[TacSmart]

So, I would like to announce my dabbling into hilt creation. Hopefully soon my services will be available to the rest of my family here in KR, however it does take FOREVER!!!! I have been working on the same saber hilt for about 8 hours, and am no where near finished.

Therefore, please know that I will not be taking requests for now. At least no until I get fairly good at it, and I am a fast learner. <self taught graphic designer...



Anywho, I will post my first creation in this thread when it is complete and worthy to be seen by public eye, lol.

I think what I may do is make saber creation a special reward for things like, special promotions, etc. IDK yet. If you have any insight or opinions please let me know. Also, please feel free to post some ideas or pictures of sabers you would like to see created! I will take a look at them!

<3

[Mandalorian]

For a second, when I saw that picture, I thought it was this:


But, anyways, thats a pretty cool thing to do. I love lightsaber hilts as long as they don't look foolishly stupid. *couch**couch**couch*

[Jato]

Tried that once.... ended up looking like this



Which led to this...



and so I gave that up pretty quick...

[TacSmart]

lol Jato

This is the hilt thus far, don't judge it yet!

I call it the "Fracture"

[Jato]

aka cool!

[Akimoto]

lol Jato

This is the hilt thus far, don't judge it yet!

I call it the "Fracture"

Lightsabers are so "old school". The new thing is big hammers and wrenches!

[Key]

just out of curiosity, what program are you using to construct these models? Not sure if you said or not - I'm really tired and my old wizard eyes don't see very well in the wee-hours of the night. 3DS Max?

[TacSmart]

NO Im currently using GMax. Is that one better? free? lol

[Akimoto]

NO Im currently using GMax. Is that one better? free? lol

Yes. No.

[Necros]

lol Jato

This is the hilt thus far, don't judge it yet!

I call it the "Fracture"

I'm totally judging...and it looks awesome, keep up the good work :>

Also,

[Key]

From what my friend has told me, you can get it free if you're a student of a university. I've never tried, so I can't say for sure. He uses it and insists that's how he got it As for whether it's easier or not, I have no idea. I don't like 3DS Max's controls very much, they're not 100% efficient.

[TacSmart]

I havent had any problems with GMax as of yet, pretty straight forward (for us with wits, lol) however my issues are with JKA, saber can only have a max vertex limit of 1000.... wow.... finding it hard to make a saber that looks cool, with as few as 1000 vertex.... lol

[TacSmart]

so......

created something simple, to test the whole process, and created this one below:


but when I go in game, and select it as my primary saber, Kyle's shows up in my hand, won't show mine... anyone know why?

[Sniper]

If you are going on KR's server to test it, it wont work. I think that Jawfin has to allow it to be used on the server. Not 100% sure, however.

[Key]

Senbou later pounded it into my head that detail goes *essentially* unnoticed. Meaning, super-smooth cylinders and such won't matter. It's too hard to tell either way unless you're right up next to the hilt. Unfortunately, you gotta dumb down the model to get it to work in JKA. However, I've made some pretty high-quality weapons and you can't tell there's a low poly count. My first few weapons had an exuberant amount of polys, and it was very frustrating. The trick is to use as few polys as possible. If you have a square shape, not every side of the shape needs a grid of polys 8x8. In fact, you'll only need the 4 to make a perfectly flat face.

[TacSmart]

yeah I'm only using 6 sides, can produce a saber less than 1000 vertex doing that... ive seen some that have more, but they are less complex. I'd like to find a way to just be able to use them in-game, and if its true Jaw has to allow them, then so be it, I wanna use em!

[Key]

You can always overwrite another saber model by naming it after one of the default sabers. It won't actually delete the saber unless you put it in assets - just making another PK3 with all the aligned directories and naming the PK3 anything alphabetically-after "assets" will load that saber over top of it.

If that makes sense I'm really tired. Anyways, the basis of what I'm getting at is that you can always have the lightsaber wherever you go - other servers. Sure people won't be able to see it unless they have your PK3, but meh.

