Project Armour_war

24/02-09 The last piece and finishing the project

2009-02-24T09:40:00.000-08:00

~~ 10 hours + ~~
This is the last piece i'll write, as my project is finished.
These 10 hours (+) has been used during the last three days last week and has been spent on finishing the playable map and trying, desperately, to export objects to bf2, but it doesn't work, the way they tell you in the manual, and of course to finishing the body.
Now, towards the end of my project, I must say I'm quite comforatble with how it turned out; I've finished my objects and my map and I am near to exporting them to bf2.

18/02-09

2009-02-18T06:46:00.000-08:00

~~1 hour~~

I didn't have the time I wanted to have today... But atleast I made my map work in bf2. I had to make a new one becaue the last one had some bug that made it unwilling to start up. here's a screenshot:

(NOTE that this is not the final version and not even resembling it; it was just to show that I can play it in bf2)

p.S I have almost the lowest quality on graphics setup as it's harder to play the game online when you have full graphics.

17/02-09

2009-02-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

~~ 2 hours ~~
The bfeditor.org site has been temporarily closed, so I can't continue with the animations right now, but instead I've started making the map:
Note that this is all done in bf2editor

12/02-09

2009-02-12T07:47:00.000-08:00

~~ 4 hours ~~
So today I've downloaded autodesk 3dsmax and I've begun this tutorial http://bfeditor.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11113&pid=78368&mode=threaded&start=#entry78368 to get the animation of a gun and then, later, the character.
I've realized through the tutorial that need a converter that can convert from ".3ds" to ".max".
Other than that I've finished the gun and I've made some small improvements on the character.

11/02-09

2009-02-11T08:53:00.000-08:00

~~ 3 hours ~~

S I've finished the leg and foot AND head. That's really much work done in very little time.

Now, nearer the end, I notice that the soldier looks more like the original sketch and less like the line-chart:

11/02-09

2009-02-11T02:01:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~
finished the leg. Going to make the foot later today and start with the head.
I'm waiting with the hand as I'm nt quite sure how the animation skelleton's hand is built.

10/02-09

2009-02-10T00:26:00.000-08:00

~~2.5 hours~~

finished the arm and started with the leg:

06/02-09

2009-02-05T22:48:00.000-08:00

~~1.5 hours~~

Couldn't get up at 5.20 today, I was too tired, but I still got many things done. And I had to remake the upper arm as the file hadn't saved itself

01/02-09

2009-02-01T05:24:00.000-08:00

~~3 hours~~

Still can't download 3ds autodesk and I still haven't got any registration email even though I've reasked for it 3 times.

Also made some new stuff:

30/01-09

2009-01-29T23:12:00.000-08:00

~~2.5 hours~~
So today I've done many things:
* I've finished the "kevlar"
*I've assembled the officer gun
*I've made a trigger for the gun
* I've checked forums about animation and found this one that will help me with adding my objects to the animation skeleton:http://bfeditor.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11113&pid=78368&mode=threaded&start=#entry78368
*i've registered to autodesk, but I haven't got the confirmation email yet even though I've waited two hours...
*Finally: I've achieved one of the biggest goals in my project: I've come up with the best way for me to use Blender and work with it and I've become so good at it that I do it with a certainly good amount of speed.
So I've noticed today that adding half an hour to the working time have increased my stuff-done-per-hour-rate to almost the double, I've never been able to do this much on the same 2.5 hours before, so I think I'll keep it up, going up 05.20 every morning I work with the project.

Other news: By this link http://bfeditor.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=11113&pid=78368&mode=threaded&start=#entry78368 I now have the future ability toadd my objects to an animation; I've downloaded a package called "rexman's bf2" or something, which includes all the animations from bf2. Through my tutor I can now access autodesk (3ds) and I don't need to download any converter anymore as in blender you can export your files as 3dsfiles.

Here is some pictures:

26/01-09 Finishing body... animation

2009-01-25T22:56:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

I'm making the upper protective kevlar around the head.

Further on I have looked up more details about animating and I've come to the knowledge, with http://bfeditor.org/forums as source, that making new "3P animations" is hundreds of hours pure programming and whatnot, which basically means, as the source says, that I'll have to import the already done "skeleton" from bf2, which in turns mean I'll have to use 3ds. And as a strike from heaven my tutor almost seemed to have forseen this, as he have given me a private link that I, as a student in our school, can download a 3ds trial, featuring a great part of the program, from.

23/01-09

2009-01-22T22:14:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

Finished the hip plate and also made another plate covering a little of the leg which have been the least problematical part as of yet.

