Media Guidelines

From WorldForgeWiki

This is a collection of guidelines on how to best create and organize media. If you have any questions, please use the regular communication channels to ask questions.

1 License
2 Content Creation Systems (CCS) Modeling/Animation Package
3 File Formats and 3D Models
4 Number of Polygons:
5 Scale
6 Textures
7 Uploading
8 SVN - Wrangling The Art
9 Game Assets Directory Structure
10 Art Source Directory Structure
11 Testing
12 More info

License

All contributed media should be licensed under the GPL license. What does this mean? (artist retains copyright, (and thus also the option to release the art later under additional licenses), but the GPL licensed version remains open, and can be used and modified by others as long as they make their modifications available).

Content Creation Systems (CCS) Modeling/Animation Package

You can use whatever modeler you want. 3D artists that have contributed to WorldForge have used and are using Blender, XSI, Maya, among others.

File Formats and 3D Models

Include both the original 3D file (e.g. .blend) as well as the 3D model to be used in the game. The Blender files go to the art section http://purple.worldforge.org/repositories/svn/art/. Exported assets go to either c:/wf_trunk/3d_skeletons for animated character and their accessories. Static assets go into c:/wf_trunk/3d_objects.
Ember uses the Ogre format. You can export it from Blender, XSI, 3Ds Max, Maya, Milkshape and Houdini along with many others.
Sear uses the Cal3D format for characters. (Poorly supported)
3DS file format is OK for static objects when using Sear, but Ember cannot read it.
Preview your assets to make sure that they look okay by using the LexiViewer or Cegui Viewer.
Use Commandline Tools to convert xml and binary files for editing. Installing the tools should do the trick natively using MSDOS as long as the tools are in the Enviroment Path. Get the tools here.
Recommendation is installing cygwin and placing the binary files in /cygwin/usr/local/bin along with the dlls.

Number of Polygons:

2000 to 4000 triangles for characters.
400 - 900 triangles for items, depending on complexity.
UV Layout & Templates: UV layout should be 1 to 1.
For paintovers and reusable textures bake down the textures to the destination UV.

Scale

1 unit = 1 meter.
Human is 1.8 units in Blender3D (very very small).
Location of the human male http://purple.worldforge.org/svn/art/3d_skeletons/bipeds/male/models/malebase.blend

Textures

Texture sizes are to be at 1024 x 1024 pixels.
Images sizes are reduced and compress automatically by scripts upon delivery.
Image width and height need to be powers of two. For example, 1024x1024 and 2048x512 are both ok, but 1024x300 or 2048x1002 are not memory efficient. In addition older cards will not display the textures if they are authored in powers of twos.
Make optimal use of texture space in when laying out UVs. The current bottle neck in games are textures not polygons.
Maps needed for a complete asset are the following;
- Diffuse Map = name_of_asset/D.png
- Specularity Map = name_of_asset/S.png
- Normal Map with a Displacement Map in the alpha channel = name_of_asset/N.png
- Normal Maps are swizzled X+Y+Z+.

Uploading

For small contributions, post content to ftp.purple.worldforge.org/arrivals. Include a GPL license, a simple text file with your alias signature and a link to http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html. This makes everyone's lives simple.

SVN - Wrangling The Art

E-mail balinor a.k.a. Philip [balinor at pnxs.de] and request a login and password.
You may also go to irc.worldforge.org and join the media channel and request a login and password from balinor.
Download TortoiseSVN http://tortoisesvn.net/downloads.
Install TortoiseSVN and restart your system.
Create a directory where you want to check out the content to. C:/wf_trunk/. If you created this location elsewhere you will want to create a soft link using makelink.exe. http://www.codeproject.com/KB/winsdk/makelink.aspx. A binary file with install.bat is located here http://purple.worldforge.org/repositories/svn/resources/makelink/
After creating the wf_trunk directory, right click in the folder and check out SNV repository by clicking on the SVN Checkout... .
Fill out URL of repostiory: with "https://svn.worldforge.org:886/svn/media/trunk/". SVN will ask you for your login and password that was supplied by balinor. Download the files, downloading the files will take a while.

Game Assets Directory Structure

Use this directory structure.

c:\wf_trunk\3d_objects\tools\axe
                             \ax.material
                             \ax.mesh
                             \D.png
                             \N.png
                             \S.png

for templated textures use this structure.

c:\wf_trunk\3d_objects\tools\axe
                             \ax.material
                             \ax.mesh
c:\wf_trunk\3d_objects\tool\template_textures
                             \tool_handleD.png
                             \tool_headD.png

Art Source Directory Structure

Put all source art in to the art directory.

c:\wf_trunk\art\3d_objects\items\tools\models\axe
                                             \ax.max
                                             \tool_handle.psd
                                             \tool_head.psd

Testing

How to test out new media in a client?
Ember: TODO: Erik will write instructions, and link to them from here
Sear: Instructions exists here: http://worldforge.org/dev/eng/clients/sear/media TODO: move them to wiki