Submission Guidelines [Updated: 8/1/2012]

[Shadowth117]

Hahaha, don't lie he looks pretty bad. If you saw the actual model real time it be easier to tell. He's partially rigged too, but he's such a mess that I don't even want to mess with him really. Random parts of him are Smoothed to the extreme right next to extremely blocky areas that are reminiscent of the average movie game.

But yeah they are very different although its quite obvious the raygun looks far more like its reference than the mascot even without the mascots original reference.

[Tiberious]

I wanted to start posting up some model rips, but I have a few questions:

1: The models use a UV mapping that is fairly non-standard. In order to get its 'symmetry' done, it will cheerfully place UV points 'out of bounds', and expects the area outside the boundaries to be flipped in the relevant direction. Should this be corrected before submission?

2: I can get bone and rigging data from the rip, but there's a slight catch: While the pivot points are correct, the bones are in a rather awkward orientation that makes it look incorrect. Should these be corrected, or can they be left as-is?

3: Speaking of bones, this ripping application rips all the bones, even ones that are effectively useless outside the original game. Can these be removed safely?

4: The ripping software places 'hard' edges in some somewhat awkward spots, where materials meet, or where the geometry meets itself. Should these be kept? Or is it better to clean up the model by only placing the split edges where they're necessary?

5: A few of the models use a trick in the original game where vertex points are defined, and edges are drawn between them, but only those edges are shown. This geometry is not ripped, but it can be reconstructed from the original data. How should this data be presented, or should I leave it out?

6: There are a pair of textures in a total of 6 spots that are designed to appear facing the view no matter how it's oriented. What should be done for these parts?

Edit: Oh, I'm a dummy. The last question is what scale should I be using for models. I have the ability to start these rips at any scale I like, but it seems that the 1.0 scale is much larger than where I'm used to making these for (for my own purposes). Should I be leaving these at their default settings?

I'm eager to help grow the archive, but at the same time, I'd be rather put off by having my submissions be rejected because of something that I'm not sure about. Please respond fairly soon. Thank you.

[Shadowth117]

Well you're certainly one of the most formal people to want to submit here so I'll try and answer your questions as best I can.

1. We actually see this issue a lot especially with older games. Usually we shrink the UV's and then either set the texture to flip appropriately or in certain cases if it can't be avoided edit the texture (while keeping a copy of the original texture) and make sure that it looks as close as possible to how the model appeared ingame.

If you decide to just mirror it in the material settings than it is probably best if you leave a note in your readme or something describing what you did since most formats don't completely record those settings.

2. I wouldn't worry about this. After exporting a model, the bones change in appearance a lot of the time anyway so this isn't a big issue.

3. Bones can almost always be removed safely, but unless you're sure they do absolulutely nothing and you can be sure they aren't markers or something than I wouldn't remove them.

4. That's generally not something we fix since it requires you to modify the model generally, but you can if you'd like. If its a heavy modification such as combining objects or something I'd ask that you leave a copy of the original model as well.

An exception would be vertex welding rips from Print Screen Style rippers like 3D Ripper Dx or Nemu64's plugin. Since the extra vertexes causing the lack of a smooth aren't meant to be there anyway, fixing them isn't an issue.

5. Your choice really. That's really one of those times when you get a little bit of freedom with it. If you can't choose either way, then you can just provide both versions of the model.

Honestly I highly doubt I'd reject one of your submissions since you've obviously put a lot of thought into them.

[Tiberious]

Okay. See, I'm planning on submitting the Alloys from Brawl.

I'm with you on the intentions as far as UV-mapping goes, and I'm a detail nut like that myself. However, there was one half of the mapping that was in-bounds, and I just used that for my reference. I'll assure you that they look just like they did in the game.

As far as the 'useless' bones I'd remove, I'd be taking out: TopN (game's root), TransN (used for repositioning a character after an animation like Captain Falcon/Red Alloy's FSmash that moves him after it ends, or walks to reposition the character when it loops), XRotN, YRotN and ThrowN (a bone that controls where to place the character when, well, being thrown). I'd leave HipN as the new root, as this is where the weighting data starts.

As far as point #4, I did plan on making them a single mesh, or at least as much as possible. The reasoning behind this is that along with the bone data, the BRRES viewer also exports the weighting data. Combined with the skeleton in the .dae, I don't see how making it a single mesh would cause any issues. Anyone with the model could still pose it as they like.

Also, I appreciate the encouraging responses. This will let me work on 'em secure in the fact that I'll likely see them made available.

Edit: Here is a test export. Blender seems to choke on reimport, but I don't know if that's because it's errored, or if it is just Blender acting up.

[Shadowth117]

Well it sounds fine as long as the combined mesh keeps the weighting data. Still, I'd like it if you left the uncombined version there too just since having them separated by material can be very convenient.

[Shadowth117]

Added .BMP as a submittable texture format so long as you compress your model archive decently and the original texture didn't use transparency.

Reasoning here is that it actually compresses slightly better than .PNG in .RAR archives and such.

[Zerox]

Reason here is because N64 models use them and their textures take little space.*

[Shadowth117]

That too, I won't lie. Hopefully that'll help you guys out somewhat with your rips.

[Shadowth117]

Just added the new preview image background since Dazz plans to update the site very soon to support preview images. Get it here on the first post or here:

[edsterisawesome]

Like So?

[Shadowth117]

Yup, exactly like that. I can't put them up right away since as I said it isn't finished yet, but the more previews we have ready, the less that have to be done later.

[xdonthave1xx]

Does this preview update only apply to The Models Resource? Or should I begin updating some of my old icons on Spriters?

[Shadowth117]

Does this preview update only apply to The Models Resource? Or should I begin updating some of my old icons on Spriters?

Right now it is. You could put something in the suggestions thread about it though if you'd like it for other sites.

[xdonthave1xx]

Well, I'm good with the little icons for sprites since I feel that most sprites are small enough to see within the dimensions of the old icons. But these new big preview icons I think are good for models since it allows all but the largest (or complicated) of them (like levels from some games) to be seen in good enough detail to see what it is (though I bet popular enough areas have angles fans would know what it is right away).

[Shadowth117]

I've amended the rule on second hand rips to make it more clear. Basically, don't rip a model that was originally from another game in Garry's Mod and try to submit it for the original game.