Triangles or Quads for models in TSL? 3dsMax

[Emperor Turnip 45]

Hi there! I'm back from a long hiatus to make the leap from the texture mods I've done to models as well. Currently looking at the Peragus mining droids. (I think that whole section of the game could be made less of a burden to play through). I'm using 3dsMax as my platform of choice, and would like to know how the game handles Quads. I see that the current models are built around triangle polygons, unlike the current quads with triangulation underneath. Will modelling with quads become an issue in game? I may take a swing at high poly characters/heads if this works well. 

[DarthParametric 3,782]

All game models use tris. In fact everything that uses polygons uses tris. Any n-gon you see is just a bunch of tris with the edges hidden.

All meshes will automatically be triangulated when they are compiled, but due to the way some modelling programs handle mapping UV verts to geometry verts, you typically should triangulate yourself before export to avoid potential texture anomalies. It's probably not overly likely when going from Max to KOTOR, since the engine was built around that workflow, but it's definitely a problem that happens when going from Max to other programs, so it's a good habit to get into.

You can easily triangulate by changing the mesh to an Editable Poly (or adding an Edit Poly modifier), going into vertex mode, selecting all (Ctrl-A) and hitting the Connect button.

[Emperor Turnip 45]

1 hour ago, DarthParametric said:

All game models use tris. In fact everything that uses polygons uses tris. Any n-gon you see is just a bunch of tris with the edges hidden.

All meshes will automatically be triangulated when they are compiled, but due to the way some modelling programs handle mapping UV verts to geometry verts, you typically should triangulate yourself before export to avoid potential texture anomalies. It's probably not overly likely when going from Max to KOTOR, since the engine was built around that workflow, but it's definitely a problem that happens when going from Max to other programs, so it's a good habit to get into.

You can easily triangulate by changing the mesh to an Editable Poly (or adding an Edit Poly modifier), going into vertex mode, selecting all (Ctrl-A) and hitting the Connect button.

Thanks so much for the response. I don't mind taking the time to triangulate the models myself after the main work is done. Would you also happen to know if I use 3dsMax to texture this model, would there be any issues around that? I dont mind hand painting them in PS again, but why do that if I don't have to, right?

[DarthParametric 3,782]

I wouldn't consider Max a painting app, but all the game cares about is having a diffuse texture at a bare minimum. How you produce it doesn't really matter.

[Emperor Turnip 45]

39 minutes ago, DarthParametric said:

I wouldn't consider Max a painting app, but all the game cares about is having a diffuse texture at a bare minimum. How you produce it doesn't really matter.

Fair. What program would you suggest?

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Whatever program you want. Whatever you are comfortable with and does the job. Like I said, the specific program doesn't really matter as long as the game gets what it needs. Photoshop (or Gimp) would be the traditional route, but these days there are any number of commercial and free programs that are either dedicated texture painters, or incorporate texture painting as a sideline. If you can do 3D painting in Max, or Blender, or whatever, then that's fine as long as it spits out a texture at the end.

[Emperor Turnip 45]

Alright sweet. I'm about 9 hours of modeling tutorial deep for the last 2 days, haven't got as far as how 3ds looks compared to the work I've done in PS. So I guess time will tell. Thanks again

Hmm. Cant seem to figure out how to unwrap all of the elements onto 1 UV map. It keeps trying to unwrap individual pieces

1 hour ago, DarthParametric said:

Whatever program you want. Whatever you are comfortable with and does the job. Like I said, the specific program doesn't really matter as long as the game gets what it needs. Photoshop (or Gimp) would be the traditional route, but these days there are any number of commercial and free programs that are either dedicated texture painters, or incorporate texture painting as a sideline. If you can do 3D painting in Max, or Blender, or whatever, then that's fine as long as it spits out a texture at the end.

Do you happen to know the correct way to unwrap all of the UVs to one Image file from a model in 3dsMax? It seems to only let me add the Unwrap UVW modifier to each section (Head, Torso etc) of the model seperately

[DarthParametric 3,782]

There are a couple of ways to go about it. The easiest is probably to merge them into a single mesh first, do the unwrap, then split them back into individual meshes afterwards.

However, you can instance a single modifier across multiple objects. Select all the meshes, then choose Unwrap UVW from the modifier drop down. That will let you edit the UVs all at once. Afterwards you will need to collapse the stacks individually.

[Emperor Turnip 45]

Thanks! Turns out most of the game models are a mess and need a lot of clean up. Like random edges and verts just floating around all over the place. Idk how they ever worked with that, lol.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

Low res textures on a standard definition TV. It all kind of blurred together into mush. But yes, by modern standards you'd throw everything Bioware did in the trash and start from scratch, given infinite resources.

[Emperor Turnip 45]

I'm beginning to see that, haha. That said, I've taken some time to rework the Vibrosword just to get a good grasp on how 3DS handles unwraps. A whole day later, and a much cleaner (tm) model, and I can now get back to painting on UV maps again, lol. What a process. Are you aware of how I might be able to tell what each .mdl file is without having to extract, convert, then open every single one?

[DarthParametric 3,782]

By the name? For weapons, the UTIs will tell you what model variation a particular item uses. But there's little actual geometry variation aside from between the major sub-types. Single bladed vibroswords, for example, all use the same meshes with different textures (which amounts to a small square of glowy bit, each a different colour). The way the engine is set up requires that they be distinct models, even though they probably could have just used a texture override the same as for body models (and I think there's at least some indication of such a system in the UTIs, although it could just be a NWN remnant).

Note that you can do batch conversions. In KTool simply dump the entire model archive. Go to BIFs -> models.bif, select Aurora Model, hit the Extract Entire BIFF Subtype button to extract all of the MDLs to a folder of your choice. Do the same for Aurora Model Extension to get all the MDXs. No go into that folder in Explorer and do a search for the particular models you are after, for example w_vbrdblswd, select and copy all the MDLs/MDXs, paste them somewhere convenient, run MDLEdit and go to File -> Batch -> Convert to ASCII and select all the MDLs. It will convert all of them into ASCIIs. Store those in a folder somewhere that you can access easily in KMax.

Since there is typically only a single "archetype" model for a given weapon type, you only need to do an unwrap once for each. Then you can just export the model multiple times, renaming the base and assigning a different texture each time as appropriate to account for the required number of variations.

[Emperor Turnip 45]

The obvious ones have easy to read names, sure. The the area geometry doesn't appear to, and I had meant them. Things like peraa perab perac or peraba perabc etc really doesn't say much. Was thinking of hand painting some textures to see if KOTOR might look more alive with a different art approach.

[DarthParametric 3,782]

For levels you'll probably want to load the entire area in via a LYT.  Extract them from layouts.bif.  In KMax, expand the Area Tools section, tick With Models and in the Suffix field add -mdledit (assuming you decompiled with MDLEdit). Note that if you plan on doing any mesh editing and re-exporting that you will need to decompile the models alongside their matching walkmeshes (WOKs) to ensure the ASCIIs contain the appropriate information.