Twizzler77

Yup, worth a try at least to get the scale right.

Agreed! I was thinking about doing something like this myself. I can do the modeling and texturing but I have no animation practice nor do I know about importing animations into the game. Guess I got some reading to do. :P

It's mostly personal preference, to be honest. Maya is more popular and used industry-wide but both can be used. As far the scale issues, you should just be able to scale it back down to size. Or, import into Blender and then export it out of Blender and into Maya and see if that fixes the scale.

Glad to see this mod getting some traction! Although I'm not into modding anymore (too busy with work), I'm glad someone is picking this up even if it's not my take on it. :) Good luck to those involved!

Hey Folks, Been very busy the last 6-7 months: 3rd kid arrived, new job, and relocation. I have uploaded the mesh and texture files to the modders resource in hopes someone will finish this mod up. Cheers!

Unfortunately, I've scarcely had any time to put toward this. :(

Prenihility, You are essentially correct. This is where texture compression in the form of mipmapping and texture filtering (bilinear, trilinear, and anisotropic) come into play. - Mipmaps are smaller versions of a texture file. For example, 512x512 texture will have additional mipmaps at 256x256, 128x128, 64x64, etc. As the object gets smaller on-screen, the GPU will automagically and (hopefully) seamlessly blend between the different mipmap levels. This helps prevent the GPU from having to render 512x512's worth of pixels at lower resolution. However, this doesn't solve for assets being rotated in such a way that the viewing angle becomes very oblique (nearly parallel) to the viewer. - Bilinear/Trilinear filtering are different methods (although not exclusive) of swapping between the mip levels of a texture. Both of them can introduce a variety of graphics artifacts. This is where anisotropic filtering comes. While this is a fairly bandwidth intensive method, it does solve for the artifacts brought about with bi/trilinear filtering. If you have ever played a game where you think you see a definite line where the texture is being blurred based on your view or movement, that is an artifact of bilinear/trilnear filtering. Essentially, the GPU is trying to accommodate for a texture whose resolution is either too low OR too high for the screen resolution to properly display. The blurring works both ways! So, by using a higher res texture on a lower resolution screen, you could actually be increasing the chance for graphical artifacts. Ideally, you want as close to 1:1 ratio as possible. Hope that makes sense! It makes perfect sense in my head, sometimes not so much in text. :smile:

Hey Humiliation, I don't have much experience with Viewport Canvas, but it sounds like a plugin install issue. Check out this thread here regarding install directories; some folks have had success. https://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-3ds-max/autodesk-3ds-max--3ds-max-design-2011/viewport-canvas-problem/ Since you will be moving/creating directories, I would backup any work in a safe place in case something goes wrong. Hope this helps!

Been following this thread for awhile and just wanted to chime in and say that the effort and cooperation between the modders is very cool to see. Looking forward to updates and eventual release!

Nope, typically the term pack is used when you take all your unwrapped chunks (typically called islands or shells) and pack them into the 0-1 space. See below: http://imageshack.us/a/img826/7879/uvw01space.jpg You might see them referred to UVW Coordinates because, well, they are coordinates. All your UV islands need to fit within this space for them to render correctly in-game. There are some instances and exceptions here since anything outside of this space tiles, but for standalone assets with discrete UVs, keep them in the 0-1 space. Once you finish packing your UVs, it should look something like this: http://imageshack.us/a/img197/51/uvwexample.jpg It's a bit hard to see, but nothing sits outside of the 0-1 space. Hope this helps!

There are a couple of things to keep in mind: - Environment Map/Cubemaps Environment Map = Answers the question, "How strong do I want my reflection?".This is not limited to black and white, it's actually grayscale image. If you want subtle reflection, use a dark gray, etc.Cubemap = Answers the question, "What do I want reflected?"Normal Maps Normal maps do not directly effect the cubemap in that they do not effect the What or How strong questions. Normal maps answer the question, "What does a light source reveal about this asset?" Is it bumpy or smooth, cracked or solid, etc.?Your normal map should be various colors: reds, purple, greens, blues. However, the alpha channel of the normal is a grayscale image that controls specularity.Normal Map Alpha Channel This controls specularity in Skyrim and answers the question of, "Where and how strong are the highlights?" As for the UV map, the seams with checker map are fine. The proportion is the biggest concern. Your UVs look good from here. All you need is a good pack now and should set for texturing.

Hey dfac, Cubemaps are a performance-friendly way to fake reflection on a surface. They are great for metal surfaces: gold, chrome, fiberglass, steel, etc. Typically the strength (ie. how much reflection is present) is controlled by a grayscale texture. White = pure reflection, black = no reflection. In CK/NfSkope, it's called the environment mask texture. As far as UV mapping goes, I answered some questions in this thread: http://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/995092-any-tips-on-unwrapping/ I also talked a bit about my workflow. It's pretty simple and I hope it answers some of your questions. If you are looking for more specific or tool-related tutorials, Max has a great Help/Reference section within the program itself.

It's been 5+ years since I've done any modular environment work, so I'm not going to add anything directly. However, I will point you here: http://wiki.polycount.com/CategoryEnvironmentModularity?highlight=%28%5CbCategoryEnvironment%5Cb%29 And more specifically, a GDC 2013 talk about modularity in Skyrim: http://blog.joelburgess.com/2013/04/skyrims-modular-level-design-gdc-2013.html Hope this helps!

Jedo, Nope, only gets loaded once. You shouldn't incur any sort of memory hit. (Sent from phone, please excuse the short reply.)

Glad you got it figured out! UV mapping is generally much simpler than most folks realize. I remember when it finally "clicked" in my head and it was a glorious day. :) For what it's worth, I typically Relax with following settings: - Relax by Face Angles - Iterations = 100 - Amount = 0.1 - Stretch = 0.0