and click on the button, selecting the proper mesh for that component (Red for High, Green for Med, etc):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth55.jpg

CONGRADULATIONS! YOU JUST COMPLETED THE GLOBALCLOTHING PART!!!!!! yay! Drinks all around! Take a break! You deserve it! Because NOW you have to export this. Once you have, you can send the modified .age file and new prp file for GlobalClothing to your MOUL type server admin person.

BUT! Before you do that, you will need to go into your Age and do some stuff. It will be easy and short, I promise!

However, before you do......you will need to go back and do ALL of this over again, for the Female avatar...........

----
==In Your Age==

Okay, now it is time to get your Age ready for this. You need to make a Clickable of some sort. It could be a mesh that is textured to look like the close are all folded up, or hanging there. Or you could make it look like the clothes are in a dresser drawer or locker. How you do that is up to you.

For this tutorial, I just made a box to be my clickable. Then I assigned a Python component to it, and used xTakableClothing.py as the python. In the roll outs, it is pretty easy to figure out. However, I do need to cover a couple of things:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth56.jpg

Where it says "Show / Hide age SDL var name", you need to put in a SDL BOOL variable. This means you need to add a SDL line to your SDL file, that looks like this:

<source lang="python">
VAR BOOL neoPants[1] DEFAULT=1
</source>

Where neoPants is a name you make up.

The other thing is where it says "Female clothing name" and "Male clothing name". In those 2 boxes, you need to put the names of your clothing items. But NOT the mesh names! You must use the Material Names! (now I bet you are glad you wrote them down, right?). If you only have one item, then that is all you need to put. If you have more than one item, then you need to enter them all, but separate them with a ";" so it would look like this:

<source lang="python">
MNeoPants; MNeoShirt; MNeoLShoe; MNeoRShoe
</source>

And that is pretty much it folks!

----
==Extra Info==

There are some extra things you will need to know. Some things you will figure out on your own, however I wanted to share these things with you right away:

Short Sleeve Shirts:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth57.jpg

As you can see from the above picture, if you decide to make your own short sleeve shirt, you MUST provide the fore arms too! If you do not, when the player puts the shirt on, it will look like they have no fore arms!
This goes for pants that are shorts too. You must provide the mesh for the leg that is expose, or it will look like they are wearing pants but have no lower legs.

Hats and Helmets:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/AvieCloth58.jpg

For Hats and Helmets you must provide part of the head as you can see in the picture above. Accessories like Glasses, earrings, etc, do not require this. But hats do.

I certainly hope this tutorial helps a lot of people out there.

----
==Questions I Have Received==

''Will this work with other versions of Max besides 7.0?''

I do believe it should be no problem, especially since Hoikas from the GoW has made it possible for Cyan's Plugin to work with later versions of Max. Just remember, if you do some work in 7.0 and then give it to a friend, they will be able to load it in Max 8.0 or later. But if they do work, and then send it back to you, you will be in trouble as there is NO backwards conversion for Max.

''Will this work for Blender and the PyPRP Plugin?''

I have no idea. I imagine that someone out there can figure out a way to port the Max files over to Blender, and how to wire it with PyPRP, but that is not something I'll be getting into I'm afraid. But if someone out there needs more info from me for this I will be happy to help, but I won't be exploring if this is possible or not.

{{ALTutorials}}

Reward or Takeable Clothing

2011-07-29T22:57:21Z

Andylegate:

'''Credit where credit is due! This tutorial would not have been possible without the help of GPNMilano, who did a LOT of indepth work on this and provided me with much information when I started learning how to do this. Credit also goes to Austin and Mark DeForest (aka Chogon) from Cyan for the information and help given by them.'''

Before you get started with this tutorial, '''PLEASE''' read the following!

This tutorial is not for a beginner in Age creation. If you have just started and are still learning how to even just model and texture your Age, you may want to get more practice in before you attempt this. The process is complex.
You will not be able to use this with any of the stand alone Uru games (POTS, Uru:CC), nor will this work correctly with ALCUGS or UU type servers. You must have access to a MOUL based server in order to test what you are making due to changes in the Avatar's bone structure that were made. This is mostly due to the files I'm providing as the Avatar bone structure is based upon the MOUL avatar. If someone were to change the structure to what is used in the stand alone and ALCUGS, then you would be able to use the information here. But if you try to use it, you will find that the avatar will not look right when you put the clothing on. Instead you'll look like some deformed, mutant Bahro!

This tutorial is not meant to show you how to make clothing meshes that will fit the avatar, but instead assumes that you already have those. In the files I provide, will be a set of meshes for some pants so that you can follow along and give it a try. The documentation provided comes from Cyan, and has a wealth of information in it, including how to make the clothing meshes. Textures for clothing are special too, and must be a certain size and layout depending on what type of clothing / accessory you are making.

There are a couple of things that I have discovered while doing this: I have not been successful in making certain types of clothing, such as Jump Suits. The way the bone structure is made, it does not like once piece clothing. Combining the legs with the torso or the torso with the head (like a diving bell suit) causes problems with the avatar when it animates in game. This does not mean that it is impossible (I have learned not to use that word when it comes to Plasma and the Uru Community), however someone will have to figure out a way to makes those.

Finally, this method that I am going to show you involves adding prp files to the GlobalClothing Age. Trying to place the clothing in your Age will not work, as the Plasma Clothing material type will not export into the Age. I realize that this could cause problems, especially on a server where more than one Fan Age will have clothing. However, until someone figures out a way to work around this, it is the only way I know for it to work.

Enough talking from me. Let's get to work. There is a LOT of information to get through.

----
==Files You Will Need==

You will need to download at least the next 2 files:

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max]

This is the animated bone structure of the Male Avatar for MOUL.
[[File:AvieCloth1.jpg]]

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/basic_avatar_female.max basic_avatar_female.max]

This is the animated bone structure of the Female Avatar for MOUL.
[[File:avieCloth2.jpg]]

If you already have clothing mesh you have made and want to use, that is great! If you do not have any, then you can use this file here, which is just some basic pants:
[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/pants.max pants.max]

You do not need this file, however this is what you should end up with at the end of the tutorial:
[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/PantsNeolbah.max PantsNeolbah.max]

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/avatar-documentation.pdf avatar-documentation.pdf]
This is Cyan's documentation on the Avatar for making clothing.

The following are python files made by Mark DeForest (aka Chogon) and can be extremely useful:

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xOpenCloset.py xOpenCloset.py]

This file will allow you to let the avatar link to the Relto closet without having to go to Relto, and when they are done, will link back into your Age.

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xSaveClothing.py xSaveClothing.py]

This file will save what the player is wearing to the client's hard drive before they put on whatever reward clothing your Age offeres.

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xReturnOldClothing.py xReturnOldClothing.py]

This file will return the clothing that was saved to the client's computer in case they want to change back to the clothes they were wearing just before they put on the Reward clothing your Age offered.

----
==Getting Started==

Okay, before we dive right in, I want you to take a look at the pants mesh that is in the file I provided in the above link, even if you are going to try and use your own clothing mesh, there is something important that you will need to understand. When you open up the pants.max file, you will see this in the 3D Scene:

[[File:AvieCloth3.jpg]]

As you can see there are what looks like 3 sets of pants. In reality there are 5, as 3 of them are all sitting in the same place.
The coloring of the meshes is very important, as it helps you keep track of what mesh is what:

The Red mesh, is considered High Ploy or High Faces. This will be your highest resolution of your clothing Mesh.

[[File:AvieCloth4.jpg]]

The Green Mesh is considered the Medium Poly or Medium Faces mesh.

[[File:AvieCloth5.jpg]]

The Dark Blue Mesh is considered the Low Poly or Low Faces mesh, and will the the lowest resolution of your clothing Mesh.

[[File:AvieCloth6.jpg]]

These 3 meshes will sit on top of one another, and must fit over top the Avatar Bone system. The remaining two meshes that are light blue and what I call Tan are Morphing Meshes. The sit just off to the side. Light Blue is the skiniest avatar, and the Tan is the fattest avatar (don't get offended.....Tan would be MY clothing color!!! heheheh).

We also need to do something before we get started. We need to make a GlobalClothing.age file and put it in our PlasmaTest export dat folder.

Open up Notepad and use this:

<source lang="Python">
StartDateTime=0000000000
DayLength=24.000000
MaxCapacity=10
LingerTime=180
SequencePrefix=-5
ReleaseVersion=0
Page=Female,2
Page=Female01,4
Page=Female02,5
Page=FemaleXP2,8
Page=Male,1
Page=Male01,3
Page=Male02,6
Page=MaleXP2,7
Page=MaleNeol,11
</source>

As you can see, I have added a Page to the GlobalClothing Age, and it is called MaleNeol, you can change this to fit whatever your Age is called. Make sure you save it and put it in your dat folder of your PlasmaTest.

----
==Merging The Files==

I need you to keep this in mind: We will be using the Male avatar for this tutorial. '''BUT!''' You '''MUST''' do what you are about to do all over again for the Female avatar! You MUST have 2 versions of your clothing for the players. If you do not, and only make it say for Male, any Female Avatars will not be able to put on the clothing and vice-versa.

Open up the BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max file in 3DS Max:

[[File:AvieCloth1.jpg]]

In this file, I have done many things for you already and you will not have to do them. The bone structure system is animated, and the Parent to Child hiarchy is already in place (except for your clothing Meshes, more on that later). The 5 nice looking avatars you see below the bone structure are what is called the Smoothing Bases, and used to be in a separate file. Cyan used XRef to reference them. However, for our purposes, it was easier to just merge them with this file so they are always there.

The bone structure of the Avatar is not just for their body, but both this file and the female file have the bone structure for the Relto Book in place.
'''DO NOT REMOVE THE RELTO BOOK BONE STRUCTURE!!!''' This can cause problems with the appearance of the player if you do!

There are 4 Dummy Boxes: one between the bone structure's feet, called "Male" (the one in the Female file is called "Female"). The 3 boxes to the left are called "High", "Med", and "Low"

Okay, let us get the clothing mesh into this scene. Go up to your menu bar and click on Plasma, and then click on Merge. Find and select the Pants.max file you downloaded. Now your scene should look like this:

[[File:AvieCloth7.jpg]]

As you can see, the Red, Green and Dark Blue pants are all right on the Bone system. If you used your own clothing mesh and they are not, you will need to move them so that they are! This is for later when we "Skin" the meshes to the Bone structure.

Once you get the files merged, you need to select everything in the scene and attach a PageInfo component on everything that does not have it. Change the Age name to GlobalClothing, and the Page that you made.

[[File:AvieCloth8.jpg]]

----
==The Smooth Bases==

Okay, we are going to do some work with the Smoothing Bases here. I could have done it all for you, but then where is the fun in that? Go down and select all the meshes for the Red (High) Smoothing Avatar:

[[File:AvieCloth9.jpg]]

Now open up the Component Manager and click on New > Render > Smoothing Base and attach it to these meshes.

[[File:AvieCloth10.jpg]]

Rename the component to what you see in my picture below. Renaming the components is also a MUST to help keep track of things!

[[File:AvieCloth11.jpg]]

You can leave the Roll Out for it alone as the default settings are fine.

Now go and select all the meshes of the Green Smooth Avatar (Med), and attach a NEW Smoothing Base component to it too (DO NOT use the same one you just attached to the High mesh!). Rename it also so that you know it is for the Medium Smoothing Mesh:

[[File:AvieCloth12.jpg]]

Repeat these same steps for the Dark Blue Smooth Avatar (Low), and again, rename the component.

Now go down and select all the meshes for the Light Blue (Cyan? heheheh) Smooth looking Avatar. This is the Morphing Mesh Smooth Base for our High Mesh. Repeat the steps above and attach the Smoothing Base component to it too, and rename it:

[[File:AvieCloth13.jpg]]

Then go over and select all the Tan Smooth Avatar, and again, repeat assigning the Smoothing Base component to it too, also renaming it:

[[File:AvieCloth14.jpg]]

This means you should have FIVE Smoothing Base components in the Component Manager now!

----
==The Parent==

Go to between the Avatar's feet and select the Male Dummy box that is there.

[[File:AvieCloth15.jpg]]

If you then hit the "H" Key, you will see the selection box, and can see that just about everything is parented to the Male dummy box. The exceptions to this are the Smoothing Base Avatars.

You may notice that our Pants meshes are not either (or whatever Mesh you used). You need to select each one at a time, and parent it to the High, Med, and Low Dummy boxes:

[[File:AvieCloth16.jpg]]

So select the Red Pants, and parent it to the High dummy box. Select your Green pants and parent it to the Med dummy box, and then select the Dark Blue pants and parent them to the Low Dummy box
The remaining 2 meshes (the light blue and Tan color pants) do NOT get parented to anything.

However, now it is time to work with them. Select the Light Blue pants. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Render > Snap To Base and assign it to them.

[[File:AvieCloth17.jpg]]

Rename the component, and then in the roll out for it, click on the button below "Smoothing Comp Of Base Set" and then click on the Light Blue Smooth Avatar:

[[File:AvieCloth18.jpg]]

Now click on the Tan pants and do the exact thing for them too (only make sure it's a NEW Snap To Base component, and this time click on the Tan Smooth Avatar):

[[File:AvieCloth19.jpg]]

----
==High, Med, and Low Dummy Boxes==

Okay, time to mess with our High, Med, and Low Dummy boxes. Select the High one:

[[File:AvieCloth20.jpg]]

Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Morph Layer and assign it as a component to the High Dummy box:

[[File:AvieCloth21.jpg]]

In the Roll Out for it, you'll see a box called "Delta Meshes" and an Add Button:

[[File:AvieCloth22.jpg]]

Click on the Add button and then click on the Light Blue pants

''Wait. What the heck is "Delta Meshes"????'' "Delta Meshes are the meshes that we can morph or change to. "Delta" is the symbol used for "Change", and is used in math, physics and many other things.

Now assign a 2nd Morph Layer to the High Dummy, changing it's name, and in it's roll out, click on the Add button, only this time click on the Tan pants

[[File:AvieCloth23.jpg]]

What we just did is told the game that your pants can Morph down to as small as the Light Blue mesh, but get no smaller, and it can also get as big as the Tan mesh, but no bigger.

Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Morph Sequence, and assign this to the High Dummy box, and rename it too:

[[File:AvieCloth23a.jpg]]

In the roll out for this mesh, click on the Neutral Mesh button and then click on the Red pants Mesh. In the Box that says Morph Layers, click on Add and in the box that pops up, select the 2 Morph Layers that are assigned to the High Dummy

[[File:AvieCloth23b.jpg]]

----
==Skinning The Bones==

Now it's time to "Skin" our Pants Mesh to the Bone structure. This is important because if you have messed with the Animation Bar, you've seen that the bones move, but not the pants:

[[File:AvieCloth30.jpg]]

Let us start with the Red or High Mesh pants. Select them and then click on the Modifier Tab. We need to add UVW Mapping to this mesh. So do that:

[[File:AvieCloth24.jpg]]

You do NOT need to edit the UV Mapping. Adding the Unwrap UVW modifier simply gives the mesh mapping coordinates and that is all we need.

Next, go up to the menu bar and click on Modifiers > Animation > Skin and give it that modifier:

[[File:AvieCloth25.jpg]]

Open up the Skin Modifier. You see that you have a empty box and we need to put bones in there. We do this by clicking on the Add button I have circled in my picture below:

[[File:AvieCloth26.jpg]]

So how do you know what bones to add to what clothing mesh? I mean, to me, Pants should just need the Pelvis, Thighs, Calfs and that should be it, right?
Wrong.
Pants also need the Spine0 bone and the Feet. Here is what bones you should use for most clothing:

'''Hat or Helmet''' - ''Head, Neck, Spine2.''

'''Torso (shirts, vests, jackets, etc)''' - ''Neck, Spine0, Spine1, Spine2, All Clavicles, Upper Arms, Fore Arms, Hands, Pelvis.''

'''Pants''' - ''Spine0, Pelvis, Thighs, Calves, Feet.''

'''Gloves''' - ''Fore Arms, Hands, Fingers.''

'''Shoes''' - ''Calves, Feet, Toes.''

That should help you out some.

Now, you will need to do this to the Red (High), Green (Med), and Dark Blue (Low) clothing meshes: Add UVW mapping coordinates, and then the Skin modifier, and add the bones to the modifier.

The envelopes for the Bones are what Cyan has set for the pants all ready, however, if you are using your own mesh that you have made, or modified an existing clothing mesh, you will need to move the animation bar and make sure the clothing moves with the bones, line the next 3 pictures show:

[[File:AvieCloth27.jpg]]

[[File:AvieCloth28.jpg]]

[[File:AvieCloth29.jpg]]

Now, if you moved the animation bar, and instead you got this:

[[File:AvieCloth30.jpg]]

It means you did not add the UVW mapping modifier (or you collapsed the tree. I have found that collapsing the tree can cause this problem), or you did not pick the correct bones!

Or you may have seen something like this:

[[File:AvieCloth31.jpg]]

This means you did not do all the clothing meshes yet.

OR......

You more than likely will see this, especially if you are using your own meshes you made:

[[File:AvieCloth32.jpg]]

If you see your clothing being stretched or distorted like this, it means you will need to adjust the Envelopes on the Bones. Don't worry, I'm going to show you how to do that.

----
==Adjusting The Envelopes==

In the modifier tab, open up the Skin Modifier and select where it says Envelope, select the check marks for Verticies, Envelopes, and Cross sections, and then the bone in the box you want to adjust:

[[File:AvieCloth33.jpg]]

'''HEY! MY RED PANTS JUST TURNED BLUE!!!''

Relax, it's okay. The mesh has turned into a color field to show you where the envelope is reacting to the skin. Blue means that the bone will not move that area of mesh. As you increase your envelope, you will see a rainbow of colors where bright yellow means maximum movement from the bone.

As you can see from the above picture, our envelope is way too small to interact with the skin. We need to make it bigger. I like using the Cross Sections to adjust this, so in my picture below click and drag on one of the boxes I have circled:

[[File:AvieCloth34.jpg]]

Now drag your mouse to make the circle bigger:

[[File:AvieCloth35.jpg]]

As you can see, the pants mesh is changing colors to show us where it is being affected by the envelope. Make it big enough to include the area you need, but not too big! If you make it too big, it will start to affect the other pant leg and we do not want that!

Now go down and adjust the other cross section of the envelope to again what you need:

[[File:AvieCloth36.jpg]]

Now check your other envelopes of the other bones and make sure they are affecting the skin like we need:

Foot:

[[File:AvieCloth37.jpg]]

Thigh:

[[File:AvieCloth38.jpg]]

Pelvis:

[[File:AvieCloth39.jpg]]

After you have done this, you can move the animation bar and see how your skin is moving with the bones. In my pic below you can see we got the right pant leg to work correctly, but the left one still needs to be done:

[[File:AvieCloth40.jpg]]

Okay, NOW do that for the other 2 meshes (you MUST set the envelopes for all 3 clothing meshes, Red, Green and Dark Blue)!

----
==Making The Clothing Material==

Okay now it is time to make the Clothing Material before we can go any further (as we will need some components that will need the materials).

Unlike what you are used to, Plasma Clothing does NOT get assigned to any objects in your scene like you are used to. There is one Material that needs to be applied, and that is either the Male or Female Pallette, but I have already done that for you.

Call up your Material Editor, and select a blank or new spot. Click on Get Material, and select New and then double click where it says Plasma Clothing:

[[File:AvieCloth42.jpg]]

This is what the default material will look like:

[[File:AvieCloth43.jpg]]

Go to where the Material Name is and change it to something. If you have looked through Cyan's Avatar Documentaion, you will see that they use a pretty good system for naming things. This is very important so you do not get confused as to what clothing you are dealing with, and if it's for Male or Female. Later, in your Age, you will be having to use this name, so WRITE IT DOWN!!!!!!

[[File:AvieCloth44.jpg]]

I named mine MNeoPants, with the "M" meaning Male.

Next, in the Item Description box, you can put in a description of your clothing item here. It's not necessary to put anything here, but it will help you keep track of things:

[[File:AvieCloth45.jpg]]

Next, in the Tileset dropdown box, you need to select what this Material is for. In my case it is for Pants, so I will select "Legs"

[[File:AvieCloth47.jpg]]

Next, click on the Layer dropdown box, and select "Base". You have other things you can choose, but right now we need to set the Base Texture (default texture of the clothes):

[[File:AvieCloth48.jpg]]

Now you can click on the button that says (None) and select your texture for you clothes. Notice how it says "Legs (512, 512)". That is because this texture MUST be 512 x 512 pixels! Do not try and use a different size, or else you will get a nasty message from the pluging telling you "No. Try again".

[[File:AvieCloth49.jpg]]

Let us talk about the clothing textures for just a minute. If you look at the documentation, it shows you how the textures are suppose to be arranged and the sizes. If you change the Tileset to other body parts, you will see different buttons pop up for them, AND you will see different textures sizes:

The Torso has 2 textures: Torso and Arms

[[File:AvieCloth50.jpg]]

The Head has several different textures: Eyes, Face, Extra Hair, and Hat

[[File:AvieCloth51.jpg]]

Now, the Pants (and other clothing), you can add Layers with the dropdown box. Remember how in the Relto Closet the player can change the pants color? And how they can change the Belt color? This is because you can add 2 more layers, Tint1 and Tint2, and assign different textures to them. Here is what Cyan has for the Kakki Pants:

''*Note: the following 3 textures are from Cyan and are being used for this tutorial and educational purposes.''

Base Texture:

[[File:Basepants.png]]

Tint1 texture for changing the pants color:

[[File:Tint1pants.png]]

Tint2 texture for changing the Belt's color:

[[File:Tint2pants.png]]

Okay, the next section is for Python. You can just put what I have for now. For GroupName you can make up your own if you like:

[[File:AvieCloth52.jpg]]

And that is it. You do not UV Map the texture, as that is built in (and why the textures for clothing HAVE to be laid out in certain ways that the documentation shows you).

----
==Assigning The Clothes==

Now close the Material Editor (I sure hope you wrote down the name or names of your Materials), and select the dummy box between the Avatar's feet. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Avatar Clothing, and assign it to the dummy:

[[File:AvieCloth53.jpg]]

Rename the component so it makes sense, and then look at the roll out for it:

[[File:AvieCloth54.jpg]]

For the box that says Clothing Materials, click on the Add button, and add the Material you made for the pants.

You will need to add 2 more Avatar Clothing components to the dummy (one for each mesh you have, Red, Green, Dark Blue), but they all use the SAME material!).

Now go down to the LOD box, and click on the button, selecting the proper mesh for that component (Red for High, Green for Med, etc):

[[File:AvieCloth55.jpg]]

CONGRADULATIONS! YOU JUST COMPLETED THE GLOBALCLOTHING PART!!!!!! yay! Drinks all around! Take a break! You deserve it! Because NOW you have to export this. Once you have, you can send the modified .age file and new prp file for GlobalClothing to your MOUL type server admin person.

BUT! Before you do that, you will need to go into your Age and do some stuff. It will be easy and short, I promise!

However, before you do......you will need to go back and do ALL of this over again, for the Female avatar...........

