Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

A3fEdit by Roughfish World Software

A Guide and Tutorial

A3fEdit allows you to create 3d models for use in our games. Download A3fEdit The window consists of a menu, menu buttons, action and view selection buttons, the drawing window and a view specific pane. There are 4 main actions Select, Add, Camera and Move. Select highlights the objects you want to work with. You can typically select by left clicking and draging a box around the objects or right clicking individual objects. Add will create a new object when you click the screen. Camera moves the virtual camera position without effecting the model. Move will change the geometry of the model.

There are also 4 views Vertex, Normal, Material and Bone. Vertex view allows you to build the wire frame and apply faces. Normal view lets you change the surface normals of the vertices for lighting effects. Material view creates the color and texture of the model. Bone view adds a bone structure and animations to the model.

Tutorial 1 - A Tree

Lets start your first model. Click on the ADD (plus sign) button and then click on the drawing window in three places to form a triangle. You will see them appear as dots of different colors. These colors have meaning which we will describe shortly. Then right click on the screen or press the F key. Now the vertices have been connected and form a face. Faces have direction and are culled so you only see them from one direction. Connecting vertices clockwise will create a face pointing toward you. The colors of the vertices indicate the order in which they were selected. Red was last, then green and blue. If your face is pointing the wrong way just click the rev (reverse) button in the view specific pane. Switch to the Normal view pane by using the menu or the button. Now switch your action to Camera by clicking the Camera (hand) button. Right click and drag the model and it will rotate. You can see the normals as little pink lines. If you want the normals calculated for you just click the Selected Normals button under Calculate Normals From. Now switch to Materials view. Make the triangle black by entering 0's in the Diffuse text boxes and then clicking OK. We will add a texture. Start up a paint program, draw a simple tree on a white background of 256 x 256 pixels (or some multiples of 64) and save it as a .bmp file. Click the Texture checkbox and then Browse. Select your tree image and click Open. You now see the image displayed behind your triangle face. If the face does not cover the tree image adjust the camera so it does. Use left SHIFT drag to adjust the zoom and left drag to position. When the face covers the tree click the From View button on the Material view pane. This grabs the texture coordinates from the screen for each selected vertex. You will now see 2 trees, the background image and a semi transparent image on the triangle face. This transparency is just to make it easier to work with the background image but we want to make our tree transparent for each white pixel. Select Luminance from the Alpha list box and click the OK button to the right. Do you notice there are 3 OK buttons! Make sure you select the one to the right and below. Click the File Save (disk) button and save your first model. Make sure the image file stays in the same folder as the .a3f file. You can read your .a3f file with any text editor. Here is the file we have created.

A3F
VERSION { 2.00 }
COMMENT { This file was generated by Roughfish World Software's A3FEdit. }
VERTICES { POSITION_NORMAL_TEXCOORDS 3
	-0.441406 0.515625 0.000000	0.000000 0.000000 1.000000	0.069290 0.227096
	0.511719 0.519531 0.000000	0.000000 0.000000 1.000000	0.877015 0.223786
	-0.015625 -0.664063 0.000000	0.000000 0.000000 1.000000	0.430118 1.000000
}
FACES { 1
	2 1 0	0
}
MATERIALS { 1
	MATERIAL { NAME default
		AMBIENT 0.200000 0.200000 0.200000 1.000000
		DIFFUSE 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
		EMISSION 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
		SPECULAR 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.000000
		SHININESS 0
		TEXTURE {
			FILE tree.bmp
			ALPHA LUMINANCE
		}
	}
}

You can see there are 3 vertices, 1 face and 1 material. The vertex data is in the format: x y z nx ny nz tx ty, n=normal, t=texture
The face data has the three vertices in order of selection and one material.
The material has 4 color values each with red, green, blue, and alpha (opaqueness) values.
Ambient is not effected by lighting.
Diffuse is.
Emission is light cast off (but not implemented)
Specular is the phong highlight color.
Shininess effects the specular highlight.
And lastly our tree texture. An important note! Although you can have multiple materials they are not used in any of the games (for speed).

