 What's comforting, yeah. OK, can anybody hear me? OK. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the 8.30 breakout session of the Open Simulator Community Conference 2013. As a reminder to our in-world and web audiences, you can view the full conference schedule on our website at conference.opensimulator.org. And you can post your questions in local chat. On the US stream chat or tweet your comments using the hashtag OSCC13. This hour, we are happy to introduce Andres Rinalt, who will be presenting the session Game Modeling and Open Simulator. Hello, everyone. Good to see everybody here. And as she said, I'm Andres Rinalt in World of Mary, Sean Bach in Real Life. And it's good to see everybody attending the conference. This is very exciting. And what I will be addressing today is Game Modeling and Open Simulator. It deals with the importing of actual mesh models into Open Simulator environment. And some of the tricks and tips that you could certainly help make this method a little easier. So we're going to jump right in and get started. I will be taking questions at the end. And so keep track of those. And I am them to my conference aid here. And we will get those addressed. One of the first tricky things that pops up, and not everyone knows this, especially if you're not a regular modeler, is about the day format, which is the format that we use to bring in models from outside applications into Open Sim. Now, the tricky thing about the day is that it's not the same, not all day are the same. They come in different versions, just like any of the software does. And that causes a little bit of a problem with us, because some of the versions of day do not import directly into Open Sim, clearly if at all. So that's why some models will come in and some won't. It's the version of day that they have used is not compatible. So that's something definitely to keep in mind when you are looking at different models on the internet, you want to try and bring one in. If it doesn't come in, it's not compatible. Now, there is a lot of information about the day format. All you have to do is Google it. And it's got its own wiki page. And you can certainly read about the format, although it is pretty dry reading. But definitely, there may be ways to convert. But unfortunately, I'm not familiar with that. A more advanced model would probably know how to convert one version of day to another. Now, two of the programs that are often used for mesh modeling is Blender is the big one. And a lot of people do use Blender for Open Simulator. As a matter of fact, it's a full, what we call full featured modeling program, because it handles everything from modeling to animation. It saves out many different formats. You can even save out your animation files for BVH that come right in directly into Open Sim with a few little tweaks. And so if you're looking to get into modeling and don't want to spend a lot of money, I would definitely recommend learning Blender. They recently came out with, not too long ago, came out with a new version. And it's much easier to use interface-wise. The older version, to me, actually, as an experienced modeler was difficult. It was difficult to use. But the new one is much easier. It's, to me, it's almost similar to Max, if anybody's ever played with Max, 3DS Max. The second one, and the one I personally use and love, is AC3D. And I do have a note card that has the URL and everything, if anybody wants one at the end of the conference here at the end of the discussion, I'll be happy to hand that out to you. AC3D is just a modeler. But the neat thing about AC3D is that the day format, as well as sculpties, sculpts come right in to Open Simulator, straight off, very easy, very easy. And it's very easy to use. It's a push-pull. That's pretty much it, pretty close to SketchUp, I would say, but actually even a little bit simpler. So it's great for a beginning modeler, very, very good. And they have a lot of neat lessons on their website. But it does import directly into Open Simulator, either the sculpties or the polygon models, or mesh models, as we like to call it here in OS. The next thing we want to talk about and keep in mind is polygons and prims. They're pretty similar, so you want to keep in mind how big is your model. One of the ways you can do that is by counting your polygon items in your models, created with your modeling software. And then it's very much so like counting the prims in your Open Sim models to gauge how big your model will be. One of the aspects that we want to keep in mind with game modeling or Open Sim modeling, which is extremely similar, is that you want to go for low-prim models. And it applies both if you're working with a game engine or if you're working with Open Sim. And this is my quote, you're welcome to use it. It's 90% texture, 10% model. That's a great way to think about it. So the look that you're getting is going to be, based on your texture more than anything else, it's something nice to think about when you're building. In AC3D, this is a screenshot from AC3D. And I know it's a little difficult to see, but at the bottom here, it actually gives me all of the totals of what the model consists of, the surfaces and the polygons. And so every modeling software, including Blender, has this ability where you can pop up the information and see how large your model is. It's something good to check as you're modeling to make sure it's not getting too heavy. We're going to discuss a little bit about low-prim modeling. And as I said earlier, it's important to try and keep a focus on keeping those amounts as low as possible with making a very good quality model. And I've seen this done on just beautiful, beautiful models, done in OpenSim itself. For example, what we see here in this conference is just amazing the work they've done. Two of the tips, the big tips for working with your outside modeling software, excuse me, to help keep your polycounts low is to make sure that you're using cuts and extrusions because when you're cutting your model, it actually helps to keep the model low as long as you're not doing too many cuts. A cut would be, in OpenSim would be similar to one sphere or another sphere and then merging them, okay? And be sure that you group or