[Weapon] Bren L4A4 LMG (PR:F) [WIP]

[pfhatoa]

The area marked in red seems to have an unnecessary amount of edges.

[Rhino]

Yep, what I was mainly on about and also the curve on the feet etc.

[Psyko]

purdy sweet dude

[{ZW}C-LOKE]

Ok, so I've made all changes to current of the last renders post I posted. I'm fairly confident this model is ready for UVW unwrap now, and I'd like to pass this model along for review so I can get started on that. Hoping for permission to do so. First, let me explain:

Changelog:
-Fixed top-down view between leaf-ironsight and magazine release, to reflect references (it didn't before).
-searched complete hierarchy of model to find any remaining locations that could be simplified/collapsed polys.
-searched complete hierarchy for isolated vertices and backfacing polys (didn't find any this time).
-reworked whole bipod apparatus with 1p eyes + eventually 3p LOD 0/1 eyes in mind, /necessity versus desire in terms of appearance.
-scaled down flash suppressor bullet hole opening, to match refs/reality.
-shading groups update/existence assuredness, including reworked areas or areas modified geometrically.


Before:
Polys 4593
Tris 8390
Edges 9311
Verts 4691

After:
Polys 4230
Tris 7718
Edges 8610
Verts 4343

Difference:
Polys -363
Tris -672
Edges -701
Verts -348


Screenies and Renders:










I'm sending a link in PM that contains a download link to the .max file, and another link that has all references I have in one place. Some of these were very hard to find... Like 2-5 different keyword combinations + 15-20 pages deep (and sometimes more-per) in google search.

DL links incoming!

[Adriaan]

Nice, looking quite a lot better for sure! I can give some feedback on this version if you want to send me the files again.

[lucky.BOY]

There is a script for 3ds max that allows you to select polgons according to how many sides they have. Priceless for finding out errors when modelling with turbosmooth. Attaching it here, see if it helps you with finding n-gons in the future

EDIT: Model looking great, you are really guick with it, too! Nice job

[Spush]

Starting to look great from what I can see.

[{ZW}C-LOKE]

^^^Thank you! Will send links. Inbound!
^^Thank you and thanks for the script! That ought to come in handy!
^Thanks!

[Rhino]

Right taking a look at the model you've sent me and it is looking really good! Isn't quite ready for UVing just yet but it is close!

Note that I've actually fixed everything I've listed in there other than things I have said I haven't fixed and I'm PMing you the new version, posting this here so others can learn from the feedback
Only thing that really needs your attention is the mag release as I haven't touched that but think that needs quite a lot of rework, but probably need to ask Strima what is needed since the refs don't really show it too well.
You still should go all the way though this post, even thou its very long and learn from it for your next task as I won't be fixing these things again

Cheers!




Right first of all, starting with the front, a minor optimization but you don't need the end bit here to be as round as the outside so can collapse every other edge down saving a few tris



And then can scale it up 10% to compensate for it being slightly smaller from what it was before


and from back here it looks pretty much the same, other than being slightly bigger (going off a ref it looks slightly bigger opening than what you had but nothing major):
before: http://i.imgur.com/WX72a.jpg
after: http://i.imgur.com/qwWTE.jpg

This face on the inside shouldn't be the same size as the barrel's outside as it is right now, need to scale it down a bit to make it smaller:


First since it seems its a separate element from the outside I'm first going to delete the one you have, going to detach this back face to a new element:


Then selecting the inside loop of the inside bit I'm going to cap it:


Then going to scale down that face to a more appropriate size, to 10% of what it was


Next as per this feedback I gave to Lucky, even thou your very unlikely to ever see it, IMO its always good practice to do this as it hardly adds any tris, and if it ever dose get seen and even when baked to the 3p model, will give a much better sense of depth

Rhino;1841523']Also always for barrels you should always have a cone rather than a cylinder with a back face as for starters, its far less tris but not only that, it also gives a much better "bottomless" effect when textured with a shadow in the middle and takes up far less UV space and easier on the LODs









But saying that for a 1p handheld weapon like this your not going to ever see down its barrel, only in 3p but still best to model it just encase it dose come up in the animations and also helps with future proofing etc

So going to select the back face, then using the Face Tessellate I will form a central vertex, that then you just need to move back inside the barrel a bit


Also don't forget to smooth



Although on 2nd thoughts, you can in fact loose this loop here, overall saving tris with a cone with this




Next, the Flash Suppressor itself shouldn't be a separate object/element from the main rifle, it should be fully welded on


In fact, taking a second look their is a hell of a lot of stuff that is separate objects/elements that shouldn't be and should be welded up. From what I can tell all these 11 objects should be welded up to the main body, other than the trigger which should technically be separate but that was already part of the body (although a different element)


