Scorched 3D - Modelling

Introduction -> Modelling
Scorched3D Modelling

Scorched3D is exensible and allows new tank and missile models to be created. Modelling for Scorched3D is currently supported using either 3D studio max or milkshape. Milkshape is recommended as Scorched3D has better/fuller support for this format.

Milkshape

The first step in making a model for scorched in milkshape is to actually make the model in milkshape. A userguide to milkshape is a little beyond the scope of this article, but are available at other places online.
A note about textures at this point. Currently scorched3d only supports bitmap (.bmp) textures.
These textures must also be square and have a resolution of a power of 2 (ie 16x16, 32x32, 64x64, 128x128, 256x256, 512x512, 1024x1024). Textures should be kept in the same direcotry as the model (personally I like to place each milkshape model and it's associated textures in a seperate directory). Also all file names should be lowercase only, since scorched works on multiple file systems and differeing file systems are case sensitive, the general rule of thumb is to always keep filenames lowercase. Alpha textures are supported as well, but must meet the above specifications. All objects in the model must be textured, with the exception of the turretpivot and gunpivot objects (see below).
Once you've completed the model you should start naming the seperate components. All objects that name starts with "gun" are considered part of the gun (ie gunBarrel, gunSight, gunlength), and all objects that name starts with turret are considered part of the turret (ie turretCenter, turretTop, turretWing). The turret rotates around the Y axis along with the gun, to indicate rotation, and the gun rotates vertically to represent the elevation of the shot.
TurretPivot
Gunpivot
Unless otherwise specified the gun and the turret rotate around the center of the turret. If this isn't the desired behavior you can specify pivot points for the gun and the turret. These pivots should be called "gunpivot" and "turretpivot" repectively, these objects ARE NOT DRAWN and don't need to be textured. All objects that start with "turret" are rotated around the center of "turretpivot" object along with all objects that belong to the gun including the gunpivot. All objects that start with "gun" are rotated around the gunpivot.
Once you've completed these steps export the model (File>Export>Milkshape 3D ASCII...), then tranfer you tank model directory to the scorced3d/data/tanks directory.
Then open scorched/data/tanks.xml in a text editor (usually notepad) and place an entry like this:

>     <tank>
>     	<name>My Model</name>
>     	<model type="MilkShape">mymodeldir/mymodel.txt</model>
>     </tank>

All paths in the tanks.xml file are relative to scorched/data/tanks so the above code assumes that your model is called mymodel and it's in a mymodeldir directory. If you want to make a category for your own models just place a category tag in the xml tag like this:

>     <tank>
>     	<name>My Model</name>
>     	<catagory>my category</catagory>
>     	<model type="MilkShape">mymodeldir/mymodel.txt</model>
>     </tank>

That's all there is to making a tank in Scorched3d.
Note: If your tank's turret rotates down instead of up when increasing elevation you may have created the tank backwards, if this is the case just rotate the entire model around the Y axis by 180 degrees, and re-export the file to the location specified in the tanks.xml file.
Node: Don't worry about the scale of your model, scorched automaticly scales the models to fit inside the tank's bounding area... hence all tanks are aproximately the same size.
3D Studio

3D Studio Max is supported via its ASCII export option (.ase files). To properly export the models they must NOT have any matterials applied to any face, then use these settings :-