Bt Builder

[Methuselas]

I got the grid working for the horizons. Had to use a new script, but this one also allows me to instance mesh lights, solving my interior lighting problem. Obviously, this wouldn't do for a map, but the 3d renders look way better than the 2d ones. I'm going to make start making replacement tilesets for the 2d ones we already have.

[Methuselas]

Helping kiddo setup the animation blueprint in Unreal, for his game dev class. I have more experience with Unity, so it's a little slow going. I was doing some shader tests for ghosts. It's closer to the original one I was using. I may break down and just make my own.

[Methuselas]

Off topic, but I thought everyone could use something good. A screenshot of kiddo's first game project, in unreal. The character model was built by me in Character Creator and I did all the animation blueprinting, but the rest of the work, sans the untextured shipwreck is all his. I was thinking he was going to follow in my footsteps on the art side, but no, he's following his Mother and becoming a code monkey. Can't wait to see what he can do next semester when he's actually coding a 3rd person shooter in C++.

Hope everyone is doing well.

[Methuselas]

Patched BTBuilder to be Long Access Aware. Can now breach the 2GB barrier. Sadly, will only work with the Windows version, but that's the original City Tileset in full.

[Methuselas]

Fixed the MapEdit to work within the confines of BTBuilder. Map Size is 21X x 30Y. The coordinates can handle up to a 100x100 grid (0-99) before breaking the coordinates - they won't display at 100 or higher, due to space limitations.


Spell icons are placed and working. They now have "lids" that cover the effect icon. When activated, the "lid" will disappear and re-appear when the spell effect ends. Apparently the Sight icon is attached to the Trap Destruction effect. I don't know why. It should be attached to the "detect special" effect. I never caught this, as I never had a need to use TRZP (no chests, except by special, so I never used it during builds and play-testing these past 15 years or so.) I started trying to go through the effects, one by one, as there is no list of effects and find the "detect special" effect, but after 15 or so edits, I gave up, out of frustration.


Placeables do not work as I was expecting. Apparently, they're using the same functions as the walls, which would be great, except that Placeables turn with your movement, so if you wanted to use Placeables as walls, no matter which direction you turn, the wall would be facing you. That also means no ceilings, no floors, no walkways, no nothing. Placeables only seem to be good for static images that would turn with you. Obelisks, Fountains, that kinda thing. I have zero use for Placeables in such a fashion, so I won't be making any. I wish we had gone with Zero's idea back in the day, with cells for each wall, as well as the floor and ceiling. Would have worked great, in this instance.

I may just finish up what I am doing and call it done. All the limitations I was fighting against and getting frustrated with are showing up again and with Caars gone and Dulsi MIA, I'm losing my motivation to work on this. I'll make sure that the 1680x1050 is working correctly and include the LAA Patched Executable, but I'm not going bother making new animations. I'll just scale the ones I have up to the proper size and call it a day. No one seems to have any comments or input on the matter, anyway. Everyone seems to be lurking. I may be motivated enough to make simple tilesets for the Wilderness (which will have no doors unfortunately, as they can't be made and look nice - never could) and the Wine Cellar, but I don't know. We'll see, I suppose.

[Methuselas]

I was working on wandering monster specials and had an epiphany when it came to the UI, so I tried it out and really like it. Very minimalist and it works rather well.



Horned Warrior



Ogre

Dulsi, are you still around? I found a bug where a monster that summons itself won't add to the group or make a new one.

[Methuselas]

Camera Tests are done - they're all cross compatible with Daz, Maya and iClone. The Animation you see was done using iClone, the Tileset in Daz Studio. I'll be releasing the first bits of the Tileset Construction Kit shortly. You'll be able to do tileset (and slot) renders yourself, using Daz Studio, iClone, Maya or Blender. I'll include FBX files for the projects if you use a different suite, probably Y-Up and Z-Up to maintain compatibility.

[Methuselas]

Another iClone test. The textures look bad, 'cos iClone doesn't support ORM. Either way, it's looking good across all software. Have the Tileset Template done for Maya, iClone, Daz and in FBX format (Y-Up and Z-Up, sold separately), as well as the Slot Template. All I have left to do is build the Horizon Template and a Full Horizon that's 200m x 200m, so you can drop a ceiling and floor texture on. There will be problems with Horizon setup. That's why it's taking longer.

