Tomb Engine - General Discussion

[not again!]

Does TEN allow for vertices to have coordinates with decimal places or do the coordinates get rounded up and down in TEN also?

[adngel]

Vertices in TEN are stored in floats, and TEN increases the range detection a bit and supress the limits for the skin joints (that originally only could have loops of 11 vertices or so?), but in any case, it still need to treated extra carefully when working the scale conversion on Lara's meshes.


EDIT:

An important advantage that I've founded in TEN, is that when the skin joint doesn't connect, it does not crash the game, instead it's rendered as a solid object, (it doesn't stretch) May looks simple, but I found it very welcome because I can port all meshes and see what are working and what do not, instead to go 1 by 1.

[not again!]

Thank you for the reply, adngel.
I appreciate it much, but I have no idea what that bit about storing vertices in floats means.
I was wondering in general if TEN allows people to model freely without having to worry about mesh topology getting distorted by the engine.
I'm fine with gridsnapping everything in Blender to ensure vertices stay in place, I just wanted to ask beforehand if this is still necessary with TEN.

Originally Posted by adngel

An important advantage that I've founded in TEN, is that when the skin joint doesn't connect, it does not crash the game, instead it's rendered as a solid object, (it doesn't stretch) May looks simple, but I found it very welcome because I can port all meshes and see what are working and what do not, instead to go 1 by 1.

Ah, that sounds great indeed.

[adngel]

I know. -.- But yeah, it still matters.

TEN may have open a bit of space (Doesn't need to be "exact"), but still if there is a gap, skin joints won't connect.

I had problems because I exported from WadTool at 1024, but when I imported in Blender, they were at a scale of 1000. So I made the meshes with the vertices connecting, when I took them back to WadTool (again 1024) and the game, they were not connecting.

I could solve in Blender, scaling the meshes from 1000 to 1024, connecting the vertices, and downscaling to 1000, (so in Blender there are gaps) then when I take them to WadTool 1024 and the game, they worked fine.

Sure there must be an easier workflow, but I still didn't got confidence enough to explore.


P.D. floats are values that contain numbers with decimals. So yes, there can be vertices with 1.4234 value, what matters is that at the end, the distance were less than 2.0 units.

So if Distance (parentVertex , currentVertex) < 2, the connection happens.

[LoreRaider]

@not again!:
having floating points mean that indeed the position of your vertices will be more precise, as the value it's not an integer, but decimal (so instead of being 1, it could be 1.56 for example)
This also applies to animations and camera movement, have a look at Lara movement here to see what I mean
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd_N0TCMxMQ

[THOR2010]

Originally Posted by adngel

supress the limits for the skin joints (that originally only could have loops of 11 vertices or so?)

Wait so with TEN we don't need to stick to the 11 point limit for joint connections?

[not again!]

Thank you both so much, adngel and LoreRaider! It's also fantastic news that animations are going to look smoother in TEN.

Originally Posted by adngel

I had problems because I exported from WadTool at 1024, but when I imported in Blender, they were at a scale of 1000. So I made the meshes with the vertices connecting, when I took them back to WadTool (again 1024) and the game, they were not connecting.

Ah, that's a difficult situation.
The WadBlender plugin has an import option for outfit building that could be helpful if you want to give it a try.
If your model was made at scale 1000, it can be imported into WadTool at scale 1000, you just need to make sure it matches the size of the original Lara skin at that scale.
You could use the WadBlender plugin to import the original TR4 Lara skin of any of the original WADs setting the import scale to 1000 and then append your model into the file (the early version that was scale 1000 and where all parts join up without gaps) to see how they compare in size.
If both models have the same height you can copy the offset values of the origins for each bodypart from the original skin over to your model.
Import into WadTool at scale 1000 and everything should line up without gaps.

If your scale 1000 model and the original scale 1000 Lara skin are too different in size, try importing the original Lara skin with the WadBlender plugin at a slightly bigger or smaller scale until you find a scale where the original Lara skin is approximately the size of your custom model, and then use that scale to import your model into WadTool (after copying the offset values of the origins over to your model!)

[adngel]

Despite my jugglings, I already have my blender scene with the Lara base, for the moment I know it works and now is only edit uv textures and add details so I'm fine with it. (Maybe if I start a new outfit, Kurtis, Larson or something, I re-try testing with the scales).

My biggest frustration is still in the animation department (Theres not possibility to export animations from WadTools and the import from Blender can get bugged), but looks like it will take time till that could be solved.

Originally Posted by THOR2010

Wait so with TEN we don't need to stick to the 11 point limit for joint connections?

Yeap, that limit is no more, in my model I crossed it several times.

However the ponytail beggining, still need to be the 4 remapped vertices. (37,38,39,40 for the head, and 0,1,2,3 for the ponytail).

[THOR2010]

I had to see it for myself so i tried the wildest idea, porting the lara model right from TRA and cutting it up and i was shocked when it just simply worked XD

While by no means practical and looks a bit off while moving does go to show how detailed Lara could be!!

[adngel]

What awesome knees textures... *.*

I still must improve a lot -.-