Starting an Animation - from scratch

[a5']

Not sure how complex you want to make it but a start would be::

RENDER> TEXTURE > Image::

click new and navigate to an image.

is that what you want?

a5


also not sure if this is the same in the mod tool..

[Hirazi Blue]

The "EXP" scene files used by the Mod Tool CANNOT be opened by the regular commercial version of Softimage, which uses "SCN" scene files. This is one of the limitations of the Mod Tool. ;)

edit: I must admit I haven't looked at Janosch scene file yet, but I would imagine, from looking at his screenshot, you'd have to keyframe the value of the "open/close" paramater of the expression to get some animation going there....

[Phalitine]

Not sure how complex you want to make it but a start would be::
RENDER> TEXTURE > Image::
click new and navigate to an image.
is that what you want?
a5
also not sure if this is the same in the mod tool..

Honestly, I have no clue what I am doing with the "Mod Tool Pro" application. I am a programmer, not an artist or modeler. I am working on a simple XNA game for XBox and need a few simpkle models to add to it. I was able to create a model, animate it and now want to be able to add a texture to it.

[Phalitine]

The "EXP" scene files used by the Mod Tool CANNOT be opened by the regular commercial version of Softimage, which uses "SCN" scene files. This is one of the limitations of the Mod Tool. ;)

so I take it, there is no need to upload my scene files, in hope someone can point out my mistakes. Or could I save it in another format for you guys to help...

[a5']

screen-shots work pretty well...

but what I was referring to was the render menu on the top of the window. from there the texture menu and then the image selection or for that matter any of the selections under texture will start you down the right path.

as far as the expression that Janosch set up, you have to open up the explorer (8) and then expand the iris node and click on the "iris controller" the slider will control your iris.

I think that should help,

a5

[Phalitine]

Not sure how complex you want to make it but a start would be::
RENDER> TEXTURE > Image::
click new and navigate to an image.
is that what you want?
a5- also not sure if this is the same in the mod tool..

I am still working on getting the piece textured. This graphical stuff is a bit more than I bargined for. Now I understand why there are seperation of functionality.

I guess I should be looking for a friend in the know with graphical arts...

[a5']

Hm.

I'm not sure what you don't understand?

top of screen, render menu and then follow the above directions

RENDER> TEXTURE > Image::
click new and navigate to an image.

a5'

[Phalitine]

so what you are saying is that this will apply a texture to the model(s) plates/layers, and when the plates move they each will keep their respctive part of the texture while they move.

I am fimilure with raw triangle face object and how to apply a UV texture to it in XNA C# coding. but not sure how to do the same with moving models.

maybe I am using the wrong terms/names...

[a5']

Hm.

no I didn't realize thats what you meant. I guess its kind of obvious now that I think of it.


I'm not sure how I would do that although I think I would cut it up in a paint program such as photoshop or gimp and then apply the individual textures to each triangle. You could probably even render a wireframe with capture, only capture one frame, .

set the viewport to wireframe (top right)

capture ( camera icon)

you could use that as a stencil...

in the paint program..

I think I might not be the best person to answer this but this is the only thing that comes to mind right now...

tell me if this sounds like a sollution.

a5'

[Phalitine]

Well, it this were an easy task, then it would have ben finish a long time ago. like I said, I could do this all in code, but was not sure if that is how it should be done.

I was under the imperssion that these modeling tools helps simplify this stuff. I can even get a simple texture on a model in one.

[Hirazi Blue]

I was under the imperssion that these modeling tools helps simplify this stuff.

They should. Maybe you should look at some specific Mod Tool related texturing tutorials like this one, aptly called "Texturing for XNA"

[Phalitine]

So, I played with this software (SoftImage Mod Tool Pro) all weekend. I managed at on point to texture my model, but when i went back and try to reproduce what I did, I can not.

I have gone through adding materials, textures, try mapping by drag and drop, follow tutorials, write ups. How do you guys manage to get this stuff to work for you. Am I trying to hard?

I guess I am going to have to go find a book on using the software, any good suggestions?

[a5']

try this,

softimage manual

a5.

[Hirazi Blue]

No RTFM on my watch... ;)
Sadly, however, there aren't really that many good books for Softimage and its predecessor XSI. (Actually for Softimage as the application "produced" by Autodesk I am not aware of any books.) So pointing to the User's Guide isn't that much of an RTFM after all ( ). But the User's Guide can be quite a handful to process all at once. There are however numerous tutorials on the internet, in written form or as videos. A good place to start would be Ed Harriss' website, which is a collection of older (but mostly still useful), mostly written tutorials on a wide range of topics....

[a5']

That's really the issue, I looked around and didn't see anything and edharris didn't look relevant. BUT, on the page I linked to (I don't think you can "deep link" in the manual) there is a section for texturing, so I figured I'd give it a shot... and I'm not sure that the MOD tool has a manual or direct access.

a5

[Hirazi Blue]

If you want to link to individual pages of the User's Guide, use the link you gave yourself, surf to the page you want & copy the address of the frame containing the page you want to link to... (which I can do in one click in Opera, but requires opening the properties of the frame (and copying the address manually) in IE, as far as I can tell)
For instance Texturing
(this opens the page without the nagivational sidebar)
;)