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| Jul - Posts by Gecko |
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| Gecko Member Level: 22      Posts: 1/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| The Mario Kart 64 engine is based on Mario 64 and should not be too different from the original one. Do you think you could develop an editor for this game also, based on Toad's Tool? Or am I wrong and the engine is completely different? I'm not asking you to do it in the near future, I'd like to know about the circumstances and the possibility. Other than that, I'll be happy to be able to edit level geometry/ add new objects in the near feature. That's one of the few features needed for really changing the game and creating new content.  By the way, which editor did you use to create the spiral level? |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 2/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| It always amazes me to see how user friendly your editor is. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 3/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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When I saw the guidelines-thread, I thought about integrating those guideline into the editor, e.g. by drawing a parabola for the wide jump, which shows how far Mario can jump, inside the editor. The starting point could be used like an object which can be rotated on one axis. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 4/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| While VL-Tone is working on a more perfect editor which everybody will benefit from, everyone here is able to learn how to use a 3D editor. One editor capable of exporting Wavefront obj. files is Blender. This editor is totally free and some of you may already know it from the movie "Big Buck Bunny" which was created with Blender. You will find lots of tutorials on YouTube and do not forget to model low res, because Mario 64's engine was created almost 15 years ago. Low res modeling isn't as bad when you are able to create hi-res textures. One page dedicated to hi-res texturing N64 games is N64Redux which also provides tutorials. http://www.blender.org/ http://www.youtube.com/results?search_type=&search_query=blender+tutorial&aq=f http://www.n64redux.com/ |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 5/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| The usage of one texture will open us the doors to sand, ice, slide or grass levels, for example. I wonder if one will be able to distinguish geometry inside the level when only one texture is used. Does the engine create shadows? Is the light source always the same or does it vary from level to level? As far as I remember, the clock level uses fog. Have you found the corresponding level flag? I think the question regarding creating new painting-level-entrys has already been asked, I'll probably recheck the thread. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 6/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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Originally posted by VL-Tone Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions! I understand what you mean and those baked shadows always looked darker than everything else in the game. Do you know if the fog changes anything enginewise, e.g. allowing more geometry to be used because it adds vis-blocking? Visibility blocking refers to the engine not drawing level geometry behind a certain distance such as the object vis-blocking (objects will pop up when you reach a certain distance). Is there vis-blocking when creating two rooms which are completely seperated from each other or is the level geometry always fully drawn? You told us that your spiral level almost reached the engine limitations. I've been creating maps for the half-life engine which has a lot of limitations and there you have to possibility to lower the number of leaves by upscaling the texture.  On this picture every square resembles a leaf. If you scale the texture up or down, the leaf also becomes bigger or smaller. The more leaves there are, the more often a texture gets repeated and the more hardware ressources are used resulting in reaching engine limitations when a texture often gets repeated/when there are many textures and texture recurrences drawn.  This would usually mean that you aren't able to create huge levels, but look at Banjo-Tooie for example. Rare created huge levels by scaling textures up, maybe it's also possible with Mario 64. There are some maybe unwanted texture recurrences in your spiral map. If you look at 1:58 in the video, you'll see that the texture is scaled down. If you're able to scale it up again, you will maybe be able to set some more polygons free. Additionally, you could scale the texture in the whole map up in order to free up polygons if this experiment worked. Does Mario 64 have a debug menu? Maybe there would be a subitem showing you how many polygons are drawn helping you with the engine limitations. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 7/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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Originally posted by BigBrain RDX, use planes for the ground: hit space -> add -> mesh -> plane. Scale it up using the button S and pressing the number 5, for example, to make it 5 times bigger. Then press TABULATOR to go into editing mode, press W and then select "Subdivide" to divide your plane into as many parts as you wish. Afterwards your plane is subdivided into many parts and you are able to move vertices or edges as you wish. While being in edit mode (TABULATOR), you are able to select vertices and edges with your mouse. After pressing G you are able to move them. I would not use the cube as it has 6 sides to render whereas you probably only need one for the level ground. I'm not much further into Blender, yet. I'd like to know how to expand faces and how to merge vertices from one object to the other, e.g. I've added a cube and I'd like to connect it to the ground. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 8/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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Originally posted by messiaen Your findings could be really useful, I'll bet you are able to include such a debugger into the game by default. No one should underestime the value of such a tool for level editing as it's something you can simply rely on when you're creating a level.
