It is a common knowledge, that we can't export particle effects via nintoxicated's m3 exporter.
But seems like we can. I'm not sure, maybe I'm wrong, and what I export are not particle effects. But actually I think particles are transparent squares which always face the camera and there are sprites being projected on these squares, so we can see stuff like smoke, or dust, or fire. Do I understand right?
Sometimes I faced a situation: when I don't delete particle sources, they only produce some black squares. But when I exported Archon's model, I realized, that his big blue flame body is seen as it supposed to, and it's not a mesh, it's a set of squares facing the camera. I experimented with it and realized, that it works fine when there is an alpha layer present as a map for the material which makes transprent the areas which don't meant to be seen. Also, I noticed, that m3 importer doesn't load some textures for some materials, especially for particle materials.
So, I simply imported a smoke model (material maps were empty), and filled its diffuse, emissive and alpha maps with random particle smoke textures. And then I exported it and it was seen as normal smoke with normal sparks.
So, do I misunderstand something, and we still can't export true particle effects or smoke is a particle effect and so we can export particles?
The last version of NiNtoxicated's M3 plugins Does allow for import/export of Particle Systems.
Your assumption of particles is correct, they are "sprites" that face the camera to produce smoke/dust/fire/sparks/etc.
All particle textures need an alpha channel or they will get the black box effect.
If you click on a particle emitter and go to the Modify tab you should be able to see the assigned texture
Yes we can Export Particles, they're just a little buggy :\
Note that even particles like spark coming of from Barracks' engines (which are visible as dots) have the texture.
I don't recall any particle system that is present in StarCraft other than the ones with sprites (well maybe there are some with "model parts" which are calculated as rigid bodies but I might be wrong).
Guys, I have a question. Since it works, is it possible that we can create a zealot/corruptor tail thing? When we import a model to 3ds max, all information about a tail become erased, so neither particle emitter nor material appears. But I believe it's possible to create such a thing. So, do any of you know the appropriate combination of particle emitter object parameters? (there are shitloads of different parameters, some of them labeled as "unknown")
Zealot Dreads and Corrupter tail are a different kind of effect called Ribbons.
Unfortunately the current plugin set is unable to import or export Ribbons.
you may be able to create an effect similar to it by adding gravity or cloth like effect to a set of bones and bake the movements into keyframes,
But it requires a lot more effort and would limit the movements.
It is a common knowledge, that we can't export particle effects via nintoxicated's m3 exporter.
But seems like we can. I'm not sure, maybe I'm wrong, and what I export are not particle effects. But actually I think particles are transparent squares which always face the camera and there are sprites being projected on these squares, so we can see stuff like smoke, or dust, or fire. Do I understand right?
Sometimes I faced a situation: when I don't delete particle sources, they only produce some black squares. But when I exported Archon's model, I realized, that his big blue flame body is seen as it supposed to, and it's not a mesh, it's a set of squares facing the camera. I experimented with it and realized, that it works fine when there is an alpha layer present as a map for the material which makes transprent the areas which don't meant to be seen. Also, I noticed, that m3 importer doesn't load some textures for some materials, especially for particle materials.
So, I simply imported a smoke model (material maps were empty), and filled its diffuse, emissive and alpha maps with random particle smoke textures. And then I exported it and it was seen as normal smoke with normal sparks.
So, do I misunderstand something, and we still can't export true particle effects or smoke is a particle effect and so we can export particles?
@Zolden: Go
The last version of NiNtoxicated's M3 plugins Does allow for import/export of Particle Systems.
Your assumption of particles is correct, they are "sprites" that face the camera to produce smoke/dust/fire/sparks/etc.
All particle textures need an alpha channel or they will get the black box effect.
If you click on a particle emitter and go to the Modify tab you should be able to see the assigned texture
Yes we can Export Particles, they're just a little buggy :\
Formally Kinkycactus
@Zolden: Go
Note that even particles like spark coming of from Barracks' engines (which are visible as dots) have the texture. I don't recall any particle system that is present in StarCraft other than the ones with sprites (well maybe there are some with "model parts" which are calculated as rigid bodies but I might be wrong).
Guys, I have a question. Since it works, is it possible that we can create a zealot/corruptor tail thing? When we import a model to 3ds max, all information about a tail become erased, so neither particle emitter nor material appears. But I believe it's possible to create such a thing. So, do any of you know the appropriate combination of particle emitter object parameters? (there are shitloads of different parameters, some of them labeled as "unknown")
@Zolden: Go
Zealot Dreads and Corrupter tail are a different kind of effect called Ribbons.
Unfortunately the current plugin set is unable to import or export Ribbons.
you may be able to create an effect similar to it by adding gravity or cloth like effect to a set of bones and bake the movements into keyframes,
But it requires a lot more effort and would limit the movements.
Formally Kinkycactus
Oh, I thought it's just a question of checking "connect particles" flag or something. Ok then, thanks.