For the most part you've actually got the object cut away correctly and all you need to do is attach them and then weld up all the verts so nice and easy for the most part, which gives you the following


First bit that hasn't been welded up is this bit, since I don't believe it moves, which you need to do by slicing the barrel and then deleting the middle bit, then welding up the verts which will save a bit of UV space and also ensure their is no zfighting
If this bit dose move you will need to ofc undo what I've done



Are some welding issues however that need fixing up. First this one behind the pistol grip:



Then this just behind that:



And also with the welding some of your smoothing groups will need fixing, like the face just above that last bit which is trying to smooth onto the butt.


and here:


Also just noticed the pistol grip doesn't actually meet up with the trigger wall:



This bit also isn't welded up fully, but don't need that central vertex so simple fix.



don't see any need for these two verts.



Don't see any need for these loops:



Don't need this vert:



Don't need all of these:



Butt isn't welded up here:



This bit's smoothing is screwed up so assigning the front faces to a new group and the same for the other side:



Redone the edges here to improve smoothing:



This bottom face is being smoothed with the front side, needs its own group:



As dose this face:


Can optimize the rear of the butt:



This face isn't welded up to the bottom bit, and the same for the opposite side:



and going off the refs should be one smooth bit?



Next bit, these side bits should be welded onto the side, although this yes dose increase tri count, you save a bit of UV space and it also ensures no zfighting. If your unaware of a good way to do this, first delete the faces behind it, then selecting the two loops, hit bridge and it will bridge the gap with faces, but the edges in most cases will need reworking. Then do this to both sides.





Also since the sides where not 100% flat I flattened them by selecting them, then scaling them down to 0% on the y axis to make them flat
No pics since you can't really see a difference

Don't need this central vert, just costing more tris, same on the other side too:



Don't need these two verts on the bottom of the pistol grip:



Now with the shell ejection port, we actually have it 100% moving and a whole under it from the shell to eject from:

As such we need to make that on your model since right now you just have the cover, but it can't move and there is nothing under it.

So ye to do this, going to select your face you had, detach it as a cloned object, then take the face that's left and move it back inwards a bit:

Then attaching the bit I detached to the cocking handle and fixing the pivots rotation to be in line with the port, we have a working shell ejection port


Interesting thing you've tried here with the smoothing of the height adjuster on the rear sight but it just isn't working.

Looking at this ref it has really fine teeth, which would be best done via a normal map, rather than trying to pass it off either with modelling or smoothing or both. If they where massive bits then rather than doing the smoothing you have you would be best to model them but here, best to have them textured on in the normal map.

As such, a straight smooth all the way round is best, with then the teeth done via the normal map, and perhaps a little on the diffuse too

Also going off that ref I've changed the sizes a little:


Now the mag release catch looks very wrong to me, going off that last ref I posted above, from what I can tell, but hopefully strima can confirm/fill in the details, that its not something that goes over the top like you have it, but more in the middle and then it rotates around those two bolts you've modelled in when you pull it out, which then releases the mag. You will probably need to talk to strima more about this tbh as I'm only going off what I can see and what makes mechanical sense to me but that's what I'm guessing off the refs, but none are very good so I can see why you've had trouble here. Not going to fix this bit for you as I'm not 100% sure and going to take a bit of remodelling so will leave this for you.

Also the underside shouldn't be deleted here, as you can never tell what the animations are going to be, if the rifle is tipped on its side your going to obviously see it, but you can see it even when not scoped in, made the face and highlighted it in this shot so you can obviously see what you wouldn't see:


Right moving on to the carrying handle, first of all since this is a moving part that rotates around the barrel, it shouldn't be welded up to it which while you haven't done that, you have cut the barrel out of it, which in this case isn't a perticually good idea. While you do save a tiny bit of UV space, its so small its not worth the many extra tris in this case of doing it.

In this case a simple flat face is best which cuts off 72tris when done to both the back and front


It was also rather hard to centre your handles pivot. This is quite a large problem I've seen over your entire model that its not 100% made on the axis and its all just a little off, which you can best see in the front view:

You really should try modelling on the grid even, or at the very least, on the axis's since from a coding and animation POV, its really hard not working on it, and even from a modelling POV I'm not sure how you've really been working off them as I couldn't do that
Not too much you can do about it now but in future its a really good idea to model "on the grid" and you will find things soo much easier

Moving up the handle this could use quite a bit of optimization:



And ye, since the handle doesn't move separately from its base (I don't think anyways) it should be welded onto it:



Now the smoothing at the end of the handle currently isn't working.

