06-03-2010, 03:58 PM
So you'd like to submit to the Models Resource, huh? Well the process is pretty much the same as submitting to TSR with a few notable differences due to the submissions being 3d models. However there are a few important additions because of that so even if you've submitted to that website please take a quick read over these rules.
Note: If you're new to model ripping, or are interested in it but don't know where to start, you can find an in-depth tutorial that guides you step-by-step through the process of extracting .BRRES format models and other files from Wii/GameCube ISOs using Dolphin, getting them ready for submission, and other information that all beginners should know, here (but don't forget to read these guidelines as well before you start!): http://www.spriters-resource.com/communi...?tid=19564
The Icon Maker
Basically how you create icons for your submissions. Its pretty straightforward to use and isn't all that hard to learn how to use.
Download it here: http://www.spriters-resource.com/communi...p?tid=6534
Post images of your rip
These aren't just screenshots of the model ingame. These are screenshots of your actual model at a decent size. This is to make sure the models are a decent quality rip before they're submitted. Its obviously not the best thing to have a model with a bunch of distortion and or missing parts. Make sure the materials are applied as well so that we can see the state of the UVW maps on the model(s). While messed up UVW's are understandable, its best if we know if they are or not so that if we get another rip later with better ones we can put it up.]
This isn't required, but it'll get your model up on the site quicker since it probably won't have to be examined for quality beforehand.
Try to get the best quality rip possible
A rather important rule that kind of tyes in with the first rule a bit. ALWAYS go for the best quality rip you can. For example, if choosing between a game specific extractor or 3D Ripper DX try to get the rips from the game specific extractor. These are almost always better rips since they'll usually get you a T-posed model or even details that would have been difficult to find ingame. If you are forced to rip from 3D Ripper DX or a similar program (and you are absolutely sure there isn't another way to rip what you're ripping) then make sure to rip the model you want at the most simple and symetric animation. This is for the end user so that they are able to rig the model as easily as possible. If a character's arm is bent up a bunch and their geometry is intersecting itself then it could cause problems later for that reason. Obviously this applies to the textures provided with the rip as well in that textures with .jpg noise all over them or messed up in a similar way won't be accepted.
Be sure to include all relevant textures
Not completely required, but definitely good to have. If you're submitting something you should definitely try to get all of its texures as well. You don't need to submit the HUD with a character obviously, but you shouldn't just submit the model textureless or with missing textures if you can avoid it. Examples of things that SHOULD be included are textures like bump maps, detail maps etc. as well. Textures should be submitted in .PNG format as well. .BMP isn't preferred, but is accepted as well though ONLY if the texture didn't originally have transparency anyway and you compress your model archive well.
It must be YOUR rip
Pretty much self explanatory. If you didn't rip it, you shouldn't be submitting it. Keep in mind that using a utility by someone else to rip stuff is perfectly fine. Its just taking a bunch of rips someone else did and submitting it under your name that I have a problem with.
Note that models ripped from a different game than they are originally from such as say a Mario model in Garry's Mod should NOT be submitted. This is because not only would these have been gotten second hand, but they are, to be quite honest, often low grade rips originally and being secondhand have the possibility of having been tampered with.
Use another site to host your rips
While you CAN attach things directly to your post, its a bit of waste of the server space to store the same rip twice since they have to be uploaded to the main site as well. They did make file hosting sites for a reason.
Here's a list of free sites you can use to upload things. You can use your own, but it has to be somewhere you don't need to be a member to download from.
http://www.easy-share.com/
http://www.mediafire.com
http://www.rapidshare.com
https://www.dropbox.com/home
http://www.filebeam.com/
About the Collada .DAE format
Over time there a few different plugins have been made with slight things adapted to essentially the same format. This section is to help explain them and tell you which forms of the format are acceptable to submit. Also keep in mind that you'll want probably want to use 3ds Max or Maya for this. I've got nothing against Blender or any other 3d program, but I don't generally use them and so have less experience with their plugins and haven't heard good things about their .DAE support. I'd like to support another format that allows for storing rigged models, but as of time of this writing this site doesn't.
Autodesk's plugin
First off, AutoDesk has their own plugin for the format. While I'd advised against it in the past, it has since gotten better and is probably the only .DAE plugin for Max that gets regular updates and has a fair amount of support at this point. Keep in mind though that it does NOT import Collada Max or OpenCollada .DAE's correctly; it gets only the geometry and bones, but no rigging while materials are just gone. Just make sure to have the latest version of the plugin which you can get here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/...d=10775855
Collada Max
Probably the best plugin for opening the .dae models for 3ds Max and Maya can be obtained here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/colladamaya/ (I know its says ColladaMaya, but it has both).