link your models before you import them. That's also very important. Just like in OpenSim, when you go to link your models together, you want to do the same thing in your modeling software. And Blender, I know has it, as well as AC3D, both have a group function where you can actually make your model one piece. Now, three additional good tips for importing to keep your low polycount is cut and extrude. Now, if you're not familiar with the extrude function, what it does is that, let's say you're building a table and you want to make the legs of the chair. When you cut the material, you cut the block so that you actually have a leg, a square, just like in SketchUp, if you've ever worked with SketchUp and you just grab that and pull it. That's an extrude. So you're actually making four legs out of one piece, one material. Also, keep in mind how much textures you're actually using. The less textures that you use per model, the lower the rendering rate is for OpenSimulator or your game engine, because it takes a lot more rendering power to process all those textures. Now, SketchUp and OpenSim. This is a fun little experiment that I've been working with and I wanted to share it with all of you. Yes, you can bring SketchUp models into OpenSim. I've developed an airport on my Sim and I actually have models from SketchUp in that airport. A plane, I have a tower. I have just various different models you see it in airport basically, but they all are from SketchUp. They're great warehouse, 3D warehouse. That's a little bit. It's very easy to bring them in, but there are definitely some steps you want to take in order to use this. And I definitely recommend you guys go, if you have not downloaded SketchUp, it's free. And definitely it's worth looking at all the wonderful models they have in their warehouse. Tons and tons of models that are free to use, okay? Or they have in their warehouse. Now in AC3D, I use that exclusively to bring in my SketchUp models. There is a function in AC3D that allows me to reduce the count of a model. I don't use that because it tends to mess up SketchUp models. So if your modeling program does have a reduced polygons, don't use it. It will mess up the models coming from SketchUp. But in SketchUp, there's another trick you can use to help slim those models down before you bring them in. When you open SketchUp and you open a model, in, if you look up at the top, you'll see the windows. You want to go into model, info, and then you'll see a button at the bottom. I know this is a little hard to see. You'll see a button at the bottom that says hit purge. You just hit purge unused. What that does is it removes all the unnecessary faces from the model, slimming it down significantly, okay? So when you import, it's coming in all nice and trim. Another bit I wanted to let you know is when I was working with this a few days ago, some of the models, if they're very complex and have what they call components, which is one of their SketchUp components are like pre-built sections of models that you can add on. I noticed that they don't import cleanly if you use the purge unused, okay? So if the model has a lot of components, be aware if you use that purge unused, it may not come in or come in twisted, okay? Just something for you to note that I was encountering. Same thing with the warehouse. Some of the models come in very clean. Others don't, so you're gonna have to experiment a little bit with the different models in the warehouse. When you are working with SketchUp and OpenSim, create a folder on your computer first. Find the model that you want to use. When you go into SketchUp and you do file export day, make sure that you're saving into that folder because what will happen is you'll have your model and your texture in that folder ready to import directly into OpenSim, okay? If you save it outside of a folder, you're gonna have your texture somewhere else, your model somewhere else. They may not come in together. So make sure that you make a dedicated folder for that. I'm gonna address a little bit about your loading mesh screen which I was using, Singularity has it, Singularity Viewer as well as Firefox has it. I'm sorry, not Firefox, what am I thinking? Firestorm, we're not talking browsers here. Is the load mesh model. Now hopefully you can see what I have up here when you go to import a model. What I use for my settings is at the high level, I use generate because you wanna generate your level of detail. Now if you're not familiar with what level of detail is, I think most of us are, but level of detail deals with, it helps the game engine deal with rendering. So the further way a model is, you're not gonna see it as complete as when you're close up to it. That's level of detail, okay? What I use for the high setting, I use generate because the engine will actually generate, the viewer will actually generate those levels of detail for you. And then on your medium, low and lowest, just ask it to use the load above. That works really well for me. On most models, but again, there are one or two models you're gonna have to tweak those just a little bit and experiment. But in most cases, you can use that setting and it's gonna come in pretty well. Another thing about importing, which I found was interesting. You can adjust your size setting for when it comes in. They come in huge. I was wearing, I put wear airplane. Well, of course, airplanes are gonna be large, but it was huge. I would say a quarter of my sim darn near. So be aware that they come in very large. So you're gonna have to grab those puppies and scale them down. This is just another picture from AC3D and SketchUp where I was importing a fire engine, which you can actually see on my sim, if I can get my words right here. It's sitting in my firehouse and it looks beautiful. I brought in a full fire engine truck. And I will definitely tell you a little bit of the challenges of bringing this truck in because it had a lot of different pieces. One of the things is that when you bring your model in, you're gonna bring your texture in separately. Just like any other texture and you're gonna apply it to your model. Now you're gonna probably, you're gonna wanna do a little bit of adjusting of that texture on the model because it may