Zmodeler questions

[RestingVermin]

So now that I have gotten into some modeling. I thought I'd open a topic where I post what questions I have.

So my first question is. I've done polygons on one side of the model so is there anyway to ''copy-paste'' it so the other side is the exact same? If so please tell me

2. What do I do with the surface grid? Just delete it or move it? (I don't know how)

[itchboy]

Take the entire 'object' of polygons, and make a copy. Then mirror it on the axis to the other side. Attach the copy to the original, and go into vertice edit mode and start welding.

Surface grid is the 'beginning' as explained in my tutorial about modelling from scratch. It aint done yet due to me being unable to sit down and spend the needed one week to finish the model + tut.

 

[RestingVermin]

7 hours ago, itchboy said:

Take the entire 'object' of polygons, and make a copy. Then mirror it on the axis to the other side. Attach the copy to the original, and go into vertice edit mode and start welding.

Surface grid is the 'beginning' as explained in my tutorial about modelling from scratch. It aint done yet due to me being unable to sit down and spend the needed one week to finish the model + tut.

 

oh ok thanks!

Did I do the surface wrong here?   Never mind I did. Can I fix that without deleting the polygons?

http://www.emergency-planet.com/uploads/monthly_2016_06/576e419be9294_bandicam2016-06-2510-31-48-044.jpg.1dc13635dfe0c7920761d84e388180f3.jpg

[itchboy]

In that particular context, you dont need a grid anymore. You already have the side of the truck modelled out. All you need to do is finish modelling the wheel arches, the panels, and aligning the vertices that need to be straightened out. Your initial 2D mesh is complete when you get to that point.

Making it 3D is a whole other process, and you will need to do a lot of trial and error and moving around with the camera to get it right. Fire engines like that rescue rig tend to be easier builds in my experience, due to them being flat. The best step is to model the cab first, and do the rear box body last, and make sure both are separately modelled, but attached together in the final product.

[RestingVermin]

11 minutes ago, itchboy said:

In that particular context, you dont need a grid anymore. You already have the side of the truck modelled out. All you need to do is finish modelling the wheel arches, the panels, and aligning the vertices that need to be straightened out. Your initial 2D mesh is complete when you get to that point.

Making it 3D is a whole other process, and you will need to do a lot of trial and error and moving around with the camera to get it right. Fire engines like that rescue rig tend to be easier builds in my experience, due to them being flat. The best step is to model the cab first, and do the rear box body last, and make sure both are separately modelled, but attached together in the final product.

Oh ok thank you very much. Does is matter if some panels overlay each other?

 

I believe that I'm done with the side at this point and move on to the front and back. It's about 250 vertex's.

http://www.emergency-planet.com/uploads/monthly_2016_06/576e5d842582e_bandicam2016-06-2512-27-36-517.jpg.ad211ddb7feaf26c0f6a4ffeacd16614.jpg

[itchboy]

The general rule is that all verts must be connected to each other. In the one you've done so far, a lotta loose ends exist on the object so Id recommend building more polygons to fill the gaps in. See my tutorial for an example on how the verts are linked together. If you leave some unattached (or floating as I call it) they stick out and leave gaps in the model when it is extruded into 3D.

The main count for modelling is polygons. Verts matter as well but not as much as polycounts. For now, what you have is reasonable, for what it needs to be. From an unrelated separate tutorial, here is what a fully contigouous one looks like.

[RestingVermin]

What's the limit for polys for em4? And how many do you usually do itchboy?

[MikeyPI]

There is not really a "defined" limit for the game, it more is a compounding issue.  If every vehicle on the map has 5,000 polygons and there are 10 vehicles that's 50,000 polygons rendered at that time.  As such keeping the models as light as possible helps keep the performance load reduced greatly compared to building things that are really detailed but also very heavy.  For un-common (unique) vehicles which will only have 1 or 2 instances called of them on the map you can have a higher limit, but for things which are quite often used in multiples (like police cars) keeping them light really matters.  Remember everything is loaded on the map, from buildings, to scenery, to traffic, and your units themselves so keeping them light where possible is what matters.  Most of mine average in around 5,000 polygons all-in (equipment on the thing, wheels etc) but if it can be done lighter it's all the better since it takes less resources to load a lighter model.  Doing models with 15k+ polygons is generally a bad idea since when they're all in use it will cause a serious performance hit.  The original vehicles were around 1200 polygons to 1500 polygons so in comparison 5k is a very large jump.

