Importing custom models & animations

[WollieWoltaz]

Hello,

I have a few questions on how to import custom models and animations into Oad.

First of all, do the actual mesh and animation need to be seperate .dae files? Or can the be combined into one .dae file? How does the engine read those?

2. Can the engine support custom bone riggs? They don't have to be standard in-game riggs?

3. Is there a poly/verts limit and a animation frame length limit?

4. Wich texture maps are supported besides diffuse maps? (E.g. specular/emissive/bump-maps/mask...

5. If question 1&2 can be accomplished, how would I implement them into the game? What are the right paths for meshes/animations/actors?

Thankyou for reading and hopefully someone could answer my questions.

Kind Regards,

[Lion.Kanzen]

@stanislas69

[asterix]

@LordGood @Alexandermb

[Stan`]

1. One animation per file. Each dad files should contain the rig and the mesh. Different meshes can use the same rig.

2. You can add any type of rigged objects to the game. For that you only have to make a custom skeleton XML file. If you need help with that I have made a tool to generate it from a Dae

3. I don't know about an animation max length but the max vertice count per mesh is 32768

4. Ao maps (the mesh will need a specific uv for those), normal map, parrallax map ( basically normal map with transparency for height) spec map and diffuse map are supported.

5. I'd normally answer this but it's late and I'm on my phone so it will have to wait tomorrow at least. There are plenty of threads scattered around the forums so I'm sure you'll figure out if you don't you'll have to wait for an answer.

Welcome to the forums and feel free to ask any other questions you might have. Sorry for avoiding the question and happy modding. Looking forward to see your work.

 

[WollieWoltaz]

Thanks stanislas69 for your reply.

1. I hope i understand this correctly. I need one file for the mesh and rig (e.g. MyUnit.dae). And I need seperate animation files (e.g. MyUnit_idle, MyUnit_walk, MyUnit_death etc..?
If so...Does the mesh needs to be in T-pose?  Do the names need to be exactly the same?

2. I would love to get some help with this, as I have never done this. About your tool, that would be a lot easier. Are you willing the share this tool and explain how it works?

3. Woww that's a lot, great!

4. Specific UV maps? Well I think i have those...

Couple other questions...

5. Do I need to have seperate material files? Where are they defined within the assets? 

6. Can a mesh have multiple sub-materials?

7. Can the engine read other animations besides the standard walk/death/idle/flail/attack.?

Like for example a special attack or something..?

8. What is the average size/dimensions of the models for units?

9. What is the textures size limit? 1024x1024?

 

I attached a test idle animation in the hope someone could tell me what I have to edit to make this unit compatible for the game,

Legionnaire Horseman_idle

 

 

Edited May 27, 2018 by WollieWoltaz

[Stan`]

25 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

1. I hope i understand this correctly. I need one file for the mesh and rig (e.g. MyUnit.dae). And I need seperate animation files (e.g. MyUnit_idle, MyUnit_walk, MyUnit_death etc..?
If so...Does the mesh needs to be in T-pose?  Do the names need to be exactly the same?

Yeah one file for the base mesh one file per animation.

Mesh doesn't need to be in T-Pose.

If you mean bone names yes. 

If you need to add props at specific places of your mesh your need to create a bone names either prop_ {whatever} or prop-{whatever}

27 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

2. I would love to get some help with this, as I have never done this. About your tool, that would be a lot easier. Are you willing the share this tool and explain how it works?

Sure.

https://github.com/StanleySweet/0AD-Skeleton-Generator

 

Basically just put your file in the input folder and run the script.

28 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

Specific UV maps? Well I think i have those...

Two specifically. one for diffuse spec normal and one for so. If you don't need ao you can use only one.

30 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

5. Do I need to have seperate material files? Where are they defined within the assets?

Each actor file ( XML files) in binaries/data/mods/actors contains a reference to a material XML file. Name should be self explicit

 

31 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

 

6. Can a mesh have multiple sub-materials?

Nope one material per mesh.

 

32 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

7. Can the engine read other animations besides the standard walk/death/idle/flail/attack.?

Hopefully swim in a near future. There is also feeding for Gaia animals. Carry animations carry walk anims promotion praise and all the formation anims

 

33 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

8. What is the average size/dimensions of the models for units?

You should import dae to figure that. It was supposed to be 2m for a unit but I don't think anything follows that anymore.

34 minutes ago, WollieWoltaz said:

9. What is the textures size limit? 1024x1024?

I don't think there is as long as it is power of two.