ModelHolder2
ModelHolder2
-- Means of placing non-player/non-enemy model (object created with external
modeler such as 3D Studio Max, LightWave, MilkShape, etc. and prepared for Serious
usage in Serious Modeler model assembly utility) into the world. See ModelHolder3, down in Other Entities (not present
in tree by default), for similar entity for use with models prepared via Serious
SKA Studio. As of the April 2002 v1.07 patch for Serious Sam - The Second
Encounter, use of only Serious SKA Studio is recommended for the creation/usage
of new models for Second Encounter and subsequent Serious Games (First Encounter
only supports models from Serious Modeler).
(New as yet undiscussed properties: Max Tesselation and Texture Animation)
ModelHolder2 (Davor Hunski)
The main entity class used for placing models into a level. Each content model
(not enemy or item) that needs to be placed in level will have one model holder.
To add a model into world, drop ModelHolder2 entity and adjust its properties
to fit your needs. Use Model property to browse and select model. Class auto
loads textures as lastly saved in Serious Editor. You can browse and select
texture via Texture property. Modelholder2 class allows you to adjust model's
shading, to set destruction behavior, turn on collision, stretch it, adjust
mipping (level of detail) distance switching,...
Active
-flag property. If you set this flag off, model will be invisible in game,
but will still be visible in Serious Editor. You can set it visible inside game
by sending Activate event to it.
Ambient color
-color. Models in Serious Editor are lit with ambient color and diffuse light
color. In un-customized model shading mode, light direction, ambient and light
color are calculated as resulting influence of the lights that surround the
model. This shading model allows models to fit the world seamlessly as long
as the level doesn't feature over-brightening. Due to older hardware's inability
to apply over-brightening onto interpolated shading, models can't have over-brightening,
as world's polygons can. That's why sometimes it seems that models are darker
than surrounding environment. Sometimes you want to add more drama to the lighting
of a model and it can get tricky trying not to spoil the level's lightning.
ModelHolder2 allows you to set your own shading for models. To do so, you have
to set custom shading property to "Full customized". Then you adjust
ambient shading component with the Ambient color property that we are describing
here, change diffuse light component with "Light color" property and
adjust light direction with "Light direction" property.
Light color
-color. Here you set diffuse component of light when you use customized shading
as described in description of previous property.
Light direction
-vector property. This property is used to define the direction which will
be used to lighten model.
Apply RND stretch
-flag property. When you set this property, model is resized according to random
stretch factors. Flag is automatically cleared, so this property serves as some
kind of 'Randomize again' button.
Attachments
-flag property. If this flag is set (by default), model automatically loads
attachments that are saved within the .ini file saved when Serious Modeler saves
a model.
Bump
-file property. You can browse and select bump texture for your model here.
Bump texture adds detail to model's main texture (i.e. wood skin).
Classification stretch
-float property. Serious Engine uses a model's bounding box (box that collects
all of the model's vertices) to classify it into sectors. When rendering sectors,
if a sector becomes visible, models that are classified into it also become
visible and are added to rendering queue. Sometimes you wish to 'unclassify'
a model from some sectors. For example, if you create yard sector with 8 meters
surrounding walls, and you have palms that are 12 or more meters high, they
will be classified into both the yard sector and the sector above it. The sector
above the yard sector is visible from a huge distance and, because the palm
is classified into it, whenever this high sector is visible, the palm is rendered.
That's the case if you don't tweak (read cheat) the model's classification.
This property, classification stretch, is used to tweak model's classification.
It represents number, actually ratio ranging from 0 to 1, that will be used
to scale down model's bounding box before it is used for classification. If
you set classification stretch of 0.5 to our 12-meter palm, it will be classified
the same as a 6-meter palm would be. Now it will be classified only into yard's
sector, and will be contained into upper sector.