What I would do is first, add another, small smoothing control chamfer to the end, then tessellate the end face so it has a central vertex to help control the smoothing like so:



While this dose increase the tri count a bit, its worth it for the smoothing in this case

Now this bolt here I'm just going to remake for ya since its so rotated off I can't optimize it.

What I've done is since they are soo close together is just make them into one object, with the faces going all the way though so its one fully enclosed cylinder basically, which saves a few tris and verts
Normally this isn't a good idea since its normally a waste of a lot of UV space but since these are soo close together, your not wasting any UV space really.



Moving onto the bipod, for the most part looks good, although these holes look a little bit too round for being that far away.

before: http://i.imgur.com/o8G2H.jpg
after collapsing every other edge: http://i.imgur.com/ZvNBs.jpg

don't need these two verts:



This box here isn't really worth having in its current form, needs more tris if your going to keep it



No need for these verts:



These bits are still a bit too round:



These holes on the side of the front site are waay too round for something that the player isn't going to even see side on, and is very far away:



Don't need these two verts:


Too much smoothing going on here:



And here too:




Last but not least, the Magazine and overall looking good, just a few small things

First of all no need for these:



Also don't think these two loops are really doing anything:





Don't need these two verts, same on the other side.


Don't need these either:



Also going off the refs, the front groove is much deeper than the two rear ones, so going to make that quick edit for ya, not by making the front one deeper but by making the two rear ones shallower on both sides:



One last thing (I think!) is that the mag should be slightly hollow to allow some 3D bullets (for 1p) to be in the top of the mag so that when the player reloads and checks the mag you can see them

As such we need to do the same. Don't really have any refs of this area so just going to have to guess but should basically be a basic hole, then fill it with a couple of rounds
Now the bullets we use are ones that are pre-modelled and use a ammo sheet used by most rounds ingame (ones that don't we are trying to replace) so that the ammo in the mag matches the one being ejected out of the side of the rifle and saves UV space on the main weapons sheet etc. These bullets have all been made to the correct sizes etc too
Problem is it doesn't look like your Bren has been made to the correct scale

I've scaled it all down to 1156mm as per what the wiki says the length of the weapon is and looks about right:


Now just a matter of making a hole for the rounds:





In fact not the last thing
the mag hole cover thingy I think should cover the opening fully, right now doesn't, also did a bit of optimization on it, think you get the idea about that by now

Fixed it up a bit




And ye think that's it!!!!

Awesome work, keep it up and just need to fix that mag release bit really and check over what I've done + see what the others say and strima's input

[AnimalMother.]

Great work so far.


And Jesus Christ Rhino, that was one hell of a post. All them photos, firefox was using over a GB of memory for that!

[{ZW}C-LOKE]

Collapse the face inside your barrel, leave only a cone there, not a cyllider like you have now.

^ As for coning the inside of the flash suppressor, oops, I see what you were talking about now lucky... My bad! Yes this needed to be done. I thought you were talking about the other inner geometry of the flash suppressor... That didn't look right. But this ngon poly that Rhino pointed out, that's what you were talking about? Geeze I feel like a heel now.


And now my response... First of all, by all means, thank you for both reviewing (and cleaning up :d uh: ) the model. Embarrassing that I missed so much, but still. I agree with all of your assessments, but I just have a couple of questions/things to say/ask:

As for welding the model up... I was under the impression that it would be easier to uvw unwrap and manage the wrap by keeping the parts separate (due to the hassle of smoothing groups/materials), as well as I was trying to keep in mind what would need to move during animations. Given, a good bulk of those parts don't move at all. Plus there was quite a bit of geometrical work that still needed to be done (apptly) to weld that up, so now I'm not so sure leaving all of that unwelded was such a good idea on my part. Hard to tell what would be best there, but I think I should go with your judgement on that one would probably be the wiser choice.


As for the shell ejection port/cocking handle:
[quote=""'[R-DEV"]Rhino;1846751']Now with the shell ejection port, we actually have it 100% moving and a whole under it from the shell to eject from:

As such we need to make that on your model since right now you just have the cover, but it can't move and there is nothing under it.
[/quote]

The shell ejection port is actually on the direct underside of the weapon, just forward of the trigger, as can be seen in the video offered by Adriaan. Given it's an MK2, but I would imagine the 1/3/4 are no different.

Adriaan;1841165']The spent casings come out of the bottom of the gun, the ejection port is straight down from the magwell I think.

Can see the shells coming out of the bottom here (granted it's a Mk2, but I think it's the same still?):
Shooting the British Bren MkII light machine gun - YouTube

^Which brings me to one thing I would ask... Should I model the shell ejection port? It's on the underside of the weapon, and the only time it would ever be seen is when someone is standing directly below whoever is firing the weapon. 1p would never see it unless he was holding the weapon upside down, which is why I hadn't modeled it yet.

