Basic Art Guide

[arch111]

8 hours ago, NovusNova said:

At the moment, its a no to any type of additions or alterations to the meshes for warframes.

Sad to hear it. I guess that is because someone must add it to the rig and check for clippings and add those bits into the uv-map and such?

I hope that this changes some day.

[arch111]

I JUST thought of a reverse question. 

Can parts be HIDDEN?  Say I want Embers leg guards gone,  do the code allow this?

[NightmareT12]

On 12/2/2017 at 8:49 PM, arch111 said:

I JUST thought of a reverse question. 

Can parts be HIDDEN?  Say I want Embers leg guards gone,  do the code allow this?

It's all in the same mesh, so nope.

The only separate parts are as of right now armor pieces.

[arch111]

37 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

It's all in the same mesh, so nope.

The only separate parts are as of right now armor pieces.

I am a bit confused about it.

Take Nekros helmets. They have 4 tendrils going to the body. On some helmets all 4 are there, but on some only 2.

Why is this not a case for bodies too?

[NightmareT12]

13 minutes ago, arch111 said:

I am a bit confused about it.

Take Nekros helmets. They have 4 tendrils going to the body. On some helmets all 4 are there, but on some only 2.

Why is this not a case for bodies too?

That's... actually a good question. Lemme fire up the TennoGen tool, maybe I can tell you? (unless Syncrasis ninjas me :P)

EDIT: Okay, so I loaded up Nekros in Tennogen and the tendrils tou say are on the helmet. That means that each helmet was modified accordingly to the number of tendrils.

Then those are rigged appropiately on the mesh so they don't skew out. That's actually pretty smart of them :D

Edited February 14, 2017 by NightmareT12

[arch111]

2 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

That's... actually a good question. Lemme fire up the TennoGen tool, maybe I can tell you? (unless Syncrasis ninjas me :P)

All Im saying Is I can load Embers FBX or OBJ into Maya and break up the Group and then delete a part, say her leg guards.

I then should be able to do a new Group, this time without the leg guards,  and create a second FBX.

I really don't see where the problem arises. The texturespace for the body is separate UVs from the legguards, so to separate the two should not be that hard to do.

But like I said, I am Probably missing something here.

[NightmareT12]

1 minute ago, arch111 said:

All Im saying Is I can load Embers FBX or OBJ into Maya and break up the Group and then delete a part, say her leg guards.

I then should be able to do a new Group, this time without the leg guards,  and create a second FBX.

I really don't see where the problem arises. The texturespace for the body is separate UVs from the legguards, so to separate the two should not be that hard to do.

But like I said, I am Probably missing something here.

Yeah, they add all the pieces onto a single file unless they're cloth parts. While what you're saying is technically possible, it would be annoying for them to work on I guess.

If you notice Primes are like that too: All the extra bits are fused into a single same mesh file. I guess the animations come out better for them like that, for they only need to work on a single piece.

[arch111]

1 minute ago, NightmareT12 said:

Yeah, they add all the pieces onto a single file unless they're cloth parts. While what you're saying is technically possible, it would be annoying for them to work on I guess.

If you notice Primes are like that too: All the extra bits are fused into a single same mesh file. I guess the animations come out better for them like that, for they only need to work on a single piece.

Actually, I JUST saw they did a toggle for the Prime parts. That means they either made two setups like I suggested above, or managed to isolate and hide the Primebits via code.

Regardless I am happy they went the extra mile after seing Steve saying it wouldn't happen :)

[NightmareT12]

Just now, arch111 said:

Actually, I JUST saw they did a toggle for the Prime parts. That means they either made two setups like I suggested above, or managed to isolate and hide the Primebits via code.

Regardless I am happy they went the extra mile after seing Steve saying it wouldn't happen :)

Actually I believe that if the toggle is on per Warframe they might have made it personal per Warframe to call to the other mesh. Because the way the game is structured, well.

We'll see tomorrow how it actually works though.

[[DE]Syncrasis]

Not counting Prime pieces, there are some pieces on Warframes that are separate geo from the main model, which can be one of two things:

1.  A separate piece already set up to swap out based on UI options, like Volt's armbands, which are removed when you add alternate shoulder armor, or choose to have not equipped at all. This already works for TennoGen skins.
2.  A piece that is separate for ease of baking/rigging/polygon optimization, like Ember's leg... thingies. These are considered part of the mesh, even though they are separate geo.