----
==In Your Age==

Okay, now it is time to get your Age ready for this. You need to make a Clickable of some sort. It could be a mesh that is textured to look like the close are all folded up, or hanging there. Or you could make it look like the clothes are in a dresser drawer or locker. How you do that is up to you.

For this tutorial, I just made a box to be my clickable. Then I assigned a Python component to it, and used xTakableClothing.py as the python. In the roll outs, it is pretty easy to figure out. However, I do need to cover a couple of things:

[[File:AvieCloth56.jpg]]

Where it says "Show / Hide age SDL var name", you need to put in a SDL BOOL variable. This means you need to add a SDL line to your SDL file, that looks like this:

<source lang="python">
VAR BOOL neoPants[1] DEFAULT=1
</source>

Where neoPants is a name you make up.

The other thing is where it says "Female clothing name" and "Male clothing name". In those 2 boxes, you need to put the names of your clothing items. But NOT the mesh names! You must use the Material Names! (now I bet you are glad you wrote them down, right?). If you only have one item, then that is all you need to put. If you have more than one item, then you need to enter them all, but separate them with a ";" so it would look like this:

<source lang="python">
MNeoPants; MNeoShirt; MNeoLShoe; MNeoRShoe
</source>

And that is pretty much it folks!

----
==Extra Info==

There are some extra things you will need to know. Some things you will figure out on your own, however I wanted to share these things with you right away:

Short Sleeve Shirts:

[[File:AvieCloth57.jpg]]

As you can see from the above picture, if you decide to make your own short sleeve shirt, you MUST provide the fore arms too! If you do not, when the player puts the shirt on, it will look like they have no fore arms!
This goes for pants that are shorts too. You must provide the mesh for the leg that is expose, or it will look like they are wearing pants but have no lower legs.

Hats and Helmets:

[[File:AvieCloth58.jpg]]

For Hats and Helmets you must provide part of the head as you can see in the picture above. Accessories like Glasses, earrings, etc, do not require this. But hats do.

I certainly hope this tutorial helps a lot of people out there.

----
==Questions I Have Received==

''Will this work with other versions of Max besides 7.0?''

I do believe it should be no problem, especially since Hoikas from the GoW has made it possible for Cyan's Plugin to work with later versions of Max. Just remember, if you do some work in 7.0 and then give it to a friend, they will be able to load it in Max 8.0 or later. But if they do work, and then send it back to you, you will be in trouble as there is NO backwards conversion for Max.

''Will this work for Blender and the PyPRP Plugin?''

I have no idea. I imagine that someone out there can figure out a way to port the Max files over to Blender, and how to wire it with PyPRP, but that is not something I'll be getting into I'm afraid. But if someone out there needs more info from me for this I will be happy to help, but I won't be exploring if this is possible or not.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Reward or Takeable Clothing

2011-07-29T22:56:15Z

Andylegate: Created page with "'''Credit where credit is due! This tutorial would not have been possible without the help of GPNMilano, who did a LOT of indepth work on this and provided me with much informati..."

'''Credit where credit is due! This tutorial would not have been possible without the help of GPNMilano, who did a LOT of indepth work on this and provided me with much information when I started learning how to do this. Credit also goes to Austin and Mark DeForest (aka Chogon) from Cyan for the information and help given by them.'''

Before you get started with this tutorial, '''PLEASE''' read the following!

This tutorial is not for a beginner in Age creation. If you have just started and are still learning how to even just model and texture your Age, you may want to get more practice in before you attempt this. The process is complex.
You will not be able to use this with any of the stand alone Uru games (POTS, Uru:CC), nor will this work correctly with ALCUGS or UU type servers. You must have access to a MOUL based server in order to test what you are making due to changes in the Avatar's bone structure that were made. This is mostly due to the files I'm providing as the Avatar bone structure is based upon the MOUL avatar. If someone were to change the structure to what is used in the stand alone and ALCUGS, then you would be able to use the information here. But if you try to use it, you will find that the avatar will not look right when you put the clothing on. Instead you'll look like some deformed, mutant Bahro!

This tutorial is not meant to show you how to make clothing meshes that will fit the avatar, but instead assumes that you already have those. In the files I provide, will be a set of meshes for some pants so that you can follow along and give it a try. The documentation provided comes from Cyan, and has a wealth of information in it, including how to make the clothing meshes. Textures for clothing are special too, and must be a certain size and layout depending on what type of clothing / accessory you are making.

There are a couple of things that I have discovered while doing this: I have not been successful in making certain types of clothing, such as Jump Suits. The way the bone structure is made, it does not like once piece clothing. Combining the legs with the torso or the torso with the head (like a diving bell suit) causes problems with the avatar when it animates in game. This does not mean that it is impossible (I have learned not to use that word when it comes to Plasma and the Uru Community), however someone will have to figure out a way to makes those.

Finally, this method that I am going to show you involves adding prp files to the GlobalClothing Age. Trying to place the clothing in your Age will not work, as the Plasma Clothing material type will not export into the Age. I realize that this could cause problems, especially on a server where more than one Fan Age will have clothing. However, until someone figures out a way to work around this, it is the only way I know for it to work.

Enough talking from me. Let's get to work. There is a LOT of information to get through.

----
==Files You Will Need==

You will need to download at least the next 2 files:

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max]

This is the animated bone structure of the Male Avatar for MOUL.
[[File:AvieCloth1.jpg]]

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/basic_avatar_female.max basic_avatar_female.max]

This is the animated bone structure of the Female Avatar for MOUL.
[[File:avieCloth2.jpg]]

If you already have clothing mesh you have made and want to use, that is great! If you do not have any, then you can use this file here, which is just some basic pants:
[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/pants.max pants.max]

You do not need this file, however this is what you should end up with at the end of the tutorial:
[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/PantsNeolbah.max PantsNeolbah.max]

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/avatar-documentation.pdf avatar-documentation.pdf]
This is Cyan's documentation on the Avatar for making clothing.

The following are python files made by Mark DeForest (aka Chogon) and can be extremely useful:

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xOpenCloset.py xOpenCloset.py]

This file will allow you to let the avatar link to the Relto closet without having to go to Relto, and when they are done, will link back into your Age.

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xSaveClothing.py xSaveClothing.py]

This file will save what the player is wearing to the client's hard drive before they put on whatever reward clothing your Age offeres.

[http://www.guildofmaintainers.org/ftp/xReturnOldClothing.py xReturnOldClothing.py]

This file will return the clothing that was saved to the client's computer in case they want to change back to the clothes they were wearing just before they put on the Reward clothing your Age offered.

----
==Getting Started==

Okay, before we dive right in, I want you to take a look at the pants mesh that is in the file I provided in the above link, even if you are going to try and use your own clothing mesh, there is something important that you will need to understand. When you open up the pants.max file, you will see this in the 3D Scene:

[[File:AvieCloth3.jpg]]

As you can see there are what looks like 3 sets of pants. In reality there are 5, as 3 of them are all sitting in the same place.
The coloring of the meshes is very important, as it helps you keep track of what mesh is what:

The Red mesh, is considered High Ploy or High Faces. This will be your highest resolution of your clothing Mesh.

[[File:AvieCloth4.jpg]]

The Green Mesh is considered the Medium Poly or Medium Faces mesh.

[[File:AvieCloth5.jpg]]

The Dark Blue Mesh is considered the Low Poly or Low Faces mesh, and will the the lowest resolution of your clothing Mesh.

[[File:AvieCloth6.jpg]]

These 3 meshes will sit on top of one another, and must fit over top the Avatar Bone system. The remaining two meshes that are light blue and what I call Tan are Morphing Meshes. The sit just off to the side. Light Blue is the skiniest avatar, and the Tan is the fattest avatar (don't get offended.....Tan would be MY clothing color!!! heheheh).

We also need to do something before we get started. We need to make a GlobalClothing.age file and put it in our PlasmaTest export dat folder.

Open up Notepad and use this:

<source lang="Python">
StartDateTime=0000000000
DayLength=24.000000
MaxCapacity=10
LingerTime=180
SequencePrefix=-5
ReleaseVersion=0
Page=Female,2
Page=Female01,4
Page=Female02,5
Page=FemaleXP2,8
Page=Male,1
Page=Male01,3
Page=Male02,6
Page=MaleXP2,7
Page=MaleNeol,11
</source>

As you can see, I have added a Page to the GlobalClothing Age, and it is called MaleNeol, you can change this to fit whatever your Age is called. Make sure you save it and put it in your dat folder of your PlasmaTest.

----
==Merging The Files==

I need you to keep this in mind: We will be using the Male avatar for this tutorial. '''BUT!''' You '''MUST''' do what you are about to do all over again for the Female avatar! You MUST have 2 versions of your clothing for the players. If you do not, and only make it say for Male, any Female Avatars will not be able to put on the clothing and vice-versa.

Open up the BasicBoneAvatar_Male.max file in 3DS Max:

[[File:AvieCloth1.jpg]]

In this file, I have done many things for you already and you will not have to do them. The bone structure system is animated, and the Parent to Child hiarchy is already in place (except for your clothing Meshes, more on that later). The 5 nice looking avatars you see below the bone structure are what is called the Smoothing Bases, and used to be in a separate file. Cyan used XRef to reference them. However, for our purposes, it was easier to just merge them with this file so they are always there.

The bone structure of the Avatar is not just for their body, but both this file and the female file have the bone structure for the Relto Book in place.
'''DO NOT REMOVE THE RELTO BOOK BONE STRUCTURE!!!''' This can cause problems with the appearance of the player if you do!

There are 4 Dummy Boxes: one between the bone structure's feet, called "Male" (the one in the Female file is called "Female"). The 3 boxes to the left are called "High", "Med", and "Low"

Okay, let us get the clothing mesh into this scene. Go up to your menu bar and click on Plasma, and then click on Merge. Find and select the Pants.max file you downloaded. Now your scene should look like this:

[[File:AvieCloth7.jpg]]

As you can see, the Red, Green and Dark Blue pants are all right on the Bone system. If you used your own clothing mesh and they are not, you will need to move them so that they are! This is for later when we "Skin" the meshes to the Bone structure.

Once you get the files merged, you need to select everything in the scene and attach a PageInfo component on everything that does not have it. Change the Age name to GlobalClothing, and the Page that you made.

[[File:AvieCloth8.jpg]]

----
==The Smooth Bases==

Okay, we are going to do some work with the Smoothing Bases here. I could have done it all for you, but then where is the fun in that? Go down and select all the meshes for the Red (High) Smoothing Avatar:

[[File:AvieCloth9.jpg]]

Now open up the Component Manager and click on New > Render > Smoothing Base and attach it to these meshes.

[[File:AvieCloth10.jpg]]

Rename the component to what you see in my picture below. Renaming the components is also a MUST to help keep track of things!

[[File:AvieCloth11.jpg]]

You can leave the Roll Out for it alone as the default settings are fine.

Now go and select all the meshes of the Green Smooth Avatar (Med), and attach a NEW Smoothing Base component to it too (DO NOT use the same one you just attached to the High mesh!). Rename it also so that you know it is for the Medium Smoothing Mesh:

[[File:AvieCloth12.jpg]]

Repeat these same steps for the Dark Blue Smooth Avatar (Low), and again, rename the component.

Now go down and select all the meshes for the Light Blue (Cyan? heheheh) Smooth looking Avatar. This is the Morphing Mesh Smooth Base for our High Mesh. Repeat the steps above and attach the Smoothing Base component to it too, and rename it:

[[File:AvieCloth13.jpg]]

Then go over and select all the Tan Smooth Avatar, and again, repeat assigning the Smoothing Base component to it too, also renaming it:

[[File:AvieCloth14.jpg]]

This means you should have FIVE Smoothing Base components in the Component Manager now!

----
==The Parent==

Go to between the Avatar's feet and select the Male Dummy box that is there.

[[File:AvieCloth15.jpg]]

If you then hit the "H" Key, you will see the selection box, and can see that just about everything is parented to the Male dummy box. The exceptions to this are the Smoothing Base Avatars.

You may notice that our Pants meshes are not either (or whatever Mesh you used). You need to select each one at a time, and parent it to the High, Med, and Low Dummy boxes:

[[File:AvieCloth16.jpg]]

So select the Red Pants, and parent it to the High dummy box. Select your Green pants and parent it to the Med dummy box, and then select the Dark Blue pants and parent them to the Low Dummy box
The remaining 2 meshes (the light blue and Tan color pants) do NOT get parented to anything.

However, now it is time to work with them. Select the Light Blue pants. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Render > Snap To Base and assign it to them.

[[File:AvieCloth17.jpg]]

Rename the component, and then in the roll out for it, click on the button below "Smoothing Comp Of Base Set" and then click on the Light Blue Smooth Avatar:

[[File:AvieCloth18.jpg]]

Now click on the Tan pants and do the exact thing for them too (only make sure it's a NEW Snap To Base component, and this time click on the Tan Smooth Avatar):

[[File:AvieCloth19.jpg]]

----
==High, Med, and Low Dummy Boxes==

Okay, time to mess with our High, Med, and Low Dummy boxes. Select the High one:

[[File:AvieCloth20.jpg]]

Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Morph Layer and assign it as a component to the High Dummy box:

[[File:AvieCloth21.jpg]]

In the Roll Out for it, you'll see a box called "Delta Meshes" and an Add Button:

[[File:AvieCloth22.jpg]]

Click on the Add button and then click on the Light Blue pants

''Wait. What the heck is "Delta Meshes"????'' "Delta Meshes are the meshes that we can morph or change to. "Delta" is the symbol used for "Change", and is used in math, physics and many other things.

Now assign a 2nd Morph Layer to the High Dummy, changing it's name, and in it's roll out, click on the Add button, only this time click on the Tan pants

[[File:AvieCloth23.jpg]]

What we just did is told the game that your pants can Morph down to as small as the Light Blue mesh, but get no smaller, and it can also get as big as the Tan mesh, but no bigger.

Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Morph Sequence, and assign this to the High Dummy box, and rename it too:

[[File:AvieCloth23a.jpg]]

In the roll out for this mesh, click on the Neutral Mesh button and then click on the Red pants Mesh. In the Box that says Morph Layers, click on Add and in the box that pops up, select the 2 Morph Layers that are assigned to the High Dummy

[[File:AvieCloth23b.jpg]]

----
==Skinning The Bones==

Now it's time to "Skin" our Pants Mesh to the Bone structure. This is important because if you have messed with the Animation Bar, you've seen that the bones move, but not the pants:

[[File:AvieCloth30.jpg]]

Let us start with the Red or High Mesh pants. Select them and then click on the Modifier Tab. We need to add UVW Mapping to this mesh. So do that:

[[File:AvieCloth24.jpg]]

You do NOT need to edit the UV Mapping. Adding the Unwrap UVW modifier simply gives the mesh mapping coordinates and that is all we need.

Next, go up to the menu bar and click on Modifiers > Animation > Skin and give it that modifier:

[[File:AvieCloth25.jpg]]

Open up the Skin Modifier. You see that you have a empty box and we need to put bones in there. We do this by clicking on the Add button I have circled in my picture below:

[[File:AvieCloth26.jpg]]

So how do you know what bones to add to what clothing mesh? I mean, to me, Pants should just need the Pelvis, Thighs, Calfs and that should be it, right?
Wrong.
Pants also need the Spine0 bone and the Feet. Here is what bones you should use for most clothing:

'''Hat or Helmet''' - ''Head, Neck, Spine2.''

'''Torso (shirts, vests, jackets, etc)''' - ''Neck, Spine0, Spine1, Spine2, All Clavicles, Upper Arms, Fore Arms, Hands, Pelvis.''

'''Pants''' - ''Spine0, Pelvis, Thighs, Calves, Feet.''

'''Gloves''' - ''Fore Arms, Hands, Fingers.''

'''Shoes''' - ''Calves, Feet, Toes.''

That should help you out some.

Now, you will need to do this to the Red (High), Green (Med), and Dark Blue (Low) clothing meshes: Add UVW mapping coordinates, and then the Skin modifier, and add the bones to the modifier.

The envelopes for the Bones are what Cyan has set for the pants all ready, however, if you are using your own mesh that you have made, or modified an existing clothing mesh, you will need to move the animation bar and make sure the clothing moves with the bones, line the next 3 pictures show:

[[File:AvieCloth27.jpg]]

[[File:AvieCloth28.jpg]]

[[File:AvieCloth29.jpg]]

Now, if you moved the animation bar, and instead you got this:

[[File:AvieCloth30.jpg]]

It means you did not add the UVW mapping modifier (or you collapsed the tree. I have found that collapsing the tree can cause this problem), or you did not pick the correct bones!

Or you may have seen something like this:

[[File:AvieCloth31.jpg]]

This means you did not do all the clothing meshes yet.

OR......

You more than likely will see this, especially if you are using your own meshes you made:

[[File:AvieCloth32.jpg]]

If you see your clothing being stretched or distorted like this, it means you will need to adjust the Envelopes on the Bones. Don't worry, I'm going to show you how to do that.

----
==Adjusting The Envelopes==

In the modifier tab, open up the Skin Modifier and select where it says Envelope, select the check marks for Verticies, Envelopes, and Cross sections, and then the bone in the box you want to adjust:

[[File:AvieCloth33.jpg]]

'''HEY! MY RED PANTS JUST TURNED BLUE!!!''

Relax, it's okay. The mesh has turned into a color field to show you where the envelope is reacting to the skin. Blue means that the bone will not move that area of mesh. As you increase your envelope, you will see a rainbow of colors where bright yellow means maximum movement from the bone.

As you can see from the above picture, our envelope is way too small to interact with the skin. We need to make it bigger. I like using the Cross Sections to adjust this, so in my picture below click and drag on one of the boxes I have circled:

[[File:AvieCloth34.jpg]]

Now drag your mouse to make the circle bigger:

[[File:AvieCloth35.jpg]]

As you can see, the pants mesh is changing colors to show us where it is being affected by the envelope. Make it big enough to include the area you need, but not too big! If you make it too big, it will start to affect the other pant leg and we do not want that!

Now go down and adjust the other cross section of the envelope to again what you need:

[[File:AvieCloth36.jpg]]

Now check your other envelopes of the other bones and make sure they are affecting the skin like we need:

Foot:

[[File:AvieCloth37.jpg]]

Thigh:

[[File:AvieCloth38.jpg]]

Pelvis:

[[File:AvieCloth39.jpg]]

After you have done this, you can move the animation bar and see how your skin is moving with the bones. In my pic below you can see we got the right pant leg to work correctly, but the left one still needs to be done:

[[File:AvieCloth40.jpg]]

Okay, NOW do that for the other 2 meshes (you MUST set the envelopes for all 3 clothing meshes, Red, Green and Dark Blue)!

----
==Making The Clothing Material==

Okay now it is time to make the Clothing Material before we can go any further (as we will need some components that will need the materials).

Unlike what you are used to, Plasma Clothing does NOT get assigned to any objects in your scene like you are used to. There is one Material that needs to be applied, and that is either the Male or Female Pallette, but I have already done that for you.

Call up your Material Editor, and select a blank or new spot. Click on Get Material, and select New and then double click where it says Plasma Clothing:

[[File:AvieCloth42.jpg]]

This is what the default material will look like:

[[File:AvieCloth43.jpg]]

Go to where the Material Name is and change it to something. If you have looked through Cyan's Avatar Documentaion, you will see that they use a pretty good system for naming things. This is very important so you do not get confused as to what clothing you are dealing with, and if it's for Male or Female. Later, in your Age, you will be having to use this name, so WRITE IT DOWN!!!!!!

[[File:AvieCloth44.jpg]]

I named mine MNeoPants, with the "M" meaning Male.

Next, in the Item Description box, you can put in a description of your clothing item here. It's not necessary to put anything here, but it will help you keep track of things:

[[File:AvieCloth45.jpg]]

Next, in the Tileset dropdown box, you need to select what this Material is for. In my case it is for Pants, so I will select "Legs"

[[File:AvieCloth47.jpg]]

Next, click on the Layer dropdown box, and select "Base". You have other things you can choose, but right now we need to set the Base Texture (default texture of the clothes):

[[File:AvieCloth48.jpg]]

Now you can click on the button that says (None) and select your texture for you clothes. Notice how it says "Legs (512, 512)". That is because this texture MUST be 512 x 512 pixels! Do not try and use a different size, or else you will get a nasty message from the pluging telling you "No. Try again".

[[File:AvieCloth49.jpg]]

Let us talk about the clothing textures for just a minute. If you look at the documentation, it shows you how the textures are suppose to be arranged and the sizes. If you change the Tileset to other body parts, you will see different buttons pop up for them, AND you will see different textures sizes:

The Torso has 2 textures: Torso and Arms

[[File:AvieCloth50.jpg]]

The Head has several different textures: Eyes, Face, Extra Hair, and Hat

[[File:AvieCloth51.jpg]]

Now, the Pants (and other clothing), you can add Layers with the dropdown box. Remember how in the Relto Closet the player can change the pants color? And how they can change the Belt color? This is because you can add 2 more layers, Tint1 and Tint2, and assign different textures to them. Here is what Cyan has for the Kakki Pants:

''*Note: the following 3 textures are from Cyan and are being used for this tutorial and educational purposes.''

Base Texture:

[[File:Basepants.png]]

Tint1 texture for changing the pants color:

[[File:Tint1pants.png]]

Tint2 texture for changing the Belt's color:

[[File:Tint2pants.png]]

Okay, the next section is for Python. You can just put what I have for now. For GroupName you can make up your own if you like:

[[File:AvieCloth52.jpg]]

And that is it. You do not UV Map the texture, as that is built in (and why the textures for clothing HAVE to be laid out in certain ways that the documentation shows you).

----
==Assigning The Clothes==

Now close the Material Editor (I sure hope you wrote down the name or names of your Materials), and select the dummy box between the Avatar's feet. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Avatar > Avatar Clothing, and assign it to the dummy:

[[File:AvieCloth53.jpg]]

Rename the component so it makes sense, and then look at the roll out for it:

[[File:AvieCloth54.jpg]]

For the box that says Clothing Materials, click on the Add button, and add the Material you made for the pants.

You will need to add 2 more Avatar Clothing components to the dummy (one for each mesh you have, Red, Green, Dark Blue), but they all use the SAME material!).

Now go down to the LOD box, and click on the button, selecting the proper mesh for that component (Red for High, Green for Med, etc):

[[File:AvieCloth55.jpg]]

CONGRADULATIONS! YOU JUST COMPLETED THE GLOBALCLOTHING PART!!!!!! yay! Drinks all around! Take a break! You deserve it! Because NOW you have to export this. Once you have, you can send the modified .age file and new prp file for GlobalClothing to your MOUL type server admin person.

BUT! Before you do that, you will need to go into your Age and do some stuff. It will be easy and short, I promise!

However, before you do......you will need to go back and do ALL of this over again, for the Female avatar...........

----
==In Your Age==

Okay, now it is time to get your Age ready for this. You need to make a Clickable of some sort. It could be a mesh that is textured to look like the close are all folded up, or hanging there. Or you could make it look like the clothes are in a dresser drawer or locker. How you do that is up to you.