As for the cocking handle, yeah I agree, it should have been modeled, but I was thinking that because the 1p never sees the righthand side of the weapon except for a select moment when cocking the weapon after reload, all they would really see was a hand moving across the weapon and part of the handle(?); i.e., wasted geometry (or not?).



And now, for bullets:

Rhino;1846751']One last thing (I think!) is that the mag should be slightly hollow to allow some 3D bullets (for 1p) to be in the top of the mag so that when the player reloads and checks the mag you can see them

^I agree with overall scaling of the weapon. The proportions of the weapon are good, (I think?) but I agree scaling was off. I was going to do the same; use bullets to tune the mag. But here is my problems with that:

First, I can't for the life of me find a working link to download the script for mesh import. Hence that's why I had never got around to the bullets part of the mag. All links thru google + that I've seen on the forum lead to dead ends, and are broken. Do you have a working copy of the meshimport script so that I can grab that and archive it on my external harddrive/googledocs?

Second, by ammosheet, do you mean the .dds for the bullets, and if so, what is the folder location where can I find that in the objects_Client.zip so I can put it to materials?
EDIT: Upon opening the modified .max, it shows that there are two missing textures, complete with folder locations. I know where to look now. Cancel that!

And I think third on this, isn't the mag a 30 round mag, and if so, wouldn't it make more sense for the bullets to stack (visually) like there were two diagonally side by side in the mag (or am I wrong on this?)?




[quote="AnimalMother.""]Great work so far.


And Jesus Christ Rhino, that was one hell of a post. All them photos, firefox was using over a GB of memory for that![/quote]

^Bahahaha! LOL yeah it does seem kind of obscene, innit? But it's all good... It's all for the betterment of the society in which we play, I would think. THanks!

[lucky.BOY]

^ As for coning the inside of the flash suppressor, oops, I see what you were talking about now lucky... My bad! Yes this needed to be done. I thought you were talking about the other inner geometry of the flash suppressor... That didn't look right. But this ngon poly that Rhino pointed out, that's what you were talking about? Geeze I feel like a heel now.

It is my fault actually, i should have been more elaborate or at least quote Rhino's post from my thread after you respoded to me negatively. I see why you didnt get it from my post, it wasnt really elaborate

As for the case ejection port and cocking handle, I think it is best practice to model them, you really dont know how the animation is going to look like, or if somebody will redo it in the future in a different passion. And simple box doesnt really add to tri count that much.
Also in the future post only triangle count of the model, as that is really the only useful information for seeing how much the model itself is stressing the engine. Good practice is to watch only this info when modeling to see how your changes affect the optimization. No need to watch vert and poly/quad counts in the future.

[strima]

You could get away with not going overboard on modelling the cocking handle too much for 1p due to the fact when cocking your head remains on the left hand side of the weapon and any trained user will automatically reach for and pop out the handle without looking.

The rounds in the mag are staggered as per the L85 mag.

The ejection port cover flicks open when the working parts move forward on their first pass, it then remains open until closed by the firer.

Right, magazine catch. I've found some more references but they aint pretty:

The first two and last pictures are of the Indian variants but the design is pretty much the same.





The bottom one:







Rhino's limited understanding of basic mechanical principles isn't too far off the mark for this real world item...

The whole assembly pivots between the guides as the user pushes forward with the heel of their palm whilst grasping the magazine with the thumb and fingers. The whole piece isn't linked but two distinct parts, I'll have to have a play with paint and do a rough description. I'll get back to you on that.

[strima]

OK, done a very rough sketch of how the mag release operates, hopefully it's clear enough but I have really bad art skills. It's a basic line diagram:

[Rhino]

And Jesus Christ Rhino, that was one hell of a post. All them photos, firefox was using over a GB of memory for that!

Wonder if I made anyone's browser crash from running out of mem?

As for welding the model up... I was under the impression that it would be easier to uvw unwrap and manage the wrap by keeping the parts separate (due to the hassle of smoothing groups/materials), as well as I was trying to keep in mind what would need to move during animations. Given, a good bulk of those parts don't move at all. Plus there was quite a bit of geometrical work that still needed to be done (apptly) to weld that up, so now I'm not so sure leaving all of that unwelded was such a good idea on my part. Hard to tell what would be best there, but I think I should go with your judgement on that one would probably be the wiser choice.

Not really, UVing is if anything harder with having lots of different objects because Max9 can't UV multiple objects at the same time without a script (that can be buggy).

