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A Quick Intro to Making Scorched3d Models with Blender

Getting Started

Please, PLEASE read the post here: http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=552 (I know it's about Milkshape, but it defines the process quite well)
Get the export script for Blender here: http://www.scorched3d.co.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=1089
Fire up Blender, and organize the screen as shown below:

I like to have the screen laid out as above, with the top view (press numpad 7) on the left, front view on upper right (numpad 1), and the left view at the bottom right (numpad 3). With the view set like this, you have a top view on the left (the front of the tank faces down), front view on the upper right, and side view on the lower right (the front of the tank faces left)

If you want to have a camera and lights, I would recommend putting them on layer one, and doing the model on layer two.

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Starting the Model

With the view set as above, add a cube. (already done in the image)
While still in edit mode, hit CTRL-t to convert the mesh to triangles
Hit F9 to view the "edit buttons" at the bottom, and rename the mesh to "base" (This will be the immobile part of the tank)
Press tab to exit edit mode, and add a Cylinder, and scale it down so that it is a bit smaller than the base. This will be the turret. rotate it so that it is oriented "flat side up" (Be sure to hold CTRL while rotating so that you can rotate it exactly or it will wobble!)
Move the turret up so that the bottom of it is just inside the base
Rename it to "turretmain" (This is important, if you don't prefix the name of the parts of the turret with "turret" they won't rotate!)
Hit CTRL-t to convert to triangles
Exit edit mode and add another cylinder, this will be the gun
Rename the gun to "gunbarrel" (Gun parts need to be prefixed with "gun")
Scale the gun so that it is long and narrow, and rotate and move to a position like below

Don't forget to convert it to triangles!

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Pivots

The turret and the gun need to know how they rotate, Scorched3d uses a "pivot" for each to define their centres of rotation.

For the turret:

Add a cube
Convert it to triangles
Scale it down so it's pretty small (The game won't show it anyway, but we don't want it spoiling the look of your tank while you're modelling).
Move it to the point you want the turret to rotate around (in this case, the centre of the turret)
Rename this to "turretpivot"

For the gun: Same as for the turret, but name the mesh "gunpivot"

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Simple Texturing

Colouring/texturing models for Scorched3d requires texture images. The texture images must be .bmp files, square, and the size must be a power of 16 (ie: 32x32, 128x128 etc)

For this simple "tank", I just made three 32x32 bmps, one red, one green, and one blue.

Each and every mesh (including the pivots!) must be textured.

I made the base green, the turret red, and the gun blue. Just pick a random texture for the pivots.

Note that the texture colour will not show up in the viewport when textured this way - for simple solid textures like this I usually just change the material colour to match the image colour (Scorched3d will ignore the material colour)

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Finishing Up

We're almost there!

Select all of the objects by hitting "a" a couple times so they are all highlighted.
Put the 3d cursor at the centre of the bottom of the model and, in the "Edit Buttons" (hit F9), click "Centre Cursor"
Do a CTRL-a to "Apply Size and Rotation" to all of the objects
Save your work (You have been doing this periodically, right?)
Go to "File->Export->Scorched3d Models" and export the model

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Editing the tanks.xml

In Scorched3d's data/ directory, make a backup of the tanks.xml file then open it with your favourite text editor
Add your new tank to the file, for example:

       <tank>
               <name>tank tutorial</name>
               <catagory>Humour</catagory>
               <model type="MilkShape">tank_tut/tank.txt</model>
       </tank>

Indentation, spelling, and case counts! If Scorched crashes with an error reading the tanks.xml file check this carefully.
Save the file, and try out your tank!

With a little luck, you should see something like this:

Man, that's a ROCKIN' tank!

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Common Problems

If parts of the tank are oriented/positioned wrong, be sure to do the "centre cursor" and "Apply Size and Rotation" and try again
When modelling for game items other than tanks, in some cases the scale of the model counts - I usually find I have to make them MUCH larger.

Enjoy!

--Cbx550f 02:37, 15 March 2006 (GMT)