I've Got a Picture Riddle For You.

[p0lar_bear]

Find what's special about this picture:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p119/p0lar_bear/Halo/p0lar_halo.png

I'll give you a hint:

http://i126.photobucket.com/albums/p119/p0lar_bear/awesome.gif
:awesome:
Special thanks to Choking Victim for the rig. The biped model was extracted from The Sims 2. Model and bitmaps are property of EA/Maxis, used soley for educational/recreational purposes and not for profit.

I just got bored as hell and wanted to rip my Sim and put it into Halo. It uses the marine skeleton and animations, so at this point, it's an NPC. It's rigged okay, just some clipping issues on the wrists, mouth, and knee, and there's something up with the waist. The fingers are also a bit icky; I need to move them a bit so they don't go through weapons.

[SnaFuBAR]

lol'z m8

[DaneO'Roo]

wow, nice work!

Who made that?

[Reaper Man]

Where's mine? :smith:
In my pants http://www.c3airsoft.com/images/smilies/downsowned.gif

[Ingulit]

:O Shmexhay.

Those marines almost look like real life! :awesome:

[nooBBooze]

Found it! Its the hovering tank right?
wait..

[Llama Juice]

that is pretty awesome... good job buddy.

[Con]

Cool, I didn't know sims stuff could look so good in Halo.

[p0lar_bear]

Cool, I didn't know sims stuff could look so good in Halo.

I'll tell you what, Halo weaponry is 100% effective at making a sim look better. I almost want to swap out the portable phone model in that game for the pistol. :P

[Choking Victim]

The rig is just "okay"? :(. It looks good in the picture, other than the jaw :).

[p0lar_bear]

The rig is just "okay"? :(. It looks good in the picture, other than the jaw :).

It does great, don't get me wrong, but the waist gets lolheug when in the rifle idle stance, and his knees get all funky when he does something like get in a ghost.

And thanks again for your hard work, I'm still happy to have this model in-game and animating properly, and I've got a new approach to rigging. :D

[NullZero]

Looks awesome :o

[ICEE]

man i wish i could see it! my net connection doesnt allow photobucket pics... will someone upload elswhere and post it so i can see? oh pretty please...

[OmegaDragon]

man i wish i could see it! my net connection doesnt allow photobucket pics... will someone upload elswhere and post it so i can see? oh pretty please...


1st picture:

http://img263.imageshack.us/img263/6817/p0larhalomw0.png

Second picture:
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/3263/awesomeuq4.gif

[paladin]

How did you get on the Pillar of Autumn. I want to go. Not fair!

[supersniper]

How did you get on the Pillar of Autumn. I want to go. Not fair!
He flew there duh. I thought everybody new that...

[Jay2645]

I'll take 1 ticket to Reach, please. And then, when the Covies attack, I "accidentally" get aboard the POA.
Though being consumed by the Flood, or, surviving that, dying in a giant nuclear explosion doesn't sound too good...
Forget that, I'd rather sign up for the Spartan III Program.

[Jay2645]

Yeah, give us a link to one, it'd be nice of you.
Puhlease?

[p0lar_bear]

Okay guys, here's how I did it:


I started by creating a Sims 2 Sim. I own The Sims 2 and The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff.

After creating the Sim, it takes you to that screen that shows the family members you've created thus far (the family portrait screen). Here, I waited until he was in the most relaxed stance he could get in, and then used 3DReaper to take a 3D snapshot of the scene.

I then import the 3DR file 3DReaper dumps, and stretched the mesh out quite a bit; since I don't know what FOV the Sims 2 camera operates at, the mesh is squashed. Nothing the non-uniform scale tool can't fix.

I use TheGhost's model importer to import the Marine model; complete with Marine mesh and bones.

I scale up and rotate the Sim mesh to best match the Marine's body. Then I delete the Marine mesh, and move the Marine bones to match the stance of my Sim.

Then, I fixed the materials; for some reason, 3DReaper doesn't get the correct textures from memory, so I have to recreate them. More on this later.

After materials look fine, the rigging happens. I tried, and failed miserably, so I handed the job off to Choking Victim. (Unless he says otherwise, don't ask him to do your rigs for you! I'm sure he has a lot of stuff to do.)

I export the model with TheGhost's Model Exporter script, since it supports weighted JMS files. Unfortunately, the exporter doesn't support multiple regions, so you will have to export the model as one mesh.

Then comes the Halo-related stuff; compiling textures, creating shaders, etc etc.

When you compile the gbxmodel, make sure to open characters\marine\marine.gbxmodel, and copy the number in the "node checksum" field over to the custom gbxmodel you compiled.

The biped tag is a direct copy of characters\marine\marine.biped, only using my model, and no collision geometry.


That's pretty much all there is to it. Since 3DReaper doesn't get the textures correctly, I had to crack open the game's .package files and export the textures from there.


Download The Sims 2 Package Editor (simPE) from http://sims.ambertation.de/
From the folder you installed The Sims 2 in, go into TSData\Res\Sims3D\ and open Sims08.package
You will be presented with a plethora of LIFO files, or Large Image Files. These are the skins.
Using the first filename in there as an example (afbodydress-blackshiny0), let me break down some "codes" used in the filenames:

"af" means it's a skin meant for a female Sim. "am" is for males.
"body" means that the skin of for a full body set; models are split into multiple pieces; heads, tops, bottoms, and full bodies.
"dress-blackshiny" is a description; this is a shiny black dress.
The 0 signifies the pixel size of the file; files suffixed with a 0 are 1024x1024, and 1s are 512x512. Due to the limits of Halo's engine, I recommend only ripping the 512x512 skins.

Now that you know the filename "codes," determine how you clothed your sim; did you use a pre-made outfit (use body skins), or did you mix and match a shirt and pants (use top and bottom skins)?
Before you go any further, extract the "nude" skin that you need (by the way, nude sim skins aren't explicitly detailed, so don't worry.). Extract it as PNG.
Now, find the clothing skin you think you had on them, or a variant. Extract it as PNG as well.
Open both PNG files in Photoshop, and then paste the clothing skin over the nude skin. Flatten the layers and save it as a TIF.
Now, find a face image that matches your sim. If you gave your sim stubble instead of a full beard, find the stubble image file you need and paste it over the face the same way you put clothes on the body.
Next is hair. Hair can be tricky, especially if you choose the messy hair (what I was using). Find the hairstyle you chose and export it as PNG.
If your hair file had transparency, you will need to extract the alpha channel from the PNG file. To do this, I opened the PNG in Max. I'm presented with the file, without the transparency. I resave it as another png file. Then I click the Show Alpha button, and resave it as yet another PNG.
I open the PNG files, and then paste the exported alpha into the alpha channel of the base bitmap, and saved as TIF.


That's it, more or less. I may have missed a few things, but it's nothing that can't be found out with a little common sense. :)

[Love De Lux]

Do I see p0lar's SP map ? ;x

Very cool stuff. :)

[Tweek]

actually, it does grab textures properly, the only problem with it is that it wont apply them properly in max (Got to dow ith shaders and stuff) they're all in the textures folder though, just have fun looking trough like 600 images to find the right one.

[p0lar_bear]

actually, it does grab textures properly, the only problem with it is that it wont apply them properly in max (Got to dow ith shaders and stuff) they're all in the textures folder though, just have fun looking trough like 600 images to find the right one.

I had dug through my textures folder over and over again, and all I could find was the face and hair. My body texture simply wasn't there, so I had to rip from the packages.

[DrunkenSamus]

There's a tiny green enforcer concealed in the glass. Duh.