OpenCollada
Formerly known as ColladaNextGen, OpenCollada http://opencollada.org/download.html also seems to work well although it reads the alpha in transparent materials exported from ColladaMax from the RGB intensity rather than the image alpha. When importing a file exported from this plugin, you will sometimes also have to fix the material (which for most models you would do anyway to add maps not supported by a .dae) so that it doesn't have a grayish tint over it. Sometimes it will also mangle materials on import if it was the plugin that exported them for some reason. It has plugins for Maya as well as Max.
The problem is that it occasionally screws up the material assignments. Because of this I'd really prefer if ColladaMax was used, but OpenCollada is accepted so long as you make sure the materials work fine after reimporting. This plugin is good for the most part since ColladaMax and OpenCollada read each others format variants fairly well.
If there's another plugin that you'd like me to put up there, let me test it out a bit and if it works alright then I'll add it to the list.
Custom 3d Models
If you want to submit custom models than you'll have to have had them looked at first in the "Model Discussion" subsection of the forum. This is where you can have your creation critiqued and readied for submission (although you are perfectly welcome to post stuff there you DON'T want to submit as well). Obviously your model should be based off a video game or at the very least some other form of media like a TV show or something based off a video game if you're planning on submitting it.
Other model formats*
Although .DAE and .obj are the recommended formats, you can also submit in a few others as well despite the notice saying "ONLY SUBMIT .OBJ AND .DAE FORMATS PLEASE!".
.SMD - Valve .SMD format is accepted as a substitute for .DAE format. This is because it supports rigged models well and since its supported by a number of programs if not by default then through free plugins.
.3DS - 3D Studio format. Is accepted as a substitute for .obj format, but should be a variant that supports texture assignments.
*More of these may be added in the future.
Preview images
I don't think anyone here would argue that the regular icons are a bit small and don't give the best idea of what you're downloading. Well now you can make preview images to help avoid that. These are the replacement for the old .RAR/.ZIP download button and are meant to be like a bigger version of the icon to give you a much better idea of what a model looks like. All you need to do to make them is place the picture of the model over this background:
![[Image: b5WyE.png]](http://i.imgur.com/b5WyE.png)
Feel free to save the preview as a .JPG by the way. Quality isn't as big a deal with these so long as they aren't covered in .JPG noise and give a decent preview of the model.
Almost any modern image editor should be able to do this, but if you need a good free one than you can use one of these:
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.getpaint.net/
If I missed something please feel free to ask about it.
Note: If you're new to model ripping, or are interested in it but don't know where to start, you can find an in-depth tutorial that guides you step-by-step through the process of extracting .BRRES format models and other files from Wii/GameCube ISOs using Dolphin, getting them ready for submission, and other information that all beginners should know, here (but don't forget to read these guidelines as well before you start!): http://www.spriters-resource.com/communi...?tid=19564
The Icon Maker
Basically how you create icons for your submissions. Its pretty straightforward to use and isn't all that hard to learn how to use.
Download it here: http://www.spriters-resource.com/communi...p?tid=6534
Post images of your rip
These aren't just screenshots of the model ingame. These are screenshots of your actual model at a decent size. This is to make sure the models are a decent quality rip before they're submitted. Its obviously not the best thing to have a model with a bunch of distortion and or missing parts. Make sure the materials are applied as well so that we can see the state of the UVW maps on the model(s). While messed up UVW's are understandable, its best if we know if they are or not so that if we get another rip later with better ones we can put it up.]
This isn't required, but it'll get your model up on the site quicker since it probably won't have to be examined for quality beforehand.
Try to get the best quality rip possible
A rather important rule that kind of tyes in with the first rule a bit. ALWAYS go for the best quality rip you can. For example, if choosing between a game specific extractor or 3D Ripper DX try to get the rips from the game specific extractor. These are almost always better rips since they'll usually get you a T-posed model or even details that would have been difficult to find ingame. If you are forced to rip from 3D Ripper DX or a similar program (and you are absolutely sure there isn't another way to rip what you're ripping) then make sure to rip the model you want at the most simple and symetric animation. This is for the end user so that they are able to rig the model as easily as possible. If a character's arm is bent up a bunch and their geometry is intersecting itself then it could cause problems later for that reason. Obviously this applies to the textures provided with the rip as well in that textures with .jpg noise all over them or messed up in a similar way won't be accepted.
Be sure to include all relevant textures
Not completely required, but definitely good to have. If you're submitting something you should definitely try to get all of its texures as well. You don't need to submit the HUD with a character obviously, but you shouldn't just submit the model textureless or with missing textures if you can avoid it. Examples of things that SHOULD be included are textures like bump maps, detail maps etc. as well. Textures should be submitted in .PNG format as well. .BMP isn't preferred, but is accepted as well though ONLY if the texture didn't originally have transparency anyway and you compress your model archive well.
