Help! Model Conversion to UT99

[SteelTalon]

Hello, before I make my post I must introduce myself as SteelTalon (ST), the BuF/mapping/modeling noob, so no flaming. =P

Now with that out of the way, we can discuss the matter at hand. Basically my objective is to port JC Denton from Deus Ex into UT99 using Advanced Model Support. If there is an extremely simple way to do that task (such as copy and pasting ;) ), as they are both Unreal Engine games, then I am not aware of it. However, I have come across the model and appropriate textures used on JC, and I have fooled around with those a bit. Now as a noob to all these "modeling" shenanigans I have quite a few questions already, so without further ado:

1. I have loaded the JC Denton model in Milkshape 3D. Great. I figured out how to get the basic male skeleton on the screen. Great. I have several questions once I get to this point.

a) How do I move the skeleton so it "sticks" to Denton's body? I have found multiple tutorials on this from our good friend Google, yet they always seem to skip over the steps I need. Would somebody mind detailing this to me (or giving me a good link)?

b) I've tried putting skins (skin-mapping) on Denton, but they do not align right at all. Keep in mind I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and I'm not even sure if I need to do it at this point, but oh well. Anyway, I'm just trying to get the skinned Denton to show up in the 3d view in Milkshape (right now it's just the plain model with the skeleton obviously).

2. I've tried importing the stupid thing (yes, with skins all disaligned and skeleton unattached) to UT but the thing does not show up, even in a crappy looking state (I know somebody is thinking "no ****!"). I'm using UTSM (http://www.acordero.org/projects/utsm/index.htm) to import it. I have no idea what my problem is here so some insight would be appreciated providing you can understand my confusing explanation. ;)

3. A few more advanced questions (yeah, yeah, I know, get the basics first. do you think I care? ;P):

a) How do you implement multiple skins for the head for a model? Sure it sounds like a stupid question but I can't seem to get a straight answer (either that or I am just incredibly dumb and/or blind).

b) It is possible to make Denton's sunglasses shiny/reflective, right (pretty sure I read this somewhere)?

c) The skins for JC are segmented into weird sizes and into many parts (seemingly more than UT's skins). Would these skins work with the model or will they have to be modified in some way (resized, etc.)? For an example of the "weirdness", JC's sunglasses are two seperate textures from the model one for the frames and one for the lenses (probably because the glasses aren't just painted onto the model for obvious reasons) . I think you can do multiple layers or something but I just hope there isn't a limit. I think this article (http://home.ict.nl/~mweterin/unreal/tutorials/multiplematerials.html) may be relevant, or am I just getting lost here?

d) Since JC will be using the skeleton of "Male Soldier" or whatever, I assume his trenchcoat will look weird when he crouches, going through floors and stuff. How would I fix this, assuming this becomes a problem (yeah yeah "the model doesn't even work in the first place yet n00b" yada yada yada)?

BTW - Running UT v436, latest Milkshape, Photoshop 7. I've tried UnrealWiki, psychic_313's site and a few other sites (including some Milkshape tutorials) to no avail. Give me linkage if you've got the goods.

Ok, enough talking. That's all the questions I can remember about this for now, at any rate. I'd appreciate any help I could get. And of course, if somebody has already done it (as in JC in UT) can somebody please hook me up with the link to it? ;)

[Sengoku]

Hi, im not a guru at this stuff but i have a good idea of what im doing having made models for ut2k4. It wont be simple to import him, Unreal 2 models will not export from that game and thats unreal based, same with DX:IW...

1a) You dont move the skeleton at all, you move the mesh to fit the skeleton. When i started i followed the CSGirl tutorial which you can download here (http://www.dosfx.com/). Its a milkshape tut and even though its for counterstrike, the principles in it are exactly the same...gives you very detailed info on everything, even assigning skeletons.

1b) This JC Model and textures, are they from the game or is it something someone has done from scratch? If its from the game then the textures should align perfectly when you apply the skin using the Materials tab. I dont even use a skin in milkshape coz its easier to see what youre doing if you use the flat shaded poly view in 3d. If the textures dont fit at all then just follow the corresponding part in the csgirl tut. Again, same principle.

2) I dont know what the system is with ut but if its the same as 200x if youve even slightly misspelled something in the INT file it wont display. I use UnrealEd to export my textures and anims. Theres a good tut here (http://www.planetunreal.com/identitycrisis/cabins/intertwined/) for exporting characters, just ignore the 3dsmax bits.

3a) I take it you mean teamskins, whatever name you call his head tex (EG. 'Denton') just add _0 for Red Team and _1 for Blue. But this is for 200x.

3b) Id imagine so, use Alpha channels in Photoshop, then when doing your texture file enable DTX5 compression.

3C) The ut games only recognise 2 texturemaps, so if JC has about 5 or so different textures youre going to have to follow the csgirl tut on unwrapping the model and setting out the textures on something like a single 1024x1024 map.

3d) Unfortunately it will look a little buggered, nothing you can do about that. Just make sure that you assign the parts of his trenchcoat that are around his legs actually to his leg bones and not his pelvis bone. Then when his legs move, the coat will move with the legs rather than his legs moving through the coat.

Im not a mega experienced modeler myself but i hope this has helped. Ask anything else if you want and ill answer if i can. :D


Sen

[SteelTalon]

Ok. Finally got around to this project again, but I kind of lost track of where I was, so, without further ado...

1a) OK, I'll try that. We'll see what happens.

1b) Straight from the game. They weren't extracted, they were actually released by Ion Storm years back right before the game released so that somebody would end up putting him UT or something. However, nobody did that so I thought this would be a good opportunity to learn about modeling. It took me a VERY long time to track these files down. It includes:

GM_TrenchFull_BASE.lwo (I figured out this is a "lightwave object" and is the actual model. this is what I opened up with Milkshape)
GM_TrenchFull_BASE.uv (I'm assuming this is the UV coordinates, but I have no idea how to use these. it'd be nice because then I wouldn't have to align the textures.)
and a ****load of textures - 4 for denton's body (no teamskins or anything, this is essentially one skin in 4 textures), 2 for his glasses (the frames and the lenses), and 4 different heads

2) I don't think I'm there yet, hehe. Thanks, though.

3a) No, not teamskins. In the original UT you could use 1 skin and then have several different "heads" for it, effectively enabling you to have a whole bunch of different skins from a base skin.

3b) Hmm, I heard of some other technique I can't recall right now, but I guess I'll cross this bridge when I come to it.

3c) Gah. I guess I will need that .uv file then. Somehow if I can get that to work, I can get the model up all textured and the presumably follow that unwrapping tutorial right?

3d) Yeah, I figured the trenchcoat would be a little screwy, but that's ok. I don't even know how good it works in Deus Ex. :eek:

Thanks for your help. (other people can chime in too ;P)