You should always weld stuff as while it might look fine in the editor, there can be massive gaps ingame that you get from the exporter not saving the vertexes to as much accuracy as they are in max, meaning if you have two vertexes in the same general location, they can be offset quite a bit from where you meant them to be etc. Just far cleaner, more optimized and overall simpler to weld things up where they need to be

As for the shell ejection port/cocking handle:

The shell ejection port is actually on the direct underside of the weapon, just forward of the trigger, as can be seen in the video offered by Adriaan. Given it's an MK2, but I would imagine the 1/3/4 are no different.

As for the cocking handle, yeah I agree, it should have been modeled, but I was thinking that because the 1p never sees the righthand side of the weapon except for a select moment when cocking the weapon after reload, all they would really see was a hand moving across the weapon and part of the handle(?); i.e., wasted geometry (or not?).

Ah ye that is right, my bad

Since its only 2 more tris than what you had before and a bit more UV space used, its fine to model it. Your going to have the same number of moving parts with or without it so not like your going to optimize on that either without it.

^Which brings me to one thing I would ask... Should I model the shell ejection port? It's on the underside of the weapon, and the only time it would ever be seen is when someone is standing directly below whoever is firing the weapon. 1p would never see it unless he was holding the weapon upside down, which is why I hadn't modeled it yet.

TBH, not worth it no as you rightly say, you will not be ever looking up the bottom of the gun, unless your another player looking at someone holding the weapon and your trying to look up there...

On the FN MAG there is a ejection cover that is modelled that flicks open as you fire (Although far more poly than it needs), dose the Bren have anything like this? If so, would be good to model a basic one (more basic than what the GPMG has), otherwise if its just a hole a dark bit can be modelled under the weapon with perhaps a normal indent too

And now, for bullets:

^I agree with overall scaling of the weapon. The proportions of the weapon are good, (I think?) but I agree scaling was off. I was going to do the same; use bullets to tune the mag. But here is my problems with that:

Ye, proportions I kept the same, just scaled it down to something like 37% iirc or something.

First, I can't for the life of me find a working link to download the script for mesh import. Hence that's why I had never got around to the bullets part of the mag. All links thru google + that I've seen on the forum lead to dead ends, and are broken. Do you have a working copy of the meshimport script so that I can grab that and archive it on my external harddrive/googledocs?

You really shouldn't be importing models from BF2 if you can possibly avoid it, for anything more than just a ref but you might as well use BFMeshView or the BF2editor to view a model to see how it was made as importing it just imports it into a big mess most people can't work out unless you know about how to setup something for exporting to BF2.
But the models are always filled with lots of errors that need fixing once imported so you shouldn't be using on your model. For these bullets I imported them into your scene from my ammo scene

Second, by ammosheet, do you mean the .dds for the bullets, and if so, what is the folder location where can I find that in the objects_Client.zip so I can put it to materials?
EDIT: Upon opening the modified .max, it shows that there are two missing textures, complete with folder locations. I know where to look now. Cancel that!

Ye, but it isn't in PR's normal objects_client.zip since its a new thing we are doing, post v0.97, but it is included in the Falklands which you can find it here:
\Battlefield 2\mods\pr\levels\the_falklands\objects_client.zip\weapons\common\textures\ammo\ammo_c.dds

The important thing is to simply not to modify the bullets or more importantly, their UVs and if you can keep them using their own material the exporter wont get confused and possibly by mistake set it to use the LMG's textures

And I think third on this, isn't the mag a 30 round mag, and if so, wouldn't it make more sense for the bullets to stack (visually) like there were two diagonally side by side in the mag (or am I wrong on this?)?

Ye, the problem was your mag wasn't wide enough to do this from what I could tell... You probably need to look into making your mag wider? This ref strima posted might help here:
http://i28.photobucket.com/albums/c218/ ... hick-1.jpg

You could get away with not going overboard on modelling the cocking handle too much for 1p due to the fact when cocking your head remains on the left hand side of the weapon and any trained user will automatically reach for and pop out the handle without looking.

Take it you would **** it with your right hand then unlike the L85 that you tip and **** with your left? Probably a bit too heavy to do that, and mag would get in the way

The ejection port cover flicks open when the working parts move forward on their first pass, it then remains open until closed by the firer.

Rgr good to know, although I dunno if we can have that in the animation so that it stays open after being fired, although we could have it open after being "deployed" (ie, weapon selected and the guy takes it up and sets it up for firing) then staying open, or we can have it like the GPMG and have it flicking open and close as you fire, but ye, dunno about staying open after firing...

Rhino's limited understanding of basic mechanical principles isn't too far off the mark for this real world item...

