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Do it in Blender!
Do It In Blender
Blender is a wonderful program and it is for free. Gone are the times, when it was difficult to use. It is more versatile than Gmax. And it has build-in renderer. Sadly, there aren't many tutorials how to use it with Neverblender. So I've decided to fix it.
I intend to make series of tutorials for Neverblender and Blender. This will include:
1. Installing Blender and Neverblender, simple explanation of Blender interface to get a newbie going
2. Creating (done) and exporting (done for 1.29, 2.0 needs some work) simple placeable -
3. Improving placeable (adding animation) - (done for 1.29, 2.0 needs some work)
4. Creating simple tiles - (done - part 1,2,3,4 - finished for 1.29)
For starters, number one from my list.
Comments and honest criticism welcomed.
IMPORTANT! 2 New wersions af Neverblender are here: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/other/tool/neverblender-blende.... You might want to change to one of them. I didn't have time to test both but they differ in way they are dealing with Aurora dummies. Export works correctly in 1.29 so I removed old add-on.
Both tutorials and picture with information, how to remove an old add-on are O.K. - it'll work this same way, no matter, which version of Neverblender you want to install.
I've packed some files created in "export" tutorial . The Blender file with crate ready to export, texture, and UV Layout - so you can create your own texture for the crate.
plc_a01.mdl put in Override folder will replace standard armoire, allowing quick tests. Remember to remove it after testing. I've also included a "module" - tiny area wih already placed "armoire", so you can test my placeable, or your own, even if you cannot use Toolset.This same goes for animate a crate tutorial (packed the files for playtesting in NWN).
awesome. i'll check this out
Thank you SO much for this. The old gmax beginner tutorials would be helpful to run through as a beginner if I wasn't running linux. Starter Blender projects abound, and I did some awhile back and am cool with basics, but the Blender<>NWN aspects escape me, heh. It will probably be a few days before I can sit down with it, but I wanted to express my ardent interest...
As I am amongst the few in the community running on Mac OSX, I am happy someone is making this undertaking.
While I don't expect to become an incredible modeler, it would really be nice to be able to do some minor things here and there when inspiration strikes.
Cheers!
This is great!
Having "worked" with Gmax for quiet a longer time, a dive into Blender was a bit of a hassle for me. Meanwhile I manage a few things but I'm still missing a few things and a workflow. This TUT does help!
Looking very much forward to your animation TUT. Will there also be something on UVW and UVW unwrap?
Thanks for your work!
Thanks for your comments, henesua, thirdmouse, Symphony, TheOneBlackRider.
TheOneBlackRider - Yes, I will include UVW "how to do it" in second tutorial, coming soon. I've go a minor setback - had to remove Neverblender - see the info.
Stay tuned
Symmetric fixed the Neverblender add-on. Current version is 1.29 but I haven't test it yet. Also, he had uploaded 2.0 Beta.
I decided to try both to choose the better one for my tutorials. So next tutorial will be divided in two parts: 1. creating placeable and UV unwrapping + texturing (nearly dome expect it before next Sunday), 2. Exporting your model from Blender and testing it in game, plus quick info how it works in beta version.
Creating the textures exactly matching your models is best done with software that uses layers. My favourite is GIMP (also freeware) but Adobe works too. I'll give you some tips hoe to make a texture in GIMP, with use of UV layout exported directly from Blender.
Thank you for the UV-part!
Generel question: I have a "hard" time to make a texture show up on an object in the "view port". Just creating a material, loading a texture on it and applying it doesn't do the job, right?
Taking the default cube as an example: Material and texture loaded, Projection set to flat:
-> switching the display mode to material just shows you only the top with the texture (I know, the sides are "pulled down" versions), same for rendered, nothing at texture.
Now setting the Projection to Cube will give you an evenly applied texture in render mode, but not in the other 2 modes (material and texture - texture shows still nothing).
But since render mode is a bit slow for controlling textures, it's not the best choice.
Only when doing this, I get the texture displayed in texture mode:
Edit mode -> face mode -> select face (or "A" for all faces) -> Mesh menu -> UV Unwrap -> Unwrap (and the texture activated in the UV Image editor).
In addition, one can set the Coordinates (of the loaded texture) to UV. Then I get it nicely applied in material and texture display mode.
So, question is, do you really need to UV Unwrap at least once? And is there a more quick and easy way to make a loaded texture to show up (not just in render mode)? In Gmax, you just drop or apply the (beforehand created) texture/material onto the object and it shows in the viewport.
