I owe the following to Andreseloy. I did not forget you friendi
Here is a detailed description how you can create scenes like the one on www.lemonnado.com
This is not my web page. It has been put up by someone who likes my gaming maps so much that he set up the space for me. Quite generous. Ignore the download unless you have the game for it. But the little flash animation is what it is all about. The weird statue (should be a bird bath) is from ZBrush. And this little article is how it got there and how you can create your own in realtime walkable and animated environment for 50$.
What you need is ZBrush! OK we got that.
Next we have to buy a game which includes ALL the necessary development tools for machinima work, parts of the source code, all the materials, tons of textures, animated reagdolls, houses, you name it, for 50$.
You need the Bronze Package. The other packages are interesting if you like games but do not add any contents for our little purpose here.
When you buy the game online (prefered method) it installs a client called ‘steam’. This client downloads the entire game and installs and maintains it on your system. Nice. Automatic updates etc. Works fine. It will take a while as it loads about a gig. So let it steam in the background. All will be good.
When the Steam has finished downloading the game/system you will have a display like the followingpicture. I opened the development panel to show you what is being deleivered.
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The other utilities are a FacePoser which just does that. You can animate faces (your model or included game characters) and lip sync them to audio tracks… WAY COOL!
A model viewer is included also to enable you to check out your model before you import it into the Hammer editor and into your world.
There are more utilitites to support you.
Now you cannot import ZBrush data into the Hammer Editor. Actually… let’s be more precise and say: You cannot import the Zbrush data formats into the SOURCE ENGINE. Valve (the manufacturer of the game) has named the underlying game/render engine SOURCE ENGINE.
You need another tool for that. You need a system with includes a full fledged modeler, a animation package, a renderer, and many more options. And all that for free… Because our 50$ budget is spend on the game.
Softimage comes to the help with this FREE Valve Source Engine Taylored version of their XSI4.2 package. IT’s so good it’s crazy. You can get that here:
http://www.softimage.com/products/Mod/v4/default.asp?pg=http://www.softimage.com/products/Mod/v42/downloads/
It is called the XSI 4.2 Mod Tool. You can’t export data from it into any other format than Unreal Tournament or Valve Source Engine. The export happens on a click opf a button. No worries there mates!
You can also rig your model with XSI (not to difficult) and deform/animate it. If you would pay 500$ then you could also export it back to ZBrush. But again, our 50$ budget prohibits that :D. You can save the animations to the Source Format and import everything into the scenery with the Hammer editor.
Textures are translated into graphics card friendly format with tools provided.
My workflow is:
- Create Model in Zbrush
- Texture it
- convert texture to the VTF format (source)
- load model into XSI and export it (in case of no modifications)
- Look at Model Viewer to see that texture and model look right (purple/black checkerboard pattern if not…)
- When all is well, load and place with hammer in your scene.
If you like to record an animation (like I did) you either have to live with the limitiations of the free version of the following tool or spend another few bucks.
This is an application which can grab your screen in realtime. Nice!
UPDATE:I found a tutorial which enables you to save every screen the source engine claculates for a recorded ‘demo session’. So you do not have to work with fraps. The only problem is that you need some sort of video software which can load the hundreds of pictures and merge them into a movie. Like Ulead MediaStudio or Vegas or something along that line. IN any case… the free FRAPS version gives you a good idea of what you can do without the need of more video progs. The resolution is imense. My little sample is aobut 25% of the quality of the file without compression. AMAZING.
Here is a STUNNNNNING sample of a music video made with the game contens. All the stuff you see inthis video is made with the default material which comes with the game. No extra models. The characters are all game characters. Animation and lip syncing with the faceposer included.
http://www.fileplanet.com/153033/150000/fileinfo/Half-Life-2---I’m-Still-Seeing-Breen
If you can;t downloaded it from there google for stillseeingbreen. Breen is the human administrator left in charge after aliens took over the world for exploitation etc. etc… in short… the HalfLife game story.
So, I hope you like this small description of a super cheap way to have instant fun and results with your ZBrush models in REALTIME! No 4 day render…
Cheers
LemonNado