The whole assembly pivots between the guides as the user pushes forward with the heel of their palm whilst grasping the magazine with the thumb and fingers. The whole piece isn't linked but two distinct parts, I'll have to have a play with paint and do a rough description. I'll get back to you on that.

OK, done a very rough sketch of how the mag release operates, hopefully it's clear enough but I have really bad art skills. It's a basic line diagram:

Awesome refs, desc, + drawing!

Ye can see how it works now, but looks like Loke your going to have to cut this out of the mesh you've already made since it looks like its houses in the middle of the gun behind where the mag is, rather than on top like you where doing so got a little reworking ahead, but would be good to get this fully moving and animated


Cheers!

Now to try and get back to sleep...

[strima]

My memory is fading a little put the ejection port cover may actually slide forward, TBH don't even bother adding/animating it, just leave it open!!!

The weapon is cocked with your right hand with the butt firmly placed in your shoulder. Once cocked the handle is pushed forward and placed back in its stowed position.

This certainly is getting my old grey matter working...

[{ZW}C-LOKE]

Also in the future post only triangle count of the model, as that is really the only useful information for seeing how much the model itself is stressing the engine. Good practice is to watch only this info when modeling to see how your changes affect the optimization. No need to watch vert and poly/quad counts in the future.

Good to know... As for verts, I watch that to make sure that when I weld, the weld takes place. Serves as a slight haptic feedback of sorts. Snap to vertice + weld does not always work, and you have to ride it hard to make sure it welds, often seems.

The rounds in the mag are staggered as per the L85 mag.

The ejection port cover flicks open when the working parts move forward on their first pass, it then remains open until closed by the firer.

Right, magazine catch. I've found some more references but they aint pretty

As for the magazine, I suspected it'd be staggered... I'll have to play around with the magazine/receiver to see if I can fix this so this is right.

Ejection port:
So, to clarify, it's a plate that slides forward, or does it swing open? LMK which so I can know what I should do here.

Now, as for the make of the weapon: It appears I've been modeling the 15GA, and I can tell because it has the "round bit" on both sides of the weapon below the magazine (second picture you provided), which the 16GA does not, instead having metal stamp engraving in it's place. For clarity, am I modeling the correct version? Are these both L4A4's? If not, Which one should I be modeling, the 15GA or the 16GA?

Really good reference finds here, btw! These are gold.

You really shouldn't be importing models from BF2 if you can possibly avoid it, for anything more than just a ref but you might as well use BFMeshView or the BF2editor to view a model to see how it was made as importing it just imports it into a big mess most people can't work out unless you know about how to setup something for exporting to BF2.
But the models are always filled with lots of errors that need fixing once imported so you shouldn't be using on your model. For these bullets I imported them into your scene from my ammo scene

Here's the thing... When I was modeling the camel back in 2006, I had the meshimport script, knew how to use it, and used it often to bring existing models into max so that I could examine various aspects... ones in which people just can't explain, you can't google about, and sometimes it's easier to just visually see models and export scenes in working theory action (although I agree, sometimes, more ofthen then not, the imported models are a mess). The only reason why I'm asking about the script is quite literally because I can't find a copy of it anywhere on the interwebz, and from time to time I open models of tanks, jets, helicopters, etc., and see real working examples of how others modeled and have their hierarchy/camera dummies/ painted vertices/tank tracks/ wheel dummies/ other things.

Most of the original "useful" tutorials for bf2 modeling are now dead links, and I can't find those either.

I was really hoping someone who has it (the meshimort script) could give it to me, because whoever has it has something that I can't find on the internet, that used to be able to, that I NEEED I NEED IT NEED I'm NEEDY lol... But seriously, gorey please with artillery on top?

I'll also look into BFmeshview

As for BF2editor, I don't see why everyone has such bad things to say about it not saving correctly... There was a time where I had mine set up to correctly save the .tweak and .con files. It worked FLAWLESSLY. Never screwed anything up. If I ever figure out how to do it agian, I will write a tutorial on that because it saved me a lot of time.

But as for viewing models, it's just not the same as bringing it into max.

Ye, but it isn't in PR's normal objects_client.zip since its a new thing we are doing, post v0.97, but it is included in the Falklands which you can find it here:
\Battlefield 2\mods\pr\levels\the_falklands\objects_client.zip\ weapons\common\textures\ammo\ammo_c.dds

Ok, so I just wanted to make sure that the right materials are assigned to the bullets that were imported into the bren scene. It's been a long time since I worked with materials, and esp. exporting a model for BF2 (2006ish/camel).