EM does not use a "draw distance" like many other games do (like gta) which lets them have much higher polygonal limits since they're only rendering a short distance away from you, not to mention you're also right up on top of the vehicle when playing that game.  In EM4 since its a "bird's eye" game you're not on top of the vehicles and unfortunately it does not use draw distance so everything is rendered even if it isnt visible in your viewport.  A poor design choice but it's how it was done, as such you don't want to make the mistake of trying to create things which are really over the top on detail and instead focus on making them look good while being as lightweight as possible.  Due to how the game handles things performance takes a hit pretty fast if you overdo things.  Be it lighting or models, anything rendered consumes resources so being as "tight" with the things you do as possible saves performance for actual gameplay and lowers the risk of people CTD'ing for lack of resources which thanks to this game's memory bleed is a real issue.

[RestingVermin]

oh wow that is a lot of helpfull info! Thank you very much!

[RestingVermin]

When I highlight an area to  extrude it works but I can't ''un-highlight it''

2. I also did the left side on the right side window on zmodeler. How do I fix that so it is correct?

[MikeyPI]

1). Press and hold CTRL and use the RMB to de-select things... If selection mode is on sometimes it interferes with actions so you may have to disable SEL mode to deselect some things. Annoying but a thing that does happen.

2).Not a very clear question but i'm guessing what you're saying is you built the part but it's faces are facing the opposite direction.  In poly edit mode select the polys in question, make sure selected mode is on and use the Modify>Flip function.  This will flip the faces to face the opposite direction.  If you mean it's physically built in the wrong side/place, that is done by using the mirror function to invert the object (very similar to how you clone half and use mirror to flip it's component so it's facing the opposite way) Once it is mirrored it still has to have the flip function applied since it will appear inside-out.

[RestingVermin]

2 minutes ago, MikeyPI said:

1). Press and hold CTRL and use the RMB to de-select things... If selection mode is on sometimes it interferes with actions so you may have to disable SEL mode to deselect some things. Annoying but a thing that does happen.

2).Not a very clear question but i'm guessing what you're saying is you built the part but it's faces are facing the opposite direction.  In poly edit mode select the polys in question, make sure selected mode is on and use the Modify>Flip function.  This will flip the faces to face the opposite direction.  If you mean it's physically built in the wrong side/place, that is done by using the mirror function to invert the object (very similar to how you clone half and use mirror to flip it's component so it's facing the opposite way) Once it is mirrored it still has to have the flip function applied since it will appear inside-out.

If you see on this picture. The smaller model (from the brooklyn mod) is the other way around while mine is the opposite. How do I do that. I tried the above but it din't work.

[MikeyPI]

Dont worry about it facing the wrong way (yet) since you opted to build it facing the opposite way isnt a big deal. Often times when I build things the pictures I use will face different ways so they end up the same way.  What I do is build them as I started them, then once it is done I will typically go into the top-down view of the vehicle and simply rotate it  180 degrees on X and Y I think it is, you can do the same earlier but imo and my experience it isnt worth worrying about until it's done since you're literally only rotating it around in orientation instead of flipping or mirroring it, it won't hurt the vehicle any in doing it later.  Orientation is something like scaling that you worry about at the end of the project, not so much at the beginning of it.

[RestingVermin]

Oh ok thanks!

 

Back to the first question I had about how to ''copy-paste''  it to the other side. I don't know how to copy the whole thing. I have highlighted all the polys but how do I do from here?

[MikeyPI]

In Object mode (where it's one solid object) select the object you want to clone; Create<Copy. Once a copy has been created of the thing you then want to use modify>Mirror on the front view of the vehicle on the X axis only (this will flip the model so that it is the opposite way, then use the modify>flip function to re-orient the polygon faces to face the proper way out.  Align the two halves and merge them together using modify>Attach, attach the vertices of the two halves together. 

[RestingVermin]

Thank you!

 

How do I lean the front a bit on the upper part? I know I have to select the part but I cant figure out how to ''lean'' it

[itchboy]

Go into vertice mode, and select the red dots. Move them around until they lean and align onto the side surface you made.

[MikeyPI]

As Itch described, but I see a problem already for you.  Eventually you will have to "merge" the front to the side view, so it's vital that the vert/poly lines line-up, meaning the same nr on the side as on the front view.. Otherwise you have to "merge" them together and try to link them together which can get messy and make for a model that won't blend well when the normals calculate. it appears you have 4 or 5 faces on the side view of the cab (not counting the bumper) and 10 faces on the front view of the model, so obviously they won't link up cleanly so you want to ensure they have the same number of face sets (I use faces to symbolize a quadrant (2 polygons made into a square).

I'd go through and merge them so that you have the same number on the side to the front so they can easily be linked together when that time comes.  Just a tip for future use; In the case of many trucks/engines the bumper "floats" and is not attached to the truck it's self.  If that is the case do not model it as part of the cab model but create the space for it and float the bumper in place as a separate model piece.  Both Itch and myself do this often times since most bumpers float to the chassis rails on the real things and it's more cost-effective to model the bumper separate with an indent on the cab where it would go.  In this game because of how the view is nobody will notice that "gap" that is present where the two pieces are separate since it's not like GTA where you're up on top the vehicle.  It makes life much easier modeling it since you can work the bumper as a sep part rather than having to try to figure out how to directly link it to the cab.

