THOMAS' PURPLE TANK OF DOOM

Thomas made a really cool modification of the tank model in class this week.  It's transparent.  And, it has only two wheels.  Here's a render of the tank on the moon's surface.  Cool tank Thomas!

 Here's another picture that I rendered with a clay material so you can see the details better.

Thomas asked me to convert it to FBX format so that he could load it into the game. Here's the FBX file.  And here's the original GMAX file.

One thing you should be careful of when you load this model.  Since some of the parts were removed from the original tank model, the source code will probably choke when it tries to load those missing parts.  So, you may have to do some modifications to the source code before it will load this tank FBX file.  Here's the tank parts hierarchy of original tank.  I think the game source code is going to try to load each of those part names shown in the picture.   So, you will have to go through the source code and remove the parts that try to load or manipulate those part names.

Awesome looking tank, Thomas!

TANK MODELS

Here's the tank model from the Microsoft XNA sample game that we played with in the last class. I zipped up all the tank model files and posted them for you to download.  Click on this link to download a zip file that contains these files: 

1) Tank.FBX = The original model included with Microsoft's sample game.

2) Tank.3DS = I converted the FBX file to 3DS format using the Autodesk FBX Converter utility. Gmax can import 3DS files.

3) Tank.GMAX = I imported the 3DS file and saved it as a GMAX file so you can edit it.

4) engine_diff_tex.tga = The texture file for the tank included with Microsoft's sample game. If you open the GMAX file, make sure to keep this texture file in the same directory so that it can load the textures with the tank.

Also, click here to go to Microsoft's download page for the source code for this tank game XNA sample project.

Russ DeWitt

OLIVER'S SICKLE SWORD

Several of you who have been using the Siege Editor program to create your own custom Dungeon Siege maps to play in the Microsoft Dungeon Siege game.  And you've probably wondered how to import a 3D object from the game (like a sword) into Gmax so that you can change it.  Here are instructions for doing that.

Instructions for loading this sword into GMAX.

=======================================

1) First, unpack the "objects.dres" (from your Dungeon Siege game directory) using the "Tank Viewer" program.

2) Then, install a special update of the SiegeMax program called "SIEGEMAX UPDATE 1.3".  It's free.  Use Google to find it.  That version of SiegeMax allows you to import ".ASP files" (like this sword) from the unpacked objects.dres file from game.

3) Next, start SiegeMax (version 1.3 that you installed).  Right click the screen and select "import" from the menu.  Go to the directory where you unpacked your objects.dres file and load this file:   "...\art\meshes\weapons\sword\m_w_swd_050.asp"

4)  After it is loaded into the SiegeMax Gmax program, save it as a Gmax file.

Click here to download Oliver's way-cool looking "Sickle Sword" saved in Gmax format.  In Gmax, I added a smiley face on the end of the sword and exported it back into the game (see the picture above  :-)

Russ DeWitt