The new bren scene, upon loading, says missing files from this location:
E:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\pr_repo\objects\weapons\common\textures\ammo\

and the two files:
ammo_b.dds
ammo_c.dds

I created a folder structure in drive C (where I have my bf2 install) all the way up to the \ammo\ and placed the .dds files in question in that location.
And yes, I'm running 64 bit as well.

My real question is this:
I just want to make sure that I assign the right materials to the bullets, and for that I understand I'll have to create a material slot for that, because as of now there is no material slot assigned to it (or that's "broken" between transfer between max workstations) either way I need to assign the materials to the bullets now. Can I just follow this thread (the materials section, step 4):
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... ost1786913
or are these instructions for materials placement ONLY for baking? If I can follow these, is there any particular folder structure I need to have the materials in when I finally do export (down the line)? Is there anything different I would need to do (because I'm not doing this as a baking scene yet)?

In short, if I'm way off base here, what steps do I need to take to make sure that the correct materials get placed to the bullets, in terms of making sure it references "...\mods\pr\levels\the_falklands\objects_client.zip\weapons\common\textures\ammo\ammo(_c & _b).dds" upon export? Or is this .tweak related?

Bottom line is there is no material slot set up for these textures/for the bullets (much less a slot actually assigned to the bullets), and I want to make sure that is not the case when I go to export (way later).

Ye, the problem was your mag wasn't wide enough to do this from what I could tell... You probably need to look into making your mag wider?

Got it... That's on my list and I'll see what I can do to satisfy yours and Strimas feedback on the mag, mag release, case ejection port related stuff. The latter I'm waiting for an affirmative answer as to how to execute. As for animations, that's a ways off; I was hoping to get a uvw unwrap, texturing, baking, geoms & LOD's first before doing the animation stuff though. I've definitely also been trying to keep that far ahead in mind from the very beginning.

[Rhino]

Here's the thing... When I was modeling the camel back in 2006, I had the meshimport script, knew how to use it, and used it often to bring existing models into max so that I could examine various aspects... ones in which people just can't explain, you can't google about, and sometimes it's easier to just visually see models and export scenes in working theory action (although I agree, sometimes, more ofthen then not, the imported models are a mess). The only reason why I'm asking about the script is quite literally because I can't find a copy of it anywhere on the interwebz, and from time to time I open models of tanks, jets, helicopters, etc., and see real working examples of how others modeled and have their hierarchy/camera dummies/ painted vertices/tank tracks/ wheel dummies/ other things.

Most of the original "useful" tutorials for bf2 modeling are now dead links, and I can't find those either.

I was really hoping someone who has it (the meshimort script) could give it to me, because whoever has it has something that I can't find on the internet, that used to be able to, that I NEEED I NEED IT NEED I'm NEEDY lol... But seriously, gorey please with artillery on top?

I'll also look into BFmeshview

If your just importing models to view them and using them as a ref etc to see how it was modelled etc that's totally fine. The important thing is you don't import a model to then use it on your model, for say importing the bullets off one weapon to be used on yours, since the model needs a lot of fixing up before it can be used on your model and in the case of the bullets, your best off getting them out of the orignal .max scene I made them in
Anyways the best import/export scripts that are available to everyone by far are the POE2 ones which you can download here: http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/editor ... _0.30a.zip
I do have my own modified version of these scripts with a few changes and additions but they are not ready for public release and would need quite a bit of polishing up before they where, and only have advantages like anchor export location for staticobjects, pre-coded col mat IDs for statics etc.

As for BF2editor, I don't see why everyone has such bad things to say about it not saving correctly... There was a time where I had mine set up to correctly save the .tweak and .con files. It worked FLAWLESSLY. Never screwed anything up. If I ever figure out how to do it agian, I will write a tutorial on that because it saved me a lot of time.

The BF2 editor is fine, you just need to know how to use it. However for a lot of the code we use in PR, the BF2editor simply doesn't recognise it and dose delete a lot of it out of a complex vehicle etc. At the end of the day, I just use it (when it comes to object coding anyways) as only a previewer tool basically as I just do all my coding by hand, then as I code the BF2 editor reloads the code I've changed.

Ok, so I just wanted to make sure that the right materials are assigned to the bullets that were imported into the bren scene. It's been a long time since I worked with materials, and esp. exporting a model for BF2 (2006ish/camel).

The new bren scene, upon loading, says missing files from this location:
E:\Program Files (x86)\EA GAMES\Battlefield 2\mods\pr_repo\objects\weapons\common\textures\ammo\

and the two files:
ammo_b.dds
ammo_c.dds

I created a folder structure in drive C (where I have my bf2 install) all the way up to the \ammo\ and placed the .dds files in question in that location.
And yes, I'm running 64 bit as well.