TheOneBlackRider,
Thanks for this post. I'll look into it, maybe there are some methods to do that. TBH. I've never encountered another way to get fast preview of textured object. You always need to unwrap to make it work for picture - based texture. There's also so-called "procedural texture", based on math algoritms - when you use it, program takes care of the rest and you can see it in the viewport, but this will not work for NWN (not directly, at least - you'll have to "bake" it first).
Thanks!
Never used the procedual texture. Maybe that is a quicker way, even if you have to bake it. Need to find out, how that works... (Maybe you can help ;)
And if my post #7 is too difficult to understand, I (or you DrA) could add another tutorial on this. It may take some time, if I'm to do it.
Texture and normals, AO, etc. baking is a nice way to give you more 3D feeling (NWN is sadly missing more "advanced" features, like bump maps), also it allows you to kind of transfer from more details from high-poly to low-poly models.
Maybe it's a good idea to create a tutorial for more experienced modellers. After I finish with some basics, that is. But it would be nice if you could do some of them too
I'll give you the links for some procedural textures and other "baking" video tutorials in my next replay to this comment (as soon as i find them, I'm pretty sure that I kept these links somewhere
). The thing is easy once you've learned it.
Quote: "But it would be nice if you could do some of them too
"
So you want me to do one to "my" way to make texture show up, when just loading in a texture (without having UV coordinates)?
Sure, please. It's something I didn't find yet, and will be handy to use.
Here are some links, as promised:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOwsbJUoMRM this one is about baking procedural textures, others - more about baking textures in general
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zle6dad343s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kJ8IutbLe4
Thanks for the export-tut and the links to procedural textures. Now I understood the latter.
OK, will do the tutorial, but it may take a bit - hopefully during the Xmas break at the latest.
OK, here is the addition:
https://neverwintervault.org/article/tutorial/do-it-blender-addition-app...
Seasonal greetings!
While I applaud what you have done here, I would have preferred to have had the pdf files in archives. This is simply because I am a lazy swine and would have preferred to be able to download them with a single click. Also, did you not consider putting all your files in a single archive, adding to it as you added files?
<goes to take a cat nap>
TR
TR,
Thanks for your feedback. The reasons I did this project the way it is:
This is still an unfinished project. I did plan to create archives once I'm done with it.While I can update the archives constantly, I figured out that putting files in separate files would make it easier to find and download the tutorial somebody wanted. Maybe there are folks who already have Blernder&Neverblender installed, or are interested only in making tileset, don't care about placeables?
Anyway, I'll upload an archive of finished part - Create, animate and export a placeable with Neverblender 1.29, for some napping felines (lucky bastards
).
DrA
This is awesome. A certain lazy somebody has never gotten around making a tutorial himself
. Thank you for making neverblender a lot more accessible.
Thanks for your comment&vote
. I had some Blender experience even before I'd started to make CC for NWN, so I'm really enjoying ability to work two of my hobbies at this same go.
@Symmetric Wrong! Try the January 2012 ccc for a tutorial by moi (It might not have been very good though...)
TR
I was refering to myself actually :-)
I would disagree again. It may be short, but the post you did in answer to my recent request here qualifies as a tutorial in my book.
TR
Again great tutorials (no. 5+6). Very good for learning to handle Blender! The measure addon is some hint! Thanks!
I'd recommend to number your tutorials like 01_start_with, 02_create_placeable, 03_export, 04_animate_crate, 05_tile_house_part1, 06_tile_house_part2 or something like that. It makes it a bit easier to keep track (at least IMO).
Thanks
, good idea - i'll put numbers within descriptions in next update.
Again thumbs up for No. 6! (And for the numbering ;) )
Thanks
Thanks again for these. I've finally set aside the time to go through them and practice, and got my world's-ugliest-but-still-working crate in game, starting on tiles (my "real" goal) today. There are tons of Blender modeling tutorials but this filled a huge gap for me in terms of making things specifically for NWN and getting them in game. I did switch back from Neverblender 2.0 to an earlier one, as I wasn't sure what to do about the Aurora dummy stuff that was different between versions.
@thirdmouse,
Thanks for your vote. If you have any questions concerning "how-to-do-that", ask - I'll try to help.
About this project - I plan to finish "Haunted Hotel" series - the last tutorial in this series will cover exporting and adding tile-maps (and not only).
Then I'll hopefully try the newest Neverblender 2.0 and write about differences.
Unfortunately, this won't be in the nearest future - RL has its demands
Total noob here and your tutorials make things so much easier! Thank you!