Using Gmax for better zones and objects.

[Eredhel]

Well I'm completely new to everything but decided to give it a shot! I went through the OZ basic tutorial and then tinkered around on my own for a bit. I realised I might be be able to do something after all, so I started reading up a little bit.

I noticed gmax was suggested to get better meshes and textures so I started there. I was hoping someone could throw out some links, guides, anything for someone like myself. I'm good at burning through message boards and learning as I go, but this is an area where I will have to start from scratch. So any nudges in the right direction will be very helpful.

Anyway, I'm going to start trying to figure out how to use gmax so I can go from there. I'm off to dig in their forums.

Eredhel

Edit: The official gmax tutorials seem to be very helpful, and well worded. I could easily spend some time with this program I think. Would anyone suggest a different program? Or is Gmax more than good enough?

[GeorgeS]

although I tried gmax in the past, I decided on using truespace as my main editor. I have 3dstudio 3.x and use it rather sparingly.

I do not know to what extent one can create a zone in (g)max - although I wager to say it's likely that's how the 'real' ones were made.

So far I have managed to import the Arena zone into OZ and export that as a S3D for preview. So I guess it's doable. Things like terrains need to be under a specific poly count as well.

I'm creating objects for zones now and should have several 100's for people to try mess with.

Later
George

[KhaN]

Hello,

In my tutorial, GMax is suggested for 2 reasons
- Gmax use 3DSMax engine, and is very smilar to it
- Its Free.
Now, do i use Gmax or would i recommand it to start modeling ? Well yes and no, if you dont have money, and you are looking for a free modeling software, forgot about truespace, poser and such, use Gmax, Gmax is used everyday by game modeler for lots of knowed games you play everyday. If you have money, go buy 3DSmax, Maya or XSI, you wont regret it (but its kinda expensive yes).

For GMax / 3DSMax (and other pro mdoeler) tutorials, go on cgtalk (www.cgtalk.com).

I do not know to what extent one can create a zone in (g)max - although I wager to say it's likely that's how the 'real' ones were made.

So far I have managed to import the Arena zone into OZ and export that as a S3D for preview. So I guess it's doable. Things like terrains need to be under a specific poly count as well.
You can fully create a zone in GMax or any other real modeler, with way more options/detail than in a zone made only with OZ, and yes, its how SOE zones are made (except they are a better OZ SOE made :p).
You can make a fully zone in GMax, including water, lights, everything, OZ will convert it directly to S3D, we worked for month with WC to get 3ds < s3d convertion to properly works.
Your terrain dont need any special polycount, it just depend whats PC target you have in mind, personally for my zones, i use 1v=20u which make something (for terrains) like WoW terrain resolution.

But the real power of using a modeler is you can make things impossible with inbuild OZ zones, like custom roads, terrain transitions and micro vegetations.
www.worldofalkora.com/users/khan/EQ000189.jpg

[Windcatcher]

The client has a poly count limit on *placeable objects* (somewhere around 1500 polys per object). A placeable object, as I call it, is an object that resides in the <zone>_obj.s3d file. Anything that's placed into your zone from OpenZone's .MSH library will be placed into this file. The point of these objects is so you can have many copies of the same object in your zone without having to store its mesh more than once (like hundreds of trees, for instance).

The downside is that they aren't part of the zone's geometry (and, hence, not part of its BSP tree), which makes collision avoidance expensive per object (a client has to check each and every polygon in the object to find the nearest point of potential collision). A client with a BSP tree can place the object in a BSP node (not necessarily in a leaf node, by the way) and check the object only when a player or mob nears it, but when that happens, it's important to have a relatively low poly count so as not to bog the CPU. Hence, the polygon limit. The client will fail to render any polygons over the limit (OpenZone's brick bank object originally went over the limit and I had to remove some lanterns to bring it below the threshold). I don't know the *exact* limit, so OpenZone enforces a number known to be good but just under the limit (within 50-100 polys or so).

[Shadow-Wolf]

When creating objects and the like I would actualy suggest Blender, it is fully functional and completely free.

[Dr Zauis]

Has anyone ever used Metasequoia to make meshes?
We use it in custom TombRaider to make objects and body part meshes..
We use the .dxf format..There is an option to export .3ds but I dont think its compatible with OZ.

http://www21.ocn.ne.jp/~mizno/main_e.html

Anyway..I know a guy who has all the Delphi .pas files for .dxf..
He even made a directx8.0 interface to use with his tools!
http://www.dxtre3d.com/

This guy is a pure Genius!