come in a little screwed. But it won't take very long at all for you to get it adjusted to that model. But just be aware, you will have to load your textures in separately just like any other model, okay? It was a little bit of a short presentation, everyone, but I do appreciate your time and at this time we'll be fielding questions. James, yeah, I understand that. Don't know how he's for the resting of the mesh. Go ahead, Annabelle. What is my go-to modeler? Ah, okay, I use AC3D and the reason why I use it for one, it's very low cost. And I do have a note card if anybody wants one with the URLs, so you can go look for yourself. And it's extremely easy use, okay? It's push-pull. I actually teach how to use AC3D and gain modeling. That's my specialty. And the reason that I use it is because it imports models so beautifully and opens them as well as sculpties. It has, it just imports in just beautifully, okay? Okay, Mike, his question, have you seen any issues with texturing and mesh objects with multiple faces defined? Yes, I actually have seen that issue when bringing in the textures. When you export out of SketchUp, if that's what you're referring to, are you referring to SketchUp? Mike, are you referring to SketchUp in your question? Okay, we'll go ahead and address it as if it was a question about importing from SketchUp. Sticking, okay. Yeah, I have had, if it has multiple textures, then you're gonna be running into some problems, okay? The nice thing, the one of the nice things about SketchUp is it brings in it as a one-piece texture. It is definitely a headache if you've got multiple textures. You're gonna have to bring them in individually and put them on each piece individually and then tweak them from there, okay? Samira, you're asking about, do you import day models directly from SketchUp warehouse or do you tweak them first? Actually, the only thing I do with SketchUp models who can tweak them, I definitely, if you wanna add a piece or remove a piece or if you wanna make some changes to the model, do that right up in SketchUp if you're familiar with it. The only tweak I actually do is the one where I said earlier to go in and actually delete the unused faces, and that slims the model down quite a bit. Obviously, the biggest problem I ran into as far as bringing them in was when they had components, doesn't like to convert very cleanly in the day format. Okay, James, James asked, can you talk a little about texture mapping and unwrapping? I still don't quite get it. Well, the good thing, James, about using SketchUp, it does it for you. Now, AC3D is a little bit different. You do have to, you're welcome. You do have to, you can assign your materials right in AC3D to your model, and when it exports, it exports it as one piece. So, importing it into OpenSim, it comes in clean. Textures and all, okay? As far as unwrapping, you really don't need to do that unless you're dealing with, let's say that you're building a house, and you've got the front, rear, and sides of your house. Each one is a separate texture, okay? Or your roof material. What you're gonna be doing, what unwrapping is, is you take each piece, front, rear, and each side, and the roof, and you put it on one, this is the best way to describe this. Let's say you have an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. I usually demonstrate this, okay? You have an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper. What you're gonna wanna do is take your front, back, both sides in your roof texture, and put them on that eight and a half by 11 piece of paper spaced. Doesn't have to be evenly as long as it's spaced and put on that one page. Therefore, you've just transferred it to one texture. In AC3D, then you just select the side, attach it right to the right side of the model, select the left side, attach it right to the left side of the model, okay? Roof, attach it to the roof, front, attach it to the front, and then again, when you export and save, it comes in as a complete texture. That's unwrapping in a nutshell. It's really, that's pretty much the easiest way I could describe it, is you're just taking the texture since sticking it on an eight and a half by 11, or 256, as most often we use size in game modeling. So you're using 256. You're just sticking it on one piece of paper. And maxes can be very complicated with texturing, and I'd be happy to go over more with that with you. That could be a whole lesson all by itself. Any other questions? I hope I'm being clear. I apologize everybody today. Got a little excited in running a little fast, so. Annabelle, yes, actually, believe it or not, I use Paint.net for all of my TD graphic use. It's super easy to cut, super easy to copy, edit, add texture. It's just a really easy to use program, and it's free. The format that I use, along with that, the format that I use when making a texture is if you need transparency, you wanna use PNG. If you need just a really clean texture, you use JPEG. JPEG is fairly friendly with OpenSimulator. Not like the old days where we had to use, oh, what was that, TNG or something? Yes, it's called Paint.net. And Paint.net, just Google it, you'll find, you'll come right up, Paint.net. James, yes, actually, I do teach. I do teach on a, I use a live software. You can see my screen and I go through and I teach basic game modeling for OpenSimulator and game engines. And you're welcome to contact me privately, and we can talk it over if you'd like. Actually, Samira, I do it on a one-on-one basis, and I actually do a live meeting software, so you're actually live with me, going step-by-step through what you wanna learn. I charge $20 an hour. Anyone else? I hope you guys found this useful. I apologize for it being so quick. Okay, we're a little bit early, but if nobody has any more questions, then we might wrap it up. Thank you, Andrews, for a very terrific presentation. As a reminder to our audience, you can see what's coming up on the conference schedule at conference.opensimulated.org. In this room, the next session will be Camelot and the Mists of Avalon with Haike Philp. Thank you again to our speaker and the audience. We'll be back shortly with the next session. Thanks, guys. I was so nervous I rushed through it. I should have made it longer.