For this tutorial, I just made a box to be my clickable. Then I assigned a Python component to it, and used xTakableClothing.py as the python. In the roll outs, it is pretty easy to figure out. However, I do need to cover a couple of things:

[[File:AvieCloth56.jpg]]

Where it says "Show / Hide age SDL var name", you need to put in a SDL BOOL variable. This means you need to add a SDL line to your SDL file, that looks like this:

<source lang="python">
VAR BOOL neoPants[1] DEFAULT=1
</source>

Where neoPants is a name you make up.

The other thing is where it says "Female clothing name" and "Male clothing name". In those 2 boxes, you need to put the names of your clothing items. But NOT the mesh names! You must use the Material Names! (now I bet you are glad you wrote them down, right?). If you only have one item, then that is all you need to put. If you have more than one item, then you need to enter them all, but separate them with a ";" so it would look like this:

<source lang="python">
MNeoPants; MNeoShirt; MNeoLShoe; MNeoRShoe
</source>

And that is pretty much it folks!

----
==Extra Info==

There are some extra things you will need to know. Some things you will figure out on your own, however I wanted to share these things with you right away:

Short Sleeve Shirts:

[[File:AvieCloth57.jpg]]

As you can see from the above picture, if you decide to make your own short sleeve shirt, you MUST provide the fore arms too! If you do not, when the player puts the shirt on, it will look like they have no fore arms!
This goes for pants that are shorts too. You must provide the mesh for the leg that is expose, or it will look like they are wearing pants but have no lower legs.

Hats and Helmets:

[[File:AvieCloth58.jpg]]

For Hats and Helmets you must provide part of the head as you can see in the picture above. Accessories like Glasses, earrings, etc, do not require this. But hats do.

I certainly hope this tutorial helps a lot of people out there.

----
==Questions I Have Received==

''Will this work with other versions of Max besides 7.0?''

I do believe it should be no problem, especially since Hoikas from the GoW has made it possible for Cyan's Plugin to work with later versions of Max. Just remember, if you do some work in 7.0 and then give it to a friend, they will be able to load it in Max 8.0 or later. But if they do work, and then send it back to you, you will be in trouble as there is NO backwards conversion for Max.

''Will this work for Blender and the PyPRP Plugin?''

I have no idea. I imagine that someone out there can figure out a way to port the Max files over to Blender, and how to wire it with PyPRP, but that is not something I'll be getting into I'm afraid. But if someone out there needs more info from me for this I will be happy to help, but I won't be exploring if this is possible or not.

----
Return To: [[Andy's Max Tutorials]]

3DS Max Plugin Tutorials

2011-07-29T19:09:13Z

Andylegate: /* Multiplayer Environment */

==Andy's 3DS Max and Cyan Plugin Tutorials==

'''Please Note: This area is under construction.'''

----

===Setting Up===

*'''[[What You Will See In Max]]'''

*'''[[How To Use Max]]'''

*'''[[How To Start An Age]]'''

*'''[[After You Have Exported From Max]]'''

*'''[[Linking Rules]]'''

*'''[[Common Export Errors]]'''

----
===Blender To Max===

*'''[[Importing Blender Objects To Max]]'''

----
===Your Age and Python===

*'''[[Python Files And Your Age: Please Read!]]'''

----
===Materials and Texture Tutorials===

*'''[[Materials and UV Editing in Max]]'''

*'''[[Using Multi / Sub Materials]]'''

*'''[[Making Stencils]]'''

*'''[[Basic Material Animation]]'''

*'''[[Using The Details Feature]]'''

*'''[[Vertex Painting]]'''

*'''[[Environmental Maps aka Reflections]]'''

*'''[[Light Maps in Max]]'''

----
===Sprites and Billboards===

*'''[[Sprites and Billboards in Max]]'''

----
===Distributor Tool Function===

*'''[[Distributor Tool]]'''

----
===Wind===

*'''[[Vertex / Pixel Shaders (aka Wavy Grass)]]'''

----
===Exclusion Regions===

*'''[[What Exclusion Regions Are And What They Do]]'''

*'''[[How To Set Up And Use Exclusion Regions]]'''

----
===Fog Settings===

*'''[[How To Set Fog In Your Age]]'''

----
===Wavesets===

*'''[[Wavesets: Reflective, Ripply Water]]'''

*'''[[Wavesets: Tips and Help]]'''

----

===Avatar Actions===

*'''[[Avatar Oneshot Animations]]'''

*'''[[Foot Prints and Ripples]]'''

*'''[[Avatar Sitting]]'''

*'''[[Avatar Swimming]]'''

*'''[[Ladders In Max]]'''

----
===Avatar Clothing===

*'''[[Reward or Takeable Clothing]]'''

----

===Game Logic===

*'''[[Using Sensor Regions]]'''

*'''[[Making Clickables]]

----
===Special Python Files===

*'''[[Python and Responders: Please Read!]]'''

*'''[[xSimplePanel for Max]]'''

*'''[[xDynamicPanel for Max]]'''

----
===Sounds===

*'''[[Avatar Footstep Sounds]]'''

*'''[[3D Sounds]]'''

*'''[[Non-Spatial Sounds (Music, Ambient)]]'''

----
===Lights===

*'''[[Basic Light and Avatar Shadows]]

*'''[[General Tips and Help]]

----
===Soft Volumes: Vis Regions, Light Regions and Sound Regions===

*'''[[About Soft Volumes]]'''

*'''[[Vis Regions: Controlling When Something Is Rendered]]'''

*'''[[Light Regions: Controlling The Light On The Avatar]]'''

*'''[[Sound Regions: Controlling What The Player Hears]]'''

----
===Particles===

*'''[[Snow Fall]]'''

*'''[[Rain Fall]]'''

*'''[[Steam and Smoke]]'''

*'''[[Particle Flocks (Eder Kemo Bugs)]]'''

*'''[[Particle Blockers: Keep It From Raining Inside]]'''

----
===Animations Using Bone Systems===

*'''[[How To Use Wind and Cloth Reactors]]

----
===GUIs===

*'''[[GUI Popups]]'''

*'''[[Multiple GUI Popups]]'''

----
===Subworlds===

*'''[[Making Subworlds (Elevators and Rides)]]'''

----
===Journals and Linking Books===

*'''[[Making Linking Books and Journals In Max]]'''

----
===Global Animations===

*'''[[Global Animations: Day / Night Cycle]]

----
===Multiplayer Environment===

*'''[[Multiplayer Tips and Considerations]]'''

*'''[[Toggling A State]]'''

----

Return To: [[Worlds]]

Toggling A State

2011-07-29T19:08:18Z

Andylegate: Created page with "There is a easy way to make sure things that have been changed or altered in your Age by one player, stay that way if they link out and back in, or if another player shows up aft..."

There is a easy way to make sure things that have been changed or altered in your Age by one player, stay that way if they link out and back in, or if another player shows up after the action has been done.

Let's use a door as a simple example.

You have a door that slides open when the player clicks on a button. You've made the door to where it stays open unless the player clicks on the button again (either because you are using 2 different responders, one for opening and one for closing, or your responder is a 2 state responder).

Unless you have a SDL state for that door, and unless it's been "toggled", when the player links out and then comes back later, they will find the door closed. Worse, the player opened the door and is in the room exploring. His friend, Player 2 links in, and says, "Hey! Where are you?" and get's told that his friend is through the open door, only Player 2 doesn't see a door open. For them, the door is closed.

We fix this by having a SDL file, with states for the objects. Let's look at Neolbah's SDL file:

<source lang="python">
STATEDESC Neolbah

{
VERSION 20 # multiplayer adjustments

# Elevator Door Puzzle

VAR INT neolButtonsPushed[1] DEFAULT=0
VAR BOOL neolDoorUnlocked[1] DEFAULT=0

# Animation States

VAR BOOL neofdoor1Unlock[1] DEFAULT=0
VAR BOOL neofdoor2Unlocked[1] DEFAULT=0

# KCP Camera Push

VAR BOOL CDPboolOperated[1] DEFAULT=0
VAR INT CDPOperatorID[1] DEFAULT=-1

# Elevator State Mechanics

VAR BOOL neolElevatorToggle[1] DEFAULT=0

}
</source>

For now, pay attention to where it says "VAR BOOL neofdoor1Unlock[1] DEFAULT=0"

Now let us look at the components I have assigned to that door in Max:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Booltog1.jpg

Notice how I have a Python file component attached to it. I then said to use "xAgeSDLBoolToggle.py" as the python file.

You'll see in the roll outs for it, it has a button for the "Activator" and a text box for the "Age SDL Var Name".
The "Activator" can be your clickable button, or even a sensor region. The "Age SDL Var Name" will be the name of your SDL variable that you put in the Age's SDL file. In my case it's neofdoor1Unlock.

What happens is, Player 1 clicks on the button to open the door, not only does the responder to open the door happen, but the SDL variable in the SDL file will be toggled from 0 to 1.

Now, you may have noticed, I had a 2nd Python file component attached to the door too. Here it is:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Booltog2.jpg

You'll see that I assigned the Global Python file called "xAgeSDLBoolRespond.py" to it.

In the roll outs, you'll see that Age SDL Var Name again. I put the same name as the one for the door in my SDL file.
You will also see 2 buttons: Run if bool true, and Run if bool false.
These are the responders that you want the game to run depending upon the state of the SDL variable.

If you have 2 different responders, one to open and one to close, then you'd put the correct responder where it goes (the door toggled the SDL variable to 1 or True when the door was opened, so we want the Close responder to run when true.).

If you have a 2 state responder, this will still work, put the same responder on both buttons.

If Player 2 were to link in after his buddy opened the door, he'll see it open already. If he goes and clicks on it, the SDL variable will get toggled again and will change it back to a 0 or False.

In the check mark boxes, you need to put a check where it says F-Forward On Init. You don't need one in the other boxes, unless you are paging your Age files. If you are doing that, you should put a check mark where it says "Init SDL On First Update"

Paging is where you have different prp files that do not load up until the player links there. The City on MOUL:a does this, as the different areas of the city are on different pages.

That is pretty much all there is to it. There are other things you can do to get other results.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Multiplayer Tips and Considerations

2011-07-29T19:06:09Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Being able to have your Age in a Multiplayer Environment has been around for quite a while with all the different Shards that have been around. One of the things that should be c..."

Being able to have your Age in a Multiplayer Environment has been around for quite a while with all the different Shards that have been around. One of the things that should be considered quite often is more than one player being involved in your Age.

This can range from simply trying to make things look and act right because there is only one instance of your Age, and you want to make sure things look like they are suppose to if someone else has been in there messing around before someone else links in, to setting up a puzzle that will require more than one person to solve it.

You also need to keep in mind other things, such as animated object that can affect other players. You don't want doors trying to cut players in 2 nor do you want an elevator crushing someone. Let's say you have a train. Player One steps off the platform and takes the train for a ride. Not only do you need to think about making sure that Player Two who comes along 15 minutes later does not see the train, but you may not want them to fall off the platform where the train was!

Maintaining the "State" of the Age (IE when doors should appear open or closed, etc), is important, and is normally controlled by the Age's SDL file. However, to have things change in the SDL file (IE a player opened up a door. If it's going to stay open then it needs to have a SDL state, so that when the player links out and back in, or if other players link in after it's been opened, it will still appear opened).

Once you have SDL states set up, you'll use Global Python files to change these states, or have Plasma run certain responders because of what a SDL state is.

Careful planning and thought is needed to make sure that things work this way.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Global Animations: Day / Night Cycle

2011-07-29T19:05:06Z

Andylegate: Created page with "First credit part of this tutorial needs to go to GPNMilano and Dustin. GPNMilano took the time to explain to me in detail how the Day / Night cycle in Eder Gira works several mo..."

First credit part of this tutorial needs to go to GPNMilano and Dustin. GPNMilano took the time to explain to me in detail how the Day / Night cycle in Eder Gira works several months ago to me, and Dustin figured out the very last piece of the puzzle that was missing! Thanks to both!

----
===Global Animations: What are they?===

Basically Uru uses Global Animations for things like the Day and Night cycle we see in Eder Gira. Eder Gira actually has a 10 hour (real time) day. 5 hours of day light and 5 of night. There's a sunrise and sunset in the Age. It's why when we link in one day it's late afternoon, and when we link in on another day, it's the middle of the night.

The movement of the sun and the 2 moons we see there are controlled by Global Animations.

The way the sky goes from the bright blue we see at midday to the starry sky at night is done with what we call Layer SDL Animations.

I'm going to show you how to do this with Max and Cyan's plugin.

----
===Should I Have This In My Age?===

In all the Ages we have in Uru and MOUL:a, only 7 have what seems like different times of day:

Eder Gira
Teledahn
Minkata
All of the pods.

Now Teledahn has a day that's like 72 seconds long. But all we have is a sun rotating around on the horizon. It's not the same as the others, and not done the same way.
Minkata has a day and a night, but you only see the two different times if you LINK to one of them. If you link into Minkata day time and just stand there, you will not see anything change. Same with the night time Minkata. Again, it's not done the same way as Eder Gira.

Eder Gira and the Pods have Day / Night cycles (all though you can't really tell in Tetsonot's Pod as it's deep under water and always dark there). If you link in and just stand there over time you will see the light change and the skies.

Light in your Age has a BIG impact on how it looks and feels. You may want your Age to have a constant time of day and always look that way (like the Cleft, Eder Tsogahl or Eder Delin). Most of us that make our Ages go through a lot of hair pulling to get our lights to make things look just right. The idea of animating those lights so that it changes how things look might even sound unnerving.

This should not be something you just suddenly decide to do with your Age on the fly. You'll need to plan things out.

Now with that in mind, let's look a little bit at what is going on in Eder Gira.

----
===Eder Gira.....===

The way the day / night cycle was made for Eder Gira consists of basically 2 things:

1) Movement and changes in the real time lights, and movement of the sun / moon panels.

2) Layer SDL animation of the materials for things like the sky.

The lights and planes that are used for the sun and the moons are animated so that they revolve around the Age. The lights also have their hue and intensity controlled by animations. As we go from morning to midday, the sun light get's higher in the sky and the light's intensity and color changes getting brighter. As the sun moves back down to set, we have a lowering in the intensity and a change in the hue, until the light is out.
At the same time, the light for the moons will rise and get brighter too (but not as bright as the sun of course).

While this is going on objects like Gira's sky dome has it's material animate: The blue sky of the day get's very bright, but as the sun sets it get's darker and more transparent, until the day time sky is completely transparent. At the same time, the night time texture is becoming brighter and more solid until you can completely see it.

There is also a change in sounds. Certain sound emitters are being changed so that you go from Day to Night time sounds.

Now you could animate all this by hand. you'd have to keep track of what is where, and what is going on frame by frame. And that would be a HUGE pain in the rear end!

Using Global Animations makes it to where the animation is controlled by the Age's time of day, and you won't have to worry about the frames! A LOT easier!

Okay, let's get ready.......

----
===Getting Started......===

The first thing you are going to have to do is set your length of day in your .age file for your Age. Now if you plan on having a 24 hour day cycle, then you're good to go with the default .age file we make up.
BUT......
That means when you go to test your Day / Night cycle will take a full 24 hours to test.........real time! Not exactly a good work flow there!

Even if you want to have a shorter day, say like Gira's at 10 hours, you'd still have to wait 10 hours to see everything cycle all the way through.

So, we're going to give our Age a very short day, but just until we are done testing everything. When you've gotten to the point that you are ready to make your Day / Night cycle, then it's time to edit the .age file.

The best way to do this is to simply delete the .age file you have for your Age in your PlasmaTest folder. Then using Notepad like you did to first start working on this Age, make a new .age file, but this time you are going to change where it says "DayLength=24" to something else. Here is mine from my Outside Test Age:

StartDateTime=0000000001
DayLength=0.25
MaxCapacity=10
SequencePrefix=7100
ReleaseVersion=0
Page=mainroom,0

Notice how my DayLength says it equals 0.25. That's 1/4 of an hour, or 15 minutes. That means I'll see a full day / night cycle in 15 minutes. A LOT faster than 24 or 10 hours. Still, if you want it faster than that, just make that number even smaller. Setting it to 0.016 will give you a day / night cycle that's just under 1 minute long.
Now save the .age file. Later, when you have everything set to how you want it and tested, you can go back in and change the DayLength to the value you want for your Age.

Next we need to have some python. Specifically we need to have what most of us call a "Dummy" Python file for our Age. If you don't know how to do this, go take a look at my tutorial on "Builtin Prp File". It will show you how to set up a "Dummy" python file. This is needed for your Age. Once you have one, you need to assign it to an object (any will do) in your scene, and make sure you put a check mark where it says "Make Global"

And last we need to have a SDL file made for the Age. Here is what mine looks like. It only has the variable for the day / night cycle:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Daynight4.jpg

Once you have the SDL file for your Age made, you need to make a copy of it, then go to your PlasmaTest folder. Make a new folder called "sdl" and past your sdl file in there. You'll need to restart Max so it can read it. This is VERY important and you can't skip this!

Now that's it for setting it up. Now you need to make your animations.

Layer Animations and Global Animations.

I'm not going to sit here and tell you how to make your lights rotate around, or how to animate your texture. Those things are covered under other tutorials I've done, and if you don't know how to do them, you need to stop right here and go read those tutorials and learn how to animate objects, lights and your Materials.

The only thing you need to know how to do at this point is how to make the animations for your lights, objects and materials that are going to be controlled by your Age's time of day:

For any OBJECT that is animated by movement (IE your lights, the planes that have the Sun or Moon textures that you have rotating around your Age), you need to assign an Animation Component just like you normally would.

BUT!

This time in the roll out box in your Utils Tab, you need to put a check mark where it says "Animate On Global" like I've done in my picture below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Daynight1.jpg

Now, in the drop down box, where it says (none), you need to click on it, and you should see your SDL variable name. Click on it.

What's that? You are not seeing your SDL variable name? Only the (none) name?
Then that means you didn't do like I said and make a sdl file for your Age, and then copy it to a folder called "sdl" in your export folder (PlasmaTest)! You MUST do that so that Max and Cyan's Plugin can read your SDL file!

For Material Animations like making your sky texture go from a nice blue to a dark starry night:

Once you have the animation made (Opacity, Ambience, etc), move down on your Material until you see the "Animations Parameters" box. Again, you'll see from the picture below, you need to put a check mark where it says "Animate On Global"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Daynight2.jpg

Then click on the drop down box where it says (none) and you should see your SDL variable name. Click on it to select it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Daynight3.jpg

And that's it people! You can export your Age, Convert it, Link in and watch your Global Animations happen!

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Making Linking Books and Journals In Max

2011-07-29T19:01:55Z

Andylegate:

One of the main differences between Cyan's Plugin and PyPRP for Blender, is the fact that with Cyan's Plugin, it's all point and click for your Age, where as in Blender with PyPRP you have to use ALCscripting.

Some like one way over the other. I personally like the point and click, but I know people that really like using scripting better. With this subject, adding a Journal or a Linking Book actually IS easier with Blender and PyPRP.

Here is why:

With Blender and the PyPRP plugin, you type in the scripting for adding a python file to an object. Any variables are typed in by you. You just have to make sure your python file reflects those variables. D'Lanor's template makes doing all this even easier.

But with Cyan's Plugin, it needs to see your python file (where as in Blender, you can just go ahead and type it all in, and worry about the python file later), BEFORE you do anything in Max! The reason for this is Cyan's Plugin will have buttons and boxes that you have to click on to assign your variables, and it gets these from your Python file.

Just slapping D'Lanor's template file in there will not work either I'm afraid. His template has to be modified slightly before Cyan's Plugin will recognize it (don't ask me why, I just know it has to be done this way, else you won't see your python file in the drop down box when you assign the Python Component to your book).

So first things first: Let's do some Python editing!

----
===Python, the Sssssssss in programing!===

First you are going to need D'Lanor's templates. If you don't have his latest that's handy, here is a link:

[http://forum.guildofwriters.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2878&start=0&hilit=journal+dynamic+template GoW Forum Link] where you can read about it, and copy and paste the code from there.

Now that you have the files, open them up in whatever program you like to edit Python files with. I use Plasma Shop, some people like to use Urupython, but it's really up to you.

Open up the BookGUI python file first. Later you will save this file as '''YourAgeName'''BookGUI.py

When you open it up, you will see this at the beginning of the file:

<source lang="python">
###########################################
# #
# Dynamic Book Template v4.1 by D'Lanor #
# #
###########################################

# Change each occurrence of *YourAge* to the actual name of your age.
# Do the same with the file names.

from Plasma import *
from PlasmaTypes import *
from PlasmaKITypes import *
from PlasmaNetConstants import *
import xLinkingBookDefs
actClickableObject = ptAttribActivator(1, 'Act: Clickable Object')
strObject = ptAttribString(2, 'Object String')
Behavior = ptAttribBehavior(3, 'Avatar link animation (optional)')

### DO NOT CHANGE THESE VARIABLES/CONSTANTS! ###
ourBook = None
bkLinks = []
ageLinkStruct = None
kLinkID = 1
publicAges = []
kPublicAgeLink = 6
kPublicAgesMOUL = ['city',
'Neighborhood',
'Neighborhood02',
'GreatTreePub',
'GuildPub-Cartographers',
'GuildPub-Greeters',
'GuildPub-Maintainers',
'GuildPub-Messengers',
'GuildPub-Writers',
'philRelto',
'Kveer']

### CHANGE THE GLOBAL CONSTANTS BELOW TO FIT YOUR AGE ######################################
# #
# modPageDefs: Replace *YourAge*PageDefs with the name of the module that contains your #
# page definitions. #
# ageBooks These are your clickable objects. They must be defined in *YourAge*PageDefs #
# in the AgeBooks Dictionary Section by the same name(s). #
# bookPages Names in bookPages must be defined in the *YourAge*PageDefs file under #
# BookPages. An ageBook can have multiple bookPages as long as they are #
# enclosed together between the same square brackets. #
# Always keep the nesting structure [[double square brackets]] intact! #
# parentAge If you are using the kChildAgeBook linking rule you can set a parent age. #
# Child ages are only useful for ages which have multiple owners (currently #
# only Neighborhood!). All parent age owners share the same instance of the #
# child age. Using any other parent age than Neighborhood makes no sense. #
# kLinkDelay Delay for the optional avatar link animation to finish. You may have to #
# tweak it since 3.5 is an estimate. #
# vOpenSource For future Uru Open Source support. For now keep this set to false. #
# #
# If there are multiple books in an age the code will find the right one automagically. #
# You can add as many books as you like. Just define them in the global variables ageBooks #
# and bookPages. The order is important here. The first book will be matched to the first #
# page list, the second book to the second page list etc. #
############################################################################################

modPageDefs = '*YourAge*PageDefs'
ageBooks = ['Journal01', 'Journal02']
bookPages = [['PradJournal', 'CleftSpecial'], ['FontTest']]
parentAge = 'Neighborhood'
kLinkDelay = 3.5
vOpenSource = false

class *YourAge*BookGUI(ptModifier,):

def __init__(self):
ptModifier.__init__(self)
self.version = '4.1'
self.me = self.__class__.__name__
self.PageDefs = __import__(modPageDefs)
print ('__init__%s v.%s' % (self.me, self.version))

</source>

As you can see, D'Lanor was kind enough to put instructions in these files, so I will not be going into a lot of depth as far as what you are suppose to put where, when he has already done this.
What I am going to ask you to do, is scroll down to where you see:

<source lang="python">
class *YourAge*BookGUI(ptModifier,):

def __init__(self):
ptModifier.__init__(self)
self.version = '4.1'
self.me = self.__class__.__name__
self.PageDefs = __import__(modPageDefs)
print ('__init__%s v.%s' % (self.me, self.version))
</source>

You need to change this. Yes, you need to change "*YourAge*BookGUI" to the name of you Age (like mine is NeolbahBookGUI), but you are going to have to change the def below it. Cyan's plugin does not like this, and if you leave it like it is, your python file '''WILL NOT SHOW UP IN THE DROP DOWN BOX IN MAX!'''

