Tutorial Warcraft III Modeling

NullCurrent

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[Glossary] Warcraft III Modeling​
Here is a collection of Warcraft modeling vocabulary, I got this from the "Warcraft III Art Tools Documentation". I hope I put this in the right forum. :D
Please add some if you feel the need to.

Attachment Point – Attachment points are locations in space where Warcraft III will attach additional art to a model in game. Aura effects and spell effects are examples of graphical effects that depend on attachment points. Although attachments are created using a helper object that appears to have a spatial volume, only the origin of that volume is considered to be the origin of the model. Attachment points are specified in model space: that is, relative to the model’s origin. Thus, a model’s attachment points move with the model.

Billboard – A billboard is a piece of geometry that is procedurally oriented to face the camera. Fully billboarded objects will always face the camera in the same orientation. Objects that are only billboarded on one or more axes will face the camera on those axes, but may rotate around other axes.

Blend Mode – The blend mode refers to the technique used to combine multiple pixel layers in order to form a final image. Blend modes include additive, which means that pixels' color values are added together (saturating at pure white); modulate, which means that pixels' color values are multiplied together; and blend, which means that new pixel color and the current frame buffer pixel color are blended together using the new pixel alpha value as a blending factor.

BLP – A Blp is an external file containing all the textures used to display some object in the game. Each of these textures is stored in a file ending in the extension .BLP. BLP files are automatically created for you when you export a model.

Depth Buffer – The depth buffer is a section of memory on the 3D graphics hardware. This buffer is generally used to keep track of the closest object seen so far at each pixel location. Depth buffering is used to reject pixels or entire triangles that are farther away than the nearest objects that have been drawn so far. This process accomplishes pixel-accurate depth sorting of objects in a scene. Keep in mind that sometimes depth buffer tests or sets are disabled, such as when you are drawing transparency effects.

Draw Order – Warcraft III establishes a draw order for all of the models in the scene. This refers to the order in which different parts of a model are drawn. For models, the draw order is as follows: Models are split into opaque and transparent layers. All opaque layers are drawn at the same time. The ordering of opaque layers doesn’t matter, because depth buffering ensures that only the per-pixel closest elements are rendered to the frame buffer. Transparent layers are sorted from back to front, and then rendered in that same back-to-front order after all of the opaque layers have been drawn.

Event – In Warcraft III, events are triggers embedded in the model that cause footprints to appear; splats, uber-splats, or spawned models to be emitted; or sounds to play.

Frame Buffer – The frame buffer is a section of memory on the 3D graphics hardware that accumulates all of the triangles that have been drawn so far in a scene. When everything is drawn, the frame buffer is “swapped” or “presented”, and the graphics hardware actually sends the image to the monitor. There are usually two copies of the frame buffer in use: one is being shown on the monitor, while the other one is accumulating information for the next scene. This technique is known as double-buffering.

Geometry – This term refers to the set of vertices and faces that make up an object. Conceptual object types such as a sphere must be reduced to real geometry (triangles) before they can be used by the game.

Geosets – This is a Warcraft III concept. Geometry in Warcraft III is divided up into geosets based on material and mesh properties. Generally, each combination of textures and material properties (such as unlit or no-depth-test) causes a separate geoset to be generated. All triangles in a particular geoset are rendered at the same time; this approach is more efficient for the rendering hardware. Ideally, you want to generate as few geosets as possible.

Hit Test/Collision – When you select a unit in Warcraft III, the game must perform a computation called a hit test in order to determine what you clicked on. Hit testing takes quite a bit of processing, so we use various techniques to make it faster. One of these techniques is to hit test against a simpler shape than the model itself. Two very simple shapes to hit test against are spheres and boxes. Warcraft III uses both of these types of simplifications to make hit testing faster. The Warcraft III Art Tools will generate collision shapes for you automatically. These collision shapes are used by the hit testing algorithms.

