First, love the avatar

Second, what I've seen done in the Fallout3 models for broken ends/things like that is a combination of making a rough-break in the model combined with a texture that makes the roughened model edge look even more broken and natural. For the modeling part, if you are starting with a cylinder-like tree, you'll have to spend some time in Blender making one end look broken. There's no easy formula for something like that, but it's also not as difficult as it might seem once you get started moving vertices around. If you take one end of a cylinder, close it up so the verticies all converge in the center, what I would do is add more geometry (vertices) to that bottom and then start moving the vertices in and out, shaping it like clay. This is really a sculpting job in my mind, and the common commands I use to mold the clay would be:

1. Select two or more points so you have 1 or more lines high-lighted, and press, "W" then "1" - which will add a verticies in-between the points selected, "Splitting" the geometry so you have more vertices to move. With the same goal to add more geometry, you can also press, "W" and "2" to add 2 splits, or W 3 for 3 splits, etc. Play around with it - Control-Z undoes any damage.

2. Hold down Control and en-circle verticies with your mouse to select them all. This is handy for moving entire edges around, or when splitting verticies like in #1.

3. To extend an edge or shape, such as extending a tree trunk downwards or to add another "circle" of trunk, you need to Extrude. To do this select verticies and press "E" to extrude. You can then drag the verts downwards and Left-Click to finish. What is very handy for controlling the direction of the new edge is to hold down "X", "Y" or "Z" after pressing "E" (and selecting Edge or Region from the little pop-up menu if one appears). This will allow you to drag the extruded-edge along an axis so the tree extends in the same direction.

There are other tricks, but those are some I use alot when doing basic shapes. To help with this I highly recommend you goto http://www.blender.org/education-help/video-tutorials/getting-started/website, which is the Blender Video Tutorial website. It has alot of great demos on how to make models in Blender if you want to take the plunge.

Once you have even a reasonable model for the tree made, you can on a texture for it. I will say that this is not exactly a simple model to start with, but if your persistent, you will learn a whole lot from working it.

Cheers,

Miax

Thanks he has been getting a lot of love lately

Again thanks for all the really detailed and useful help. I'm going to start now and see how I get on but just to be sure there isn't like a create noise function is there? or something similar. It doesn't matter I'm perfectly willing to do it by hand.

Thanks for this help many appreciate Miaximus :foodndrink:

Sorry to bother you again but... even thought I made sure to save yesterday only part of my model is saved. I had a cylinder with a little smaller cylinder that was the broken stub of a branch (that wasn't attacked to the main cylinder) and all I have now is the big cylinder. Also I was trying to do as you instructed me but I can't select any vertices

Oh and whats the difference between a skeletal mesh and a normal mesh?

You got stung like I did in the Beginning, the Blender save function svckS!

Why? Because when you click, "Save" (versus Save As) in 99.99999999997% of all applications in the world, it Saves on the spot - no further action required. So we as puny humans are mind-trained to know and expect this behavior. If I clicked "Save As", then I would expect to offer more input before the actual save. But "Save" itself should be instant, done.

Along comes Blender, and changes this decades-long-industry-standard for the Save function. When you click "Save" in Blender, you have to watch closely near the upper-left of the screen - you'll see the Filename you saved it as before high-lighted with your mouse near it. You need to Click that name Again, and it will save. Its almost like it's always asking you if it's okay to over-write the Save file, even though we havn't changed the name and thats completely un-necessary - Save As does that. And Blender doesn't stop there!

To ensure the maximum possible chance that we will loose our data, there is no "Save your un-saved work?" message/window when you try to close Blender without saving work. So if you don't execute the Save function correctly, Blender will still ignorantly close and flush all your un-saved work into /dev/null. Its a double-shot combination of stupidity in an otherwise brilliant application.

So be quite careful with Save in Blender, you need to make sure you complete Both steps before it really saves. You'll get the hang of it after awhile, but I'm sure there are neurons in our minds that scream-out in protest every time we have to take that extra step. :brokencomputer:

@Hellbiship_ - Thanks!

Thanks very much Miaximus, your right that is very odd :facepalm:

Thank you very much for all your help. Without it I would be beyond lost at the moment but
http://i46.tinypic.com/5l3zpw.jpg
I can extrude That was very much more of a test and it's not very good but I'm only a beginner

http://i49.tinypic.com/2yty1s0.jpg

Good job! You are definitely on your way.

I would recommend taking those extrusions and pulling them back (so they are smaller), and dragging the tip of them this or that way to make it look like an un-even break. You got the hang of it though, I recommend you keep exploring with the tree!

Also remember that the model doesn't have to be Perfect in terms of detail, as the texture will take a model that looks basically like a broken tree, and making it Really look like one. All you need to do with the model is get the basic shape of the broken tree-end.

Cheers!

Miax

Thanks, althought I think I want to make a log a little less severe now Something like http://images2.layoutsparks.com/1/149079/stand-still-beach-wood.jpg
I learnt alot so nothing was wasted.

Oh and how do I move the camera in edit mode?
Currently I use shift F in object mode.


Thanks again.

Nice.

Those will be easier to make by far, the ends are much less complicated and you can add most of the detail via the texture which will simplify it further still.

Actually the first thing I do is delete the camera and the lamps completely, as they will cause you problems when you save as a NIF file if they are selected (unless that's been updated in the recent Blender/nif-scripts release). If someone else knows better hopefully they will correct me here, but I don't think the camera is useful for the process (I never use it).

Cheers!

Miax

Hiya

sorry to barge in like this and if i am telling rubbish, its not by intention.

First thanks Miaximus for the tutorials, i haven`t gotten around to use GIMP yet, but my Photoshop-workplace will dry out soon, so i will try out GIMP for sure

As for the blender-talk:
no its not updated and the lamps will be exported, if selected.
The camera is nice for a rendered view as it adds some shadow/lighting stuff that is not visible with the "render this window" button in the lower right corner, but not neccessary.
If you export your mesh, just select the object(s) you want exported, the script will not export all objects in the current layer by default, just the selected ones.
The camera can be simply selected and dragged as any other object in object mode (and rotated and so on).

And one semi-related thing: try setting all your faces as "smooth" and selecting the "edge split" modifier without pressing apply. then you can view the mesh smooth and with yout sharp edges in the object mode without actually splitting the edges (which you`d have to do before exporting ). Sorry if this was obvious for you, i just recently learned that this makes a big difference, especially with rounded shapes

Thanks for the response. The blender NifScripts section is the one I Really need to update, but with regards to the camera, a few questions if I may:

1. If we export the camera from Blender with the model, does that change how the model will look in game/reflect light in-game?

2. If #1 is yes, are there any hints or tips you can offer as to using the camera for this purpose?

3. If #1 is no, does it hurt anything to have the camera in there or is it just ignored by NifSkope/Fo3?



I don't think I understand this fully. What visual effect does the Edge Split have on the model in-game? Or is this just for viewing in Blender? Don't worry about it being obvious, your already way over my head. Any insight on this would be appreciated!

Cheers,

Miax