Here is what you should change it to:

<source lang="python">
class NeolbahBookGUI(ptModifier,):
__module__ = __name__

def __init__(self):
ptModifier.__init__(self)
self.id = 5112002
version = 27
minor = 4
self.version = version
self.me = self.__class__.__name__
self.PageDefs = __import__(modPageDefs)
PtDebugPrint(('__init__NeolbahBookGUI v%d.%d' % (version,
minor)))
</source>

The self.id number you can make up. I normally just take my Age's sequence number and tack on 3 digits after that, in this case it was 002.
However the version number and minor number ARE important. Use EXACTLY what I have. Cyan's Plugin looks at version numbers and if you use something other than what I have up here, it's going to get VERY upset with you.

Okay, now go in and follow D'Lanor's instructions on the rest of the file, mod or add the things he tells you to.

"But Andy, I've not made any of those things in Max yet!" you say.
And I say: "Then WRITE THEM DOWN, and use them later when you DO create those things in Max".

Okay, now you can save the file as '''YourAgeName'''BookGUI and you are done with it for now.

Now you have to open up D'Lanor's PageDefs template in your python editor. You will be having to do things in here according to D'Lanor's instructions. Again, he has put instructions that tell you what to do.

However, and this is '''VERY IMPORTANT''', there is one line we need to change. Let me show you:

<source lang="python">
# For each occurrence of *YourAge* and *YourTexture* you have to replace this with
# the actual name of your age and your textures.

from Plasma import *
from PlasmaNetConstants import *
# Due to their length journal texts are usually stored in external Python files.
# The line below imports them. Remove this line if you do not use external journals.
from NeolbahJournals import *
kPublicAgeLink = 6

# Variables that can be used in BookPages:
PageStart = '<pb>'
ImgStart = '<img src="'
TransImgStart = '<img opacity=0.7 src="'
ImgEnd = '" align=center link=%d blend=alpha>'
ImgEndNoLink = '" align=center blend=alpha>'
ImgEndNoResize = '" align=center link=%d blend=alpha resize=no>'
ImgEndNoLinkNoResize = '" align=center blend=alpha resize=no>'
AlignCenter = ''
AlignLeft = ''
AlignRight = ''
# Variables for animated linking panels. See BikTest. Does NOT work with UU!
MovieLinkStart = '<movie src="avi\\'
MovieLinkEnd = '.bik" align=center link=%d resize=yes>'
# Retrieve local player name in case you want to fake a "personal" note
plyrName = PtGetLocalPlayer().getPlayerName()
</source>

Go down to the last line where it says "plyrName = PtGetLocalPlayer().getPlayerName()" and put at "#" symbol in front of it so now it looks like this:

<source lang="python">
#plyrName = PtGetLocalPlayer().getPlayerName()
</source>

That's all you need to do other than D'Lanor's instructions. I know, such a small thing. But if you don't '''MAX WILL CRASH HORRIBLY WHEN IT GOES TO LOAD!'''

I mean you'll hear it scream, smoke will come out of your computer........well okay, maybe I'm exagertating a bit here, but yah, Max will crash while it's trying to load Cyan's Plugin. You'll get some ugly .dll error. I'm not sure why this line causes it, but it does.

So if you wanted to have the player's name show up in a journal, forget it. At least you're not going to be able to do it this way.

Okay, now you are pretty much done with the Python files. You need to go ahead and save them, then pack them into the pak file, then extract them again. This is because you need to have the complied and uncompiled versions in your Python folders for Plasma Test.
So that's the next thing, copy your BookGUI and PageDefs files over to where you have your Python files for Max (both the .py and .pyc versions.).

'''EDIT: Make SURE you copy and paste over ALL THREE files! Your BookGUI, your PageDefs, and if you have one, your Journal python files to your Export Python folder for Max. If you do not, your BookGUI file will NOT show up in the drop down box.'''

Now load up Max (and if it crashes, go back over what I told you to do!)

Load up your Age, and let's get to work:

----

===What You Do In Max===

Okay, now if you have not already, you need to create your Journal or Linking book in Max, put it where you want it and texture it.
You also need to make a clickable for it. For how to do that, please see my other tutorials on this.

Now you're ready to tell it what to do when you click on it. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Logic > Python and attach the python to the book. Rename it to something useful other than Python02 or whatever.

Then go over to the Utils Tab and click on Component Utils. Select your Python component, and look at the roll outs:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/journals6.jpg

As you can see you have a nothing but a drop down box. Click on it, and scroll down the list until you see your BookGUI python file.

If you don't see it, then you need to go back and make sure you modified the Python file correctly. Specifically where I told you to modify the Version number, etc.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/journals6.jpg

As you can see from the picture, you'll have your Python BookGUI file showing. You also have a button to select the clickable for the Book. This is what tells your python file to run. So click on it and select your Clickable for your book.

You also have a Text Box that says "Object String". In here you type in the name of you used in "agebook" from your BookGUI python file.

And last you have a button for Avatar Animation. If you don't have one for this book, just leave it alone. If you do, click on it and select the One Shot that you used for the animation of this book.

And that's pretty much it. As for putting in Journal Content, or Linking panels, etc, etc. All that is pretty much the same as my Blender tutorial.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Making Linking Books and Journals In Max

2011-07-29T19:01:05Z

Andylegate: Created page with "One of the main differences between Cyan's Plugin and PyPRP for Blender, is the fact that with Cyan's Plugin, it's all point and click for your Age, where as in Blender with PyPR..."

One of the main differences between Cyan's Plugin and PyPRP for Blender, is the fact that with Cyan's Plugin, it's all point and click for your Age, where as in Blender with PyPRP you have to use ALCscripting.

Some like one way over the other. I personally like the point and click, but I know people that really like using scripting better. With this subject, adding a Journal or a Linking Book actually IS easier with Blender and PyPRP.

Here is why:

With Blender and the PyPRP plugin, you type in the scripting for adding a python file to an object. Any variables are typed in by you. You just have to make sure your python file reflects those variables. D'Lanor's template makes doing all this even easier.

But with Cyan's Plugin, it needs to see your python file (where as in Blender, you can just go ahead and type it all in, and worry about the python file later), BEFORE you do anything in Max! The reason for this is Cyan's Plugin will have buttons and boxes that you have to click on to assign your variables, and it gets these from your Python file.

Just slapping D'Lanor's template file in there will not work either I'm afraid. His template has to be modified slightly before Cyan's Plugin will recognize it (don't ask me why, I just know it has to be done this way, else you won't see your python file in the drop down box when you assign the Python Component to your book).

So first things first: Let's do some Python editing!

----
===Python, the Sssssssss in programing!===

First you are going to need D'Lanor's templates. If you don't have his latest that's handy, here is a link:

[http://forum.guildofwriters.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=2878&start=0&hilit=journal+dynamic+template GoW Forum Link] where you can read about it, and copy and paste the code from there.

Now that you have the files, open them up in whatever program you like to edit Python files with. I use Plasma Shop, some people like to use Urupython, but it's really up to you.

Open up the BookGUI python file first. Later you will save this file as '''YourAgeName'''BookGUI.py

When you open it up, you will see this at the beginning of the file:

<source lang="python">
###########################################
# #
# Dynamic Book Template v4.1 by D'Lanor #
# #
###########################################

# Change each occurrence of *YourAge* to the actual name of your age.
# Do the same with the file names.

from Plasma import *
from PlasmaTypes import *
from PlasmaKITypes import *
from PlasmaNetConstants import *
import xLinkingBookDefs
actClickableObject = ptAttribActivator(1, 'Act: Clickable Object')
strObject = ptAttribString(2, 'Object String')
Behavior = ptAttribBehavior(3, 'Avatar link animation (optional)')

### DO NOT CHANGE THESE VARIABLES/CONSTANTS! ###
ourBook = None
bkLinks = []
ageLinkStruct = None
kLinkID = 1
publicAges = []
kPublicAgeLink = 6
kPublicAgesMOUL = ['city',
'Neighborhood',
'Neighborhood02',
'GreatTreePub',
'GuildPub-Cartographers',
'GuildPub-Greeters',
'GuildPub-Maintainers',
'GuildPub-Messengers',
'GuildPub-Writers',
'philRelto',
'Kveer']

### CHANGE THE GLOBAL CONSTANTS BELOW TO FIT YOUR AGE ######################################
# #
# modPageDefs: Replace *YourAge*PageDefs with the name of the module that contains your #
# page definitions. #
# ageBooks These are your clickable objects. They must be defined in *YourAge*PageDefs #
# in the AgeBooks Dictionary Section by the same name(s). #
# bookPages Names in bookPages must be defined in the *YourAge*PageDefs file under #
# BookPages. An ageBook can have multiple bookPages as long as they are #
# enclosed together between the same square brackets. #
# Always keep the nesting structure [[double square brackets]] intact! #
# parentAge If you are using the kChildAgeBook linking rule you can set a parent age. #
# Child ages are only useful for ages which have multiple owners (currently #
# only Neighborhood!). All parent age owners share the same instance of the #
# child age. Using any other parent age than Neighborhood makes no sense. #
# kLinkDelay Delay for the optional avatar link animation to finish. You may have to #
# tweak it since 3.5 is an estimate. #
# vOpenSource For future Uru Open Source support. For now keep this set to false. #
# #
# If there are multiple books in an age the code will find the right one automagically. #
# You can add as many books as you like. Just define them in the global variables ageBooks #
# and bookPages. The order is important here. The first book will be matched to the first #
# page list, the second book to the second page list etc. #
############################################################################################

modPageDefs = '*YourAge*PageDefs'
ageBooks = ['Journal01', 'Journal02']
bookPages = [['PradJournal', 'CleftSpecial'], ['FontTest']]
parentAge = 'Neighborhood'
kLinkDelay = 3.5
vOpenSource = false

class *YourAge*BookGUI(ptModifier,):

def __init__(self):
ptModifier.__init__(self)
self.version = '4.1'
self.me = self.__class__.__name__
self.PageDefs = __import__(modPageDefs)
print ('__init__%s v.%s' % (self.me, self.version))

</source>

As you can see, D'Lanor was kind enough to put instructions in these files, so I will not be going into a lot of depth as far as what you are suppose to put where, when he has already done this.
What I am going to ask you to do, is scroll down to where you see:

<source lang="python">
class *YourAge*BookGUI(ptModifier,):

def __init__(self):
ptModifier.__init__(self)
self.version = '4.1'
self.me = self.__class__.__name__
self.PageDefs = __import__(modPageDefs)
print ('__init__%s v.%s' % (self.me, self.version))
</source>

You need to change this. Yes, you need to change "*YourAge*BookGUI" to the name of you Age (like mine is NeolbahBookGUI), but you are going to have to change the def below it. Cyan's plugin does not like this, and if you leave it like it is, your python file '''WILL NOT SHOW UP IN THE DROP DOWN BOX IN MAX!'''

Here is what you should change it to:

<source lang="python">
class NeolbahBookGUI(ptModifier,):
__module__ = __name__

def __init__(self):
ptModifier.__init__(self)
self.id = 5112002
version = 27
minor = 4
self.version = version
self.me = self.__class__.__name__
self.PageDefs = __import__(modPageDefs)
PtDebugPrint(('__init__NeolbahBookGUI v%d.%d' % (version,
minor)))
</source>

The self.id number you can make up. I normally just take my Age's sequence number and tack on 3 digits after that, in this case it was 002.
However the version number and minor number ARE important. Use EXACTLY what I have. Cyan's Plugin looks at version numbers and if you use something other than what I have up here, it's going to get VERY upset with you.

Okay, now go in and follow D'Lanor's instructions on the rest of the file, mod or add the things he tells you to.

"But Andy, I've not made any of those things in Max yet!" you say.
And I say: "Then WRITE THEM DOWN, and use them later when you DO create those things in Max".

Okay, now you can save the file as '''YourAgeName'''BookGUI and you are done with it for now.

Now you have to open up D'Lanor's PageDefs template in your python editor. You will be having to do things in here according to D'Lanor's instructions. Again, he has put instructions that tell you what to do.

However, and this is '''VERY IMPORTANT''', there is one line we need to change. Let me show you:

<source lang="python">
# For each occurrence of *YourAge* and *YourTexture* you have to replace this with
# the actual name of your age and your textures.

from Plasma import *
from PlasmaNetConstants import *
# Due to their length journal texts are usually stored in external Python files.
# The line below imports them. Remove this line if you do not use external journals.
from NeolbahJournals import *
kPublicAgeLink = 6

# Variables that can be used in BookPages:
PageStart = '<pb>'
ImgStart = '<img src="'
TransImgStart = '<img opacity=0.7 src="'
ImgEnd = '" align=center link=%d blend=alpha>'
ImgEndNoLink = '" align=center blend=alpha>'
ImgEndNoResize = '" align=center link=%d blend=alpha resize=no>'
ImgEndNoLinkNoResize = '" align=center blend=alpha resize=no>'
AlignCenter = ''
AlignLeft = ''
AlignRight = ''
# Variables for animated linking panels. See BikTest. Does NOT work with UU!
MovieLinkStart = '<movie src="avi\\'
MovieLinkEnd = '.bik" align=center link=%d resize=yes>'
# Retrieve local player name in case you want to fake a "personal" note
plyrName = PtGetLocalPlayer().getPlayerName()
</source>

Go down to the last line where it says "plyrName = PtGetLocalPlayer().getPlayerName()" and put at "#" symbol in front of it so now it looks like this:

<source lang="python">
#plyrName = PtGetLocalPlayer().getPlayerName()
</source>

That's all you need to do other than D'Lanor's instructions. I know, such a small thing. But if you don't '''MAX WILL CRASH HORRIBLY WHEN IT GOES TO LOAD!'''

I mean you'll hear it scream, smoke will come out of your computer........well okay, maybe I'm exagertating a bit here, but yah, Max will crash while it's trying to load Cyan's Plugin. You'll get some ugly .dll error. I'm not sure why this line causes it, but it does.

So if you wanted to have the player's name show up in a journal, forget it. At least you're not going to be able to do it this way.

Okay, now you are pretty much done with the Python files. You need to go ahead and save them, then pack them into the pak file, then extract them again. This is because you need to have the complied and uncompiled versions in your Python folders for Plasma Test.
So that's the next thing, copy your BookGUI and PageDefs files over to where you have your Python files for Max (both the .py and .pyc versions.).

'''EDIT: Make SURE you copy and paste over ALL THREE files! Your BookGUI, your PageDefs, and if you have one, your Journal python files to your Export Python folder for Max. If you do not, your BookGUI file will NOT show up in the drop down box.'''

Now load up Max (and if it crashes, go back over what I told you to do!)

Load up your Age, and let's get to work:

----

===What You Do In Max===

Okay, now if you have not already, you need to create your Journal or Linking book in Max, put it where you want it and texture it.
You also need to make a clickable for it. For how to do that, please see my other tutorials on this.

Now you're ready to tell it what to do when you click on it. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Logic > Python and attach the python to the book. Rename it to something useful other than Python02 or whatever.

Then go over to the Utils Tab and click on Component Utils. Select your Python component, and look at the roll outs:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Journals6.jpg

As you can see you have a nothing but a drop down box. Click on it, and scroll down the list until you see your BookGUI python file.

If you don't see it, then you need to go back and make sure you modified the Python file correctly. Specifically where I told you to modify the Version number, etc.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Journals6.jpg

As you can see from the picture, you'll have your Python BookGUI file showing. You also have a button to select the clickable for the Book. This is what tells your python file to run. So click on it and select your Clickable for your book.

You also have a Text Box that says "Object String". In here you type in the name of you used in "agebook" from your BookGUI python file.

And last you have a button for Avatar Animation. If you don't have one for this book, just leave it alone. If you do, click on it and select the One Shot that you used for the animation of this book.

And that's pretty much it. As for putting in Journal Content, or Linking panels, etc, etc. All that is pretty much the same as my Blender tutorial.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Making Subworlds (Elevators and Rides)

2011-07-29T18:56:33Z

Andylegate: Created page with "'''EDIT 9/22/2010: This tutorial has been edited to reflect the changes that Drizzle 28 and later allow. The previous version that showed how to do this will still work, however,..."

'''EDIT 9/22/2010: This tutorial has been edited to reflect the changes that Drizzle 28 and later allow. The previous version that showed how to do this will still work, however, this updated version shows the proper way to make the Exit Regions for SubWorlds.'''

Subworlds are how we "move" the avatar around. Whenever you use an elevator, ride a train, jump to a spinning building's bridge, etc. If the avatar is to ride objects in Plasma, we use Subworlds to make this happen.

Uru:CC/POTS, UU, and Alcugs used Havok for it's physics. MOUL:a uses PhysX. However, the way you make Subworlds in Max is very much like how they are made with Blender and the GoW Plugin.

----
===Getting Started.....===

First you are going to need a few things built in your Age. You'll need Enter and Exit regions, A Dummy, an object that is going to move your Avatar. As you can see I have these things in my picture below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW1.jpg

The red arrow points to my Exit region. The blue arrow points to my Enter region. You can also see the empty hollow box that is the SubWorld Dummy.

Now in Max with Cyan's Plugin, you will NOT be animating your objects such as the Elevator Platform. Instead, you will be animating your Subworld Dummy you put in. So it is important to position you objects where they need to be at the beginning of the animation.

'''In the previous version of this tutorial, I had you position your Exit region at the bottom, so that it would animate with the subworld. This is no longer the case. You can place your subworld region where you want it to be. I'll show you how to keep it from moving like everything else that is linked to the subworld dummy a bit later in this tutorial. '''

Once you have your objects made, and have assigned the PageInfo component to all of them, select your Dummy. Change it's name to something useful, like SubWorld Dummy or Elevator Subworld, etc.

'''It is important to note that you do NOT change the name of the dummy after you have assigned the "SubWorld" component to it! Doing so will cause a "Access Violation" error when you go to link into your Age. Make sure you name your subworld dummy BEFORE you assign the SubWorld component to it!'''

Open up the Component manager and click on New>Physics>Subworld and assign it to the Dummy:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/SubWrldMax1a.jpg

You can rename the component to something other that "Subworld01" if you want and I would recommend you do so if you are going to have more than one Subworld.
What we just did was designate the Subworld coordinate system with this object.

Now select your Enter Region you made. Assign it a Region Sensor component and set it up like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/SubWrldMax3.jpg

You want it to trigger when you enter, but also this gives the region it's physics.

Now with the region still selected, call up the Component Manager and click on New>Physics>Subworld Region

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/SubWrldMax2b.jpg

And assign this component to the Enter Region. Then go over to your Component Utils and select it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/SubWrldMax4.jpg

When you do, where it says "Join Subworld Region" your button will say "none". Click on it, and then click on your Subworld Dummy in your 3D Scene window. The button will now say the name of your Dummy you made.
Make sure you have a dot where it says "Enter" as we want to join the subworld when we entered the region.

Now go up and select your Exit Region. Take note of how I have my subworld Exit region positioned.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW2.jpg

As you can see, it's halfway on and off of the platform we are going to walk on to after the elevator ride. Notice also that I have a collider plane (the aquamarine plane) that extends out from it. This plane is NOT linked to subworld, but will make sure that when the player does exit subworld, they do not fall halfway through the floor! Sort of like a safety net.

Now with your Exit Region selected, open up your Component Manager. Click on New > Physics > Subworld Region and assign this new one to the Exit region (meaning you should have 2 SubWorld Regions now, one on your Enter Region, and now one on your Exit Region).

Go to your Utils tab, and select that SubWorld Region you just assigned to your Exit Region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW5.jpg

In this case, you want to leave the button that says "None" ALONE! Do not touch it! Leave it saying "None"!
I'm also going to leave the trigger for it to "Enter". You could set it to "Exit" and what that will do is have the player leave SubWorld when they EXIT this region, but I want the player to exit SubWorld right when they ENTER this region. The reason why will become clear a bit further on in this tutorial.

Now we need to link the objects that the avatar will be interacting with while in the Subworld. Colliders, for the elevator platform and the Bounds for our Exit Region would ignore our avatar unless we link to them to the Subworld.

To do this, go up to the menu bar in Max, and enable the Linking Tool (where I've circled in red in the pic below):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/SubWrldMax9.jpg

Using this tool, Click and Hold on each object that you need to link to your Subworld Dummy. Like in the pic below, I Click, Drag, and Drop from the Elevator Platform to the Subworld Dummy (you can see the dotted line in the pic below as I did this):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/SubWrldMax10.jpg

Again, you'll need to do this with each object that the avatar needs to collide with, and with the Exit Region.

Now that you've linked everything, we you are going to be almost ready to animate your subworld. BUT, in our case here, we DO NOT WANT the Exit Region to move up and down with the subworld dummy. To keep this from happening, select your Exit Region. Open up your Component Manager, and click on New > Misc. > Filter Inherit. And assign this component to the Exit Region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW3.jpg

Then go to the Utils Tab and select the Filter Inherit component, and look at the roll out box for it. As you can see, we are going to use this to tell the Exit Region that while it is linked to SubWorld, we don't want it to move with the subworld when it animates. In this case, the subworld is going to go just up and down (Z Axis), so we put a check mark there:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW4.jpg

Once you have done all this, you can now animate the Subworld Dummy. As you move the dummy about (move it's position, rotation, etc), you will see all the objects that you linked with it move too. But you'll notice that your Exit Region stays in place where you need it!
It's important to remember that you attach the animation component to the Subworld Dummy, NOT your objects. If you try to apply them to your objects, you will get an error when you try to export, as you can not have a Physics Component assigned to an object that is animated.

'''Side Note:''' ''There will be times when you may want your Exit Region to move with your subworld. Let's say you have a ride that you let the player control. If they can stop the ride in the middle of the animation, you can allow them to get off of it there. But if you don't move the Exit Region with the ride in that case, the player will not be able to exit subworld. So again, while this tutorial is showing you to NOT move the exit region, there may be times when you do want it to move with the player.''

That's it, that is all there is to it. There are more and complex ways to go about this, but this gives you the basics of it.

''EDIT: Make sure you have Drizzle 28 as your Drizzle version! Drizzle 27 and earlier will NOT convert your Subworld components correctly!''

