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          <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">- <a href="../index.html">Contents</a><br>
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              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC">volume 
                1, issue 30</font></b></font></p>
              <p><font color="#0000FF"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0000CC"> 
                </font></b></font></p>
              <p>  <p><font face="Courier New, Courier, mono"><b><font color="#339900" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Today 
                in loonygames:</font></b></font></p>

<P><font color="#000000" face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-1">New!!</font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2"> The Archives have been cleaned up, fead links fixed, and printable versions restored! Also, don't miss the new comments <a href="../../../index.html">on the front page</a>!</font></p>
              
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        <p align="LEFT"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" color="#0022A8"><b><a target="" href="../../corner/index.html"><font size="-1">Thinking 
          Outside the Box</font></a><font size="-1">:</font></b></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="+3" color="#0022A8"><br>
          Character Studio <font size="+2">(part 2)</font></font></p>
        <p align="right"><font color="#804000"><b><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">By 
          Paul &quot;<a target="_self" href="mailto:paul@loonygames.com">Villam</a>&quot; 
          Steed</font></b></font></p>
        <p align="right">&nbsp; </p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Moving on. I work almost 
          exclusively in one window. I’m continually selecting the model, hitting 
          ‘p’ and clicking ‘zoom extents’, hitting ‘z’ to zoom in and then ctrl 
          ‘r’ to rotate. Now don’t ding me for my hotkey selection. I’m in the 
          process of getting a dial-in Logitech mouse and the marking menu plugin 
          for Max. Just bear with me.</font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">So now we need to assign 
          the Physique modifier to our mesh and link or ‘initialize’ it to our 
          biped. However, don’t just select all your geometry and link it to the 
          biped in any old fashion. Here’s how I do it. Starting with the head 
          pieces I select all the geometry and assign Physique to them from my 
          Modify command panel. After I’ve done that I click on the little ‘Attach 
          to Node’ icon…</font></p>
        <p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="images/doom206.jpg" width="130" height="100"></font></p>
        <p> <font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">…and click on the head of 
          the biped. This brings up the following dialog box…</font></p>
        <p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="images/doom207.jpg" width="371" height="400"></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Now turn ‘Vertex – Link Assignment’ 

          to ‘Rigid’, change ‘Blending Between Links’ to ‘No Blending’ (click 
          on the arrow), and uncheck the ‘Create Envelopes’ box. Now hit ‘Initialize’.</font></p>
        <p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="images/doom208.jpg" width="368" height="400"></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Doing this is specific to 
          setting a character up for importing to Q3:A since the head has no unique 
          animations other than it’s there on top of the model where a head should 
          be. Thusly, we make it rigid and link it to the head only since we don’t 
          want it deforming extraneously (wouldn’t be picked up by the program 
          anyway). Here’s how it looks with the Physique modifier attached to 
          the head…</font></p>
        <p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="images/doom209.jpg" width="193" height="400"></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">That little yellow line that 
          runs from the neck to the head is referred to as the ‘link’. This ‘stick 
          man’ representation is pretty damn useful. Before we go on, let me go 
          ahead and jump track a bit and clarify how your characters have to be 
          structured and their geometry named to be assimilated into an md3 format 
          using the methods and tools I use. To explain this tag system, naming 
          conventions and breakdown of the models sub-structuring, look at the 
          following exploded view of the model…</font></p>
        <p align="center"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif"><img src="images/doom210.jpg" width="358" height="400"></font></p>
        <p><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">Particularly note the naming 
          conventions. This is very important. The head objects (h_helmet, h_faceplate), 
          upper body objects (u_torso, u_larm, u_rarm) and lower body objects 
          (l_legs) have to be identified using exact naming conventions. Think 
          of them as completely separated models that happen to travel around 
          in the same general location (thus appearing to be a complete character) 
          lumped into a sub-class simply by the first letter of their respective 
          names. Note the faceplate of the helmet is detached because material 
          or shader assignment/attributes also dictates the structure of your 
          model. In this case the faceplate has been assigned an environment map 
          shader that is different than the default shaders generated by the grabber 
          code and requires special parameters.</font></p>
        <p align="LEFT">&nbsp;</p>
        <p align="right"><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif">(<a href="index3.php">Continued 
          on next page</a>)</font></p>
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      <p><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"> </font></i><i><font face="Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="-2"><b>Credits:</b> 
        Thinking Outside the Box logo illustrated and is &copy; 1999 Dan Zalkus. 
        Thinking Outside the Box is &copy; 1999 Paul Steed. All other content 
        is &copy; 1999 <a target="_self" href="http://www.loonyboi.com">loonyboi 
        productions</a>. Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited, so 
        don't even try it. We've got really big guns, and we're ripped, baby.</font></i></p>
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