Hi everybody! A little question about Visionaire and 3D...

Hi everybody,
my name is Giovanna and I'm a 3D modeller. Together with my partner, I'm designing a point-and-click adventure game using Visionaire Studio.
Our intention is to create a 2.5D adventure, with a 3D character model and prerendered backgrounds (à la Syberia, to be clear).
I managed to successfully import a MakeHuman 3D character in DAE format, but only in VS 5 RC2, since in VS 4 the process wouldn't work and I get a blank character. Besides, the imported character size is quite small and scaling options make the character very grainy and pixellated.
Another question is: is there some way to import a geometry file in order to tell the 3D character how to move inside the scene or this can only be achieved my manually setting waypoints?
Thanks in advance for any help and hats off to VS staff for this wonderful piece of software

A'llo, welcome to the VS community.

I believe only .x format worked ok for 3D character models in VS 4.x. AkcayKaraazmak is the only member I know on here who had success at importing working 3D character models into Visionaire Studio 4.

I don't know if Simon has reworked the 3D character system so it has better support for other format types. I guess you'll just have to wait & see if he replies to this thread.

As for the way system. Yes, you need to manually create way systems & character paths for every playable scene. Scenes are 2D, so I don't think it would make sense using 3D geometry!? (sorry I work with 2D, so not very savvy on 3D side of things). Anyway, the paths you create inside of the way system are just a guideline to tell the character where to go & are also used to specify the scale of the character. You should try to only create scale points based on the y-axis as the character will scale up/down much smoother.

Hi there,

I'm also developing a 2.5D adventure, you can change the scale and camera angle with codes which I do for each scene because all scenes have different camera angles.

What I suggest you to use .X format, I was also using 3d character in vs4 which had some bugs on 3d but now RC2 version is stable. Simon made massive improvements. And for the textures its good to have them 512x512.

Hi, AkcayKaraazmak! (nice username ), we were waiting for you

First of all, I have downloaded and played the demo of your game. Terrific visuals! Congrats!

I have noticed that in the first scene (the house corridor), your 3D character is in the foreground and is very big and detailed. What I meant in my previous post, is that when I import my character, the model (with no scaling option at all, so 100%) is quite small even if I set to a very big size in my 3D software.

At the moment we are using open source softwares like MakeHuman and Blender, since it is still a personal project and we don't wan't to have to deal with expensive licenses and the such. The only problem is that the Blender .X exporter is nowhere as rich in detail as Alin Direct-X Exporter for 3DS Max.

In the meantime, thanks for any suggestions you may have for us.

@AFLRme: we came up with the idea of a geometry file since, before VS, we've been using Wintermute Engine, which allowed to import a 3DS geometry file with solid obstacles together with the 3D pre-rendered scene, so that the character already knew where he could go inside the scene and there was no need to create waypoints.

I guess you would have to ask SimonS if he could implement something like the geometry thing you are talking about. AkcayKaraazmak wrote this guide on how he created his character models for VS a while back: https://wiki.visionaire-tracker.net/wiki/3D_models - I don't know if that's the method he still uses? But maybe it will be of some use.

I guess you would have to ask SimonS if he could implement something like the geometry thing you are talking about.

Can I? That would be great!

Should I send him a PM or would it be better to post a topic in "Wishes & Ideas?"

As for AkcayKaraazmak's guide, I had already taken a look at it, but I guess that maybe his workflow has changed a bit overtime, especially with the lastest, pretty stable releases of VS 5. Furthermore, his method is specifically meant for 3DS Max, and we are using Blender at the moment.

Thank you so much Givonna ... If you want you can send me your 3d character with fbx format and I can check it as well. I also had the same scale problem when I first used VS but then i made it work which I dont remember how ... One of the important thing is where the character's pivot is. It should be located at middle and just by very bottom of the char.

@Lee, for the new VS I've changed some of the export setting to make it work with vs5.

Maybe you could provide us with another mini-guide of sorts to add to the wiki? - when you've got a minute that is.

Thank you so much Givonna ... If you want you can send me your 3d character with fbx format and I can check it as well. I also had the same scale problem when I first used VS but then i made it work which I dont remember how ... One of the important thing is where the character's pivot is. It should be located at middle and just by very bottom of the char.

By the way I've also tried to use .dae but it always messed the things up. But I think there should be .x exporter for blender as well.

And screenshots that we can see from your game?^^

Unfortunately we're still at a very alpha alpha stage of the process, and we're still designing the setting, the story and the puzzles, so I still don't have anything to show you. But don't worry, I will as soon as possible

As for the model, it is just a MakeHuman standard model, very basic, kind of a placeholder just to understand how 3D works in VS5 and if I can use MakeHuman with VS5 for 3D characters. The character's pivot should already be between the feet, by the way.

If you could take a look at the model and help me sort out the scale problem, I would really appreciate it How do you want me to send it to you?

@Lee, for the new VS I've changed some of the export setting to make it work with vs5.

Maybe you could provide us with another mini-guide of sorts to add to the wiki? - when you've got a minute that is.

Sure mate I'll do it

*Update on the scaling problem:

I've managed to fix the scaling problem by exporting the MakeHuman 3D model in meters. Besides, inside Visionaire I've set a 40% scaling factor in the "Properties"tab and a 130% scaling factor in the "Outfit" tab.
Now everything is alright (hopefully )

@AFRLme:
About asking Simon for 3D geometry file: how's the procedure for suggestions? Do I have to create a topic in "Wishes & Ideas?" or can I directly send a PM to Simon?