Noob Skinning Question

[Boom S]

let me first state that I have read most of the tutorials on the subject and that has taken me farther than I had first hoped to. (hat tip to all the tutorial authors)

I started with a simple project, create a shield and put it on an existing unit.

for that, I created a nice round shield in 3ds max, and added it to a hastati model after deleting its original shield (after scaling and all that but I'm not going into that).

problem occurs when I'm trying to edit the existing hastati skin to add the shield skin that I made.

this is what I did : erase the original shield's quarter image and replace it with the quarter image of the one I made. obviously that doesn't work out, the skin on the shield is a complete mess made out of a combination of the original shield image and the one I made.

would some kindly soul please guide me on this issue ?

p.s. I'm not sure if this is the right forum for this thread. If not, apologies in advance.

[Halie Satanus]

I'm guessing you attached your new shield to the model rather than the bone.

I'm also guessing you're using a vanilla model?.

My advice is to not bother with vanilla models, you'll learn a lot quicker if you use models made by modders. You'll also find most modders have the shield seperate from the model and you'll enjoy the world of unwrapped shields and 512x512 textures.

Your welcome to use my models from the Sicilia mod, I don't think the romans have any unwrapped round shields but the Carthaginians do, a quick swap should be simple enough.

Also, don't make work for yourself by scaling models up and down, it's not really necessary. I personally never have.

[Boom S]

thanks ! I didn't expect a reply from the guru himself !
you are correct, I attached the shield to the body rather than the bone. I'll try out on your units.

about historical accuracy, I know it's not accurate. Caligula Caesar is creating a Mauryan faction, this shield would fit nicely with one of the units. I was just trying to figure out how it works, so chose a random unit with a shield. The larger point is to see if I can lessen his workload a bit.

[Boom S]

Halie, I hope you won't mind if I ask a few questions directly related to my ongoing efforts to learn some modeling and skinning. got some free time today, so will try out some of the things I've been thinking of for last few days.

first thing, how does one create a skin for an object that does not match in shape with an existing model ? To be precise I need to create a helmet that would have a completely different shape to anything I've seen on RTW.
how do I create a skin to fit its shape ?
thanks.

I can post an image of the model if you need.

[Halie Satanus]

You can open the UV map and save an image of it, take that into PS and skin. It's not something I ever bothered with myself so I can't recall the exact process.

[Boom S]

new problem, here's a skin for a shield,

when I apply it to a shield however, it looks like this.

I guess the possible reason is that when I generate the texture (in GIMP), it says

DDS: Cannot generate mipmaps for compressed images whose dimensions are not powers of 2.
Saved image will not have mipmaps generated.

whereas my image is 756X756 clearly a multiple of 2.
what could be the problem ?

[Killerbee]

Needs to be 256*256, 512*512, 1024*1024, etc.. Always the double of the previous

752*752 is not allowed

[Boom S]

thanks, won't such large files be a drain on the computer during running a game ? should I re-scale everything to 512*512 or just go ahead and create 1024*1024 ?

[Hannibal Smith]

I would recomend 512x512. Most modders use this size now it fits alot of detail and doesnt strain the game engine. Some modders advocate the bigger is better theory some as big as 2048x2048, although I still dont believe that you can see this detail in game, and it puts a strain on your machine.

Rough rule of thumb is to work big in photoshop (as big as you like) because it will make things easier, then shrink to put it in game.

[Boom S]

thanks, I figured that I could get my required detail level at 512X512 itself, just needed to resize the original full body texture to 400X400. that still gives acceptable level of detail on the model.