Pandemic's Modelling and Animation Tips!

#1

Hey guys!

In light of all the new people coming in I figured its about time I did this thread!

This thread is made for the experienced models and animators to answer and help others get into Voxel Modelling and animation! I have over 300hrs in Qubicle 1 and nearing a understanding of Qubicle 3 on Steam!

I’ve authored mods with the help of various coders in the community such as @Avairian and @chimeforest! Hopefully I can help you do the same! Though keep in mind I only can help with the Art side of things, coding is a whole other game I don’t understand.

So post a question or comment! I’ll be here asap to answer, others may also pop in and aide you! If you want a opinion on a creation feel free to post an image and we can give you our thoughts on it :slight_smile:

Hope to hear from you guys soon!

#2

Hey Pandemic! Glad you’re doing this! My question is more of a general for-the-community type thing to get the ball rolling.

Do you have any resources or tips for coming up with color palettes for designing models that look like they belong in Stonehearth?

#3

There’s a Qubicle 3…

Just when I finally considered myself a “master” of Qubicle 2…
:sob:

If anyone needs Qubicle 1.0 or Qubicle 2.0 I’m willing to answer anything.
I have upwards of 800hrs on both combined, more on 2 though.

EDIT: After looking at Qubicle 3 on steam, I think i’ll wait DLC for tools I have available in Qubicle 2? Nty

#4

Mostly to get color reference from in game models, for example I use the goblin models for Reds. They seem to have a good amount of Red in their palette. For specific purpose like making custom furniture and such for RA players, you should start with the ingame RA colors.

Always try using colors that are related to the thing you’re modeling for, Goblins again for example have a lot of browns, reds and greens. Trying to stick to those color are always a good option.

If Color is your largest concern than I often use this site: Adobe Color CC

That site will help you make your palettes, but as always there will be some time and experimentation needed.[quote=“Aviex, post:3, topic:22341”]
EDIT: After looking at Qubicle 3 on steam, I think i’ll wait DLC for tools I have available in Qubicle 2? Nty
[/quote]

Honestly if you have Q2 the only reason to upgrade is for the Mesh Exporter and even then that only really helps for things outside of Stonehearth Modding.

#5
#6

When I color models for stone hearth, I look for the color already on a model and copy it if I can. If I can’t find the color I want then I’ll try and find a color which is the same brightness and mess with the hue slider still I get a color I’m looking for.
Also, here are a couple tips which I’ve remembered from one of the very first streams that they did:

  • Never use a pure color, especially pure white/black/grey, always add a hit of another color, like blue or red. (It depends on what you are modeling as to which color.)
  • Don’t use over saturated colors, they stand out too much, try to pick colors from the middle of the color picker.

If you follow these guides you should do well =]

Don’t get too excited, there isn’t much new, but there will be more coming later I am told (in the form of DLC)
However, if you are interested in it, you can upgrade your Q2 licence, which is a lot cheaper than just buying Q3, and, if you’re lucky, it might still be on sale too, I upgraded for about 27USD.

Cool, I haven’t see this one before =] I use http://paletton.com/ myself. It has some cool options like simulating color blindness. It can also export code for different environments, like HTML and CSS and such ^^

#7

I have the most expensive Q2 license(for business). I plan on sticking with it cause Q3 doesn’t seem to be that necessary as of now.

#8

Hiya,
Fairly new voxel modeler here, I was wondering if scaling the models, all with a different scale in Unity is a big no-no?
For ex. if I scale one model to 0.5 while another to 0.4.

#9

within Unity so I dont think it’d matter too much, that being said I dont
have much experience with Unity. All I can advise is the the model in one
scale then another, export and see if it makes a difference. If it does use
your prefered scale

#10

what programs for animations is better for doing things for stonehearth? i know there is blender as a free one. but what do you guys use?

#11

@ruduax
To answer your question from almost a month ago. Yes, you can scale different models to different scales. You can also scale instances of the same model to different scales, this is also perfectly acceptable.

You also have the option of doing some scaling during export using the Voxel Size and Unit Scale Factor Options.

@Simica_Na
Specifically for SH animations, I think Team Radient uses a special plugin they wrote for 3DSMax. I’m not sure if they have released it for use by the general public. (maybe @sdee could clarify?)

#12

TR has switched from 3DSMax to Maya, and @malley is the master animator, so he’ll likely have a more detailed answer than Stephanie at this point.

#13

Thanks, It’s been a while since I’ve been on the discourse.

#14

Jomaxro is right, we switched over to Maya. We did write some really simple scripts for 3dsmax, but never released them to the public (that I know of) and stopped supporting them even for ourselves years ago (before I was hired). Max had some pretty big issues with their animation systems which they said they never intended on fixing shrug - so we decided to swap to Maya. As for releasing these scripts, there is quite a lot of clean up work I need to do before we can realistically think about releasing them (they’re super messy atm) - and then there is the wall of lawyers we’d have to climb over after that. Definitely something I want to do, but it’ll be a bit yet.