----
===Using Responders To Enter and Exit SubWorld===

In the previous version of this tutorial, I had you create a responder to exit the player from SubWorld. You can also use a responder to place the player IN SubWorld. All without having to mess with regions! Nice and simple, eh?

Yep...and you pay for that simplicity. Using a responder to have a player enter and exit subworld is a BAD IDEA if your Age is going to have multiple players in it! Here is what happens:

20 people are in my Age Neolbah. 19 of them are off exploring, reading journals, etc. One of them however decides to use the elevator. When they walk on and push the button, the responder will "place local player in subworld"
What happens is the one player goes for an elevator ride, while the other 19 players suddenly fall through the floor! Not good! "Local Player" is seen as "Everyone that is in this Age".
Same thing is true for using a responder to exit subworld. Let's say I had 2 elevators. When player 1 is done with his elevator ride, the responder will "remove local player from subworld" now for anyone else, this is okay, they won't fall through the floor. And for the first elevator rider, he or she will be fine. But if the 2nd player that is riding a DIFFERENT elevator which is in a DIFFERENT subworld is still riding that elevator when the responder "removes local player from subworld", they will be removed from the subworld THEY are in! So they'll be falling down through their elevator platform!

So as you can see, while using a responder to have a player enter and exit subworlds is the easy way of doing things, it can REALLY mess up your players if your Age is on a Shard!

There are times that you can use this without fear of messing anyone up. If your Age is not going to be on a shard, but used only by people using the stand alone version of Uru, then there won't be a problem. However, you'll find that while you put your Age out to the public to have fun with, many shard owners will download your Age and put it on their shard, with or without your consent! Then they'll complain that your Age is not working right! Hows that for irony? heheheh.
However, let's say you have an Age that is not "sharable", like the Cleft or the Bahro caves. In those cases, where only 1 player can be in it at one time, you could use the responder way of Entering and Exiting SubWorld just fine.

----
===Using Colliders With Your Elevator.....===

Setting up colliders with your elevator can be a pain. You want the player to be able to enter the elevator, but not fall off of it while it's moving. Here's an example of how you can do it (and there many ways to do this, this is just one example).

Okay, I want a simple collider around the elevator platform to keep the player from running or falling off while the elevator is moving. So I put a box that is going to be my invisible collider around the platform:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW7.jpg

But I can't leave the faces on the box like this. I have to flip the faces, else the collider will not work correctly. So with the box selected, go to your Modifier tab, and make it an Editable Mesh. Then select all the faces or Polys, and in the roll out box, click on the button to flip all the normals:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW8.jpg

Now your box should look inside out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW89.jpg

Now assign Proxy Terrain for the physics so that it has collision but is not rendered, and link it to your subworld dummy.

Now if you have it, your Enter and Exit regions in the right place, this is what will happen:

By having the normals flipped and the Enter region just inside the collider, your player will not feel the collision walking on to the platform, but will now be in subworld and will now collide with the inside of it!
When the platform reaches it's destination, you can see how I have the Exit region set up with it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/newSW1-.jpg

It's partly inside the Exit region. This is WHY we set the trigger for the Exit Region to "Enter" when the player starts to enter the Exit region, they will be removed from subworld, and now they will no longer collide with the collider. They will walk right out and on to the platform.

'''I'd like to thank Boblishman and Dustin for the help that they gave me on this. Bob for coming to me with different ways to use subworlds that got me to investigate them more, which lead to realizing that the way this tutorial used to read was not correct. And Dustin for his patients with us when I would say: "uhhhh....Drizzle isn't working right.......", and making the additions to Drizzle so that it would convert all of this correctly. Dustin has the patients of Job and is great to work with!'''

----
{{ALTutorials}}

GUI Popups

2011-07-29T18:50:12Z

Andylegate: Created page with "GUI Pop Ups are things that appear on our screen that are not the normal game camera view. For example, when you call up your KI menu, the game menu or your Relto Book are examp..."

GUI Pop Ups are things that appear on our screen that are not the normal game camera view.

For example, when you call up your KI menu, the game menu or your Relto Book are examples of a GUI Pop Up.

You also have things like: Linking books, the Bahro Linking Stones, Journals, Notes, Maps and Warranty cards.

Some of the GUI Pop Ups are quite complex (the KI menu), some are very simple (A note left on a desk). This tutorial will show you how to create a simple pop up.

----
===It's Time To Add Another PRP File!===

Most GUI Pop Ups have their very own prp file. There is a very good reason for this that I will show you later on. It has something to do with Python.

To add an additional prp file to your Age, you will have to go to your PlasmaTest\dat folder (or what ever you set your output folder to in the PlasmaMAX2.ini file. There you will find your Age that you've been exporting. Make a back up of these files, and then delete them.

Yah, you read right. DELETE them! You can not edit the .age file that is there now. It is no longer the text file you created to set up your Age, nor can you edit with a special tool like PlasmaShop or UruFun, as Max will get upset about this. So we're just going to create another one.

Open up your Notepad and create your file again, just like you did to start the Age, only this time, add a line like you see in my pic below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia30.jpg

Where I have circled in red is where you'll add your extra prp file. The name of mine is "tryingmap", you need to make up your own name and put it there. Make sure that you add the ",1" to the end of your line. For each prp file you add, you need to increment them up.

Okay now save your file like you would normally do for setting up and Age, and then open up Max and load your Age up, we're good to get started.

----
===Let's Add Some Stuff===

Okay, we need to add some stuff here to our scene. We'll be adding the object that we see in game while exploring (IE the note or map or pic, etc) and place it in our scene where the avatar can find it. Texture it with something you'd like to see up close and personal.

In my example here, I've made a plane and textured it with a photo:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia1.jpg

Now add it to your mainroom PageInfo and don't worry about anything else for it right now, let's make our Region now:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia8.jpg

You need to make a region that the avatar will enter to click on the object that is going to be your popup.

'''EDIT 4/24/2010: I'd like to point out that we do not need a region to make an object a clickable. We are only using the region as a CONTROL to make sure the Avatar is close to the object we want to click on. It would not make any sense to have the GUI Pop up happen from across the room. However, please note, you can make an object clickable without using regions (info provided by GPNMilano from the GoW ).'''

Now add it to your mainroom PageInfo, and while in the Component Manager, click on New > Detector > Region Sensor:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia9.jpg

Over in the Component Utils, you don't need to change anything, and can go with the defaults for now:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia10.jpg

Now we need to go outside our Age, to a place that the Avatar could not normally get to. You are going to make 3 things here:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia2.jpg

First make 2 planes, one bigger than the other. Have the bigger one rest a little bit below the smaller one. Apply the same texture as your object that your avatar is going to click on. On the larger plane, you need to apply a texture that is COMPLETELY transparent.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia3.jpg

Now we need to make a camera that points at the 2 planes you just made. Click on your Create Tab and select camera, Target, and then make the camera. Make sure you rename it to something useful:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia4.jpg

Orientate you camera so that it points to your 2 planes. Make sure that the target view extends down just past the 2 planes.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia5.jpg

Now we need to adjust the Camera's view as it sees the planes so with your camera selected, right click in the screen and select "Set View to Selected Camera"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia6.jpg

Now you can use the camera settings to adjust your camera View. The key is to make sure you "transparent" plane helps fill the screen. You don't want the "Void" to be visable in the camera. You can see I also have my view slightly canted:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia7.jpg

Once you have your view set up, you can hit the "T" key in the 3D view to snap out of the Camera view.

Now we have something important to do: we need to set the PageInfo on these 4 objects....but it's NOT the PageInfo that was set on all the other objects in your Age, so if you already applied PageInfo to your 2 planes, your Camera and Camera.Target, you need to go back and remove them.

You can either select each one of those things, or select them all at once, but in either case it's important to add a 2nd PageInfo to your Component Manager:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia18.jpg

This one will default to the name: PageInfo02. You can leave it at that if you want. You need to attach this to your Camera, the camera's target, and the 2 planes that we made.

Then for the PageInfo on each object that you've assigned PageInfo02 to, you need to go to the Component Utils and select it, and change the "Page" to the name of the page we added to our .age file!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia20.jpg

Okay, let's go back to the Object that our Avatar will click on. Select it, and call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Detector > Clickable:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia11.jpg

Now go over and select it in our Component Utils:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia12.jpg

Where you see in my pic where I have circled in Red, click on this button and then click on the region we made.

Now in the Component Manager, click on New > Logic > Python File

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia13.jpg

Go over to the Utils tab and select it. We need to tell it what file to use:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia14.jpg

In the drop down box, you'll want to select the file "xDialogToggle"

A new roll out box will appear below. Click on the button just below where it says "clickable", and a new box will pop up on your screen:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia15.jpg

You need to select the clickable you assigned to the object that that avatar will click on.

Then go back to the rollout box. In the box just below where it says "Toggle dialog - by name", you need to type in the name of the new prp file we made for the Age:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia16.jpg

Okay, now go back over to where we created our 2 planes and camera.

Select the camera and call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Camera > Fixed Camera

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia17.jpg

You don't have to set anything for this component.

Now in the Component Manager, click on New > GUI > GUI ID Tag

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia21.jpg

Over in the Component Utils, select the GUI ID Tag (have a good read at the warning, heh), and then in the box where it says "Tag Konstant" you need to type in the number: 99

Now go back to the Component Manager and click on New > GUI > GUI Dialog:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia23.jpg

Go over to the Component Utils and select our GUI Dialog component. You only need to do a few things here so don't freak out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia24.jpg

In the GUI Dialog roll out box, Make sure Age: is the name of your Age and that Name: is the name of that new prp file we made. Also, put a check mark where it says "Modal"

Then go up to the Tag Konstant box and type in "99" again.

Select the large Plane that you put your transparent texture on.

Now go back to the Component Manager and click on New > Detector > Clickable (what? when the GUI pops up, we click on it to lay it back down, remember?).

Over in the Component Utils, select your clickable and set it up like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia25.jpg

Now go back to the Component Manager, but don't click on new. Instead, open it up and find your GUI ID Tag that you assigned to the camera. Select it, and assign it to your plane too.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia26.jpg

Now go up to the GUI Dialog, and do the same thing. Select the one we assigned to the Camera, and assign it to the plane too.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia27.jpg

Okay, NOW we can add something new: click on New > GUI > GUI Button

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia28.jpg

Go over to the Component Utils Tab and select the GUI Button we just assigned to the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/guidia29.jpg

Again, don't freak out, the only thing you should concern yourself with is where I circled in red. Make sure that one is selected.

And that's it. You have successfully created a simple GUI pop up. So export, your Age and give it a try. You should have something like my video below:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9TYIGEsph0 GUI Popup Video]

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Particle Blockers: Keep It From Raining Inside

2011-07-29T18:44:34Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Okay, so you've had some fun making Rain, Snow or Leaves falling from your sky (or fish.......depends on what your Ages is I guess....). However, if you have any buildings, cave..."

Okay, so you've had some fun making Rain, Snow or Leaves falling from your sky (or fish.......depends on what your Ages is I guess....).

However, if you have any buildings, caves, etc, I bet you noticed that those pesky particles are just ignoring the roof and coming right in!

In order to keep your particles from doing this, you're going to have to use something called Collision Volume Effect.

----
===Getting Started.....===

Okay, I'm going to assume that you already have your particle system set up. Now it's time to keep those particles out of some places where you do not want them.

Let's look at the new Serene. It's snowing like crazy there, and I have a temple with a roof. I don't want any of the snow to fall through that roof since we all know that snow doesn't do that (well.....okay in real life if enough snow piles up on your roof, it just may end up coming in, hope that doesn't happen to you! But I'm talking about the snow flakes as they fall out of the sky).

First thing you need to do is to select the object(s) that you do not want your particles to go through. In this case, I'm selecting the temple roof in Serene:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Pcol1.jpg

Then I'm going to clone it, and rename the clone so that I know what it's for.

Now go and select your mesh or point that you are using as your particle emitter. Call up the Component Manager, and click on New > Particle System > Collision Volume Effect and assign it to your particle emitter.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Pcol2.jpg

Now go to your Utils Tab and select that component so you can see it's roll out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Pcol3.jpg

Take a look at the box that says "Mesh to build volume from". Click on the button below it, and select that copy you made of your object. (Note, if you have more than one object, you'll need to assign a Collision Volume Effect component for each one).

Now look further down in your roll out. You'll see you have a choice called "Die" and one called "Bounce". I used "Die" as I just want the snow flakes to hit the roof and disappear.

'''BUT!''' if you have a particle effect that is like sparks falling to the ground, you can have them bounce for a little bit (we see this in Er'cana when we turn the power switches on). So that's a cool choice too.

And that's it!

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Particle Flocks (Eder Kemo Bugs)

2011-07-29T18:42:52Z

Andylegate:

Particle Flocking is what we see when we watch the Glow Bugs that are in Eder Kemo. You can also see them in Myst V in the Age of Direbo.

How you make this is actually not that hard. Figuring out the parameters for the flocks, was....very hard that is. However, I'll be giving you the numbers that Cyan used exactly. You can either use them, or play around with them, but they'll get you in the ball park.

This tutorial will show you how to have the same kind of flock in your Age. They will not attach themselves to your Avatar, as you have to do something very special for that.

This tutorial assumes you know how to make things in Max, how to set up Cyan's Plugin, how to assign Plasma Components, and that you've read and understand how to set up Particles and Object Animations. If you do not know how to do these things, please go back and read those tutorials.

----
===Something Bugging You?===

Okay, to get started you are going to need a mesh that is your Particle Emitter. A simple Cube will do. I've got one here in my Shell for Pahts. It's see through because I also have a Run Time Light with them (you don't need that, I was playing with it):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/pflock1.jpg

Once you have your mesh made, open up the Component Manager and assign a Particle System component to it by clicking New>Particle System>Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/pflock2.jpg

Then go over to your Component Utils Tab and select it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/pflock3.jpg

Set your particles up as you see in the above picture. These are the EXACT values that Cyan used for their bugs.

Next, we need to assign the Particle Flock component to our Mesh by clicking on New>Particle System>Particle Flock:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock4.jpg

Again, go over to your Component Utils and select the Flock you just assigned to the mesh. Set up your numbers just like mine in the pic below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock5.jpg

Again, these are the numbers that Cyan used for their flock (well, if you open up the prp file in a program like PrpShop, you'll see different numbers.......that's because the numbers in the prp file are actually the Square of the numbers you enter here in Max.....now you know why it was hard at first to figure out what the numbers were suppose to be, heh).

Again, you can play with these numbers, but what I have listed above is what Cyan used.

Now we need to texture our particles. Open up the Material Editor and get a new material. Make it a Plasma Particle type. Assign it the same numbers that you see in the pic below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock6.jpg

Now for the texture, I used this that I made:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/particlebugs2.png

I used Cyan's texture as a template. I used Gimp Shop to create the same sized transparent texture, and then used the air brush, color adjustments, and the Opaque setting to get it to look like this.

Now if we were to export right now and link in, we'd see the bugs, move all around a center point.......but they'll sit right in one place. If you want them to move and meander around like in Kemo, you'll have to animate the particle Mesh.

Now, you are going to want this to be a LONG animation. Mine is 5,600 frames long. That way the path of the bugs does not seem very repetative, and also are moving slowly around. Here is the path that I gave mine:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock7.jpg

And here is the key settings in the time track:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock8.jpg

The important thing to remember, is to have your emitter back where it started at the beginning. This is because you are going to loop the animation, and you don't want the bugs to suddenly disappear and reappear elsewhere (unless you have the go away for a while like they do in Kemo during the rain storm).

So don't forget to Autostart and Loop your animation:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock9.jpg

That's really it, except to keep in mind that if you have the emitter move close to the ground, walls, or other structures, the particles will appear to be going right through them. So you'll need to use particle blockers in the case of this, or just be very careful where you have the emitter go to.

Here's a 45 second video of my bugs in my Pahts Shell:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_YaAfF_fQg Particle Flock Bugs Video]

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Particle Flocks (Eder Kemo Bugs)

2011-07-29T18:42:05Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Particle Flocking is what we see when we watch the Glow Bugs that are in Eder Kemo. You can also see them in Myst V in the Age of Direbo. How you make this is actually not that ..."

Particle Flocking is what we see when we watch the Glow Bugs that are in Eder Kemo. You can also see them in Myst V in the Age of Direbo.

How you make this is actually not that hard. Figuring out the parameters for the flocks, was....very hard that is. However, I'll be giving you the numbers that Cyan used exactly. You can either use them, or play around with them, but they'll get you in the ball park.

This tutorial will show you how to have the same kind of flock in your Age. They will not attach themselves to your Avatar, as you have to do something very special for that.

This tutorial assumes you know how to make things in Max, how to set up Cyan's Plugin, how to assign Plasma Components, and that you've read and understand how to set up Particles and Object Animations. If you do not know how to do these things, please go back and read those tutorials.

----
===Something Bugging You?===

Okay, to get started you are going to need a mesh that is your Particle Emitter. A simple Cube will do. I've got one here in my Shell for Pahts. It's see through because I also have a Run Time Light with them (you don't need that, I was playing with it):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Pflock1.jpg

Once you have your mesh made, open up the Component Manager and assign a Particle System component to it by clicking New>Particle System>Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Pflock2.jpg

Then go over to your Component Utils Tab and select it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Pflock3.jpg

Set your particles up as you see in the above picture. These are the EXACT values that Cyan used for their bugs.

Next, we need to assign the Particle Flock component to our Mesh by clicking on New>Particle System>Particle Flock:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock4.jpg

Again, go over to your Component Utils and select the Flock you just assigned to the mesh. Set up your numbers just like mine in the pic below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock5.jpg

Again, these are the numbers that Cyan used for their flock (well, if you open up the prp file in a program like PrpShop, you'll see different numbers.......that's because the numbers in the prp file are actually the Square of the numbers you enter here in Max.....now you know why it was hard at first to figure out what the numbers were suppose to be, heh).

Again, you can play with these numbers, but what I have listed above is what Cyan used.

Now we need to texture our particles. Open up the Material Editor and get a new material. Make it a Plasma Particle type. Assign it the same numbers that you see in the pic below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock6.jpg

Now for the texture, I used this that I made:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/particlebugs2.png

I used Cyan's texture as a template. I used Gimp Shop to create the same sized transparent texture, and then used the air brush, color adjustments, and the Opaque setting to get it to look like this.

Now if we were to export right now and link in, we'd see the bugs, move all around a center point.......but they'll sit right in one place. If you want them to move and meander around like in Kemo, you'll have to animate the particle Mesh.

Now, you are going to want this to be a LONG animation. Mine is 5,600 frames long. That way the path of the bugs does not seem very repetative, and also are moving slowly around. Here is the path that I gave mine:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock7.jpg

And here is the key settings in the time track:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock8.jpg

The important thing to remember, is to have your emitter back where it started at the beginning. This is because you are going to loop the animation, and you don't want the bugs to suddenly disappear and reappear elsewhere (unless you have the go away for a while like they do in Kemo during the rain storm).

So don't forget to Autostart and Loop your animation:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/PFlock9.jpg

That's really it, except to keep in mind that if you have the emitter move close to the ground, walls, or other structures, the particles will appear to be going right through them. So you'll need to use particle blockers in the case of this, or just be very careful where you have the emitter go to.

Here's a 45 second video of my bugs in my Pahts Shell:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_YaAfF_fQg Particle Flock Bugs Video]

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Steam and Smoke

2011-07-29T18:38:10Z

Andylegate:

Doing particles for Smoke, Steam and say rising Mist from a waterfall, are done a little bit different than the particles for say Snow or Rain.

The two main differences are: Gravity needs to be turned off......and instead of a "mesh" as our particle generation, we need to use Point generation.

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a Steam Leak, like we see in Er'cana in the tunnel.....well, mine won't be quite as good as Cyan's, heh, because I haven't taken the time to really dial in the numbers, but how it's done is still the same.

Make sure you take the time to read through my tutorial on [[Snow Fall]] which introduces you to using particles in your Age.

----
===Make A Pipe....===

Okay, I quickly made a pipe, bent it, gave it a material and texture, collision and made sure to put in in the PageInfo of the Component Manager:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart1.jpg

Next, we need to make a small cube as our "Particle Emitter". Remember, Cyan's documentation says NOT to use a Dummy for a particle emitter.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart2.jpg

Don't forget to add the emitter you just made to your PageInfo:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart3.jpg

Now I made my emitter quite small: 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 Max units (which is 6 x 6 x 6 inches). I moved it over to my pipe....but now we have to orientate it just right.

For a Point Source Particle Emitter, you want to rotate your emitter so that they "Z" axis faces AWAY from where the particles will emit. To do this, first go up to your menu and change your "view" to "Local"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart4.jpg

Then rotate the emitter so that the "Z" axis faces AWAY from where your steam will shoot out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart5.jpg

Now we have to add the material and texture to the emitter. I'm going to use the same pics as for Snowfall, as the process is exactly the same:

Call up the Material Editor by hitting you "M" key, select an unused sphere, and hit the "Standard" button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart3.jpg

In the box that pops up, double click on "Plasma Particle":

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart4.jpg

Now the "Standard" button should now say "Plasma Particle", go down and click on the blank button where it says Texture:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart5.jpg

A directory tree will pop up. You need to select your Smoke, Steam, Mist texture. Here is my "Steam" texture I used. I made a 64 x 64 sized picture with a transparent background, and sprayed it with my Air Brush in Gimp Shop:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/smokepart.png Yah, Yah! I know, you don't see anything (that's because this forums background is WHITE too!). Trust me, it's there.

ONce you've selected your texture, make sure the Alpha is selected.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart6.jpg

Then go up and click on the drop down box that says "Normal: View Facing" and change it to "Normal: Nearest Light" (if you don't...your steam will look black"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart7.jpg

Now assign the material to our emitter by either click, drag and dropping it on the emitter mesh, or by clicking on the Assign To Selection button.

Now, with the emitter still selected, call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Particle System > Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart8.jpg

Make sure you attach the emitter to the Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart9.jpg

Now go over to your Utils Tab (the little hammer), and select Component Util button, and the Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart6.jpg

Okay, a LOT to discuss here:

Where I have circled the drop down box in Blue, make sure it says "Point Source"

Where I have circled in red, (Gravity and Wind), you need to make the values 0, or very low. If you don't on the Gravity, instead of Steam shooting out, it will look like water pouring out of the hose and on to the ground.
The Wind left at 100 will have the steam stream moving all around.

Now for the other number: you can set them as you see in my picture, export the Age and take a look. As you can see, it's not perfect, but it's in the ball park. I spent several hours playing with the numbers and can tell you the following:

For "Cone Angle" the default of 45 degrees most likely will work fine for smoke rising from the ground, or mist from your waterfall, but for steam shooting out of a pipe, you'll want to make it smaller. I found that 5 degrees works pretty good.

For Min/Max Velocity, I have NO idea why the default is 50 feet per second for both. That's INSANE as that's almost 35 Mph! I have mine set to 5 and 10 feet/sec....for smoke and mist rising slowly, you'll want to make those numbers even smaller.

Life(seconds) is how long the particles last in view. The longer this number, coupled with the faster the velocity, and you'll have your steam shooting 100 feet! So keep the numbers low if possible.