My real question is this:
I just want to make sure that I assign the right materials to the bullets, and for that I understand I'll have to create a material slot for that, because as of now there is no material slot assigned to it (or that's "broken" between transfer between max workstations) either way I need to assign the materials to the bullets now. Can I just follow this thread (the materials section, step 4):
https://www.realitymod.com/forum/f189-m ... ost1786913
or are these instructions for materials placement ONLY for baking? If I can follow these, is there any particular folder structure I need to have the materials in when I finally do export (down the line)? Is there anything different I would need to do (because I'm not doing this as a baking scene yet)?

In short, if I'm way off base here, what steps do I need to take to make sure that the correct materials get placed to the bullets, in terms of making sure it references "...\mods\pr\levels\the_falklands\objects_client.zip\weapons\common\textures\ammo\ammo(_c & _b).dds" upon export? Or is this .tweak related?

Bottom line is there is no material slot set up for these textures/for the bullets (much less a slot actually assigned to the bullets), and I want to make sure that is not the case when I go to export (way later).

This tbh isn't something that you really need to worry about at this time, although yes I would be setting this stuff up as I go but that's since I've done this all many times before
But ye, if you want to quickly setup the bullets, that's fine. TBH the simplest way of doing this is to first the POE2 BF2 tools above, restart max then in materials, select an empty material box, click on the eyedrop tool then click on one of the bullets, and it should take the old material off the bullets copied over from the old scene and put it into your material manager.
For more info however on BF2's materials, skip to "Step 7: BF2 Materials" in that tut you linked above.
Although tbh since I've written that I've changed the way I work with materials, now using multi/sub object materials, containing all the materials I use on the object then I split the materials using the material IDs, which ensures I don't have cloned mats and makes swapping different types of materials much easier, you don't run out of material slots and generally better management of mats.

Got it... That's on my list and I'll see what I can do to satisfy yours and Strimas feedback on the mag, mag release, case ejection port related stuff. The latter I'm waiting for an affirmative answer as to how to execute. As for animations, that's a ways off; I was hoping to get a uvw unwrap, texturing, baking, geoms & LOD's first before doing the animation stuff though. I've definitely also been trying to keep that far ahead in mind from the very beginning.

Sounds good

The animations will eventually be done by Chuc, you don't need to worry about them, unless Chuc retires for good
But yes, the next step is UVing, the important thing is just to keep the different moveable parts separate, although you can attach them all to the base to UV then split them off later when it comes to export but normally when this is done something is screwed up along the way
I myself, would UV each component separately, all in non-normalized UVs so they are all to the same scale, then when you've got all the UVing done, use the multiUV script to UV all of them together to pack the UVs up

[{ZW}C-LOKE]

Rhino;1847223']
Anyways the best import/export scripts that are available to everyone by far are the POE2 ones which you can download here: http://realitymodfiles.com/rhino/editor ... _0.30a.zip

Noice! Thank you sir.

The BF2 editor is fine, you just need to know how to use it. However for a lot of the code we use in PR, the BF2editor simply doesn't recognise it and dose delete a lot of it out of a complex vehicle etc. At the end of the day, I just use it (when it comes to object coding anyways) as only a previewer tool basically as I just do all my coding by hand, then as I code the BF2 editor reloads the code I've changed.

I don't know why, but this all sounds so very familiar

This tbh isn't something that you really need to worry about at this time, although yes I would be setting this stuff up as I go but that's since I've done this all many times before
But ye, if you want to quickly setup the bullets, that's fine. TBH the simplest way of doing this is to first the POE2 BF2 tools above, restart max then in materials, select an empty material box, click on the eyedrop tool then click on one of the bullets, and it should take the old material off the bullets copied over from the old scene and put it into your material manager.
For more info however on BF2's materials, skip to "Step 7: BF2 Materials" in that tut you linked above.
Although tbh since I've written that I've changed the way I work with materials, now using multi/sub object materials, containing all the materials I use on the object then I split the materials using the material IDs, which ensures I don't have cloned mats and makes swapping different types of materials much easier, you don't run out of material slots and generally better management of mats.

Nice! This is exactly what I was looking for on this...

The animations will eventually be done by Chuc, you don't need to worry about them, unless Chuc retires for good
But yes, the next step is UVing, the important thing is just to keep the different moveable parts separate, although you can attach them all to the base to UV then split them off later when it comes to export but normally when this is done something is screwed up along the way
I myself, would UV each component separately, all in non-normalized UVs so they are all to the same scale, then when you've got all the UVing done, use the multiUV script to UV all of them together to pack the UVs up

I was thinking that would be the case... Thanks for all of these infos! Good stuff here.