The second one is harder to deal with. Obligatory "the easier your piece is to add to the game, the more likely it is to be accepted." 
I will look into this along with the exhaustive list of theme-related questions I've gotten in the past week. Thanks!

[led2012WF]

Hello Syncrasis, congrats again. Any possibility of Tennogen Armorsets (probably with a guide on shoulder/leg bounds, on how it should wrap, mounting guides) . Have this been talked about by the art dept.?

[Sitchrea]

I know nothing about 3D sculpting, so all I heard was NEEEERRRRRD.

And I love it. Please do more posts like this, art team! I love learning nerdy art stuff like this.

[Novatico]

On 2/14/2017 at 6:32 PM, [DE]Syncrasis said:

Not counting Prime pieces, there are some pieces on Warframes that are separate geo from the main model, which can be one of two things:

1.  A separate piece already set up to swap out based on UI options, like Volt's armbands, which are removed when you add alternate shoulder armor, or choose to have not equipped at all. This already works for TennoGen skins.
2.  A piece that is separate for ease of baking/rigging/polygon optimization, like Ember's leg... thingies. These are considered part of the mesh, even though they are separate geo.

The second one is harder to deal with. Obligatory "the easier your piece is to add to the game, the more likely it is to be accepted." 
I will look into this along with the exhaustive list of theme-related questions I've gotten in the past week. Thanks!

Oh so it is possible for some frames, like say Valkyr for example people could make a different mesh for her gauntlets? I'm talking in the way that you mentioned easy parts to include, not anything that would require vigorous rigging due to adding too many different meshes to connect with the animation of the frame's skeleton.

Edited February 16, 2017 by Novatico

[S0ulCal1ber]

I know mesh editing on the frames themselves is a no go but what if said artist/creator was to do the rigging and animation themselves? would this still be a no go.

[[DE]Syncrasis]

On 2/16/2017 at 1:12 AM, Novatico said:

Oh so it is possible for some frames, like say Valkyr for example people could make a different mesh for her gauntlets? I'm talking in the way that you mentioned easy parts to include, not anything that would require vigorous rigging due to adding too many different meshes to connect with the animation of the frame's skeleton.

The question previous to this was asking if these meshes could be removed entirely. Not replaced. We won't accept new models for existing auxiliary slot items right now.

On 2/16/2017 at 8:06 PM, S0ulCal1ber said:

I know mesh editing on the frames themselves is a no go but what if said artist/creator was to do the rigging and animation themselves? would this still be a no go.

Still a no, unfortunately!

[[DE]Syncrasis]

On 2/6/2017 at 7:22 PM, [DE]Syncrasis said:

A few quick things to check before you upload to Steam:
-Make sure your default colors on the model you're submitting match those you are showing on your Workshop main images. These colors will be used as the default colors in-game and need to match.
-Double-check that you are not using Orokin colors in your submission. Metallic should not be gold, etc.
-Your lowpoly models should be scaled and positioned to match the vanilla Warframe bodies provided in downloads.
-Double-check that your lowpoly submission is within its triangle budget (it's easy to forget!)

Added a few pointers for uploading!

[NightmareT12]

26 minutes ago, [DE]Syncrasis said:

Added a few pointers for uploading!

I need to ask here: Why are you guys always afraid of making non-Prime items have gold in their metallics? Prime/Orokin items are distinctly different thanks to design itself. I mean, not even the DE Chroma skin gets to get default gold where it's supposed to...

I understand the whole item if it was white+black+gray+gold and all that, but...

Probably not for you to answer since you're the newest dev on the block, but it's a point I've been wanting to make for a long time :P

[Urlan]

4 minutes ago, NightmareT12 said:

I need to ask here: Why are you guys always afraid of making non-Prime items have gold in their metallics? Prime/Orokin items are distinctly different thanks to design itself. I mean, not even the DE Chroma skin gets to get default gold where it's supposed to...

I understand the whole item if it was white+black+gray+gold and all that, but...