Colliding
-flag property. If this flag is cleared, players and other moving entities
won't collide with the model. A modern engine should be able to perform two
collision detections: 'normal' physical collision (model to model and model
to brush) and ray cast (bullet hit) collisions. Serious Engine's physical collision
engine is based upon colliding with a model's oriented collision box, which
is approximated with group of spheres. It is important to note the 'oriented'
collision box, a mechanism that allows multiple gravities and a whole range
of other physical effects. For ray cast collision, you can choose between exact,
per polygon ray cast, and approximate, but much faster, ray cast algorithm.
Custom shading
-enumerated custom shading types. Here you can take control of model holder's
shading and adjust shading parameters manually. In addition to normal un-customized
shading model (where shading is left for engine to handle), there are two more
shading models: fully customized and so-called constant shading. Up to now,
we described fully customized shading where you provide separate color for ambient
and color for diffuse shading component. Sometimes, however, you would like
to erase shading effect and leave only lighting influence. In that case you
should use "constant shading" setting.
Destruction
-entity pointer. An interactive engine should provide gamers the ability of
destroying models. For example, one should be allowed to blow up trees, stones,
statues, torches,... Modelholder2 implements destroying feature through model
destruction entity. With this 'Destruction' property, you can target model destruction
entity. This entity holds 'exploding data' info. When certain criteria are achieved,
such as if model is hit so bad that destroy health provided by model destruction
is reached, model 'explodes'. The engine then uses data stored in model destruction
to form an exploding effect (i.e. type of debris) and to switch to next destroy
phase, because model destruction points to next model holder 2 that can have
its own model destruction. Through this model holder-model destruction chain
you can have as many destruction phases as you wish (i.e. statue without head,
statue without head and upper part of torso,...).
Destruction target
-entity pointer. When an model is destroyed, entity linked trough this property
is triggered with trigger event. You can use this feature for numerous purposes.
For example, you can activate secret door when a statue is destroyed (or you
can spawn some enemies :).
Light animation
-enumerated animations. A model's shading can also be animated, so you can
have all kinds of model's lighting behavior (i.e. flickering, colored light
dancing, pulsating,...). Model holder's model can be animated using the same
interface as for animating light: with one property you browse light animation
file and with another (described here) you select one animation from animation
file. Light animation can be changed later within game using animation changer.
Just to remind you, a light animation file can be edited and manipulated with
the light animation editor from within Serious Editor.
Light animation file
-file property. Here you browse and select one of your animation files as described
in previous property section.
Mip Add
-float number. Serious Engine uses level of detail (LOD) for the models, and
we call it mip-modeling (term is based on texture's mip-mapping effect, where
texture switches to lower mip map on certain distance). Mip models are variations
of the same model that differ in number of polygons. To speed up rendering of
a model, engine uses lower mip model (one with less polygons) for rendering
when model reaches certain distance. Since model is smaller on the screen, it
doesn't need so many polygons for rendering. If model is even further away,
engine will take next available mip model, and so on, and so on. These mip switching
distances are defined within Serious Modeler, but sometimes you want to adjust
this distance. Mip add and Mip mul properties are used for this purpose. Mip
factor is number that engine uses to determine which mip model to use for rendering.
Mip factor is heavily dependent upon model's distance from camera, but is also
changed when resolution is changed. For the sake of simplicity, we can calculate
that mip factor is a logarithm of base 2 of current model's distance. So, if
model is 64 meters away, mip factor will be around 6. Let's imagine an unrealistic
example where we have 10 mip models, each switching at next whole mip factor
value (1,2,3,4,5...). So, for mip factor value of 6, engine would display mip
model no 6. If we set this mip add property to certain value greather than 0,
let's say 2, 2 will be added to original mip factor before determining which
mip model to use for rendering, add we would get mip model 8 (6+2=8) instead
of 6, so we achieved earlier mip switching by increasing mip add factor. To
be more precise, we scrolled mip switching towards camera. Mip mul factor is
used to stretch mip switching factor, not to scroll them. This way, if we set
mip mul factor to 1.5, at distance that is represented with mip factor 6, engine
will choose mip model 9 instead of 6 (6*1.5=9).
Mip mul
-float number. Explained under previous section.