Birthrate: this is how often particles are emitted. Default is 20 per second, and I've left it there for steam shooting out of a pipe. You might want to change this for smoke and mist slowly rising.

Scaling %: this is how big the particles are. I was trying to make them small coming out and expanding larger. Play around with these number.

So that's it, keep refining your numbers and technique:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0071.jpg

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0073.jpg

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Steam and Smoke

2011-07-29T18:37:38Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Doing particles for Smoke, Steam and say rising Mist from a waterfall, are done a little bit different than the particles for say Snow or Rain. The two main differences are: Gra..."

Doing particles for Smoke, Steam and say rising Mist from a waterfall, are done a little bit different than the particles for say Snow or Rain.

The two main differences are: Gravity needs to be turned off......and instead of a "mesh" as our particle generation, we need to use Point generation.

In this tutorial, I'm going to show you how to make a Steam Leak, like we see in Er'cana in the tunnel.....well, mine won't be quite as good as Cyan's, heh, because I haven't taken the time to really dial in the numbers, but how it's done is still the same.

Make sure you take the time to read through my tutorial on [[Snow Fall]] which introduces you to using particles in your Age.

----
===Make A Pipe....===

Okay, I quickly made a pipe, bent it, gave it a material and texture, collision and made sure to put in in the PageInfo of the Component Manager:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart1.jpg

Next, we need to make a small cube as our "Particle Emitter". Remember, Cyan's documentation says NOT to use a Dummy for a particle emitter.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart2.jpg

Don't forget to add the emitter you just made to your PageInfo:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart3.jpg

Now I made my emitter quite small: 0.5 x 0.5 x 0.5 Max units (which is 6 x 6 x 6 inches). I moved it over to my pipe....but now we have to orientate it just right.

For a Point Source Particle Emitter, you want to rotate your emitter so that they "Z" axis faces AWAY from where the particles will emit. To do this, first go up to your menu and change your "view" to "Local"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart4.jpg

Then rotate the emitter so that the "Z" axis faces AWAY from where your steam will shoot out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart5.jpg

Now we have to add the material and texture to the emitter. I'm going to use the same pics as for Snowfall, as the process is exactly the same:

Call up the Material Editor by hitting you "M" key, select an unused sphere, and hit the "Standard" button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart3.jpg

In the box that pops up, double click on "Plasma Particle":

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart4.jpg

Now the "Standard" button should now say "Plasma Particle", go down and click on the blank button where it says Texture:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart5.jpg

A directory tree will pop up. You need to select your Smoke, Steam, Mist texture. Here is my "Steam" texture I used. I made a 64 x 64 sized picture with a transparent background, and sprayed it with my Air Brush in Gimp Shop:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/smokepart.pngYah, Yah! I know, you don't see anything (that's because this forums background is WHITE too!). Trust me, it's there.

ONce you've selected your texture, make sure the Alpha is selected.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart6.jpg

Then go up and click on the drop down box that says "Normal: View Facing" and change it to "Normal: Nearest Light" (if you don't...your steam will look black"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart7.jpg

Now assign the material to our emitter by either click, drag and dropping it on the emitter mesh, or by clicking on the Assign To Selection button.

Now, with the emitter still selected, call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Particle System > Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart8.jpg

Make sure you attach the emitter to the Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart9.jpg

Now go over to your Utils Tab (the little hammer), and select Component Util button, and the Particle System:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/steampart6.jpg

Okay, a LOT to discuss here:

Where I have circled the drop down box in Blue, make sure it says "Point Source"

Where I have circled in red, (Gravity and Wind), you need to make the values 0, or very low. If you don't on the Gravity, instead of Steam shooting out, it will look like water pouring out of the hose and on to the ground.
The Wind left at 100 will have the steam stream moving all around.

Now for the other number: you can set them as you see in my picture, export the Age and take a look. As you can see, it's not perfect, but it's in the ball park. I spent several hours playing with the numbers and can tell you the following:

For "Cone Angle" the default of 45 degrees most likely will work fine for smoke rising from the ground, or mist from your waterfall, but for steam shooting out of a pipe, you'll want to make it smaller. I found that 5 degrees works pretty good.

For Min/Max Velocity, I have NO idea why the default is 50 feet per second for both. That's INSANE as that's almost 35 Mph! I have mine set to 5 and 10 feet/sec....for smoke and mist rising slowly, you'll want to make those numbers even smaller.

Life(seconds) is how long the particles last in view. The longer this number, coupled with the faster the velocity, and you'll have your steam shooting 100 feet! So keep the numbers low if possible.

Birthrate: this is how often particles are emitted. Default is 20 per second, and I've left it there for steam shooting out of a pipe. You might want to change this for smoke and mist slowly rising.

Scaling %: this is how big the particles are. I was trying to make them small coming out and expanding larger. Play around with these number.

So that's it, keep refining your numbers and technique:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0071.jpg

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0073.jpg

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Rain Fall

2011-07-29T18:33:37Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Before going through this tutorial, you need to go through the Particle Tutorial on Snow Fall, as it explains the basics of setting up a Mesh Particle System. Once you unders..."

Before going through this tutorial, you need to go through the Particle Tutorial on [[Snow Fall]], as it explains the basics of setting up a Mesh Particle System. Once you understand how to do that, you can come back here and learn how to make rain.

----
===Getting Started......===

Okay, the first thing you need to do is think of how you want your rain. Do you want a light drizzle? Or do you want a torrential down pour?

The reason you need to think of this, is that it will affect how you make your mesh. For a down pour, you will need a plane with a lot of faces.....and more than one plane! For a light drizzle, you could most likely get away with using just one plane.

I decided to make it rain heavy inside of my little test Age, so I set up 4 planes like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/rainmax1.jpg

Another way would could arrange the meshes is to stack them. That will make for even denser rain.

Once you have your meshes made, you need to make your material for them. You'll need a raindrop texture. The raindrop texture that Cyan uses is very easy to make:

Create a pic with a transparent background that is 15 pixels wide, and 60 pixels long (high). Then take your paint brush and draw a straight line down the center. Make the line about 7 pixels wide, with feathered edges. That's it, you're done.

Call up the Material Editor by hitting your "M" key. Click on the Standard button and change it to Plasma Particle. Select your raindrop texture you made by clicking on the blank button next to "Texture", and make your settings like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/rainmax2.jpg

Take a look at where I've circled Width and Height. I've made the width scaling very small, 0.1. And I've made the Height scaling long: 10.0. This is because in Uru, when it rains, we don't see drops of water, but streaks. This will help produce that effect.

Click on the drop down box and select "Nearest Light" and make your Color and Ambient white.

Assign this material to all of your particle meshes you made. Then call up the component manager.

Attach "Particle System" to each mesh, but you don't have to make a new one for each mesh. You can attach the same one to all 4 meshes since all 4 will be producing the same particle types.

Once you've done that, open up the Utils Tab (the little hammer) and click on the Component Utils button, and select your particle.

Look at the values I assigned my rain:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/rainmax3.jpg

These numbers worked really good for me. You can play around with them if you want, but keep in mind 2 things: Velocity and Birthrate.

You'll want to keep your Velocity high, as the rain falls fast, not drifting down like Snow or Leaves.

Birthrate: I've got the number set pretty high, but don't take it too high. I did, and the plugin yelled at me when I tried to export (I'd set it at 1,000).

That's basically it! Export, Drizzle it, and link in.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Snow Fall

2011-07-29T18:31:36Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Okay, one of the most exciting things about using Max with Cyan's plugin for me was the ability to finally be able to put particles into our Ages. Previously with Blender and th..."

Okay, one of the most exciting things about using Max with Cyan's plugin for me was the ability to finally be able to put particles into our Ages.

Previously with Blender and the PyPRP Plugin, there was no support for this, and if you wanted to put something like snow, rain, etc into your Age, you had to do a lot of hacking with the PRP files. Anyone that has read my tutorial over in the Blender section for this, knows what I'm talking about.

With Max and Cyan's plugin, it's all point and click.

This tutorial will show you how to put in a simple particle system that you can use for snow fall in your Age. You can also use it for leaves drifting down from trees (like we see in Delin an Kadish).

Other particle systems, for like Rain, steam, smoke, etc are done a little bit different and will be covered under other tutorials.

This tutorial assumes you've set up 3DS Max with Cyan's plugin, and have created an .age file. If you have not done this, please go back to the other tutorials and do it first.

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===Getting Started......===

Okay, so when I decided to give this a try, I thought back to Eder Delin and when I had imported it. What I saw was that there was a "Dummy" point just above the "leaf" plane in that Age labled "SnowParty"

When I started working on this, I had read through Cyan's documentation on Particle Systems and come across this here:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart0.jpg

The part I've circled in red is important. Even though when I imported Delin into Blender, "SnowParty" was represented by a "Dummy" point, it merely meant that the importer imported the object wrongly. Which is okay since importing was not really supported anymore in the GoW Plugin.

However, I ran into another problem which was using "Point Source" as my particle generation (don't worry if you don't know what I'm talking about, it will become clear as you do this tutorial). When I used that, instead of snow falling flurries, I got what looked like a water hose pouring water, heh.

I realized that we have to use "Mesh" for our particle generation. The size of the mesh, along with how many segments it has is what spreads your particles out.

So with that in mind, You need to make a plane mesh over your Age. I made mine here, and gave it 30 width and length segments:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart1.jpg

I also moved it up to the roof.

'''NOTE: Particles will ignore collision geometry. So they will fall through things. To keep this from happening, you have to make a "Collision Volume Effect" which is not covered under this tutorial.'''

Don't forget to add this mesh to your PageInfo:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart2.jpg

Now, we're going to need a texture for our snow flakes (or if you're doing leaves, you'll need a leaf texture). I've got a snow flake texture here that is from Genetica. It's not the best thing in the world, and I would recommend making one that looks more like a blob than this. Just make sure you give your texture a tranceparent background:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowflake.png

Open up the Material panel by hitting your "M" key, and then select a unused sphere. Then click on the "Standard" button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart3.jpg

In the new box that pops up, look for "Plasma Particle" and double click on it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart4.jpg

That should have changed the button that said "Standard" to "Plasma Particle"

Now go down and click on the blank button next to "Texture"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart5.jpg

This will call up a directory tree. Go and select your snowflake texture and open it.

Now in this next picture, look at where I have circled things in purple.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart6.jpg

You'll want to make your snow's ambient color something other than black. Make sure Velocity Based is checked, and Blend Mode is Alpha.

Now you need to click on the drop down box that says "Normal: View Facing" right now:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart7.jpg

Go down and select Normal: Nearest Light.

If you don't do this....your snowflakes will look black!

Now, assign this material to your plane you made, by either click, drag and dropping it on the plane, or click the Assign Material to Selection button.

Okay, now make sure you still have the plane selected, and call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Particle System > Particle System

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart8.jpg

Then select it in the Component Manager and assign it to the plane:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart9.jpg

Now go over to your Utils tab (the little hammer) and select your Particle system. Take a look here:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/snowpart10.jpg

In the drop down box called "Generation Type" click on it and change it from "Point Source" to "Mesh", this is VERY important!

Where I have Velocity circled, you can play here, just keep in mind that this is FEET per second. So a setting of 0.5 would be 6 inches per second.

Where I have Scaling circled, you can play with this too, but keep in mind this: when I had set it to 10, my snow flakes were so small, I couldn't see them! ;)

You can play with the other settings if you want, but that's it, you're done. Export the Age, convert it, and link in:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0069.jpg

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{{ALTutorials}}

Sound Regions: Controlling What The Player Hears

2011-07-29T18:28:24Z

Andylegate: Created page with "A Soft Volume that is a Sound Region isn't used to "trigger" a sound like with other regions. Instead we use a Soft Volume Sound Region to: Change how loud or soft a sound is ..."

A Soft Volume that is a Sound Region isn't used to "trigger" a sound like with other regions.

Instead we use a Soft Volume Sound Region to:

Change how loud or soft a sound is due to the player entering or leaving somewhere like a room or building.
Completely isolate where a sound can be heard.

While the Sound components that you give to your emitters do have some very fancy settings on them, you will not be able to control certain things. Take example the Wind or Rain sound:

A player links in to your Age outside. It's windy and rainy. The player sees a building and runs over to it. They open the door and step in to the building to get out of the wind and rain.
When the player steps into that building, you do not want the sound of the wind or rain to be just as loud inside the building as it is outside the building.

The reverse is true too. Say that inside that building is some machinery, making all sorts of loud clanking sounds. When the player leaves that building (or room), those machine sounds need to suddenly go down, if not stop completely

You can do all this with a Soft Volume that we call a Sound Region.

----
===Setting Up A Sound Region===

I'm going to use Neolbah in this example.

In the Atrium area of Neolbah, when you get near the elevator door, you can hear the sounds of the imagers that are by it. Once you figure out how to get the door open and step in to that room, the imager sounds should be very muted.

Now, I have got the distance settings on the sound emitters, so that when you move away from the imager's the sound does go down. Get far enough away, and you won't hear them anymore.

BUT! Objects will NOT block your sounds!

The elevator room is still very close to the sound emitters for the imagers. In real life, if I were to walk into that room, the walls would block most of the sound.

Since objects can not block sounds, I will use a Soft Volume that is a Sound Region to help make the sound muted when I enter that room.

So first I need to set up a region around that room:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Sndreg.jpg

Next, I open up the Component Manager and click on New > Region > Soft Region and assign it to the region. Then I go to the Utils Tab and select that Soft Volume Component. I place a check mark where it says "Partial Power" and as you can see from the picture below, I set up the strength of that power. Inside the region, I only want the sound at about 30 percent. Outside the region I want it at 100 percent of course:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Sndreg2.jpg

Next, I select the sound emitter and go to it's audio component. If you look in the roll out you'll see where you can select the Soft Region that will affect the sound emitter:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Sndreg3.jpg

Do this to all the sound emitters you want affected by this Sound Region.

And that's it! Simple, wasn't it?

Check out the video below to hear how it works:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ASa2U8UpN9g NO Soft Volume Sound Region]

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1GBr3V-ZEw With a Soft Volume Sound Region]

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{{ALTutorials}}

Light Regions: Controlling The Light On The Avatar

2011-07-29T18:26:28Z

Andylegate: Created page with "If you've been building Ages, or exploring Fan Ages made by other people, one thing you may have noticed: Objects do not block the light falling on both the Avatar and Animated ..."

If you've been building Ages, or exploring Fan Ages made by other people, one thing you may have noticed:

Objects do not block the light falling on both the Avatar and Animated Objects.

Many times I've linked into a Fan Age and walked around outside with my Avatar lit up by that Age's sun, only to walk inside a building or cave and see my Avatar still brightly lit by the sun, while everything else around me is darker.

The way to fix this is by putting in Soft Volumes that we call Light Regions.

Using Light Regions, we can do all sorts of neat things:

We can control how much light, or completely block that light from outside falling on the Avatar.
We can make the transition of light going from outside to inside, or the other way around, so that it looks gradual.
We can keep lights that are inside somewhere from lighting up the Avatar while they are outside.

----
===Getting Started......===

I'm going to use my outside Test Age for an example of how to set up a light region.

I threw in a dome that the player will enter. I also put in a red light inside it that is a Plasma Run Time light (keep in mind that only Plasma Run Time lights are controlled by Soft Volumes. Max lights are not.). This light will light up my Avatar:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg1.jpg

But, I don't want the outside sun light to keep lighting up the avatar once he's inside this dome. So I'm going to need a region.

So I create a sphere to use as the light region on the dome:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg2.jpg

Once it is made and in position, I then call up the Component Manager and click on New > Region > Soft Region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg4.jpg

And assign that to the region I made.

Go to the Utils Tab and select the Soft Region component. In the roll out for it, look at the picture below:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg11.jpg

Notice that I put a check mark where it says "Partial Power", and I've set the power for Inside to 0.0, and the power for Outside to 100.00.
This tells the soft volume that whatever kind of region I'm making this (Light or Sound), that I want something to be turned OFF when the player is inside the region, and turned all the way back ON when he is outside the region.

Next, click on the Component Manager and click New > Region > Light Region and assign it to your region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg5.jpg

Go to your Utils Tab and select the Light Region component and look at it's roll out. You need to click on the button in the Regions box. Then pick your Soft Region that you assigned to this region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg6.jpg

As I said above, I put in a red light that is a Plasma Run Time light inside the dome, and adjusted it's values to what I wanted:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg7.jpg

While I have that light selected, I open up my Component Manager and assign my Light Region component to this light:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg8.jpg

This is telling Plasma that this light is controlled by the Light Region.

I then select my Plasma Run Time light in the sky that I use to light up my Avatar:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg9.jpg

And again, I assign it the Light Region component:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Litreg10.jpg

You should do this for ALL lights that you want controlled by the light region.

Now, this will make the Avatar be lit up by only the lights you have in the Light Region, and keep the outside sun light off of him.

Check out my video of it:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLK_KP_Bu1Q Light Region Video]

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{{ALTutorials}}

Vis Regions: Controlling When Something Is Rendered

2011-07-29T18:22:23Z

Andylegate: Created page with "What are "Vis Regions" or "Visibility Regions" ? Vis or Visibility Regions are a concept that have been around every since the first real time rendering games were ever put out...."

What are "Vis Regions" or "Visibility Regions" ?

Vis or Visibility Regions are a concept that have been around every since the first real time rendering games were ever put out. They are used to help with performance of a game, or in our case, with the performance of an Age.

We basically use Vis Regions to help make a person's GPU (Graphic Processor Unit) not have to work so hard when it does not need to. A good analogy of this would be if you were to try and write a letter to someone, but at the same time you are talking on the phone to another person, about some other subject.

Very hard to do, at least for me anyways!

Vis Regions will tell the Plasma game engine to NOT render or draw things when they are not needed.

Let's use my Age Neolbah as an example:

Neolbah currently has 2 levels: The Atrium and the Basement. Using Visregions, I can tell Plasma that while a player is up in the Atrium area, to NOT render or draw the basement area. There is no need to since the player can not see the basement area while in the Atrium area.

The flip side of that works too: I can use Vis Regions to tell Plasma to NOT draw the Atrium area while the player is down in the Basement. Because while a player is down there, they will not see the Atrium area.

By doing this, I can increase the performance of my Age so that there is no lag or stutter, and have high rendering frame rates.

So how do we do this? Read on:

----
===Setting Up A Region===

When you go to put in a Vis Region, you need to think about it first: Where can I put in a Vis Region that will help, but not so the player will see this?
You do not want to put in a Vis Region to where the player will actually see things pop in and out of existence (or you may want to, but for the purpose of this tutorial, we'll keep it as though you don't want that to happen).

Vis Regions should control when things are rendered, but it should do so "behind the scenes" and not something the player should be aware of.

Neolbah's basement is a very good example of an area that I can put into a Vis Region, but also so that the player will not see it. Here is the Basement Area of Neolbah:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Visreg1.jpg

All I need to do is create my region. I can do that by making a huge box that encompasses the basement area:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Visreg2.jpg

Notice how my region goes up the elevator shaft, but not all the way up of course. What I am doing, is making it to where the player enters the Vis Region so that the Basement will start to be rendered by Plasma, but it will do so BEFORE the player get's there.

Now we have to make this region a "Soft Volume". In the Component Manager, click on New > Region > Soft Region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Visreg3.jpg

In the Utils Tab, if you click on the Soft Volume component, you can see the roll out for it. We don't need to change anything here since we are going to use this Soft Volume as a Vis Region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Visreg4.jpg

Now we need to make it an actual Vis Region. Open up the Component Manager and click on New > Region > Visibility Region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Visreg5.jpg

Go to your Utils Tab and click on the Visibility Region component to look at it's roll out:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Visreg6.jpg

You will see a box that says "Regions" with a button that says none. Click on that button, and then pick the Soft Volume we assigned to this region.
Leave every thing else alone.

Now you must select ALL of your visible objects that are in that region.
'''BUT! Do NOT select objects that cross over from that region. For example, my elevator shaft is both in and out of the vis region. I don't want it to not be drawn, I need to leave it there so that the player always sees it. Keep this in mind when making vis regions.'''

Once you have all the visible objects selected that are in your Vis Region, call up the Component Manager, and assign the Visibility Region component that you used:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics2/Visreg7.jpg

This tells those objects to not be rendered unless the player has entered that region.

There you go, you are done!

However, this simply turns off and on the objects in the Basement. While in the basement, everything in the Atrium is being rendered too. If I wanted the Atrium Area also not rendered, I would create a 2nd Vis Region around the Atrium Area and repeat the steps above for it. However, I would still NOT include the elevator shaft, as it needs to be rendered no mater which vis region the player is in.

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{{ALTutorials}}

About Soft Volumes

2011-07-29T17:28:57Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Soft Volumes are used in Plasma to control and help with some very special things. In order to use regions to control visibility, light, and sound, you will have to make those r..."

Soft Volumes are used in Plasma to control and help with some very special things.

In order to use regions to control visibility, light, and sound, you will have to make those regions into Soft Volumes. This is done in Max with Cyan's plugin of course.

But before you run off to do this, if you've never heard of Soft Volumes, or don't understand them, I recommend reading the article that I'm linking to that is over on the GoW Wiki. It's very advanced, and pertains to mostly using Soft Volumes with Blender and the PyPRP plugin. However, it will still give you a good understanding of how Soft Volumes work.

[http://www.guildofwriters.com/wiki/Soft_Volumes GoW Wiki Soft Volumes Article]

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{{ALTutorials}}

General Tips and Help

2011-07-29T17:27:17Z

Andylegate: Created page with "How you light your Age can have a big impact on how it looks and feels. Having a bright, sunny Age can make the place feel warm and inviting. Having a very dark looking Age can m..."

How you light your Age can have a big impact on how it looks and feels. Having a bright, sunny Age can make the place feel warm and inviting. Having a very dark looking Age can make it feel very cold and dangerous.

There is also the question of "Quality". I'm not talking about "Cyan Quality". That is a term that I absolutely loath. People tried to use those words and have them mean "High Quality". In fact neither you nor I will EVER be able to make a "Cyan Quality" Age. This is simply because neither you nor I work for Cyan!

However, you and I can make a "High Quality" Age that looks better than any Age Cyan ever made.

So it's much better to use the words "Low", "Medium", and "High" in front of Quality. Not the word "Cyan"

Not using lights in your Age well can result in a "Low" quality Age. You want your Age to feel as real as possible.

While I can't claim I make the best Ages out there, I have come to understand how to use lighting over the years. This tutorial will try and give you some tips and rules about lighting.

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===The Light Was In My Eyes.....===

There are 2 types of lights that you will normally concern yourself with:

Max Standard and Plasma Standard.

Here are a few things that you MUST keep in mind when using these lights:

'''Plasma Standard:'''

*1) Is also known as a "Run Time" Light, or RT Light.
*2) Is exported and in your Age.
*3) Lights up the Avatar dramatically in Game, and can also light up objects subtlely in your scene.
*4) Can be animated (movement, color, intensity).
*5) Can be turned off and on.
*6) Will light up animated objects.