18/01-09

2009-01-17T22:08:00.000-08:00

~~1 hour~~
started making the hip plate

15/01-09

2009-01-14T22:28:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

Made the secondary plate, or rather, the lower plate:

14/01-09 another add

2009-01-14T11:36:00.000-08:00

~~4 hours~~
So I've made two new things: first off, I finished the first armour plate, secondly I've made a new piece which is the one going around the hole body:

14/01-09

2009-01-13T22:47:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

Finished the ventilation system and started making the first armour plate that is connected to the ventilation:

13/01-09

2009-01-13T11:33:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

Started to make the "vent" or rather, the gasmask that are attached to the armour in form of a long pipe on the stomache. Also noticed that the singleverticleway I used to make the mask somehow made a big problem occur that isn't supposed to happen which is the faces screwing themselves around eachother in some pecculiar way.

11/01-09

2009-01-11T07:28:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

So I've started making the face mask and I'm doing it in a different way: I do all the verticles all by themselves instead from directly from a cube:

09/01-09

2009-01-08T23:17:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

Started making the new version of the warrior. Have made the head and started on the helmet:

07/01-09

2009-01-07T10:21:00.000-08:00

~~5.5 hours~~

Finally finished the flyer. Now it's just the details and putting it in game left. And, of course, in a not too distant future if I use my time well, animations and sounds for it.

So today I made the rocket engine/outtakesystem at the back and actually I did it twice, because the first one didn't want to be saved as a file before the application shut down.

Here it is:

05/01-09

2009-01-07T10:16:00.000-08:00

~~5 hours~~

Made the rear shield and put it on the full body:

04/01-09 New stuff

2009-01-04T09:09:00.000-08:00

~~6 hours~~
So today I made the seat and the windshield/glass for the flyer and started putting things together. Now it's just the motor and the shield in the rear left:

18/12-08 Big add

2008-12-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~

so I've made a new attempt at the flyer where I have subdivided it into smaller parts to make materials, just like the gun:

11/12-08 small add

2008-12-10T23:40:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~
Just made some small parts for the gun, nothing big

04/12-08 Much better with textures!!!

2008-12-03T23:46:00.000-08:00

~~3 hours~~

This is it, I've learned how to use both shade, color AND textures to make my model more dynamic! Now I can finish my models much easier! Here's an example for the gun I've been working with's body:

03/12-08

2008-12-03T21:53:00.000-08:00

~~1 hour~~

I spent some time making my first weapon for the game and using shade and color tools to make speccial lighteffects.

So these are some screenshots at when I'm working with the "barrel" containing the bullets, the last picture just being experimental to show how different lighteffects can make the object look better.

13/11-08 textures

2008-11-13T00:13:00.000-08:00

~~2 hours~~
So I've edited the flyer a bit, but most of the time I tried making a texture/skin for the flyer that I can paint on it.

16/11-08 Have worked hard

2008-11-05T23:20:00.000-08:00

~~10 hours~~

well, I didn't post during last week as i wasn't sure when I'd post. here it comes, what I've been working on:

I started out by modeling my first mapped up character, but came to the knowledge that it was hard and that i'll have to do the bodypart separate (at least I think so) so I started working on my first flying machine. This is what have come out(pictures in order of working-state):

