Hi HellJumper, and thank you very much for your excellent Blender tutorials. In your Dota 2 one, at one point you discuss baking in the "Full Render" mode after setting up your light map (assuming I have the terminology right here), but you understandably don't take the time to set up perfect lighting. My question is, how much lighting should I use? Is the goal just to create shadows on the texture based on the normal map? Should I light some parts of the item brighter than others, or allow some sections to be in shadow?

Thanks for your help; I had never done any baking before, so your tutorial very quickly made me a better modeler.

Crocodile Dendi,

Yup. The main purpose of the Light Map is to give certain parts of the model extra depth and detail. Thus you should add enough light to get it to the point of producing a light map that is mostly white/grey. No part should be fully dark (shadowed) since overlaying this on top of your texture will blacken out the stuff below it.

Take a look at the actual lightmap I ended up using: Link[dl.dropbox.com]

Something like that would be good at about 85% transparency using soft light as the modifier.

Hmm, ok, I think I get it now! Thanks!

Hi,

why is the workshop showcase discussion locked? Well anyways my first work is here (http://psteamcommunity.yuanyoumao.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=103759463). Had to remake it over 3 times from scratch. Model and art aren't anything like Helljumper's but its a start :). Next one will be full set and will be out after week or something.

Anyways thank you HellJumper. Guides helped me A LOT.

It's locked because you should start a new discussion for the models.

Keep up the good work!

Hello, I'm making a Silencer weapon. I have finished my modeling and I need to attach it to the correct bone.

Using Blender, I take these steps:

Import Silencer body
Select my model then the bones
ctrl+P -> With Empty Groups
Then just select my model
Go to edit mode
Go to object data tab
Scroll down and click "RWeapon_2" then the assign button.

After that I just export. When I try to submit it, it attaches to the wrong hand, it attaches to the shield hand and it moves like a shield (if silencer plays the death animation, my weapon rolls away).

What am I doing wrong?

Make sure you are using the right bone. Are you 100% sure that the RWeapon_2 bone is the one for his glaives? You can check this: Select Silencer > edit mode > deslect everything > go into the object data tab > select the RWeapon_2 bone > click "select". If his default glaives are selected, this is the right bone.

If it's the correct bone, then you must accidently be applying your model to the wrong bone.

Ah! So the steam page is wrong. I knew Silencer was left-handed. Okay, how do I completely unbind everything?

Thank you for the help, you've been great.

Edit: Nvm I figured that out! AWESOME! Now I just need to fix my masks. Once again, thank you SO much.

Haha, no problem. If you want, post a showcase thread of your workshop submission so I can upvote it later.

Help! I don't know why this is happening.

This is what it looks like in blender: http://i.imgur.com/6nKe3.png

This is what it looks like while compiled: http://i.imgur.com/wjINK.jpg

Why?

Wait, what exactly is wrong? That's supposed to be a weapon, right?

The gems are somehow covered. Take a look at the compiled one.

Oh, that must be either a problem with your masks or the lighting in that pose. Perhaps give the gems a selfillum mask. It should be the alpha channel of your mask1 texture. Paint those parts white.

http://media.steampowered.com/apps/dota2/workshop/Dota2ShaderMaskGuide.pdf

That didn't fix it. The same problem persists. I went over all my masks - they nothing should be causing that...

Edit: I found the cause - somehow the blade part of the model was leaking through as well as the inside of the connecting parts - I just randomly clicked "recalculate" (normals) and "remove doubles" a couple of time it and it fixed itself. Much thanks!

Is it possible to make animations for just the model? The new shield I'm working on is split into pieces, I would like them to float a bit (within itself). Do you know how to do this?