As we all know playermodels look better with spikes so here's a quick workflow (not really a tutorial) on how to edit player models (i'm talking ZYMs) with just blender.

This is for people familiar with blender. A noob guide will be posted later.
*added* Learn Blander3D from scratch with a focus on games (Videos). http://iamar.net/subpages/BlenderVids.html

15 mins work total:


========================
Importing
========================

1. Get my blender 3D (*edit* see mirriors in third post for direct downloads) http://www.zshare.net/download/587455656d739739/ or just my scripts folder http://www.zshare.net/download/5874517431294641/. This is a windows workflow but linuxers should be able to follow without problem.

2. Inflate the zym you want to edit and the matching textures from whatever PK3

3. Fire up Blender and click file>import>zymotic (you will have to update menus to see it if you inflated justscripts.zip to your blender scripts folder). There you go, a perfect character with animations.

4 Apply the texture to the model. If there is no texture the final file you export will be textureless and invisible in nexuiz.

5. Add Spikes or just mess around with model to your liking. All animations are imported to the NLA editor. Mess with those also if you like.


====================================
Exporting
====================================

6. To export animations, create a working folder then select the armature and click file>export>Nexuiz(.smd). Select 'animation sequences All!' And export to your working folder. In my example i named my animations nexus simply because i was editing nexus.zym. Now you have a bunch of animation SMD's. You won't have to edit these again unless you change some animations or the armature.

7. To export the geometry, click on the mesh and click file>export>Nexuiz(.smd). Select 'Static mesh..'. Save this as mesh.smd in your working folder.

8. Configure zmodel. From the 'Blender/scripts/new animations' folder copy zmodel.exe, compile-zym.bat and config-zym.txt to your working folder. If you are in linux use wine or compile zmodel from source yourself. It's available online somewhere. Edit config-zym.txt to match your animation filenames. Be sure to set the scale to 1, origin to 0 0 0 and rotate to 0. Here's the beginning of mine, which outputs nexus.zym from mesh.smd.

Code: Select all

output "nexus"
scale 1
origin 0 0 0
rotate 0
mesh mesh.smd
scene nexus_die1.smd fps 10 noloop
scene nexus_die2.smd fps 10 noloop
scene nexus_draw.smd fps 10
...


Once this is done you probably won't be touching any of this again so don't worry about this manual labour 2 much.

9. Double click compile-zym.bat to run zmodel on all your SMDs and hopefully a ZYM will appear in the work folder. Move this to Nexuiz\data\models\player and launch nexuiz. All done.

Setting up this the first time is a bit touchy but after you get it working the first time you will be cranking out playermodels at a lightening pace. I was considering completing the zym export script (it's was never completed) but the fps and looping parameters just make everything messy in blender since there is no good place to hold this data. Furthermore having the animations separate from mesh data is actually great for workflow.


P.S. http://www.easy-share.com/ really sux so i changed the links to zShare. Somebody please mirror these files somewhere better. Thanks to all you who wrote these scripts and blender itself. You all rock.

why not filefront or mediashare? anyway... good job!

Mirror:

http://www.haosredro.com/nex/ihsan-mirr ... lender.zip
http://www.haosredro.com/nex/ihsan-mirr ... cripts.zip

Also, when planetnexuiz.de comes online again, I'll mirror it there too.

I was wondering who posted those pictures on pics.nn!

I've mirrored the files for you as well:

http://toolz.nexuizninjaz.com/modeling/ ... cripts.zip
http://toolz.nexuizninjaz.com/modeling/ ... lender.zip

4a990247982ab06f7fabe6d2c2593b07 justscripts.zip 2.2M
2905bb2848776247e554ac3daa602b00 NexuizBlender.zip 13M

Taiyo.uk, the ones I downloaded from your mirror were corrupt, I had to grab them from that horrid share site, :me shudders:.


Can we download that exported, packaged model anywhere?

[-z-] wrote:Can we download that exported, packaged model anywhere?

(didn't notice you wanted it)

It's almost pointless to put just 1 file in a pk3 so here's just the zym. Just drop it in Nexuiz/data/models/player/ and nexus has some surprisingly cool spikes. This was done so quickly that I didn't even bother to save the blend file so don't ask me 4 that.

