[ ZModeler ] Detach an object from a group

[Sebastian]

I made a "small" video tutorial where I show you how to detach an object from a group of objects.
(you know, in games like GTA, some objects actually contain many other objects)

For example, you want only a fridge from the seveneleven shop, but the fridge is just a part from a group of objects.
Watching my video, you will separe the fridge from the whole group, and also fix it, and port it to game.

I have been cutting objects these days, so I thought someone will once need it.
So here we go:

http://youtu.be/P-8qJQeJqxY

PS: It took me 30mins, but I doubled video's speed and got a 15min long video.


[spoiler=Wordpad content]
Hello viewer/modeler/scripter !
Today I will teach you how to separate an object that is attached to other objects.



Separate an object
For such action you need many programs:
-map editor (like KEd and MEd) – to find object's name and texture's name. (this only if you don't know them !)
-IMG Tool – to extract the .dff and .txd files you need
-TXD Workshop – to edit the texture file and leave the only textures you need
-COL EDITOR – to edit the colision file
-ZModeler – to edit the object model

If you already have the object extracted, jump to step 3 !

1st step: Find the complex object that contains that group of objects.
 (I will search a for such an object right now, in Vice City's map)
2nd step: Get the name of .dff and .txd files and extract them.
3th step: Time to edit the model 3d, and leave only the object we want.
(pay atention on what I do)
4th step: Edit the texture file, and leave only the textures we need.
5th step: Edit the colision file, and leave only the colision we need.

To show you that everything is working good, I'm also porting it to my blank server.


That's all, I hope you will success ! Good luck !
Credits: Seby (me)
[/spoiler]

[NC]

That's something really useful. There are so "many things in one objects" made by Rockstar...

If I can give my thoughts, it would be good if you post the text from Word and Notepad on YT and/or here (if you still got it). You could have also written the text in Notepad before you start the record . And I think you chose a complicated object, where there was too much to delete .

[Sebastian]

You could have also written the text in Notepad before you start the record

Nah, haha. It was not even supposed to be created, but I just find it useful because I could explain everything.
About the object, it was just a medium one.
(imagine the ap3c being separated...)

First post was updated with the Word and Notepad (lost the notepad) content.
Thanks for the suggestion, forgot about that.

[NC]

Oh and one more thing (unsure). In the example you checked that the filename was seveneleven.dff and later you also checked that there is a file called seveneleven.txd. I always thought that the name has to match so you can't have seveneleven.dff and elevenseven.txd as one object?

[Thijn]

You can for custom objects, since you specify what files to use in the xml.

[NC]

In VCMP maybe, but as in this tutorial we are detaching objects from single player. Maybe VC requires both dff and txd to have the same name? Then it is pointless to check again for the txd filename.
Or maybe it is only Rockstar's vision, but at least naming both files the same helps to keep things organized.

[Thijn]

For some objects, VC gets it's textures from "shared" txd files. For example, most grass objects get it's texture from the same file, but do not have the same .dff filename.
I'm unsure how VC knows what file to pick, but I know it can be different.

[Sebastian]

Of course names don't need to be the same.
Them are specified in some file too, and if I'm not wrong, it's the .ide one.

[Gulk2]

Excuse the late bump but I need your video reuploaded @Sebastian, I plan on doing a great amount of object detachment. I have succeeded in detach but I fail to activate the textures, and col but autodetect col in the .xml seems to work, (does that have downsides?

[Sebastian]

Excuse the late bump but I need your video reuploaded @Sebastian, I plan on doing a great amount of object detachment. I have succeeded in detach but I fail to activate the textures, and col but autodetect col in the .xml seems to work, (does that have downsides?

Unfortunately, I have no copy of any videos from the banned youtube account...
About the texturing: you must export them from.txd right near the .dff file, so when you load the model with ZModeler they will be auto-loaded.

When you import an model to ZModeler, you are asked what texture format to use, so you can use .bmp . Make sure the exported textures are .bmp too; otherwise they won't be loaded.

About colision, don't really know if it harms the game or not, when using "autogenerate" option. I prefer to use the .col itself because I can set the colision type: grass, glass, metal, etc.