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| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 9/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| Update Feb 28th I've uploaded a basic texturization tutorial showing breegullbeak's level. Blender - Texturization Tutorial -------------------- Update May 1st The third tutorial will be postponed until there's a compatible way of texturization that fully works with the importer. Until then, I'd suggest you to read the following tutorial: Vertex groups There are also tutorials dealing with texturization, which you can also read. But, for the video I will try to show you the easiest way and I will also address problematic issues that will appear. -------------------- Blender is a 3D editor which is completely free and with its ability to export Wavefront .OBJ files predestined for the creation of level geometry for Mario 64. I've created a tutorial which shows you the basic use of the editor. It will teach you how to create a 3D environment with Blender. Blender - Preperations for Creating a 3D Environment Blender - Creating a 3D Environment Blender - Texturization Tutorial -------------------- Ressources I will always release my sources to the public, because I think it will others help understanding how I did certain things. Finished map - Blender, .obj and material files -------------------- In the next step I will create a video showing you how to utilize those tools for the creation of a level. I have created this tutorial, because I saw Bob Omb and RDX writing that they were having problems using Blender. I'm still a beginner by myself, but I can assure you that I haven't been using this editor for more an 2 hours and by now I'm somewhat able to create a 3D environment. -------------------- How to flip normals:  Only the top side of a plane gets drawn, which means that after assigning a material/texture to it, you'll see the texture on the top side. When you're looking on bottom side of the plane, it's invisible. If both sides of a plane would be drawn, the engine would also use twice as many ressources. Usually, you will never see the bottom side of a plane, because it would mean that you have to leave the map and fly to the bottom side of the level. However, you may have seen level geometry from it's back side becoming invisible to you. Here's a top and bottom view of the level:  When extruding edges and creating new faces, Blender sometimes does not know which side is supposed to be the top and simply flips it over onto the wrong side resulting in it becoming invisible. In order to fix this issue, you have to flip normals, which is shown in the picture above. Additionally, point 4 shows you how to change what you will select by right clicking. In the tutorial I always selected single vertices. Using these buttons will allow you to select edges or complete faces. Point 2 shows you how to change model view: Textured mode (hotkey is ALT+Z), shaded mode, solid mode (Hotkey Z) or wireframe mode (Hotkey also Z). At point 1 you're able to go into "Material mode" which allows you to assign textures. -------------------- Mario often fell through the ground around the tree bark which is covered by that rose texture at first or there were invisible walls which made it possible for Mario to pass through even though there were no obstacles. I started rebuilding that ground after having deleted all faces and even could save some polygons and it worked afterwards. Mario did not push against invisible walls anymore. It could be that the engine has problems with planar grounds consisting of more polygons than actually needed like in the upper part of the picture. At the botton there are no unneeded faces anymore.  -------------------- Something else bugging me was when Mario fell through the ground at some points. That always was due to the level geometry. I could trick the engine by extruding all those foul faces and put them minimally above their surrounding ground: 1. Select foul faces or the whole connected ground (edit mode - face selection - right click on faces holding shift) 2. Press E for extrusion 3. Press e.g. 0.01 (zero point zero one or any other minimal value) 4. Press Enter The polygon count becomes bigger, but the buggy grounds vanished, at least for those I tried. It would be nice if someone checked and veryfied/falsified this. -------------------- Next thing was disappearing objects and water after having added objects to the game in TT64.  I excluded object by object and found out that the Bullet Bill cannon was responsible for this. After deleting them everything worked fine again. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 10/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| Thanks! It's not possible to import level geometry, yet, but until VL-Tone ironed out the last bugs we can get things going and start creating levels or actually start to learn how to use 3D editors, which is the reason why I have created this tutorial. This forum is a great place for exchanging ideas and knowledge and I'm happy that there are other beginners who start to get into 3D modeling, like me. I'd be really happy if I could help others to understand how to use Blender, even though I'm just beginning to understand the usage of the editor by myself. I've tried to work with Google Sketch Up and even after watching some tutorials I unfortunately could not grasp how to use the program, even though it looked kind of intuitive. I wonder if it was laid out for the creation of 3D game environments due to its main purpose being creating models of buildings for Google Earth, unless I'm not mistaken. For the next tutorial, it would be great if you could give me some advice on what I should model for you. Of course, it should not be too complicated and keep in mind that it should fit into Mario 64. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 11/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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Originally posted by BigBrain By expanding faces I meant extruding faces for which I fortunately found the right term.
