I need some roofing material

Hi,

Man, I just got sucked into this again last night. I've started making Act II of The Story of the Norj'Hal Elves, and the opening scene / first map is going to center around the Bahr'Tan temple. I'd like this temple to be closed-roof, but the underground dome is not sufficient for my purposes. I was hoping that, if I could specify the geometry and make the skins, someone here could create the 3D models.

The gemoetry is not that complex; I think it can be specified by a couple of functions f(x,y) if that would help you map it out in GMAX or whatever software you're using. The point is, it's not like I'm asking for something terribly intricate. I'll add intricacy in the skin, and by dressing it up with smaller doodads, when I make the map. There are four pieces I will need.

1.) A roof section to fit over a square arrangement of four Dalaran archways. Like the underground dome, this doodad model should be visible from the inside. The skin for this model should probably be no larger than 128 x 128, so that the level of detail in the roofing matches that in the pieces. Ideally, there would be four-fold symmetry in the way the skin is mapped to the model.

2.) The complement to model 1, visible from the outside. Note that the geometry can be identical, as I will merely make them both environment doodads and place one directly on top of the other so that it appears there is a single, solid roof section.

3.) (More complex than models 1/2) An octagonal roof section for the temple interior. The interior angles of this octagon are all 135 degrees, but the lengths of consecutive sides are 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, 3, 1, and 3 units, respectively. The middle section of the map can have whatever geometry you want, but it must somehow transition from the center to the sides so that the roof has the same curvature as the Dalaran arches where it meets with them. As with model 1, this model should be viewable from the inside. The skin should probably be 256 x 256 and again have four-fold symmetry, as the octagon is not perfectly regular. (EDIT: it would be nice if this central roof section of the temple put the central point of the roof three to four column hieghts above the floor; look at the center reflecting pool, and imagine I added one more layer of semicircular columns and then a bit more. That's how tall the temple should be overall.

4.) Same as model 3, but visible from the outside.

I've attached the basic map I'm working with; around the large temple at the map cetner will be numerous city buildings, and in the corners of the map there will be rolling, forested land. I'm planning to put a set of lanterns within the temple so as to light the place from the inside, and when the game gets going I'm planning to erect a sort of web of energy that flows amongst the columns (a barrier erected by the temple guards to keep their arch-nemesis of from getting inside).

Please let me know if this sounds like a project you could do!

(EDIT:) There will be a very nice cinematic using 0.1-second precision movements and lots of action, plus I'm going to actually have players running around inside the temple, for which I'm going to rig up a chase-cam. So, your work will be ooh'ed and ahh'ed in multiple ways. You will be mentioned on the opening credits to Act II; check out The Story of the Norj'Hal Elves, currently under review on the Map Submissions forum, if you want to see how my work turns out. Act I was my first map; I'm planning some significant improvements in terms of AI, cinematic precision, and plot developments in Act II.

You can make a model visible from both inside and out, you know.

Textures\Roof1.blp is the path. For the second one, are the length-three sides supposed to line up with the dalaran arches?

Did you personally make this? If so, how shall I credit you? If not, where did you get it from? I ask because it was an incredibly fast response. It looks beautiful, though!

Ask, and ye shall receive...

For the larger piece, yes, all sides of the roof, whether length 1 or 3, should fit snugly with the Dalaran arches.

I made it. I don't see how an arch with a length can fit under two different lengths.

It seems (based on the incredibly small file size) that the model uses some skin that's already present in the WC3 set of textures. Could you arrange two copies of the model, each taking a different custom skin? I like the skin you've chosen a lot; it's just that I'd like the outside to look a bit different from the inside. Hopefully this isn't too onerous.

The geometry for the octagon will have to be a bit more complicated, but hopefully not terribly so. The side that fits on three arches will need three bumps, the side that fits on one arch will need one. There is therefor a four-fold symmetry in the piece, not an eight-fold as there would be if it were a regular octagon.

