Hi everyone.
I will soon embark on a 2D platform game(think Loco Roco Rolando) for the IPhone and have some questions you might be able to help me with.
All graphics will be done by me in Adobe Illustrator before transferring them to 3ds Max as our programmer’s pipeline starts from there and it’s also where we will do the animations. I’m sorry to say we will not use Unity for this release.
I have good knowledge in both pieces of software but very little experience with working from one to the other. By knowledge stops at saving my vectors as Illustrator 8 so Max can read the files. There isn’t really much of a problem when you have just a few simple shapes but now there will be a great number of objects to keep track of.
I’m looking for an easy way of handling the transfer where the objects appear in Max as close as possible to it’s original vector version. Preferable not just as outlines and with the correct colors and layers. Maybe there is a tool, plugin or tutorial I should be aware of?
I took at look at the creation of Loco Roco were they used Illustrator together with Maya. http://tinyurl.com/d2dvzo . I’m not sure if these are standard tools in Maya? They sure look intuitive. A better layer organizer in Max would be a good start.
Thank you for helping out.
Best,
perfectheat
Well exporting illustrater files should pretty much do the modeling part for you and thats were you should take on the rigging etc… i think you are on the right track form what you’ve explained.
As for the colors i guess you have to simply redo them in max by taking the illustrator files and color settings as reference, this shouldnt be a problem since they are only colors you are dealing with, this is a standard procedure perhaps you can check for some scripts ( www.scriptspot.com ) for max if there are any which will make this process faster, but as long as colors go you will just have to redo them in max, but this is mostly the way to do it, be mindful on the lights in max though in such a case i prefer not using any lights there and setting the material value of self illumination to 100 percent and taking on the color form there and dealing only with the color.
You could try something else but i advice this on non animated objects or background foreground elements. you could render out you image from illustrater along with a black and white map for the alpha and use it on a plane model as a texture with opacity, and you’ll have that illustration appear there, you could animate the plane slightly and have the image move i imagine if its a tree but thats about all. this method however shouldnt be used on characters or any other “hero” object. I noticed form the screenshots in maya that they have perhaps used this method on some of those objects there.
The best approach is the simple and standard approach in this case and you seem to be on track on it.
All the best.
Thank you for the help. It might be easier to understand me if you imagine the game being identical to Rolando: http://tinyurl.com/cqlvet . The screenshot shows just a small part of a level and one can zoom out to see much more. Basically only shapes and no images.
Did some more research and found out that the tool used in the Loco Roco Maya screenshot http://tinyurl.com/d2dvzo is LevelTools, or LayoutTools that it goes by now. http://tinyurl.com/cmypva
Does anyone know if the same tool, or something similar, is avaiable to Max?
Best,
perfectheat