27/10-08 Real hard work

2008-10-27T07:30:00.000-07:00

~~~5 hours~~

As the title said, it's getting tough. Today I've started making my first model in blender and this is how far I've come:

I've started to make the lines for it:

And i've started modelling:

24/10-08 Getting almost ready for the real stuff

2008-10-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

~~2 hours~~

So, I've worked 28 hours as today on the project and I'm almost ready to start making my characters.

I'm about to go on to the tutorial where I learn how to make my characters from picturemapping, I'll just have to finish up some of my soldiers in 4 views. I've tried to upload a video too so that you could have a watch of how blender works, but it won't upload properly, I'll haveto retry during the holidays next week.

23/10-08 small add

2008-10-23T02:01:00.000-07:00

keep on moving!

23/10-08 objects

2008-10-22T23:33:00.000-07:00

~~1 hour~~

My first completely self-build object in blender: it's a hat!

17/10-08 going somewhere

2008-10-17T04:23:00.000-07:00

~~3 hours~~

Okay, so today I finished the part of the tutorial about creating a basic body and i've used my newfound knowledge to start creating my first head.

At the timebeing it's quite rough, but soon i'll make it more complex:

16/10-08 Sketches

2008-10-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

~~1 hour~~

Made these sketches for upcoming 3Dmodeling:

16/10-08 Learningcurve charging away

2008-10-15T23:58:00.000-07:00

~2 hours~

Today i've kept on with the blender tutorial, and I'm starting to get the hang of it.

14/10-08 Blender - the best of choice

2008-10-13T23:12:00.000-07:00

~~1 hour~~
So today I've finally chosen and it will be blender. there is a wikitutorial which is pretty basic as of far and easy to follow. Plus they repeat keywords over and over so they'll stick.
Reason I've converted to blender is that there are more choices of what to do. I haven't come to the bit where I can go down in detail and be exact and delicate with the procedure, but the way the tutorial rolls on I'll bet the learningcurve is shorter than gmax's.

13/10-08 struggling on

2008-10-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

~~2 hours of work~~
I have come to the conclusion that I will stick to gmax as Blender has a too vivid learningcurve for me to focus on now when i've come so far on gmax's.
This is what i'd like to say. but it won't be what I say. I say i'll go over to blender as the potentials of gmax isn't enough.
But I'm not giving up on it already, i'll try making a head of a soldier in gmax. if I can do that, i'll continue with gmax, otherwise I'll have to restart from zero.

13/10-08

2008-10-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

~~ 2 hours~~
A week ago a friend told me about this other free 3d-modelling program called "blender" so I've checked it out and it can take much better graphics... But I'm not totally sure I'm going to change from gmax to it because, as of yet, I don't seem to get the grip of how you work in it and do something detailed without makig it unstable so to put it.
Otherwise if I change to blender, it has many positive changes compared to gmax:
*It's easier (some say at least)
*better graphics
Besides, gmax is to be "discontinued" so I'll probably have to change anyways, which is bad as I've worked quite some hours with gmax, but as long as blender is easy enough I'll make up for the loss of time

10/10 -08 And then he created birds and stuff...

2008-10-10T01:15:00.000-07:00

~~3 hours of work~~

Hello, here's another update:

Today i've learned how to use "extrude polygons" which basically means I can make new polygons and from the body "pull out" the wing.

It's quite fascinating but pretty hard to follow the tutorial as He uses some kind of grid that makes t easier for him to follow the polygons and he never mentioned ,what I saw at least, how you get this grid.

26/09-08 small add4

2008-09-26T08:11:00.000-07:00

~~1.5 hours~~
made some small changes on my plane model

25/09-08 small add3

2008-09-26T08:10:00.000-07:00

~~2 hours~~
improved some more at gmax by learning to go more into details.

23/09-08small add2

2008-09-22T22:49:00.000-07:00

~~2 hours of work~~

followed the gmax tutorial and improved my skills in modelling

22/09-08 small add1

2008-09-22T10:41:00.000-07:00

~~2 hours of work~~

titles featuring the "small add" means that there's nothing to mention really, when no new progress or new problem have occured. I'll post some of these here and there.
worked with learning the gmax tools

11-09-08 And then there were objects...

2008-09-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

~~1.5 hours of work~~

Hi again.

So today I started working with gmax for the first time. I found a tutorial (http://www.simviation.com/gryphon/tutorials/gMax_00.htm) Which can help me in my learning course. I've already tried it a bit and it seems to work quite well! The text on the tutorial is hard to understand sometimes but all I have to do is read it again to understand it.

I started out by making a random box in 3D, which I then shaped in different ways through the tutorial's learning course (in the tutorial they're making an airplane, but as I'm making some kind of veichle for my test in gmax it's working without me following it totally) and I've learned quite some techniques during these few hour and a half.

In gmax, I came to understand from the tutorial, you can add a bitmap(a picture) directly to work from so I can easily put in a sketch of an object, so I'll do detailsketches of some objects til next time I use gmax for other things than learning.

Here's a screenshot from the gmax tools:

04/09-08 In the beginning there was none

2008-09-03T22:52:00.000-07:00

~~1 hour of working~~

Hi, this morning I've done my first hour of working.
After carefully looking into the object editor in Bf2wditor i noticed from tutorials that i needed the program Maya to make objects (Maya is used for the same as all so popular 3dmax).
I went to different forum to look it up and found on a swedish bf2forum that Maya ain't for free. Now If it wasn't too much money I'd bought it, but it cost almost the same as 3dmax (= killing-my-purse-softly) and that I couldn't afford so therefor i wanted something else that could work with the editor. then I found on the same site(lucky me) an editor with a functioning freeversion called gmax. I also found a free-version of Maya but I thought I'd try gmax as you can't save in the free-version-maya.
I installed gmax and strted the appl. for the first time but it needed a registration code so I got myself one, but somehow it wouldn't just copy and past so I'll have to get a new one next time I work.

That's all for this time. I hope my situation improves til next time