It must be YOUR rip
Pretty much self explanatory. If you didn't rip it, you shouldn't be submitting it. Keep in mind that using a utility by someone else to rip stuff is perfectly fine. Its just taking a bunch of rips someone else did and submitting it under your name that I have a problem with.
Note that models ripped from a different game than they are originally from such as say a Mario model in Garry's Mod should NOT be submitted. This is because not only would these have been gotten second hand, but they are, to be quite honest, often low grade rips originally and being secondhand have the possibility of having been tampered with.
Use another site to host your rips
While you CAN attach things directly to your post, its a bit of waste of the server space to store the same rip twice since they have to be uploaded to the main site as well. They did make file hosting sites for a reason.
Here's a list of free sites you can use to upload things. You can use your own, but it has to be somewhere you don't need to be a member to download from.
http://www.easy-share.com/
http://www.mediafire.com
http://www.rapidshare.com
https://www.dropbox.com/home
http://www.filebeam.com/
About the Collada .DAE format
Over time there a few different plugins have been made with slight things adapted to essentially the same format. This section is to help explain them and tell you which forms of the format are acceptable to submit. Also keep in mind that you'll want probably want to use 3ds Max or Maya for this. I've got nothing against Blender or any other 3d program, but I don't generally use them and so have less experience with their plugins and haven't heard good things about their .DAE support. I'd like to support another format that allows for storing rigged models, but as of time of this writing this site doesn't.
Autodesk's plugin
First off, AutoDesk has their own plugin for the format. While I'd advised against it in the past, it has since gotten better and is probably the only .DAE plugin for Max that gets regular updates and has a fair amount of support at this point. Keep in mind though that it does NOT import Collada Max or OpenCollada .DAE's correctly; it gets only the geometry and bones, but no rigging while materials are just gone. Just make sure to have the latest version of the plugin which you can get here: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/...d=10775855
Collada Max
Probably the best plugin for opening the .dae models for 3ds Max and Maya can be obtained here: http://sourceforge.net/projects/colladamaya/ (I know its says ColladaMaya, but it has both).
OpenCollada
Formerly known as ColladaNextGen, OpenCollada http://opencollada.org/download.html also seems to work well although it reads the alpha in transparent materials exported from ColladaMax from the RGB intensity rather than the image alpha. When importing a file exported from this plugin, you will sometimes also have to fix the material (which for most models you would do anyway to add maps not supported by a .dae) so that it doesn't have a grayish tint over it. Sometimes it will also mangle materials on import if it was the plugin that exported them for some reason. It has plugins for Maya as well as Max.
The problem is that it occasionally screws up the material assignments. Because of this I'd really prefer if ColladaMax was used, but OpenCollada is accepted so long as you make sure the materials work fine after reimporting. This plugin is good for the most part since ColladaMax and OpenCollada read each others format variants fairly well.
If there's another plugin that you'd like me to put up there, let me test it out a bit and if it works alright then I'll add it to the list.
Custom 3d Models
If you want to submit custom models than you'll have to have had them looked at first in the "Model Discussion" subsection of the forum. This is where you can have your creation critiqued and readied for submission (although you are perfectly welcome to post stuff there you DON'T want to submit as well). Obviously your model should be based off a video game or at the very least some other form of media like a TV show or something based off a video game if you're planning on submitting it.
Other model formats*
Although .DAE and .obj are the recommended formats, you can also submit in a few others as well despite the notice saying "ONLY SUBMIT .OBJ AND .DAE FORMATS PLEASE!".
.SMD - Valve .SMD format is accepted as a substitute for .DAE format. This is because it supports rigged models well and since its supported by a number of programs if not by default then through free plugins.
.3DS - 3D Studio format. Is accepted as a substitute for .obj format, but should be a variant that supports texture assignments.
*More of these may be added in the future.
Preview images
I don't think anyone here would argue that the regular icons are a bit small and don't give the best idea of what you're downloading. Well now you can make preview images to help avoid that. These are the replacement for the old .RAR/.ZIP download button and are meant to be like a bigger version of the icon to give you a much better idea of what a model looks like. All you need to do to make them is place the picture of the model over this background:
Feel free to save the preview as a .JPG by the way. Quality isn't as big a deal with these so long as they aren't covered in .JPG noise and give a decent preview of the model.
Almost any modern image editor should be able to do this, but if you need a good free one than you can use one of these:
http://www.gimp.org/
http://www.getpaint.net/
If I missed something please feel free to ask about it.
