![]() json file, which is the file type the game engine reads for the majority of the game's data. The XML data that's outputted for both of these sprite sheets by SJSpritePacker is "pointer data" - this is information that tells the sprites to face the correct direction but before it can do so, it's fed into a. In addition, the purpose of the second sprite sheet is it provides z-depth information. This is where things start to get complicated. Below you will see the sprite sheets for the loyalist infantry NPC (AKA loy_foot_01 AKA “Dave”), which if you own a copy of the game you can find in the folder Brigador\assets\units\loyalists\foot. What this does is takes the original 3D model and (depending on the model's level of detail) captures up to 64 rotations of all that model's positions and animations at a particular resolution and creates not one but two sheets of sprites along with the XML data for the sheets. How we get from 3D models to sprites is via open source software – a version of which comes included with the Brigador Modkit & Map Editor called SJSpritePacker. ![]() The basic reason for that is because the game engine is told to display sprites, which in turn spoofs the appearance of 3D models in an apparent isometric perspective. □FROM MODELS TO SPRITESWe said at the top that in the game you were technically looking at sprites, not 3D models. We don't have footage of us working on Substance Painter but you can get a good idea of what it's capable of just by looking at this short official video that touches on a lot of what we've just written. ![]() To give our UV maps texture information what we then do is take them from Houdini along with the 3D model that was made in 3DS Max into another powerful program called Substance Painter that allows us to detail the materials of the model (for example, how rough a stone looks or how glossy a metallic surface is). The program we'll use to do this to our 3D model is called Houdini. A quick way to explain UV mapping is to imagine an animal that has been skinned: our 3D model is the animal and the skin that has been removed from it and can be laid flat is our UV map. Once this happens, we can give the mesh a texture map, which is the point where the model starts to more closely resemble the final product.īefore we do that we'll need UV maps first. The part we're concerned with comes after a 3D model has been decimated, which is a process that reduces the size of the polygon mesh. Ironically, how we even make these sprites is initially by creating 3D models, typically through the process of kitbashing (this part of the process we won't go into, and we'll ignore animation rigging too, but feel free to check out this timelapse video for the Pantry Boy vehicle from several years ago that you may not have seen before) usually in 3DS Max. ![]() Instead, what you are seeing are sprites (more specifically, you are looking at 2D quadrilateral shapes, and what you are also looking at right now is a flat, two-dimensional screen upon which is a moving image that can create the illusion of depth through particular techniques). We don't wish to disappoint those players but within the game engine this isn't possible because what you are seeing rendered in the game is not a 3D model that can be rotated along any axis. □□ A BRIEF LESSON IN COMPUTER GRAPHICSOften we get feedback from players who wish the camera in Brigador could be moved to see different angles of the various models of the vehicles or buildings seen in the environment.
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