'''Max Standard:'''

*1) Is also known as a Max Light.
*2) Is NOT normally exported with your Age.
*3) Lights up the objects in your Age dramatically.
*4) Does NOT light up your avatar at all.
*5) Will not light up your animated objects.

As you can see, both types of lights are different in many ways. How you use them to light your Age will depend on what it is you are trying to do, and how you want to go about it.

Let's talk about lighting up the Age now, shall we?

----
===Textures and Materials Method===

One way to light up your Age is to not actually use any lights at all!

When you make your objects, be it the land, the sky, the buildings, or Snoopy's Dog House, we normally apply a material to these objects because they are visible objects that will be seen by the player. How these objects look depend greatly upon the quality of the texture you give them, but also how bright or dark they are.
It is possible to make a objects material "Emissive" meaning that in Game, they are not actually being lit up by any lights at all, but depend on their brightness from their own materials. You can control how bright and what color it looks like with it's materials.

This means that I could create a whole world, and not put one light in it, but instead have every object that's visible be "Emissive" and when I link in, I will see everything.

BUT.........!

There are several drawbacks to doing this:

*1) The avatar will not be lit up and will look pitch black.
*2) The avatar will not cast any shadows.
*3) None of the visible objects will cast any shadows (unless you applied a texture to make it LOOK like it has one).
*4) Your Age will not look very realistic at all and will be considered very "Low" quality.

However, do not write off using Emissive on objects just yet! There will be times when you actually WANT an object to be that way:

'''Skies:''' Your Skybox or Dome will normally be Emissive with it's materials. You do not normally light up your Sky with lights. So this is a very good case in which you would use Emissive.

'''Light Objects:''' Objects that are representing your light source, such as light bulbs, fire marbles, fire, Rudolf's Nose, whatever it may be, you would normally use Emissive on that material to make it either bright, or at least as though it's illuminated. It's very hard to use an actual light to light just it up and have it look like it's casting light. Shadows don't normally apply to your light object. The lamp base may cast a shadow, but the light bulb itself will not if it's on.

So keep in mind: sometimes it's better to light up your Age with the material than with an actual light!

----
===Plasma Run Time Lights (Plasma Standard):===

Normally the rule of thumb is:

''"Only use Run Time Lights to light up the avatar, not your objects."''

While it's a good rule, it does not HAVE to be that way. The reason that people say that is:

*1) Run Time or Plasma Standard lights will dramatically light up and affect the avatar, but are very subtle on how they light up objects.
*2) Run Time or Plasma Standard lights can be a "Resource Hog" and using too many can cause "lag" in your Age.
*3) You can only have 8 Run Time or Plasma Standard light lighting up any object or the avatar at one time. If you have more than 8, the game engine will pick and only use the 8 brightest ones.

You can use just Run Time lights to light up an Age if you so desire. That is how I did my Age of Neolbah at first. It had only Run Time or Plasma Standard lights (later, when I added the elevator and basement, I used some Max Lights down there for a specific effect).

However, it was VERY hard to do it that way! The hardest thing was getting the balance I needed to light up both the objects and the avatar correctly. If I were to build Neolbah all over again, I would not do it that way, but instead would use a combination of both Plasma and Max lights.

----
===Max Standard Lights===

The nifty thing about using Max Standard lights is:

You can use as many of them as you want in your Age and it will NOT affect the performance of the Age at all in game!

When you use the Max lights, you don't even have to assign a Plasma Component to it (like PageInfo) because it will not be exported with your Age, and the Plasma Plugin will ignore the lights themselves.
BUT! It WILL export the effect that it has on objects!

Let's say you'd like to have a "spotlight spalsh" on your walls and / or floor. You can use a Max Standard spotlight,and set it up to get the desired affect that you want. When you export and link in, you see it on the wall / floor. BUT, the light itself is not there! This is what I used in Neolbah when you go down the elevator and walk through the maintenance area.

So because of this, you can put in all the Max Standard lights you want and get the desired effect that you'd like on many of your objects and areas.

Just remember that the Max Standard lights will NOT light up the avatar. If you need the Avatar lit up too, you'll have to use a Plasma Standard light.

----
===Shadows, Lightmaps, Projection Lights, Light Regions and Light Groups===

All of the things in this title are important. You can achieve some very good and realistic effects using them.

Light Regions: This is actually a "Soft Volume" that you use to "contain" light. For example: You have a very sunny Age lit up with a good sun. But you also have something like a house or a cave that the player will enter. The "sun" light will still light up the avatar like they are outside (and your animated objects you may have also inside). You can use a Light Region to keep the sunlight out of your house / cave.
By the same token, let's say it's night time out in your Age, but you have a very well lit house or something like that. You don't want any of that light lighting up your avatar outside. You can contain the lighting in the house using Light Regions.

'''Light Groups:''' You can use Light Groups to specify what light and what objects that light affects using this.

'''Shadows:''' With Plasma Standard lights, you can specify if it is a "Shadow Light". This means it will make the avatar cast a shadow that it lights up (note: a player MUST have "Shadows Enabled" on in order for them to see the shadows). You can also use "Shadow Caster" on objects. This will cause an object to cast a shadow.

'''Light Maps:''' Light maps are used to "bake" a texture on to certain objects. This is most useful if you want to make some "static" shadows or light splashes in certain areas in your Age. Using this method can produce some very outstanding results, but should be reserved for inside areas, and it can make your texture prp file very large.

'''Projection Lights:''' Projection Lights are an outstanding way to have a complex object (like a tree) cast a near perfect shadow on the ground and or other surfaces.

All of these mentioned right above will be talked about in more detailed tutorials so that I can show you how to use them.

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{{ALTutorials}}

Basic Light and Avatar Shadows

2011-07-29T17:25:36Z

Andylegate: Created page with "When lighting up your Age in 3DS Max, it's important to remember that you'll be using 2 different kind of lights: Max Standard and Plasma Run Time lights. The "Max Standard" li..."

When lighting up your Age in 3DS Max, it's important to remember that you'll be using 2 different kind of lights:

Max Standard and Plasma Run Time lights.

The "Max Standard" lights are used to light up the scene basically and all "static" objects. "Static" meaning they are not the avatars or things that move like kickable or animated objects.

The Plasma Run Time lights are basically used to light up the avatars and kickables. Here is some notes on that from Cyan:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad13.jpg

So what Cyan said in that last paragraph is important: use Standard lighting to light up most of your Age, and save the Plasma Run Time lights only where you need it.

In this tutorial, I'll be showing you how to put in a basic omni light, and a single Plasma Run Time light so our Avatar casts a shadow.

It's important that you already have your 3DS Max with the plugins set up, and have already started an Age. If you have not done this, please go back to my other tutorials and do so.

==HEY! IT'S DARK IN HERE!==

I've got my little test Age here, and we need to add some lights so we can see things when we export it. If you don't, it will be all dark (and when you use Drizzle to convert your Age for Uru:CC or stand alone, it will tell you that there are no lights!).

Go over to your tool panel. Click on the "Create" tab (green arrow). Then click on the "Lights" button (red arrow), and make sure the drop down box says "Standard" (purple arrow). "Standard" is the 3DS Max lighting.

You can also now select what type of light. In my case, I selected "Omni" by clicking on that button.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad1.jpg

Click in your window where you want to create the light. It will appear as a 3D diamond.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad3.jpg

Move the light to where you want it. In this case, I've moved it up and high:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad4.jpg

Now go back and look at those last 2 pics again. Notice how bright my little room looks with the light inside it.....and how it darkens up as I move the light away.......nice to see the affect of the light, huh?

Rename the light to something easy and useful to you. I've left mine the default name, Omni01. Notice the yellow square in my pic next to the name? That color is NOT the color of the light that will be cast....it's the color that Max gives the light in your graphics screens so you can see it. The color of the light, is here:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad5.jpg

In the pic above, look at where my green arrow is. Here is where you control how bright the light is (Multiplier) and that little white box next to that is the color of the light. Mine is white. If you double click on it, you can change the color of your lighting. The other parameters below that will also affect the light. Play around with these until you get what you want.

For Max lights, you do NOT need to apply the PageInfo component to it. Max lights are NOT exported with your Age, only the effect that they have is.

That's it....that all you need to do to put Standard Max Lighting in your Age. You can export the Age and check out your lights.

----
===Plasma Run Time Lights===

Okay, so we want to put in some lighting that will make the avatar cast a shadow.

Go back to the "Create" tab, and the "Lights" button, only this time in the drop down box, select Plasma Run Time:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad7.jpg

Next, I selected what kind of light by clicking on "RT Directional" (as you can guess, RT stands for "Run Time").
The purple arrow shows where I did this, and the green arrow shows where you can adjust the color of the light and it's settings.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad8.jpg

Click and drag in your graphics box to create the light. As you can see, it will create a large box with blue arrows pointing downward (the direction of the box). Use the scaling tool to make it smaller (scaling the light will have no affect on the light itself in game. It merely makings it easier to handle in Max, heh).

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad9.jpg

Place the light where you want it.

Once you have, you will need to assign the PageInfo it it, as Plasma Run Time lights ARE exported with your Age.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad6.jpg

However, now we have to do something special here too. Since you have the Component Manager called up, click on "New" and then "Shadow" and then "Shadow Light"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad10.jpg

Then click on the ShadowLight01 ( you can name it something different you like) and then click on the "Attach Selected Object(s)" button.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad11.jpg

Now, with this light still selected, go over to your tool panel, and click on the little hammer tab (it's called "Utilities" where my red arrow is in the pic below), then click on the "Component Utils" button (green arrow) and then click on ShadowLight01 (or whatever you called it) where my purple arrow is.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad12.jpg

Where you see my blue arrow in the pic above, is where you can make adjustments that will affect the strength of the shadow. Falloff Dist will have a big impact on how strong the shadow is. (I have mine set to 50, that's 50 feet. My light is closer to the avatar than that, so his shadow shows up very strong. If I were to change that to say, 10 feet, his shadow will show up much weaker).

That's it! All you have to do now is export the Age, link in and take a look at your shadow:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0067.jpg

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Non-Spatial Sounds (Music, Ambient)

2011-07-29T17:21:25Z

Andylegate:

This tutorial covers sounds that do not have a point of origin, like 3 Dimensional sounds. Things like background music or ambiance in your Age.

----
===Getting Started......===

First, if you have not already or do not know how to, you need to read my tutorial on [[3D Sounds]] so that you will know how to put in a sound emitter.

Now when you got to apply the Plasma Audio component, make sure you select Non-Spatial:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/nonspatsnd1.jpg

Then, when you look at the roll out for that component, there are 2 things you must pay attention to:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/nonspatsnd2.jpg

Make sure you select the correct catagory for your sound. AND Make sure you put a check mark where it says "Stream from compressed file".
If you don't, you will not hear your sound.

That's it.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Non-Spatial Sounds (Music, Ambient)

2011-07-29T17:20:37Z

Andylegate: Created page with "This tutorial covers sounds that do not have a point of origin, like 3 Dimensional sounds. Things like background music or ambiance in your Age. ---- ===Getting Started......==..."

This tutorial covers sounds that do not have a point of origin, like 3 Dimensional sounds. Things like background music or ambiance in your Age.

----
===Getting Started......===

First, if you have not already or do not know how to, you need to read my tutorial on [[3D Sounds]] so that you will know how to put in a sound emitter.

Now when you got to apply the Plasma Audio component, make sure you select Non-Spatial:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/nonspatsnd1.jpg

Then, when you look at the roll out for that component, there are 2 things you must pay attention to:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/Nonspatsnd2.jpg

Make sure you select the correct catagory for your sound. AND Make sure you put a check mark where it says "Stream from compressed file".
If you don't, you will not hear your sound.

That's it.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

3D Sounds

2011-07-29T17:18:56Z

Andylegate:

This is a short tutorial that shows how to put in a simple 3D Sound Emitter into your Age.

The subject of sounds is a very long and complex subject for Ages as we have many different types of sounds, sound effects, music, etc, etc. There are many things to consider when you want to put sounds in. For example many sounds do not have an "echo" to them, yet by using the EAX features of the plugin, if you need the sound to have an echo (because what is making the sound is in a place where it would echo) you can enable this (but it is important to remember, not everyone may have a sound card that can use EAX.

I'll be making tutorials that cover other types of sounds, triggered sounds, etc later on. For now, this one will simply cover how to put in a simple 3D sound emitter.

----
===Make The Emitter===

You'll need a marker of some sort that represents you sound emitter (where the sound comes from). You can use either a "Dummy" or you can draw a small cube (I use cubes for this one. I use the Dummies only for avatar seek points and spawn points).

If you make a small cube, remember to not only add it to your PageInfo, but you need to add an Ignore component too so the game does not render it.

Here is a pic of my sound emitter next to a button, I've circled the emitter in purple:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickMultResp10.jpg

Placement of the emitter is important too, as you will more than likely have a distance at which when the avatar camera is that far away or further, the sound can't be heard.

Once you have your emitter in place, call up the component manager and click on New > Audio > Sound 3D

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/MaxSimpSnd1.jpg

Attach it to your emitter.

Now go over to the Utils Tab (the little hammer) and click on the Component Utils button.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/MaxSimpSnd2.jpg

As you can see, there are a LOT of settings you can mess with for you emitter. Right now we're going to concern ourselves with the areas I have circled in Red.

In the '''Base Sound Parameters''' box, click on the button under sound name. When you do this, a box will pop up that's a directory tree. Go to your "sfx" folder in your Uru game. Change the file type to ".ogg" and find the name of the sound you want to use.
You also have 2 boxes you can check here if you want: Auto Start and Loop.
Auto Start means the sound will start playing the moment the avatar links into the Age. If you sound is something that's not suppose to happen until the avatar does something, do not check this box.
Loop means just that. A check in this box will have the sound play over and over once it's triggered.

In the box labeled "Volume" you have a slider that goes from -48db to 0db. -48db is the quietest you can make the sound, and 0db is maximum volume for the sound.

In the box labeled Catagory, you have a drop down box. Click on it to select your sound type. This is very important, as Uru has several different in game controls for adjusting volume. In my case, the sound I have is a Sound Effect, so I've picked "Sound FX"

In the Sound 3D box, we're just going to worry about Sound Falloff Distance.

These are the 2 distances in which your sound volume will be at maximum and where people will stop hearing it.
"Begin" is the distance that is closest to your emitter.
"Inaudible" is the distance that the sound can no longer be heard.
Both values are in "Feet"

It is important to note that the values here will be measured to the default game camera. If the player is in 3rd person mode, the sound will not be as loud as when they are in first person mode. It's important to keep this in mind. If you set the "inaudible" distance to 12 feet, and the game camera is 20 feet away while in 3rd person mode, then the player will NOT hear the sound, even though the avatar may be standing right on top of the emitter.

That's all you need to do to put in a simple 3D Sound emitter.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

3D Sounds

2011-07-29T17:18:37Z

Andylegate:

This is a short tutorial that shows how to put in a simple 3D Sound Emitter into your Age.

The subject of sounds is a very long and complex subject for Ages as we have many different types of sounds, sound effects, music, etc, etc. There are many things to consider when you want to put sounds in. For example many sounds do not have an "echo" to them, yet by using the EAX features of the plugin, if you need the sound to have an echo (because what is making the sound is in a place where it would echo) you can enable this (but it is important to remember, not everyone may have a sound card that can use EAX.

I'll be making tutorials that cover other types of sounds, triggered sounds, etc later on. For now, this one will simply cover how to put in a simple 3D sound emitter.

----
===Make The Emitter===

You'll need a marker of some sort that represents you sound emitter (where the sound comes from). You can use either a "Dummy" or you can draw a small cube (I use cubes for this one. I use the Dummies only for avatar seek points and spawn points).

If you make a small cube, remember to not only add it to your PageInfo, but you need to add an Ignore component too so the game does not render it.

Here is a pic of my sound emitter next to a button, I've circled the emitter in purple:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/clickMultResp10.jpg

Placement of the emitter is important too, as you will more than likely have a distance at which when the avatar camera is that far away or further, the sound can't be heard.

Once you have your emitter in place, call up the component manager and click on New > Audio > Sound 3D

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/MaxSimpSnd1.jpg

Attach it to your emitter.

Now go over to the Utils Tab (the little hammer) and click on the Component Utils button.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/MaxSimpSnd2.jpg

As you can see, there are a LOT of settings you can mess with for you emitter. Right now we're going to concern ourselves with the areas I have circled in Red.

In the '''Base Sound Parameters''' box, click on the button under sound name. When you do this, a box will pop up that's a directory tree. Go to your "sfx" folder in your Uru game. Change the file type to ".ogg" and find the name of the sound you want to use.
You also have 2 boxes you can check here if you want: Auto Start and Loop.
Auto Start means the sound will start playing the moment the avatar links into the Age. If you sound is something that's not suppose to happen until the avatar does something, do not check this box.
Loop means just that. A check in this box will have the sound play over and over once it's triggered.

In the box labeled "Volume" you have a slider that goes from -48db to 0db. -48db is the quietest you can make the sound, and 0db is maximum volume for the sound.

In the box labeled Catagory, you have a drop down box. Click on it to select your sound type. This is very important, as Uru has several different in game controls for adjusting volume. In my case, the sound I have is a Sound Effect, so I've picked "Sound FX"

In the Sound 3D box, we're just going to worry about Sound Falloff Distance.

These are the 2 distances in which your sound volume will be at maximum and where people will stop hearing it.
"Begin" is the distance that is closest to your emitter.
"Inaudible" is the distance that the sound can no longer be heard.
Both values are in "Feet"

It is important to note that the values here will be measured to the default game camera. If the player is in 3rd person mode, the sound will not be as loud as when they are in first person mode. It's important to keep this in mind. If you set the "inaudible" distance to 12 feet, and the game camera is 20 feet away while in 3rd person mode, then the player will NOT hear the sound, even though the avatar may be standing right on top of the emitter.

That's all you need to do to put in a simple 3D Sound emitter.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

3D Sounds

2011-07-29T17:18:20Z

Andylegate: Created page with "This is a short tutorial that shows how to put in a simple 3D Sound Emitter into your Age. The subject of sounds is a very long and complex subject for Ages as we have many diff..."

This is a short tutorial that shows how to put in a simple 3D Sound Emitter into your Age.

The subject of sounds is a very long and complex subject for Ages as we have many different types of sounds, sound effects, music, etc, etc. There are many things to consider when you want to put sounds in. For example many sounds do not have an "echo" to them, yet by using the EAX features of the plugin, if you need the sound to have an echo (because what is making the sound is in a place where it would echo) you can enable this (but it is important to remember, not everyone may have a sound card that can use EAX.

I'll be making tutorials that cover other types of sounds, triggered sounds, etc later on. For now, this one will simply cover how to put in a simple 3D sound emitter.

----
===Make The Emitter===

You'll need a marker of some sort that represents you sound emitter (where the sound comes from). You can use either a "Dummy" or you can draw a small cube (I use cubes for this one. I use the Dummies only for avatar seek points and spawn points).

If you make a small cube, remember to not only add it to your PageInfo, but you need to add an Ignore component too so the game does not render it.

Here is a pic of my sound emitter next to a button, I've circled the emitter in purple:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/clickMultResp10.jpg]]

Placement of the emitter is important too, as you will more than likely have a distance at which when the avatar camera is that far away or further, the sound can't be heard.

Once you have your emitter in place, call up the component manager and click on New > Audio > Sound 3D

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/MaxSimpSnd1.jpg

Attach it to your emitter.

Now go over to the Utils Tab (the little hammer) and click on the Component Utils button.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/MaxSimpSnd2.jpg

As you can see, there are a LOT of settings you can mess with for you emitter. Right now we're going to concern ourselves with the areas I have circled in Red.

In the '''Base Sound Parameters''' box, click on the button under sound name. When you do this, a box will pop up that's a directory tree. Go to your "sfx" folder in your Uru game. Change the file type to ".ogg" and find the name of the sound you want to use.
You also have 2 boxes you can check here if you want: Auto Start and Loop.
Auto Start means the sound will start playing the moment the avatar links into the Age. If you sound is something that's not suppose to happen until the avatar does something, do not check this box.
Loop means just that. A check in this box will have the sound play over and over once it's triggered.

In the box labeled "Volume" you have a slider that goes from -48db to 0db. -48db is the quietest you can make the sound, and 0db is maximum volume for the sound.

In the box labeled Catagory, you have a drop down box. Click on it to select your sound type. This is very important, as Uru has several different in game controls for adjusting volume. In my case, the sound I have is a Sound Effect, so I've picked "Sound FX"

In the Sound 3D box, we're just going to worry about Sound Falloff Distance.

These are the 2 distances in which your sound volume will be at maximum and where people will stop hearing it.
"Begin" is the distance that is closest to your emitter.
"Inaudible" is the distance that the sound can no longer be heard.
Both values are in "Feet"

It is important to note that the values here will be measured to the default game camera. If the player is in 3rd person mode, the sound will not be as loud as when they are in first person mode. It's important to keep this in mind. If you set the "inaudible" distance to 12 feet, and the game camera is 20 feet away while in 3rd person mode, then the player will NOT hear the sound, even though the avatar may be standing right on top of the emitter.

That's all you need to do to put in a simple 3D Sound emitter.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Avatar Footstep Sounds

2011-07-29T17:15:44Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Here is another easy thing to do: putting Avatar Footstep Sounds in your Age. ---- ===Getting Started=== I'm assuming you have 3DS Max set up with the plugins and your .age fi..."

Here is another easy thing to do: putting Avatar Footstep Sounds in your Age.

----
===Getting Started===

I'm assuming you have 3DS Max set up with the plugins and your .age file set up. If you have not you must go and do those tutorials first.

In this tutorial, I use the shape of a box as my footstep region. You can use other shapes of course to refine what sounds you have.

First, create a box and size it to fit where you want your footstep sounds to be:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd1.jpg

Uhm......well, gonna be kind of hard to see stuff in the solid box, so I like to change it.
Right click on the screen with your box selected, and select "Properties" from the pop up:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd2.jpg

In the new pop up box that appears, select "Display As Box" then click on "Okay"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd3.jpg

Now we have a box that looks more like a region.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd4.jpg

Make sure you name your region something that is useful:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd5.jpg

Call up your Component Manager and don't forget to add this object to your PageInfo!!!

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad6.jpg

Now in the Component Manager, and click on New, then Detector, and then Region Sensor

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd6.jpg

In the Component Manager, select RegionSensor01 (or whatever you renamed it to), and then click on the Attach Selected Object(s) button:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd7.jpg

Then select "Utilities" in the tools (the little hammer). Select RegionSensor01, and make sure you have the things I have circled in purple selected:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd8.jpg

Note: where it says Bounding Shape: I have "Box" selected here...because my region is shaped as a box. If your region is shaped different (like a cylinder, or curvy corridor, etc) you may want to use "Exact" here instead.

Now go back to the Component Manager and select New, then Logic, and then Responder:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd9.jpg

Then select the Responder01 in the component manager and click on Attach To Selected Object(s) button (notice how we have to do this to everything?????).

