Just wondering what 3D software you use to create your models for PA, i'm guessing it's going to be 3DSMax or maybe Maya but looking at the awesome little robots has inspired me to have a crack at making a few myself. I have no doubt I could make something to look good however it's the ability to tell what it is from over head and at distance that has had me scratching my head. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsJyFwx63Ac I made this years ago, it was rigged as well and all the leg pistons worked like a charm but hardware failure stole with away from me and I never bothered redoing it. I'll probably stick with Maya as that's what I know and I can export things as .fbx which I think I remember someone saying they used in the live steams.
Since .fbx is an Autodesk format, they're probably using 3D Max (iirc thats what they rendered the KS pitch video in too), but any 3D suite that can export to .fbx is probably ok. Not sure how animations are handled though.
I really hope they have support for Blender and XSI... An overwhelming majority of modders use those.
Should I ever be doing custom models for PA it will probably XSI since I use it for 6 or 7 years now - even at work . As they said they are using fbx probably any big 3D package will do...
Blender can export to .fbx so there is support for Blender. Some work may be required to make the exporter compatible with PA depending on how they use the data but the coding for exporters to common formats is *simple*.
When they first brought up .fbx the first thing I checked was XSI for it, and it is part of Crosswalk so that should be fine I hope. The whole point behind Crosswalk was to simplify the pipeline between XSI, Max and Maya so yeah. Mike
note that both 3dMax and Maya are both Autodesk products. Maya was acquired by Autodesk in 2005. I think you are right about the team using 3dMax though, I think I heard them talking about it on multiple occasions. On topic: My guess is that all software packages supporting .fbx support will work. We will have to wait and see how animation/rigging is going to work. Setups could differ slightly from program to program due to the hierarchy being saved and animation differences, for instance: Maya uses joints to animate, whereas 3Dmax uses bones, which differ slightly in the way they work. Also depending on how sub objects are used, say to animate barrel recoil, or turret movement, and team colors it can be slightly different. I think the team will (or let the community) make some tutorials on how this all works. After that we can easily work out the differences between the various programs, if they do exist. I know both Maya and 3dMax a bit and Houdini, but I think that is less relevant for most people
That is also an option of course, I was merely speculating. C&C generals works with sub objects to define team colors, so it is not unheard of. I guess using textures is more efficient anyways as you cut out a draw call for each individually moving sub object that has team color on it at the cost of some additional texture(s) /(channels).
I'm sure I'll be writing some docs & someone will do a video or two showing how to make content. But yes, team colors are handled by mask textures.
