Complete Success

I totally just imported the model into RCT3. And it worked freaking perfectly. I am happy.

I know it must have been strange reading my posts. Since I have not given much away about this model, you've had to go on basically nothing. Sorry about that.

Anyways, it is now fully imported! All my test animations work perfectly. I just have to texture it and it will be complete. I love conquering stuff. Or rather.... I like at the end when you get to step on the back of your foe's head, smashing his face into the dirt, as you strike a badass pose and gloat about how great you are and how much he sucks.

Should've done that earlier

So I finally did what I said that I would do a few posts ago. I tried to import the model into RCT3. Unfortunately, I ran into a snag. It looks like the RCT3 Importer doesn't like how detailed my model is. It doesn't give me any error messages, it just appears to begin loading the .modxml, deliberates for a good while, then hits me with a classic "ping!" with no accompanying message. I am guessing that it is just too big. So I'm thinking I'll just have to go with the base mesh that I modeled, instead of the subdivided one. Like I said, I think RCT3 would be able to handle the subdivided mesh, but I didn't think about the fact that it might not be able to get through the importer. That's OK, though, because I was starting to get a little overwhelmed with the weight painting of the hi-poly model. Hopefully I'll have an easier time with the lower poly version.

Latest Model Update

Good news! The importation of the Warrior of Light model into RCT3 has been an absolutely smashing success!! I would say that the model is 90% accurate to the original. In most shots, the peep looks identical to it's CSO doppelganger:

It is only in shots where the two are juxtaposed that you can see any real differences:

This means that I should be able to switch the "stunt double" for the actual peep, and you really shouldn't notice a difference.

Another great thing is that UV mapping works properly. In order to test UV mapping compatibility in RCT3 without going to the trouble of actually texturing the model how it is supposed to be, I rendered an Ambient Occlusion pass to a UV image of the model's unwrapped mesh. I then used that texture as the model texture. This meant that if the model looked like AO was applied to it in RCT3, then UV mapping works. If the texture looked like a garbled mess, that would mean that UV mapping wouldn't work. 

As it turns out the texture mapped properly. As you can see, there are indirect shadows on the model below, which was rendered in RCT3. Notice the area on his forehead behind the right eyebrow. See how it is dark right behind his eyebrow, and gets lighter farther away? This is the effect that Ambient Occlusion has when rendering. Since the UV texture was mapped properly, these "indirect shadows" show up in the correct places.

As for the SCAD Film Festival: today is the last day that people can submit their films. Then on the 15th the winners will be notified and the online voting for the "viewers choice" will begin.  So......... yeah. Still waiting.

That's all for this update.