normal maps

[𝖙𝖋𝖈]

I have no idea, you can't tell unless you change from Blender units to metric or imperial under the 'SCENE' tab > 'units'.

MXB uses real world units of measurement, for example a foot in Blender is a foot in MXB. I've heard somewhere that 1 Blender unit is 1 meter, how true that is I don't know but if it is, that's one massive helmet.

[AlexTee]

yeah it would be 0.1 in metric im guessing. im confused when i look at the other helmet folders though. all i see is edf file camra file then paints folder. no tga files. in any of them. i put it in metric and still doesnt work.
is there any info anywhere on what the scale should be etc?

[𝖙𝖋𝖈]

Gonna use bold to highlight the important bits.

Yes there is info on scale, like I just said, real world. This means if the helmet is 40 inches deep, 25 inches wide and 30 inches tall (example, not accurate at all), make it that size in Blender.

You don't need TGA's in the final folder.. I think you need to go back and read some of the posts where people have been trying to help you. Take things one step at a time.

You have a base folder which can be anywhere, on your desktop, whatever. You use it to put all the pieces in before compiling (fbx, textures, shd files etc..)

When you run FBX2EDF, it packs the FBX, the SHD file and any textures into one EDF file.

Take any custom helmet folder from the MX Bikes > Helmets directory, or unpack the original helmet folder from the rider.pkz, and replace their helmet.edf with your helmet.edf.

Update any instances of a name in your newly copied folder and replace that name with whatever you want to call the helmet. Remember names and references can be found in GFX files, CFG files, Camera files etc, so go through one file at a time and replace names.

Again, it's a beta. I've seen talk of improving the modding tools for the final release, for now this is as good as we have. It's really not that hard though..

[AlexTee]

ive gone back endless times and tryed this over and over step by step i just dont know why its not working. spent more time trying to get it in game that i have making the helmet almost lol. rip

[Vortex_Damien]

For your export i assume your using blender
set origin of the helmet to 0,0,0
apply scale and rotation
in your project folder add your maps and apply the diffuse only in blender
add the .shd file that you create in that folder along with all your maps
now open fbx2edf
set mesh
recalculate ( use smoothing groups )
save your .edf file
Should work just fine, make sure in your files that you define what ever you called the .edf

[BadStar]

ive gone back endless times and tryed this over and over step by step i just dont know why its not working. spent more time trying to get it in game that i have making the helmet almost lol. rip

This happened to me with making tracks.. my head almost fell off.  Once I got it, it was easy as eating cake!   So just stick with it, sounds like you will be a great addition (content creator) to this sim!

[Ruubs]

Oh man do I ever remember the days TFC and me had to figure this out.

I remember sandbiter and beardedforglory too (where did he go?)

In the end it was lots of fun to figure it all out though! Especially normal maps, because tracks started to look great with them.

I've no idea where he is. I thought he didn't like Mx Bikes as much as we do, but I haven't seen him on Mx Sim in a while either.

[Alex]

ive got it showing up in game. but the normals dont show and the paints dont work. i unpacked a fox v4 skin and its 4mb. but when i save my pngs as tga files they are both 32mb each which is strange.
also i notices the materials dont work. like having the lens shiny etc.

[Ruubs]

Not sure if this is relevant.
Some of the bikes we use have normal problems as well. I tried reimporting the YZ125 skin with norm but kept getting the same issues as the initial release. Then I added a reflection map (yz125_r.tga) and the norm worked how it should.

[𝖙𝖋𝖈]

Your texture must be the same in blender as it is in your helmet folder pre compile. So if it's called helmet.tga it must be the same file from the same place for both as the fbx takes the path with it from blender and calls that same path when you run fbx2edf.

Also, how are you exporting your fbx? The only option you need checked in blender is 'mesh'. You can disable all the other stuff. Also, 'path mode' should be on auto.

If the textures not showing up, neither will the norm.

Just out of curiosity what were you doing wrong before, what stopped you getting it in game?

[Alex]

hold up. texture in blender? it would be so helpful if someone could show me a helmet in blender ready for export. they needs to be a default one or something so people can see i reckon.
and not sure what you mean how am i exporting my fbx. how is there another way to do that aprt from it being in blender and exporting it to an fbx?
and option i need 'checked' in blender as 'mesh' 'path mode' ? please can u show me a screenshot in blender of where this is.
would like to see a helmet in blender ready for export though.
also with materials....is having materials pointless? like having mirror on lens and shit.
and until i put the 'gfx' file in then it showed up.
so just say i want to change a normal map for a bike like add some logos on a seat or do something on the gear. you have to do this whole process again just to get the new norm working?
just seems rediculous.

[Alex]

I am starting to doubt you modeled this?

wow.

anyway. if i apply a texture to it in blender. sure it shows up in game but it acts like a material. if i choose i paint it doesnt do anything. nothing changes.

[Asdrael]

From my little experience in Blender, only the texturing part of the materials function work to export to the game / FBX. You need to then manually build a normal + specular file afterwards, the way TFC says.

So create your material on your mesh in blender by UV wrapping, get the object + texture in game, then worry about normals and speculars.

[Alex]

geo ofcourse its unwrapped haha how else would i have skinned it and baked norms for it 
(its not scaled right and my graphics are in low) but if i add a reflection text file what do i name it. helmet_r.shd?
super shit how you cant export it with mirror set to different materials 

[Snappe]

if i add a reflection text file what do i name it. helmet_r.shd?

No it's one shd file per texture.
For example this would be the contents of your helmet.shd (assuming your texture is called helmet.tga):

Code Select Expand


specular
{
shininess = 60
}

bump
{
map = helmet_n.tga
}

reflection
{
factormin = 0.2
factormax = 0.5
factorexp = 5
map = helmet_r.tga
}


The specular map goes in the alpha channel of helmet_n.tga
The reflection map goes in the alpha channel of helmet_r.tga