Hi I am very new to milkshape and I just started it, I've learned how to make animations trough joints and etc...(Altough I need to learn more about that) Anyway my question is how do I skin a model? Like making a skin.tga? I am trying to make a model for Sauerbraten but I don't know how to make a skin.tga for the model, I need to do so in order to texture the model Thanks in advance.

Isn't TGA just a format simialr to others like PNG, and can be created with image programs, GIMP etc.
I own Milkshape but I don't know what image formats it supports off the top of my head.


"Sauerbraten"
Does that mean sour sausage?

Hey there, .tga is indeed an image format like .bmp, or .pcx, .jpg...etc. MS3D supports a lot of formats, including (my preferred format) .tga...

Anyways I think we've got a miscommunication, by your references to an image file I assume by 'skin' you mean 'unwrap and texture' your model. 'Skinning' is a term typically referring to the rendering of the model in real-time by transforming the model's vertices by it's animation and skeleton.

Milskape3D does not support unwrapping models, what you'll need to do is get another program [ google for UV Unwrap, there are many others out there ] and layout all your triangles onto a blank texture page. There are probably tutorials on this all over the web, so I'll save the energy.

Once you get your triangles layed out in a satisfactory way, you save the layout to an image file and load it into your favorite image editing program. Then you can paint all over the triangle outlines. You'll see what I mean if you google for the tool I suggested above.

There is one other step, the unwrapping process modifies the texture coordinates of the model, so you'll need to export the NEW coordinates you created in your unwrapper application, and import them into MS3D, which supports UV Unwrap's file format.

Hope that can give you a leg up on learning the basics of unwrapping/texturing a model. It can take years and years to become skilled in these arts, so I hope you're patient.

*By the way, you can unwrap simple models face by face in Milkshape3D, things like buildings, and objects...I wouldn't try it with character models. I've been using MS3D for many many years...and I can tell you texturing 10,000-30,000 triangle models by hand is possible without unwrapping the model in a 3rd party app, but I would not recommend it. You basically have to do the texturing as you build the model, face by face. For things like buildings/objects where features are repeated if you do the texturing early it will save you time, even if the model ends up being many triangles.

[edit] Check out THIS journal entry of mine if you want to find out what is possible using MS3D....scroll all the way down for lots of images, etc.. I still can't believe I made/textured all those buildings/basements using only MS3D...and they're not even going to be in my game lol. At least it was good practice.

- Danny

[Edited by - dgreen02 on October 31, 2007 12:09:38 AM]

Quote:Original post by hogarth
Isn't TGA just a format simialr to others like PNG, and can be created with image programs, GIMP etc.
I own Milkshape but I don't know what image formats it supports off the top of my head.


"Sauerbraten"
Does that mean sour sausage?

www.cubeengine.com

It is a Free FPS Game engine with alot of next-gen stuff like realistic water, normal-mapping and so, I'd suggest you try it if you're into free open-source FPS Games.

Quote:
Anyways I think we've got a miscommunication, by your references to an image file I assume by 'skin' you mean 'unwrap and texture' your model. 'Skinning' is a term typically referring to the rendering of the model in real-time by transforming the model's vertices by it's animation and skeleton.

Yes that's what I meant ;)

OK hogarth, I got it, Thanks for helping.

[Edited by - LavaBall on October 31, 2007 6:33:28 AM]