MDX/MDL – A model is stored on disk in one of two formats: MDX or MDL. Thus, depending on which format was used, a model file will have a filename that ends in either .MDL or .MDX. MDX files contain a compact binary representation of the model. The art tools export model files in MDX format by default. MDL files contain a textual representation of the model. This format is inefficient for Warcraft III to load and parse, but it’s straightforward for debugging. You can choose to output models in MDL format for debugging.

Mip Levels – Modern 3D graphics hardware uses a technique called mipmapping to increase image quality when the size of a textured image is much smaller than the size of the source texture. Mipmapping requires that progressively smaller versions of a texture are generated and made available for use by the graphics hardware. Each successively smaller version of a texture is ¼ of the size of the original texture (half the original size along each dimension), clamped to a minimum of 1 pixel wide. Each version is known as a mip level, and the collection of mip levels is frequently called a mip chain. The Warcraft III Art Tools automatically generate mip levels for textures that are used on models.

Model – A collection of data used by Warcraft III to draw an image on the screen.

Origin – Origin refers to the reference point in a system. In the Model Previewer, the origin is at (0,0,0), which is located by default in the center of the screen. In 3ds max, each scene has an origin, and each object has an origin. When you select an object in 3ds max, you will see an axis tripod appear at that object's origin.

Parent/Child – The Warcraft III Art Tools use the same parent-child concept that 3ds max does. When you link two objects together, they form a parent-child relationship. The parent is the object that is linked TO. The child is the object that is linked FROM.

Queue – A queue is a first-in-first-out arrangement of data. Think of the line at the bank: the first person in line is the first person to be serviced when a teller becomes available.

Sequence – A sequence is a time-slice of animation from the overall animation timeline for a model. A sequence represents one of the model's actions in game. For example, if the object is a unit, the object will probably need walk, stand, attack, birth, and death sequences. Models generally include multiple sequences to represent these states visually.

Team Color – This color is procedurally applied to an object in order to identify which team the object belongs to. See Replaceable Texture ID for more information.

Team Glow – This is a texture that has the same color as team color. Just as team color is applied to an object, team glow is applied to a unit in order to identify the unit’s team. Team glow is most often used on Hero units.
Tris – Shorthand for “triangles”. This is the collection of interconnections between vertices that define the shape of a 3D object.

Unit – A single playable entity in Warcraft III, such as a Peon or an Archmage. Each unit in Warcraft III is generally represented by a single model, although there are some exceptions.

Verts – Shorthand for “vertices”. This is the collection of locations in 3D space that define the points of interconnection for a 3D object.


I just thought that this might help someone in the future. :eek:
 

Hatebreeder

So many apples
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:eek: This is soo good.
Some of these explanations realy help me. Especialy the Billboard explanations.
+REP
 

~GaLs~

† Ғσſ ŧħə ѕαĸε Φƒ ~Ğ䣚~ †
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Wait, i seems to read this some where before......
Hmm, did you wrote this yourself or you copy and paste it here?
 

PurgeandFire

zxcvmkgdfg
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Great, +rep.

Nice job, the stuff seem correct to me as far as I know.

@GaLs: It is from the Warcraft III Art Tool documentation, read the first sentence. xP
 

NullCurrent

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Im glad that it will help. I was downloading the Warcraft III Art Tools, and I saw these, and I didnt know a lot of em, so I posted here, so people can access it easier. All credits to Blizzard, I'm just sharing it.:D
 

~GaLs~

† Ғσſ ŧħə ѕαĸε Φƒ ~Ğ䣚~ †
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Well, I didn't say that just copy and poasting the documentation is wrong, just why not add in some explaination?
It is just like posting the JassHelper Documentation. Then why people need vJass tutorial?
 
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>Then why people need vJass tutorial?
They don't need.

Nice post :).

>Each unit in Warcraft III is generally represented by a single model, although there are some exceptions.
What could these exceptions be ;P?
 
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