[Methuselas]

BTBuilder Tileset Tool Set v0.01



https://mega.nz/file/YGYjhaBS#AVP_dN8ZA ... JICGvJRdWo

Quick and dirty release. Tile grid is set to a 4m x 3m Tile, but there is vacant space above to about 3.5m.

The Tool Set comes with 3 main files:

BT_Slot Stage
BT_Tileset Template
BT_Horizon Template

The Tileset Template is set up to move the BT_Stage to where it needs to be for rendering all the Tilesets and placeables. You just move your model to the Edge of the stage and parent it to the Stage. The file will do all the rest. There is Wall Geo in the Template and I included the Matrix textures to use as examples and for testing.

The Horizon Template has 3 key items: Ceiling, Floor and a Mesh Light. You can instance the group so you can add more tiles for the template (minimum is 10x10 tiles to work properly). Also included is a 50x50 tile Horizon I'm using for testing N, S, E and W directions. Currently, it's only for Daz Studio. I haven't solved the light problem, except for using mesh lights in Daz Studio. It's probably best to do your horizon rendering in Daz for now.

The Slot Stage is used for rendering PC images, Mobs and Placeables that don't move. The center of the stage is at 0,0,0, unlike the Tileset, so you can drop in an animated model and it will be in, for all intents and purposes, the "sweet spot" for rendering.



The Black line across the edges is the maximum you want a Wall or Door to cross the tile. The Blue blocks along the edges is the maximum space (50cm/0.5m) you want to take up with a Wall Overlay (if you remember the old Wine Cellars, the wine shelves and barrels would represent "Overlays." The White area is the maximum space you want to take up for Placeables (not entirely confirmed yet - sill needs testing.) Finally, the Red box in the center is the "Sweet Spot." If you model fits within this space, you won't have any problems with renders, save scaling to fit within the view.

Do NOT, I repeat, do NOT change or modify the Render_Camera in any way. If you do, you may mess up the DOF for the animations and tilesets. There is a separate camera FBX, should you need it.

Also included are simple bat files for renaming Walls, Doors, Placeables and Images. Walls, Doors and Placeable Bat files all assume the User rendered the Tiles using "Template" as a name. If you do not, they will not work and you'll have to manually change the names of the Walls, Doors and Placeables. The Bat files list the proper names of the Tilesets and they follow the animation order of all the templates.

There are Project files of the Slot and Tileset Template for Maya (Y-Up and Z-Up), iClone, Daz Studio, as well as FBX files (Y-Up and Z-Up) to import into other software. So far, the Daz Studio Templates are more complete.

As soon as I get around to making the Photoshop Actions to make Front0-3, I'll release a new version.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask.

[Methuselas]

Now that I have the Toolkit done to a point where I can use it consistently, I started working on new Tilesets to replace the old one. Here's a test of Harkyn's Castle. I was going for the interior walls of the Keep, but it looks like I'll have to do some editing as the ballustrades don't look quite right.

[EDIT] - I changed the direction of the ballustrades and it's looking better. There are still some issues, however with walls, but I think I should be able to fix them.

[Methuselas]

I am now working on the final build of the Tileset Kit pieces. As you can see, there are still seam issues with the horizon, mainly due to displacement, but in this event, it's from using the Sun node in an attempt to create a solution that prevents having to use mesh lights instanced across the horizon.

The textures are pure-PBR shaders, which will be included (these were done in Substance.) There are more, but this is just a sample.

[Methuselas]

Still working on the lighting problem. but put together a full tileset to test new textures. I created a seamless ceiling and floor. I think it's around 90k polys for displacement. The render was cranked up to 12 on the sub-d slider.

[Methuselas]

Fixed the lighting issue with interior tilesets. In addition, adding the mesh lights to the tileset template from the horizon one adds the benefit of faking lighting. These are all 8k textures that will come with the Kit.

[Methuselas]

More texture work. I added additional geo to the wall edges, to keep the mesh together when sub-dividing. There are still places, here and there, where you'll have to hand edit, but I think it may be possible to have seamless walls, and not that black line I've been seeing with displacement.

[Methuselas]

Another test I did last night. The Horizon Tileset Template is working, so long as you don't abuse the displacement of the mesh too much. If you do, you'll have to do some hand editing. The lines between tiles can't really be removed, but with a few tricks, you can mostly hide it.

Mostly....

I should probably be able to release another version of the Tileset Kit this weekend, time permitting. Also, it will be HUGE, if I add in all the PBR textures I rendered - they're 13 GB archived and I still have a ton more to set up. I may just make "expansions" for the kit or something.