18 réponses à ce sujet

[Dark_Ansem]

Can someone post here the tutorial for making new tints for eyes, skin and hair? I checked the "prettiest char contest" but what I found was only the "new tint for armor/weapons".

thanks

[DarthParametric]

I'd be interested in more info as well, specifically about generating the Vector4 values. I was under the impression that a Vector4 was RGB + Alpha, each from 0 to 1. However, the tint files show V4 values for each colour channel for the diffuse and specular, which is confusing me.

[Dark_Ansem]

but no one lists it. yet they all make new characters in that thread. Can't someone help?

[Pineappletree]

Hey Ansem!



You found the tutorial I was talking about, now just use it!



Tints for weapons and tints for hairs function exactely the same, they just got different names...

[DarthParametric]

Which tutorial is that? Got a link?

[tmp7704]

Quick and dirty version:

* extract some tint of the type you want to work with from the file "tints.erf" located in directory "../Dragon Age/packages/core/data/"

the skin tints have _skn_ in their name, makeup tints have _mu*_ in their name, hair tints have _har_ in the name etc. you can see it in the head editor when you open a requester which allows you to select particular tint.

* with these samples extracted, launch material editor. Right-click the Root item and "Insert new tint library" then right-click this new tint library and "Insert new tint object". Ensure you have the Object Inspector window visible somewhere in the Toolset.

* select your newly created tint object. In the Object Inspector find a field which says "Import TNT  file" (2nd from top in 'general' section) and click blank space to the right of it "Import" label. This will open a requester which allows you to load data from *.tnt file you exported during previous step.

* with the data imported, tweak the colour, intensity and opacity values as you see fit.

* when done, make sure the top field in 'general' section in Object Inspector, the one with label "For Export" is set to True. In Name Descriptor field below give your tint some unique name... note these names seem to be limited to very few characters.

* Save your material library to somewhere on your hard drive. Then right-click your new tint item and "Post selection to local". This will create a *.tnt version of your file, which from now on should be possible to select in head editor and other places just like the other tints.

[DarthParametric]

Thanks for that tmp7704. I've been editing the TNT file directly in the GFF Editor, changing the Vector4 values to the ones I calculated. The issue though is the manner in which they are applied, which the material editor doesn't help with.

For hair, I'm assuming the base texture for most is uh_har_0d.dds. It looks like R is a bump map, G a diffuse map, B an alpha map, and A maybe a specular map.



Not really sure though, which is causing some frustration in getting the right tone. Any suggestions?

Modifié par DarthParametric, 19 décembre 2009 - 05:22 .

[tmp7704]

To see how the tints are applied you can open head editor simultaneously with the tint editor and apply your tint to character's hair to see how your changes affect it. (in theory it should also be possible to just see the changes on a mesh loaded directly in material library, but i wasn't able to get it to work)



In any case, it seems the R, G, B and A setions of the base texture are simply tinted in rather straightforward manner with the colours you define in the tint editor (the intensity and opacity sliders control the effect) So with the hair it'd seem you can get the most effect out of playing with the B channel sliders..?

[Dark_Ansem]

FdL_Ananas wrote...

Hey Ansem!

You found the tutorial I was talking about, now just use it!

Tints for weapons and tints for hairs function exactely the same, they just got different names...

yes, it seems so. I only have to try it now.

and thanks tmp7704 . very helpful.

[Dark_Ansem]

when in the editor I can't see how the color is being edited, only a gray sphere. what am I doing wrong?

and there are many more variables than i suspcted, especially this "specular color"... how do I use that?

Modifié par Dark_Ansem, 21 décembre 2009 - 01:10 .

[tmp7704]

I couldn't get the preview to work either. The work-around i'm using at the moment is tweak the tint, save the changes, "post to local" to export this new version then switch to head editor (i have them running both) and re-select this particular tint for the character, which shows what it'll look like.



The "specular colour" is similar to the "diffuse colour" except it alters secondary colour which shows as "specular highlights" which try to emulate light reflecting off the object at certain angles. You can notice this effect if you spin around character's head in the head editor. It's even easier if you set the specular colour to something easily noticeable, like bright green.



The opacity slider is pretty straightforward except value 1.0 means 50% mix with the base colour. And truth be told i haven't seen this slider have any effect on the hair at least, maybe it only works if there's some base colour to begin with rather than greyscale. It does have effect with the eye tints, on the other hand.



Intensity seems to control how 'much' of your tint colour is added, pretty much ignoring the scene lighting conditions. Intensity set to more than 1 allows to get the 'glowing eyes' effect or probably 'glowing anything' really.

[tmp7704]

Got the preview in material editor figured out:

* insert a "material library" and then "insert new material object"
* insert a model into your material project. The model will have 1 or more materials of its own attached to it.
* using left mouse button drag and drop a material from the loaded object onto one of materials in your material library. This material will be now shown attached to the material in the library, and will take appearance of that material your're tweaking.

note we don't have the source files for the materials (as far as i can tell) so in order to have good preview you'll first have to re-create materials for hair, eyes etc pretty much from scratch.

[DarthParametric]

tmp7704 wrote...

I couldn't get the preview to work either. The work-around i'm using at the moment is tweak the tint, save the changes, "post to local" to export this new version then switch to head editor (i have them running both) and re-select this particular tint for the character, which shows what it'll look like.

A quicker way is to load your tint in the material editor and load it on a head morph. Then open the tint file in the GFF editor. Use the material editor colour picker to play with the colours and generate the V4 values, then cut and paste those into the TNT file in the GFF editor (although that will only give you RGB values, so add a ,1 to the end). Then save the tint file in the GFF editor and reload it on your head in the morph editor to see the updated changes. You have to have the TNT file in the Override for this to work.

Also, bear in mind that the toolset is a fairly poor guide for how it will look in-game, so be prepared to do a lot of game loading to check it out.

[Dark_Ansem]

I don't know why I can't get the tints to work... I'll try following the tutorial again.

[DarthParametric]

You might want to look at some musings I posted here in regards to my own tint experiments - http://forums.gamers....php?f=37&t=325

[Eshme]

* with these samples extracted, launch material editor

One question.

Have i missed that there is a material editor? If so where can i download it?

[DarthParametric]

It's part of the toolset. Run the toolset and go to File->New->Material. The material editor pops up. Right click on the root object, Insert->Insert New Tint Library. Right click on the library, Insert->Insert New Tint Object. In the object inspector in the Import TNT File field, click on the Import button and load your tint.

[Eshme]

Damn the toolset freaks me out so bad. Things are there, but you dont find it.

I have just read another tutorial meantion a face editor. But no dice, i cant find it. I can browse thru the characters and all but.. well it.. arrrrg

thanks for the tip

[DarthParametric]

The "face" editor is called the morph editor. File->New->Morph. Or you can load a pre-existing MRH file (like those from the OC source files uploaded by Bioware).

Modifié par DarthParametric, 10 janvier 2010 - 05:47 .