Download from zshare http://www.zshare.net/download/58940512c90c3f8f/

[-z-] wrote:I was wondering who posted those pictures on pics.nn!
Taiyo.uk, the ones I downloaded from your mirror were corrupt, I had to grab them from that horrid share site, :me shudders:.

Oh bollocks!
I'll try uploading them again.

Edit:
Oh ffs. Filesizes are different when I upload them from work (ftp command in DOS prompt), I'll try again when I get a chance.

Someone stickify, maybe commit the scripts to svn if you get permission. They are extremely useful for mapping and modelling.

As far as I remember all the code I started with was GPL. It would be great if this was committed. Throw in the basePyria blender file also.

I think there's a lot of confusion about exporting zym's. I found somewhere(really, I can't remember where I downloaded! ) a script created by f0rqu3 that selects player and exports directly from blender in zym format!
It seems to work so my question is: is even necessary to use zmodel? Is not simpler just export player with this script?Masters please answer

toneddu2000 wrote:I think there's a lot of confusion about exporting zym's. I found somewhere(really, I can't remember where I downloaded! ) a script created by f0rqu3 that selects player and exports directly from blender in zym format!
It seems to work so my question is: is even necessary to use zmodel? Is not simpler just export player with this script?Masters please answer

No it doesn't work. f0rqu3 abandoned the zym exporter. It is not beyond me to complete the zym exporter but there is the question of the nexuiz-specific data in zym files, namely, animation framerates and looping.
The current workflow allows for zym export (compiling with zmodel) or dpm export (compiling with dpmodel). There are other benefits like keeping the animations separate from the mesh.
If, however, you ABSOLUTELY NEED a one button method for making zyms out of blender I guess I could devote a few weeks to making that a reality.

ihsan wrote:however, you ABSOLUTELY NEED a one button method for making zyms out of blender I guess I could devote a few weeks to making that a reality.

Please do, the Nexuiz modeling community desperately needs this. There are many people whom have expressed interest but soon burn out with all the complications in formats.

Thank you ihsan for the quick reply, in reality, I could live without an "all in one button script" , but maybe for the rest of the community the export procedure seems too complicate. I'm very curious about keeping the animations separated from the mesh. This means maybe that I could realize a model in static pose with a standard name skeleton bones (for example all the legs called leg_sx01,leg_dx01 and so on) and use all the other files for the animations(a file called "idle" consists only of a skeleton looping an idle animation)? Or I misunderstood? This could be VERY time saving because if someone, someday says:the idle anymation is too short, or too long, the only thing to do is to change loop animation file and reconpile all models in a sec!

There are basically two kinds of smds: Mesh and animation. Mesh is the geometry and skeleton while Animation is a frame-by-frame set of poses.
The smd exporter can export both kinds.
To make a zym, zmodel needs 3 things: A mesh smd, some animation smds and a config file to say which animation is which (explained above).

To be honest after the first time I exported the animations (from an imported zym) I never had to touch them or my config-zym.txt again. As I modelled, I just updated the mesh smd and recompiled.
When I made a new idle animation (because the normal one does some weird bending in the right calf which always bugged me) I simply exported it to a new smd and changed config-zym.txt to use that animation instead.

In fact, adding a melee animation to all the characters in the game should be easy since many of them use the same bones. Import their meshes, and as long as their bones match, we can recompile with the same set of animations + melee.

ok, thanks! Now it's clear for me! So, maybe the best way is to import a zym file and use its skeleton. The only thing that makes me confused is a probable bug that happens when I import a model. Always, at least two animations are extended so I've to resize them but I don't know their correct timing. Do you know how it could happen?

[-z-] wrote:

ihsan wrote:however, you ABSOLUTELY NEED a one button method for making zyms out of blender I guess I could devote a few weeks to making that a reality.

Please do, the Nexuiz modeling community desperately needs this. There are many people whom have expressed interest but soon burn out with all the complications in formats.

Yes, that would be really great.

FruitieX wrote:

[-z-] wrote:

ihsan wrote:however, you ABSOLUTELY NEED a one button method for making zyms out of blender I guess I could devote a few weeks to making that a reality.

Please do, the Nexuiz modeling community desperately needs this. There are many people whom have expressed interest but soon burn out with all the complications in formats.

Yes, that would be really great.

I agree, as long as we use this 3D format, such an easy to use blender-to-nexuiz exporter would be a big help.