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| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 12/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| It could be a z-coordinate, because the room behind the portal also is shown when Mario levitates above the portal and it makes perfect sense that the portal triggers camera movement, like you said. Therefore it could be the same system used for camera changes inside the levels. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 13/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| My first map created with Blender is similar to the cloud level where you had to fly from platform to platform whereas in my map the platforms are bigger than in the original map. There are 4 platforms altogether and the world should be big enough for 100+ coins and some enemies. You will start at the bottom of the tower in the middle of the world. Download Blender file   |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 14/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| Nice idea! I haven't thought about those blowing winds, yet, but now that you've told me so, I will certainly include them in my level. I do not know if Koopa is able to jump from one platform to another. In order to exemplify the size of the level, think of the cube on the top of the tower being a little bigger than Mario. However, I will create a Koopa race map which will be a little bit more of a challenge than the original one. Blender counts about 270 vertices and a little fewer faces on this level. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 15/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| That's beautiful and inspiring! |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 16/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| Something more of a level than my first try. I think I'll wait for the release of TT 0.6b until I'll make another map. Even though the poly count should be ok, I cannot say if this map will work in Mario 64. The map theme could be Giant skyscrapers, iceberg valley or something similar to Mario Kart's Kalimari Desert. 1st star - Get to the highest point of the map 2nd star - Collect 8 coins 3rd star - Fly through the coin rings 4rth star - Probably boss battle on a flying platform 5fth star - ? 6th star - ? 7th star - ? Download Blender file   |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 17/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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Nice theme! That would be great for a Koopa race around on the table.  |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 18/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| That's why the obj. export didn't work. I was desperately looking for the cause until I read your posting respectively that obj. files need a UV map and now the export works. Yay! Here's the map with a simple UV map from one texture. I have to learn how to create UV maps. http://depositfiles.com/files/h718lxt99 Here's a quick multi UV test which probably won't work right as I haven't unwrapped all faces. http://depositfiles.com/files/woifg7tf4 I'm already creating multi UV maps but I'm having trouble selecting all faces. I wonder what happens if I leave a face wrapped/without a material. |
| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 19/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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Originally posted by VL-Tone That's great news! Your solution to the texture loading issue seems reasonable and it raised a smile when I read about finding the solution to be the hardest part of the problem. From my point of view, 12-15 textures should be enough, at least for now. I think it's pretty much dependent on how detailed a map can be. If I left my map in its current state, I should get along with maybe 8 textures. As soon as I'd to like to add e.g. rails on top of the building, I'd need a little more. If there's no limitative factor, which could be bugs resulting from the implementation of the RAM extension, I'd suggest a texture number somewhat higher than originally used in every Mario 64 level - (Bob Omb outputs at least 15 level textures excluding object textures). For the resolution issue, I'd say that 1024x768 was a standard some years ago, it's higher now, but it should be ok as it would leave editing on older machines possible. Speaking off topic, Steampowered has been collecting user machine information for years, you can see the results on the following page: Hardware survey. Originally posted by VL-Tone That's exactly what I thought! Also, thank you for your comment on my map.
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| Gecko Member Level: 22 Posts: 20/113 EXP: 54126 For next: 4224 Since: 03-27-09 Since last post: 567 days Last activity: 48 days |
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| That tutorial is great! Thank you for the link. Fortunately, I speak German, hehe. XD *digging out my German* Das Tutorial ist großartig! Danke dir für den Link. Leopard print looks great on that marshmallowman. |
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| Jul - Posts by Gecko |
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Acmlmboard - 07/23/2013 b378.03 ©2000-2013 Acmlm, Xkeeper, Inuyasha, et al. |
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