Probably not for you to answer since you're the newest dev on the block, but it's a point I've been wanting to make for a long time :P

I couldn't say, but if I was creative for an oppressive Empire, I would be careful of having iconography or materials that were considered restricted to use for Elites in the culture. Gold might be considered such a substance in Orokin and Tenno style art. For the Kuva Grineer for example, the Queens would probably be displeased with some none Kuva Fortress Grineer using Kuva Braids or Kuva Blood Red on their armor. Overall though, I am sure DE has there own reasons.

On topic, good info on the guidelines.

[NightmareT12]

Just now, Urlan said:

I couldn't say, but if I was creative for an oppressive Empire, I would be careful of having iconography or materials that were considered restricted to use for Elites in the culture. Gold might be considered such a substance in Orokin and Tenno style art. For the Kuva Grineer for example, the Queens would probably be displeased with some none Kuva Fortress Grineer using Kuva Braids or Kuva Blood Red on their armor. Overall though, I am sure DE has there own reasons.

On topic, good info on the guidelines.

That is... not what I meant. What I tried to say is that it'd be ridicolous to design a skin, for example, which combines gold with other non Orokin colors, and then because they're noit Prime they just can't use gold. Maybe for TennoGen I'd have the extra eye on it, but when they decide to even have their own designs changed because of this... All the reasons I get from that is it's simply not Prime.

IDK, imagine I make a red+purple+light blue Syandana with metallics, which should be gold, but it cannot be done. It can be changed afterwards, true, but... well, I don't know, I guess I just find it a bit exaggerated.

 

*ahem* sorry for the mini derrailment.

[[DE]Syncrasis]

On 3/30/2017 at 6:41 PM, NightmareT12 said:

I need to ask here: Why are you guys always afraid of making non-Prime items have gold in their metallics? Prime/Orokin items are distinctly different thanks to design itself. I mean, not even the DE Chroma skin gets to get default gold where it's supposed to...

I understand the whole item if it was white+black+gray+gold and all that, but...

Probably not for you to answer since you're the newest dev on the block, but it's a point I've been wanting to make for a long time :P

Prime items are specifically decorated with gold to differentiate them from other items in the game. Gold coloration on the metallic tint(s) for base colors is a little too close to Prime, and we just want to keep those items special. 

This doesn't mean you can't change them to be Prime colors in the game, of course. Go crazy! We just don't want the default colors in the marketing images to be confused with Prime content.

[Stenchfury]

Does anyone knows how melee weapons model swaps are gonna work now?

Meaning: I see that the new tennogen sword can be used on any one handed sword; and so the Chroma's Dynasty big sword model can be used on various two handed weapons; does that mean that a Galatine or Jat Kittag Tennogen entry can be applied to War or Fragor for example? Or is that done only on request?

[RoboticEmpathy]

I need Clarification if I can create a model swap/skin for Fragor/Fragor prime;Thanks in advance.  

Edited June 15, 2017 by AlainGem

[-QUILL_PETER-]

The OP mentions to avoid lots of tiny details. Would fish scales be a bad move for a Tennogen piece?

[(PSN)DeerGodWrath]

@[DE]Syncrasis

 

Not sure if this is the exact place I should ask this question, but with the recent Windows 10 update, the app of 3-D Paint has been added, for free, to my computer, and most likely others with the same update. Tell me, would 3-D paint, which is capable of using these models (So far, I've succesfully imported Titania into the program) be an acceptable app to use with TennoGen?

[[DE]Syncrasis]

On 5/27/2017 at 10:16 AM, Stenchfury said:

Does anyone knows how melee weapons model swaps are gonna work now?

Meaning: I see that the new tennogen sword can be used on any one handed sword; and so the Chroma's Dynasty big sword model can be used on various two handed weapons; does that mean that a Galatine or Jat Kittag Tennogen entry can be applied to War or Fragor for example? Or is that done only on request?

Whenever possible, the skins will apply to weapons that share the same stances. But be careful not to lump similar items together... a Galatine (heavy blade) uses a different set of stances than a Fragor (hammer). Also keep in mind where the hands grip the weapons, and the length of the handles, as these are unchangeable and differ between stances. Check in the arsenal and in-game to be sure.

Dominion skin is applied to "heavy blades".

Edited October 3, 2017 by [DE]Syncrasis