Mip Fade dist
-float number. There is another way to setup mip model disappearing that will
result in rendering speedup. It is implemented trough "mip fade dist"
and "mip fade len" properties. These two also act using current mip
factor (explained under "Mip add" chapter). They are used to define
mip factor where model will start to disappear (using blending) and mip factor
where model will completely disappear. If we use example from previous chapter,
and set "Mip fade dist" to 6, "Mip fade len" to 2, model
will start to disappear at mip factor (cca 64m) 6 and will completely disappear
at mip factor 8 (cca 256 m). This can be very useful for larger number of objects.
For example, if you would like to render an area full of trees, you could use
this fading interface. You can set tree model's fading out distance (which is
much more tolerable than mip model's "plopping") and add some haze
to cover it. You will get smoother disappearing and much faster rendering.
Mip Fade Len
-float number. Explained under previous section.
Model
-file property. Here you can browse and select model holder's model. Once you
select it, engine will try to open model's .ini file and automatically set textures
that model was saved with from Serious Modeler. If model holder's attachments
flag is set (defined via attachments property), engine will also try to automatically
add attachments that were attached to most recently saved model.
Model animation
-enumerated model animations. When you browse and select a model via 'Model'
property, animations that are featured for selected model appear under this
property and can be selected. You can change these animations later with animation
changer. For example, you can have statue of liberty model holding torch up
and when you activate a switch, lady can start waving with the torch. Important
point: in Serious Engine, animations do not take any time to calculate. So you
can have thousands of animated models and they will take exactly the same time
to render as if they weren't animated. So, make your levels alive (all trees
can move affected by the wind, flags can wave, ...).
Reflection
-file property. Here you can browse for and select reflection texture for a
model.
Shadows
-enumerated shadow casting types. Models can cast different types of shadows:
no shadows, cluster shadows and polygonal shadows. When you choose cluster shadows,
models will behave exactly as if they were built as brushes, casting their shape
onto the shadow map, and shadow will be blurred. If you choose polygonal shadows,
all of the model's polygons will be projected onto polygon nearest to the model
holder's handle and you will see the exact shape of the model. Edges will be
sharp, and some polygons will be overlapped and will produce darker shadow areas.
Specular
-file property. Here you can browse specularity texture for a model.
Stretch All/X/Y/Z
-float factors. When you browse for and select a model, via the 'Model' property,
the model will have a size that was defined inside Serious Modeler. Usually
you want to stretch model to better fit your world. If you want to decrease
the model's size, you should set value less than 1 for "Stretch All".
If you want to double model in size, set 2 for "Stretch All".. You
can stretch one or more components of a model. This way you can create taller
or fatter models. If you set negative value as a stretch, let's say stretch
x = -1, model will be mirrored around given axis (around x). This way you can
create two mirrored guardians, each one to guard one side of an gate. Resulting
stretch will be combination of all influences: if axis stretches are x=2, y=1,
z=1, and Stretch All=3, model will be stretched 6 times along x, 3 times along
y and z.
Stretch RND All/X/Y/Z
-float factors. These factors are used to define how much of random stretch
will be applied to original stretch defined using Stretch All/X/Y/Z properties.
Random factors define percentage, percentage of original stretch that is allowed
random range. For example, if you set "Stretch RND All" to 0.1, you
allowed random in range of +-10% of original model's stretch. If we have a palm
that is 12 meters high, and we set "Stretch RND All" to 0.1, we allowed
stretch sized from 12-1.2 up to 12+1.2. Random x,y,z work in the same
way, but are applied only to according coordinates. Random stretch is not applied
when these properties are changed, but when "Apply RND stretch" flag
is set. You can think of this flag setting just like pushing "Randomize
again" button.
Texture
-file property. Here you can browse and select model's main texture.
Texture animation
-enumerated main model's texture animations. All textures in Serious Engine
can be animated. So can model's main texture. Sometimes a texture file
holds more than one animation and here you can select one of animations available
for main model's texture.
Obsolete
Background
Name
Parent
Spawn flags
Targetable