[RestingVermin]

21 hours ago, MikeyPI said:

As Itch described, but I see a problem already for you.  Eventually you will have to "merge" the front to the side view, so it's vital that the vert/poly lines line-up, meaning the same nr on the side as on the front view.. Otherwise you have to "merge" them together and try to link them together which can get messy and make for a model that won't blend well when the normals calculate. it appears you have 4 or 5 faces on the side view of the cab (not counting the bumper) and 10 faces on the front view of the model, so obviously they won't link up cleanly so you want to ensure they have the same number of face sets (I use faces to symbolize a quadrant (2 polygons made into a square).

I'd go through and merge them so that you have the same number on the side to the front so they can easily be linked together when that time comes.  Just a tip for future use; In the case of many trucks/engines the bumper "floats" and is not attached to the truck it's self.  If that is the case do not model it as part of the cab model but create the space for it and float the bumper in place as a separate model piece.  Both Itch and myself do this often times since most bumpers float to the chassis rails on the real things and it's more cost-effective to model the bumper separate with an indent on the cab where it would go.  In this game because of how the view is nobody will notice that "gap" that is present where the two pieces are separate since it's not like GTA where you're up on top the vehicle.  It makes life much easier modeling it since you can work the bumper as a sep part rather than having to try to figure out how to directly link it to the cab.

Currently got that fixed. Got another problem. When I extrude something it wont show up in the 3D view. It will only show ''inside'' the model and not that I've done anything on the ''outside''.

[MikeyPI]

Not quite sure what you mean, other than perhaps you're saying you're too far zoomed in, use the mouse wheel to zoom out and you should be back on the outside of the model it's self.  Your vehicle scale is probably too large for your current zoom in the 3d view.

[RestingVermin]

Now that I've gotten into the UV-Mapping of things the ''skin'' (Just using an example) get's where I've not selected it to be. Any fix for this?

[MikeyPI]

Z2's UV map system really does suck badly in my view.  One of it's flaws is how UV is applied, what you're experiencing is a fundamental reason I dislike the UV system.  When you're selecting vertices try selecting one row less than what you've got now so that when it highlights the area to be effected (the part shown in red) only the portions you want to work with are highlighted.  I don't use z2 for uv mapping because I hate it so much so itch can go into further detail if what I've said doesnt quite do it for you; he uses z2 to do his uv mapping so he is far more accustomed to it's annoying traits.  Another tip model the doors into the model as it is now, just the portion that is visible to the outside so that they may be mapped along with the bodywork so the seams line up perfectly.. After it has been uv'd on the outside as it needs to be then you'll go back later and clone it as a separate part, removing it from the bodywork and then worrying about the inside of the door model.  Saves a good bit of a headache in trying to line everything up on the texture map by just doing it as one on that particular task.

[RestingVermin]

9 hours ago, MikeyPI said:

Z2's UV map system really does suck badly in my view.  One of it's flaws is how UV is applied, what you're experiencing is a fundamental reason I dislike the UV system.  When you're selecting vertices try selecting one row less than what you've got now so that when it highlights the area to be effected (the part shown in red) only the portions you want to work with are highlighted.  I don't use z2 for uv mapping because I hate it so much so itch can go into further detail if what I've said doesnt quite do it for you; he uses z2 to do his uv mapping so he is far more accustomed to it's annoying traits.  Another tip model the doors into the model as it is now, just the portion that is visible to the outside so that they may be mapped along with the bodywork so the seams line up perfectly.. After it has been uv'd on the outside as it needs to be then you'll go back later and clone it as a separate part, removing it from the bodywork and then worrying about the inside of the door model.  Saves a good bit of a headache in trying to line everything up on the texture map by just doing it as one on that particular task.

Ahh ok got it. What program do you use to UV mapping?

[itchboy]

Mike uses Zmodeler 1. Uses a similar system as Z2, cept Z2's is a lot buggier and lacks some features you may need in certain specific situations.

Tbh, your best bet is to use Zmodeler 2, despite its many flaws. You are already familiar and comfortable using it, so it would be a waste of time trying to relearn all the minor details again.

Ive been using Zm2 just fine now for 3 years. Everyone has preferences. Someone who uses Blender will have a negative opinion of all Zmodeler versions, while someone used to 3dsmax would not be comfortable using anything else. Choose the one you are most comfortable in and stick with it.

[RestingVermin]

So I did everything that you're tutorial said Itch but some of the body won't show in the UV mapping view. ( and no that is not the skin  )