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#1 04/29/14 06:04

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Questions, questions...

Lately I've really had an urge to start modding again - more specifically texturing stuff. However, since I have barely touched "new-school modding", as I call it, I don't really have the slightest idea of how things work now. Back in 2007 - 2008 texture modding was a pretty tedious process. Most of the time was spent on exporting the assets, creating .bat files for OniSplit, and re-building the game rather than actually texturing. Even later when OniSplit got a GUI and newer versions of the AE was released, I still used the old way of doing things. Now I see posts with content that's shown in XSI etc. which makes me believe it has gotten way less frustrating to work on Oni. So before I throw myself into it all again, I do have a few questions:


- Like I said, I've seen posts containing screen dumps from XSI when showcasing new characters or textures. Is it possible to work on textures and then use XSI as a reference point of how they look before you import them into the game? Wouldn't this process be a lot easier?

- I keep hearing about this RAM limit that occurs when a lot of mods are being applied to the game. Let's say I were to re-do every single texture in the game and scale them up to 512x512 or something similar. Would I have to halt the process at some point because the game engine simply can't handle that much?

- What colour formats do we have to play around with? Back when I did most of my textures, RGB32 and RGBA32 was the highest quality ones how does it look now? Is it still the same?

- How do we go around exporting materials from the game without having to create a billion .bat files etc.? Is there an easier way?


This is just what's on top of my mind right now, might be able to add something to this later. smile

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#2 04/29/14 12:04

paradox-01
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Questions, questions...

When you import objects and characters from Oni to XSI (Mod Tool), you need to switch the view mode to "Textured Decal".
Just keep in mind that EnvMaps can't be displayed properly. The best thing you can do here is disabling them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGsq15Bt2RQ

Edit textures from the object's / character's texture folder and save them. XSI will update the scene.
Yes, that preview is a good time saver because you only need to convert your final texture and bring it into the game.

IMHO, the amount of used particle and transparent polygons are more critical. I haven't heard yet of a texture RAM limit.

RGB32 and RGBA32 are the best quality formates.
While 512x512 is the highest official resolution for PC (IIRC, Macs already had 1024x1024) you might want to keep your project files at 1024x1024.
Atm, 1024x1024 can only be displayed on PC with one of Neo's plugins.

By materials you mean textures, don't you?
Why not export just all textures at once?

Make one big bat file. ^_^
onisplit -export level0_Final level0_Final.dat
onisplit -export level1_Final level1_Final.dat
onisplit -extract:xml L0_TXMP level0_Final/TXMP*.oni
onisplit -extract:xml L1_TXMP level1_Final/TXMP*.oni
And so on...

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#3 04/29/14 12:04

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Re: Questions, questions...

paradox-01 wrote:

When you import objects and characters from Oni to XSI (Mod Tool), you need to switch the view mode to "Textured Decal".
Just keep in mind that EnvMaps can't be displayed properly. The best thing you can do here is disabling them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGsq15Bt2RQ

Edit textures from the object's / character's texture folder and save them. XSI will update the scene.
Yes, that preview is a good time saver because you only need to convert your final texture and bring it into the game.

IMHO, the amount of used particle and transparent polygons are more critical. I haven't heard yet of a texture RAM limit.

RGB32 and RGBA32 are the best quality formates.
While 512x512 is the highest official resolution for PC (IIRC, Macs already had 1024x1024) you might want to keep your project files at 1024x1024.
Atm, 1024x1024 can only be displayed on PC with one of Neo's plugins.

By materials you mean textures, don't you?
Why not export just all textures at once?

Make one big bat file. ^_^
onisplit -export level0_Final level0_Final.dat
onisplit -export level1_Final level1_Final.dat
onisplit -extract:xml L0_TXMP level0_Final/TXMP*.oni
onisplit -extract:xml L1_TXMP level1_Final/TXMP*.oni
And so on...

But wouldn't I need the actual models exported into XSI as well if I want to edit the textures? And how does that even work?

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#4 04/29/14 15:04

paradox-01
Member
From: Germany
Registered: 01/14/07

Re: Questions, questions...

You edit your textures like you always do in your favorite 2D program.
Then you load the 3D model into the 3D editor, apply the textures and see whether of model looks like you want it to be.
If not, you edit the tex until it does.
You might want to ask Samer for details.


PS: There's no need to quote my entire post if you reply directly to it. smile

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#5 04/29/14 16:04

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Re: Questions, questions...

That's where I begin to become lost. There must be a difference between level geometry and character models. I know TXMP is their texture format but what about models? Also is it possible to import an entire level into a 3D program like XSI to see edited textures in real-time?

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#6 04/29/14 17:04

EdT
Moderator
From: Los Angeles, CA
Registered: 01/13/07
Website

Re: Questions, questions...

After you use this command: onisplit -export level1_Final level1_Final.dat  this will give you all the files for the level.
Then -extract:dae L1_AKEV level1_Final/AKEV*.oni

Import the EnvWarehouse_env.dae into XSI to see the level.

Or if you don't want to use the command line there is Vago GUI http://oni.bungie.org/community/forum/v … hp?id=2385

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#7 04/29/14 17:04

Samer
Member
From: Lebanon
Registered: 09/04/09
Website

Re: Questions, questions...

1- download vago gui or any other gui for onisplit it will make this much easier ..
2- decompile level0_Final to oni files into a newfolder
3- now look in this new folder you'll get a lot of oni files ... if you want character textures find the ONCC files ...
4- convert the ONCC file of that character to dae into another newfolder2, you will get a dae file and the textures used by that character as tga in the newfolder2.
5- drag and drop the dae into xsi and make sure textured decal view is selected, you'll see the character model with textures on it. if it has transparency it will look transparent and you have to remove it like paradox said (the video he linked)
6- open the images you got in the newfolder2 and modify them in a photo editor ... everytime you save, take a look at xsi you'll see that the changes you are making are showing up on the model.
7-when you're satisfied convert the images from tga to oni files using the onisplit gui .. if you want the textures to have an envmap (be reflective) you can select that in the gui .. the envmap image file has to be in the same folder as the other images when they are converted to oni.
8- put in a package and install.

for levels yes same principal but you'll be decompiling levelx_final not level0_final ... AKEV is the level's geometry should be converted to dae ... edit: like EdT said.

Last edited by Samer (04/29/14 17:04)


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#8 04/30/14 00:04

TOCS
Member
From: Denmark
Registered: 04/04/07

Re: Questions, questions...

Okay, thanks for the answers everybody. I'll have a look at this later today and see if I can make any sense of it. ^^

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