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd10a.jpg

Now over in the Utilities tab (the little hammer) select Component Utils button and select Responder01:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd10.jpg

Then under "Responder" click on "Add"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd11.jpg

A new box will pop up. Select RegionSensor01 and click on Okay

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd12.jpg

Go back over to the Utilities tab, under "State" click on the "Add" button, and in the box that pops up, click on Footstep Surface:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd13.jpg

Make sure the "Enable" button has a check in it.

Now you can select what kind of surface sound you want. Default is "Dirt". Click in the drop down box, and select the surface type:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ftsnd14.jpg

And that's it! You've create a footstep region. Do these steps for each footstep region you need. Export and give it a try.

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Python and Responders: Please Read!

2011-07-29T17:10:46Z

Andylegate: Created page with "If you are using Python files to make things happen in your Age (and you more than likely will if you want puzzles, and neat actions to happen), then it is very IMPORTANT that yo..."

If you are using Python files to make things happen in your Age (and you more than likely will if you want puzzles, and neat actions to happen), then it is very IMPORTANT that you remember to have your responders that you have Python run to '''notify''' Python that they are done.

Basically what is happening is your python file will have something in it that has a responder run, say like this clip here:

<source lang=Python>

def OnNotify(self, state, id, events):
global avatarEntering
if (id == triggerRgn1.id):
if (PtFindAvatar(events) != PtGetLocalAvatar()):
return
print ' must have ki'
kiLevel = PtGetLocalKILevel()
if (kiLevel < 2):
return
for event in events:
if ((event[0] == 1) and (event[1] == 1)):
avatarEntering = PtFindAvatar(events)
print "entered the region, disable this one and the other door's triggers"
triggerRgn1.disable()
triggerRgn2.disable()
if (avatarEntering == PtGetLocalAvatar()):
print 'stop this avatar'
PtDisableMovementKeys()
print 'take away first person'
cam = ptCamera()
cam.disableFirstPersonOverride()
cam.undoFirstPerson()
PtSendKIMessage(kDisableEntireYeeshaBook, 0)
print 'open the door'
door1OpenResponder.run(self.key, avatar=avatarEntering)
return

if (id == door1OpenResponder.id):
if (avatarEntering != PtGetLocalAvatar()):
return
print ' door is open, walk in'
avatarEntering.avatar.runBehaviorSetNotify(behaviorWalkIn.value, self.key, behaviorWalkIn.netForce)
return

</source>

In this clip, the Avatar is going to be stopped, and commands to it disabled. My door responder is going to be told by python to run.

This python file is the "trigger" for that door responder. If it does NOT tell the Python file that it's done, you will end up with nothing else happening (I know, I went down this road, wondering why after the door opened nothing else was happening!).

All you need to do is add this to the end of your responders that are being controlled by Python:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/notifytrig.jpg

You may want to make sure you tell it to wait until the previous command is finished too.

This is the responder saying "Hey Python File! I'm done! You can go do your next thing!"

----
{{ALTutorials}}

Making Clickables

2011-07-29T17:08:36Z

Andylegate: Created page with "I'm going to introduce you to "Clickables" in this tutorial. A "Clickable" is the object that the player clicks on in the game, because their cursor is hot (no longer a open circ..."

I'm going to introduce you to "Clickables" in this tutorial. A "Clickable" is the object that the player clicks on in the game, because their cursor is hot (no longer a open circle, but looks like a target).

Clickables have a multitude of uses: A lever that you can pull, a button to push, a linking book to touch, the list goes on and on.

In most cases, you will want to have your Avatar animate when something is clicked. There are exceptions to this, like what we call GUI Dialogs. A GUI Dialog is when we click on something and it "pops up" for a closer view. Examples of this are:

Journals, the various notes on the desk in the Baron's City Office, the notes and drawings on Sharper's desk in Teledahn.

Those are all good examples of simple GUI Dialogs. You have interactive GUI Dialogs too, in which there is no avatar animation, but you may have object animation.

Many of these things get very complex and rather involved, and I'm not going to cover here for now. But I will introduce you to the most important aspect of all of these: Making something "Clickable"

----
===Let's Get Started.....===

Okay, the example I'm using in this tutorial is a clickable that when the player clicks on it, he or she links out to another Age. So you will need to make something that the avatar can click on. I just threw together a large brick box, and a flat plate that is kind of like the Bahro Stones:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink1.jpg

Now, if we were going to animate the avatar for touching the plate, the positions of these things would be very important. For now I'm not too worried about it. I made the box 3 feet high and placed my metal plate on next to one edge.

Once you've made your stuff and textured them, do not forget to add them to your PageInfo (if you don't know how to do that, you need to go back to one of my first tutorials on getting started on building Ages in Max).

Now I'll be using a region for this clickable. You do not have to use a region to have a clickable work. However you can use them to ensure the player can not click on something from far away, or needs to be close to a seek point of your avatar is going to animate.

You'll want your Avatar completely in the box, so make sure you make it big enough to encompass the Avatar (no smaller than 3 x 3 x 6 feet). I made mine 5 feet x 5 feet wide and deep and 7 feet wide. Even though the avatar is 6 feet high, you'll want to dip the region just below the floor that the avatar is standing on:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink2.jpg

Now, if you're wondering how I got my region box to be nice and see through like that, here's a Max tip: When you first create your objects in Max, they'll be solid. If you need them to be see through, simply select what you've made, and right click with your mouse. You'll have a box show up like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink3.jpg

Left click where it says "Properties". A new box will pop up showing you the objects properties in Max:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink4.jpg

Notice where I circled. I put a check mark in See Through, and now my box looks that way. If you want it to looks like a box with just lines (regardless of the amount of mesh facings) click where it says "Display As Box" instead.
Making your regions look either See Through or Display As Box is a very good idea, as you know it's not something that will be rendered by Plasma.

Okay, now that we have our Object we are going to click on, and our Region, make sure you've named them something Useful. Leaving them as Box01, Box02, Box03, will get confusing in a hurry. I've named my clickable object "LinkPlate" and the region has been named LinkClkRegion.

Select your Region first. Then call up the Component Manager. As I said, Plasma uses regions to detect where the Avatar is, so click on New > Detector > Region Sensor

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink5.jpg

And attach it to your region.

Also, RENAME THE REGION SENSOR you just attached. Your Plasma Components will get cluttered and confusing in a heart beat if you keep using the default names. Simply right click on the component you just attached and select "Rename" and name it something useful.

Now go over to the Utils Tab (the little hammer) and click on the Component Utils button. Select our region sensor you just attached to the region. You should see this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink6.jpg

These are the default settings and we're going to leave them at that. We are using the region to simply detect the Avatar, not perform a function because it does detect the Avatar.

Now go and select your object that is your clickable. In my case it is the LinkPlate I made. Now call up the Component Manager. Click on New > Detector > Clickable

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink7.jpg

And attach it to your clickable object. AND rename it to something useful.

While still in the Component Manager, click on New > Logic > Responder

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink8.jpg

Attach it to your clickable object, and rename it something useful.

Now go back over to the Utils Tab (little hammer) and you Component Utils.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink10.jpg

As you can see from my picture, I've renamed my components to something that helps me ID them. "LinkClick" is my "Clickable" component, and "RespLink" is my Responder component. Select your Clickable component.
I my picture, where my arrow is pointing, your button will say "none", click on this button, and then click on your Click Region you made in your 3D Scene. Your button's name should change to the name of your region.

That's all we're going to do here. We've told our Clickable component that the avatar MUST be inside our region in order for the object to become a clickable.

If you decided to not use a region, simply leave the button that says "none" alone and put a check mark where it says "Ignore"

Now things are going to start getting a bit more interesting. Select your Responder Component in the Component Utils. It will look like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink11.jpg

Under the Detect box, click on the Add button (where I have my purple arrow drawn). We're going to tell the Responder what it must detect in order to respond.
When you click on the "Add" button, a new box will pop up:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink12.jpg

Now you can see why it's important to start naming your Plasma Components and not just the Objects and Materials in your Age. Our Responder is asking us to pick what it is suppose to detect: When the avatar is in the region? Or When the player clicks on something?
Select your Clickable component here. We want the Responder to detect when the player clicks on our object.

Now you should have your Clickable component in the Detect box. Go down now to the State box. We're going to tell the Responder what it is we want to happen when the player clicks on this object:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink13.jpg

This is where things will start getting VERY complex for you, if you are going to have more than one thing happen. A good example of that would be the avatar pulling on a lever. We would have to tell the responder to animate the avatar, animate the lever, and make a sound....THEN have whatever is going to happen after that (a door opening, a platform rising, whatever).

I'm going easy on you here, normally we'd have the avatar animate and reach out to the linking plate, but instead, I'm just going to have the link out sequence happen immediately.

Click on the Add button where my purple arrow is pointing in the pic above. You'll have a small box pop up:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink14.jpg

As you can see, LOTS of goodies to pick from here. Go down and click on Link. When you do, you'll have more added to the responder component:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink15.jpg

Now we're going to tell the game, WHERE your avatar is going to link to. But before we do you need to do something first. You need to have an Age that the Avatar is going to link to. Specifically, you need to make a copy of the .age file of that Age, and place it in your Max Output folder you specified in the PlasmaMAX2.ini file. Mine is "C:\PlasmaTest\dat"
I've got another test Age I'm using here in this tutorial, but you can copy and past any Uru age you want here. When you do, it's important to remember the name of the file (IE: The Maintainer Age of Gahreesen's file name is actually "Garrison", the garden Age of Eder Kemo is actually called "Garden", etc).

Once you have a copy of the .age file pasted, go back to your responder component. In the top box about Linking Rule, leave it set to the default for now.
Instead, go down to the drop box for Age Filename and select the Age you want to link too. (if nothing is showing up, it's because you didn't put the .age file in the right place).

The next 4 boxes, you can leave alone. Unless you know what the names of different spawn points are in an Age, it won't do you any good to change this. Right now they are set up to link the Player into the Age at it's Star Point (In Teledahn it's in the hut, in Gahreesen it's in the atrium of the small building, you get the idea).

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink17.jpg

In that last box is the animation the Avatar will do once it has linked in to the other Age. You can leave it where it's set for now.

In the last box, simply select the name of your Age in the drop down box:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/ClickLink18.jpg

And that's IT! You're done!

You can export, drizzle the Age, link in and walk over to your object. Your cursor should go hot, when you click, you should immediately link out, and link into the Age you specified.

So a summery here:

For an object to be clickable, you must have; The Object and a Region near or around the object.

The Region must be set up to simply detect the Avatar.
The Object MUST have the following components: Clickable and Responder

Now, I can tell you from other things I've been working on, that your clickable will not work right if other things are not set right. You may end up with the cursor simply never going hot, or you'll have the cursor go hot, but nothing happens.

The key to troubleshooting your clickable, is to know where to look. If the cursor is not going hot, chances are you have something wrong with the clickable or region. If your cursor is going hot, but when you click nothing happens, chances are you have something wrong either with the Responder on the clickable, or the actions have a problem (IE the animation, the linking, the GUI Dialog, etc, what ever it is that is suppose to happen when you click).

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{{ALTutorials}}

Using Sensor Regions

2011-07-29T17:03:53Z

Andylegate: Created page with "Sensor Regions can be used to make things happen, simply because the Avatar is in them, or because we entered them, or because we exited them. A good example of using a region ..."

Sensor Regions can be used to make things happen, simply because the Avatar is in them, or because we entered them, or because we exited them.

A good example of using a region to have something happen is all around in Uru: Your footsteps are heard because you're in a footstep region. Sound Effects, Random Sounds and Music all happen because you are in or have entered a region. You have things you can click on, but can't until you're close to them, because you have to be in the region near the clickable object.
Animations can happen because you entered and/or exited a region.

This tutorial is going to show you how to use regions to make a animation happen. You need to be familiar with how to put object animations in Max. If you do not know how to do this, I recommend watching [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzGwTxtTQdM&fmt=22 TheMagician's Video Tutorial On Animation] to learn this.

You also need to know how to put in Sound Emitters. Here is my Basic Sound Tutorial for that.

This tutorial also assumes that you know how to setup Max for making an Age, making basic objects, texturing them and some lighting.

This tutorial also assumes that you know you have to attach the PageInfo to all objects in your Age, and that you must attach each component to your object.

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===Responder Region: Making A Door Open/Close When Near===

We all use these doors when we go out and about in the Real World. When we go in and out of Walmart, a grocery store, all sorts of places. As we get close to the door, a sensor just above it detects your presence and opens the door for you. The door closes when it no longer senses you and it's timer has counted down.

We're going to make something just like that. Only what will make the door open AND close is your avatar entering and exiting a region.

First you need to build some Objects. I have a wall and a door in my scene here. I've also animated the door so it takes about 1.5 seconds to open or close:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp1.jpg

Next, I've added a sound emitter for the door, as I want to hear a sound effect of the door opening and closing:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp3.jpg

And last, I've made a box that is going to be my Responder Region, it will detect when I get close to the Door and when I walk away from the door:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp2.jpg

With the Region you made selected, let's make it a region by attaching that component from the Component Manager:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp4.jpg

Over in the Component Utils, set up your Region like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp5.jpg

Where my purple circle is, we are telling the Region that we want it to be a trigger whenever the avatar enters the region, and also whenever the avatar exits the region.

Now we are going to attach a Responder to the region. This is going to be how we tell the game engine what we want to happen when we trigger the region:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp6.jpg

Select the Responder you attached over in your Component Utils.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp7.jpg

First, where I have my purple circle, we need to tell the responder that the trigger for it is the sensor region we made. Do this by clicking on the Add button, and selecting our sensor region we made for the door.

Now we need to tell the responder what it is it's going to do:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp8.jpg

Where I have my purple circle is where we're going to do some work. The Responder has States, and each State has Actions. It's the Actions that get performed by the game engine. Each State can have many Actions, and each Responder can have several States.
The default name for the first State will be "State 1". Rename this to something more useful. As you can see, I've renamed mine to "DoorOpen" as this is what the first state is going to do: Open the door.

Click on the Add button so we can add our first Action. A box will pop up with a list of Actions. Click on Animation > Set Forward (we do this because we want to make the animation of the door opening to play backwards later, which will close the door). You'll have "Anim Set Fore (none) show up in your box. You'll also have 2 buttons show up at the bottom. Use those buttons to select your Animation you made for your door.

Next, click on the Add button to add another Action. This time click on Animation > Play. Again, you'll have 2 buttons at the bottom show up, and again, you need to pick your Door Animation you made.

Last, click on the Add button to add your last action for this state. This time click on Sound > Play. Again, you'll have 2 buttons at the bottum show up and this time you pick your sound emitter and it's sound that you put in for the door.

You've now finished the First State. When the Avatar enters the region, this state will get performed first: The Door will animate open and you will hear the sound effect for it.

Now we want to make the door close when we walk away from it, so go to the drop down box where you have the name of your State. Click on it and then click on "Add State":

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp9.jpg

This will make your 2nd state. Rename this one to something more useful. I called mine DoorClose.

You will be setting this state up just like you did your first state, EXCEPT the first Action, you need to click on Animation > Set Backwards. This will make sure the next time the animation is played, it will play it backwards (closing the door).

So now your 2nd State should look like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp10.jpg

Note where I have the first action underlined. It says "Anim Set Back" meaning it's set to play backwards.

Now we need to tell each state what to do when it's done with all the actions that were assigned to it. In my picture above, notice where I have my green circle. I have the drop down box set to DoorOpen. This means that when the Door Close state is done, the responder will go back to that state. That means after I exit the region and the door closes, it will be set up to open again if I enter the region again.

We need to tell our first state this too. So go up and click on the State drop down box and go back to your first state you set, and tell it to go to Door Close when it's finished:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp11.jpg

This will make sure that after we've entered the region and the door is opened, the responder is ready to perform the Door Close state for when we leave.

That's it! Your door should now open when you walk towards it, and should close when you walk away from it. Here is a video of just that:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-K7hZRNeb8 Door Open / Close Video]

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===Region Responder: Different Triggers===

Okay, now let's make a variation on this. A good example of what we are about to do is the Classroom Door in any Hood. When you walk up to it, it doesn't open. Instead, you have to click on the door button to open it.
BUT, after it opens, when you walk through the door and away from it....it closes automatically!

Repeat the above steps, however, here are some things you will need to change or do instead.

First, you're going to have to make a clickable for the avatar to click on to open the door. You can make a button, put it on the wall, or the door itself, etc. You can make a one shot avatar animation of the avatar touching the button if you want. What I did was just make the door itself a clickable and left out the avatar animation for now.
Keep this in mind however, if you use something that you've already made and exported a clickable, if you gave that object physics (made it a collider), you will have to remove that component from the object. The Clickable component will give the object physics. If you don't, you'll get an error when you go to export

Once you have made your clickable object and gave it a clickable component, select your region. Go to the component utils tab. Make it look like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp12.jpg

What is different here than what we did in the first part of the tutorial is, we've removed the Enter Trigger. We don't want our door responder to be triggered because we simply entered the region this time. But we DO want it to trigger when we EXIT the region.

Now select the responder in the Component Utils. We need to add a detector to it. Right now it only has the region as a detector, we need to tell the responder to start when we click on our clickable object:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/RegResp13.jpg

click on the "Add" button under Detectors, and add your clickable to here.

Okay, that's it! You don't need to change the States as they will be doing the same thing as we want them to from the first part of this tutorial. Export, link out and give it a try.

Here's another Video of how it looks (no, I don't have any cameras put in for better shots. )

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y1f2_KhFIQ Different Triggers Video]
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{{ALTutorials}}

Ladders In Max

2011-07-29T16:56:32Z

Andylegate: Created page with "When you get done, your ladder set up will look basically like this: http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax1.jpg First, go out and make your ladder. I made m..."

When you get done, your ladder set up will look basically like this:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax1.jpg

First, go out and make your ladder. I made mine in Blender (as it was easier and faster for me right now) and imported into Max.....and then it wants to disappear when I give it Physics properties.....I guess something went wrong during export or import, so I have a collider here that I actually use as my climbable.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax2.jpg

In either case, make sure you put your ladder (and/or your collider too if you have it) in your PageInfo, and the Physics Terrain attached to it too:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax3.jpg

Now you need to create a box at the bottom of the ladder which will be the bottom detector for the Avatar. When the avatar enters this box, it will have the Avatar mount the ladder and give you the choice to climb or dismount.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax4.jpg

The positioning of this box is as important as the dimensions of your ladder. Where the center of the box is away from the ladder will determine how close your avatar is to the ladder while climbing. Too far away, and the avatar will be climbing in the air. Too close and the avatar will be IN the ladder.
I have mine about 1.7 max units away, and it's very close and in the ball park, but you may want to adjust this positioning yourself.

I also have the "Y" axis facing away from the ladder.

Once you have the box positioned where you want it, don't forget to add it to your PageInfo. Also, while in the Component Manager, click on New > Navigables > (ex)Ladder Component

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax5.jpg

Then go over to the Utils tab (the little hammer) and click on the Component Util button and select your Ladder Component:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax5.jpg

Under the drop down box called "Type" you'll have the choice of 2 feet, 4 feet, and Big. Since my ladder is 12 feet high, I picked big.

Now it's time to do some math: count the number of rungs on your ladder (I HOPE you made it an even number). Then subtract "6" from that number, and then divide it by 2.

So: 12 - 6 = 6, and 6 / 2 = 3

So I have "3" Loops. Put your answer in the Loops Box.

For direction, pick "Up" since this is our bottom box, we climb Up from here.

Next, the "Trigger" button will say "None". Click on it, and then click on your box at the bottom of the ladder. This tells the box that it's the trigger for the Avatar.

Last, click on the Ladder Bounds button that says "None", and then click on either your ladder, or ladder collider. This is what the avatar will be climbing.

Okay, now you're going to do the exact same thing for the top box........only make sure you have it about 0.1 units above your platform that the avatar climbs up on.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax7.jpg

And then in the Utils Tab, you need to make your marks:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/laddermax8.jpg

Only since it's the top box, for direction, we want the direction to be "Down". Loops should be the same, as is the size of the ladder.

For Trigger, click on the button, only this time click on your TOP box. For Ladder Bounds, you'll once again click on either your ladder or your ladder collider.

And that's it basically! Export and give it a try! Remember, you can make adjustments to the size and placement of your ladder, and trigger boxes if things don't line up quite right:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0074.jpg

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{{ALTutorials}}

Avatar Swimming

2011-07-29T16:52:49Z

Andylegate: Created page with "This tutorial assumes that you have set up 3DS Max with the Cyan Plugin and have set up an Age file already. If you have not, please go back to the other tutorials and do this. ..."

This tutorial assumes that you have set up 3DS Max with the Cyan Plugin and have set up an Age file already. If you have not, please go back to the other tutorials and do this.

This tutorial also assumes that you know how to create some basic shapes and textures.

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===Getting Started.....===

Okay, we're going to need a basic plane for the Avatar to swim in. Your mesh can have a different shape (IE round, oval, etc) as long as it's still a plane.

Create the plane, put it where you need it. Give it some material and a texture (note: the swim area is a drawable....if for some some reason you do not want the swim plane to be a drawable, use the Component Manager and go New>Ignore>NoShow and attach it to the swim plane.).

In my example below, I've just quickly thrown in a plane and gave it a material and texture:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax1.jpg

Make sure you add it to your PageInfo (can't stress this enough):

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad6.jpg

Now, while you are still in the Component Manager and still have your swimplane selected, click on New, then on Navigables, and then 2DSwim.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax2.jpg

Then attach it:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax3.jpg

Now, you need to make a box or area that encompasses where the Avatar is going to swim. This will be our Swim Region.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax5.jpg

Once you have made the box or area, again, don't forget to add it to your PageInfo....

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/maxshad6.jpg

Now go back and reselect your Swim Plane. In your Tools, select on Utils (the little hammer) and select Swim2D01. You'll see a button that says above it: "Box Hull For Detection" and the button itself says "None"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax4.jpg

Click on the button. Then go to one of your 3D windows and click on the Box we made as our Swim Region.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax5.jpg

Now if you look back over at Utils, you'll see that the button no longer says "None" but instead has the name of our Swim Region.

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax6.jpg

Now, you can stop here and export, and your avatar should swim just fine:

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/KIimage0068.jpg

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===Having Currents....===

If you want to have currents too, you'll need to do some extra stuff.

You'll need to create a "Dummy", this will be the reference point for your current. To create a dummy, go up to your menu and click on "Create" then "Helpers" and them "Dummy"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax7.jpg

Click and drag to create the Dummy, rename it something like SwimDummy

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax8.jpg

Position the Dummy keeping in mind the following:

The "Y" axis of the dummy will be the direction of the current.

Once you have the Dummy where you need it, go back and select the Swim Plane again, and go over to Utils, selecting the Swim2D01 again. This time, look at the button under "Dummy Box For Current"

http://assets.openuru.org/wiki/andy/MaxTutPics1/swmmax9.jpg

Click on the button, and then click on your Swim Dummy you put in. The button should change to the name of your Swim Dummy.

Now you can play with the current options that you've seen here.

Export and have fun.

Hope this helped.

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{{ALTutorials}}