How difficult would it be to make some walls, such as a piece to turn one of the Dalaran arches into a flat wall? The trick there would be to work the custom skin properly so I could make it look nice. Even better, I think, would be to have the piece bow outwards at the base. Think of the surface that would be created by revolving the Dalaran Arch about the Z-axis; It'd be like half a sphere sitting on top of a cylinder. Could you make a wall piece that has the geometry of one half that surface? That'd look really nice with the dome on top of the temple. Again, as you've done, the walls should be visible inside and out.

I will acknowledge you as "Guesst" in the credits, unless you prefer another name.

I downloaded the file, extracted the zip archive, imported the file into my map as "Roof1.mdx" and created a doodad based on that model (it automatically converts to Roof1.mdl in the doodad editor field).

I get a green and black checkered box and the warning that the file was not found.

Obviously, the model works because you were able to import and test it. What have I done wrong? Also, obviously, I'm not an experienced modeler. I'm far more expert in the map detail, structure, and intricacy category--it seems to be how I am on a lot of things.

He forgot to attach the texture.

I didn't make a texture meant to fit that; I just stuck on the one from this model so that it would work in the editor. I thought you said that you would make the skins ("if I could specify the geometry and make the skins"). If not, I can make one that actually fits. The UV map, which I forgot to post, is attached.

My hope was that you would do something like Ammorth did for me over on the Battle.net forums. He created copies of the Blue and Purple Dragonspawn models and created, by simple color swapping, different skins for each model. I added them to my campaign by placing the models in the directories he specified:

Units\Creeps\DragonspawnRed\DragonspawnRed.mdx
Units\Creeps\DragonspawnRed\Dragonspawn.blp
Units\Creeps\DragonspawnRed\DragonspawnExtras.blp
Units\Creeps\DragonspawnRed\DragonspawnRed_Portrait.mdx

It's obvious which ones are the skins and which ones are the models, and since the models link to custom skins I could, in theory (although I did not do it in this case) simply create my own texture and import it as Units\Creeps\DragonspawnRed\Dragonspawn.blp in order to specify my own skin.

So, this is what I was hoping you could do (I know you've done a good job, it's just that I'm not competent with modeling in order to do this myself). Perhaps I should give my copy of GMAX a go once more just for my own benefit; perhaps I will in the future. In the meantime, I'm not sure how a .gif of the UV map helps me to make the model work (I thought I recognized the Star Wars texture, though!).

Could you update your roofing material into a pair of models in the manner of the two I've attached, so that I can import them into my editor and then later modify the skins on my own? Thanks so much!

You’re way off in space, Picard. (Haha!) A UVMap is a wire frame of the texture. So take the UVMap, open Photoshop, draw all over the lines, save as TGA, convert to BLP, import to the path Textures\Roof1.blp” You’ll figure out how the lines link to the roof, then just make your own texture.

(On a side note it’s annoying that you give every post a title, it’s really only necessary to tile threads, not individual post :P)

E-Gad, Tim.! Sorry, no more titles on posts. I'll take famous titties from now on, and post as Sean Connery.

But, I see what he's doing with the UV map now--he's got the UV map in the model, and he's given me a stencil to draw my own on. That'll work.

Just so I can dock at the space port before beaming back down to the planet's surface, could I also open the .mdx with a text editor (say, emacs, or notepad) and edit the string Textures/roof1.blp to be the name of some other .blp file? I hope that wouldn't mess up the model...

If you mean mdl then yes. The mdx is a warcraft-friendly file....not text-friendly.

How's this skin? It'll match the UV map, but I sure hope that it doesn't have to be exactly 411 by 410 pixels. This is a 256x256 .tga. It incorporates elements of the Norj'Hal lore; excellent for a frieze on the ceiling of the Bahr'Tan temple.

Yes, it needs to be 256x256. Let us see a screenshot of that texture on the model :).