[BadWolf]

*Cracks Knuckles*

Alright, alright, the master is here, lol

First of all, woo Gmax, not sure of the process there as I have always used 3DS Max {Which as Aki stated it may or may not be free depending on who you ask}. My tutorial uses 3DS Max 10 if I recall, there I explain the basic process and run-down. Kudos on using Gmax lol

Simple solution to the 1000 verts problem: split your hilt into multiple objects; the vert limit only applies to single objects {i.e. the model behaves like layers: Model>Object1, Object2, Object3}. But as I have told Key and learned over the years, a saber hilt does not need a huge amount of detail, as the model itself is never seen at an expressly close distance {the game loads different versions of a model depending on view depth, so a model will be less detailed automatically the farther away it is {also because there is an unavoidable poly-count limit as well, you have to be careful of how much detail you add}}. So, really a large amount of detail is a waste, why make beauty if only you know it's there?

Yes, you must run a personal saber by jaw before it can be approved and added server-side {if your custom settings involve a longer than standard blade, it won't be added, etc...}, but there is a handy work-around I used to use way back: Model Replacement. The basic idea is to look at a base saber's name, name your model the same thing and save the .pk3 file as normal, the game will recognize the new model as a modded base saber and replace the model in-game {granted, only those with the client-side file will be able to see it, but it is the thought that counts {Also, this is purely visual, no custom settings are applied. {Also, also, anyone who uses the same hilt will be using the replaced model}}}.

It's nice to know I trained Key so well that he sort of beat me to all of this but I till wanted to put my 2 cents in

[Akimoto]

I havent had any problems with GMax as of yet, pretty straight forward (for us with wits, lol) however my issues are with JKA, saber can only have a max vertex limit of 1000.... wow.... finding it hard to make a saber that looks cool, with as few as 1000 vertex.... lol

Lies. Just make different parts of the saber without attaching them to eachother (i.e. make sure they are not 1 element).

EDIT:
Note to self: Read entire topic before replying.

[TacSmart]

Thanks for the help everyone! I really appreciate your time! I'll be trying new things now!

[Key]

...It's nice to know I trained Key so well that he sort of beat me to all of this but I till wanted to put my 2 cents in

He taught me how to forge lightsabers from my very own tears and sweat.

[TacSmart]

Okay, so I've hit a speedbump....

This is the error im getting:


Now, I've loaded a complete sabe rinto jka, so I know how to do this, but that one only had one .jpg to load in the .skin file...

Am I doing this wrong? line by line? how do I import a .skin into MD3View when the MD3 file has 5 images in it? Which by the way shows up correct in MD3View before loading a .skin. Also, my hilt in GMax, is correct, all parts are named the same thing... I'm a little stuck now.

[TacSmart]

mk so I learned to rename the images to "saber_1_grip" etc. however I am still getting the same issue.

[Key]

I've never made a weapon using a .skin file, so that's kinda new to me. Just out of curiosity, could you upload / send the PK3 with all the elements you used to create it?

[BadWolf]

Okay, so I've hit a speedbump....

This is the error im getting:


Now, I've loaded a complete sabe rinto jka, so I know how to do this, but that one only had one .jpg to load in the .skin file...

Am I doing this wrong? line by line? how do I import a .skin into MD3View when the MD3 file has 5 images in it? Which by the way shows up correct in MD3View before loading a .skin. Also, my hilt in GMax, is correct, all parts are named the same thing... I'm a little stuck now.

Well, first issue I see is the start of each line of code, the saber_1 bit is supposed to be what you named each part that the texture is supposed to be linked to, if you name it the same thing the program doesn't know where the textures go.

If you broke the model up into pieces to allow for multiple textures then you must link those textures to the part in question by name {i.e. hilt_grip would be linked to a part named hilt_grip {or h/e you want to name it}}

Usually a .skin file is not needed, as the process to compile the file usually auto-links it from the modeling program {or at least that is what it does for me when I use 3DS Max}