Tutorial 2 - A Spinning Ninja Star

Click File->New and switch to the Vertex view and the Add action. Left click on the drawing surface to create the five points of a star. Then left click in the center to add the last vertex. Now select from the menu Model->Vertices and Faces->Add Geometrics->Fan Faces. This will add faces facing the camera. You need to add the last face. Switch to the Select action and right click the vertices of the last remaining face clockwise and press the F key to add the face. Select just the center vertex by left clicking and dragging a box around it. Switch to the Camera action. Click the "l" button to rotate the camera to the left. Now switch to the Move action and Left click and drag the center vertex to the right. This has moved the vertex through the z axis. Click the Rotate (R) button located under the Action buttons. The default rotation is through Y by 90 degrees. The angles are in radians. 3.14 radians = 180 degrees. This is what we want so click OK. Make sure all the vertices are selected. You can click the menu Edit->Select All. Now click the Reflection button. It is the add geometric button with a picture of a reflection. You can also find this in the menu just like Fan Faces. This completes the vertices. Now switch to the Normal view and click Calculate Normals from Selected Vertices to recalculate the normals. Switch to Material view set the diffuse color to 8.0 4.0 2.0 1.0 for a gold color and click OK. Now we want to add the spinning animation. On the menu click Model->Has Bones. Now we can switch to the Bone view and switch to the Add action. Click in the middle of the drawing window to add a bone. Call it "root" and click OK. Select all the vertices to attach them to the root bone. Now click the Add (plus) Animation button and name it "spin" with 2 frames and 1 second total. Your input should look like this: spin 2 1.0
Drop down the Key Times listbox and select 0.000. Click the Add (plus) Key Time Bones button. Now you can select 1.000 from the Key Times and the "root" Key Bone from the list below. Switch the action to Move and right drag to rotate the model 72 degrees up. What you have just done is tell the animation engine to rotate the root bone (and attached vertices) 72 degrees in 1 second. Click the Run Animation button to set it in action. Later when you create more complex models with multiple bones and animations you will have vertices that are effected by more than one bone. This makes the skin deform smoothly. For instance you might make an arm with a wrist, elbow and shoulder bone. The vertices of the hand will attach to the wrist. The vertices of the wrist will attach to both the wrist and elbow bones. The vertices of the forearm will attach to the elbow. The vertices of the elbow will attach to both the elbow and shoulder bones and so on...

Hints and Tips

You can load and save several different types of files. For instance you can open a .bmp file as a background to help you create your model.
Files are saved in text so you can easily work with them outside of A3fEdit.
Selected vertices are highlighted and the last three selected vertices are red, green and blue. Red is the last selected vertex.
The Copy, Cut and Paste actions are based on the last list control accessed. (Vertices, Faces, Normals, Material, Bones, Animations, KeyFrames).
Movement of Bones/KeyBones is dependant on last list control accessed. Check for the red highlight before moving bones.
The Weld Vertices (Wld) function will reduce ALL selected vertices to one vertex. BE CAREFUL not to reduce your whole model. Remember UNDO!
The Reduce Vertices (Rdc) function will ask you for a percent of vertices to remove and it will replace the least important vertices with averages.
The Reverse Face (Rev) function will reverse the face of any selected faces.
The Split Face (Spl) function will ADD vertices by splitting the selected faces (and adjoining). It uses the surface normals to create smooth surfaces.
The Reflection geometric will repeat all vertices and faces in the positive z plane reflected to the -z plane. Use this to quickly create the back face of a model.
The Surface of Revolution geometric (button with upsidedown vase) will repeat the selected vertices rotated thru Y and add faces.
The Fan Faces geometric will connect the last selected vertex to all other selected vertices in a clockwise fan as seen from the camera view (not model view).
Duplicates are vertices with the same coordinates. They are hard to work with since you can't easily select them with the mouse. After selecting the duplicates select the individual vertex from the vertices list to work with it manually. Duplicates are used for giving models sharp edges (multiple normals) and abutting textures.
If duplicates are creating by mistake you can clear them with Weld Duplicates.
You can calculate surface normals from selected vertices, selected faces (and their adjoining faces) and across duplicates if the duplicates are for material changes rather than surface changes.
If you have a triangle face that needs to be seen front and back you could turn culling off but lighting would not work correctly for the back face (normals are reversed) so you can Duplicate Selected Back Faces.
Your model is created with a default material and the game engine currently only supports one but you can add more if you like. After adding a material you select the vertices you want it applied to and use the Set Material on Selection (On Sel) function.
A material can be a solid color (by default) or have a texture applied from a .bmp file if you check the texture checkbox and load a .bmp file. For the game engine .bmp files need to have a width and height in multiples of 64. Any bit depth.
The Texture Coordinates from View function will set the texture coordinates of the selected vertices as they are seen on screen.
The Tex Coords From Pinned action calculates texture coordinates for selected vertices whose values are zero based on the selected vertices whose values are greater than zero.
The game engine and A3F model engine have a few differences. The game engine only allows 1 material per model and textures MUST be multiples of 64 pixels in width and height (can be rectangular).
Models can be stiff or bendable at joints. If they have joints you can also animate them. The joints are called Bones and an Animation is made up of Key Times (like 0, 1 and 2 seconds) and Key Time Bones (where the bone has moved to at this time).
Since most models are stiff that is the default. If you want Bones select from the menu Model->Has Bones.
Now you can select the Bone view, add a bone and position it like adding a vertex. Bone have parents (a wrist has an elbow). Select the parent before creating the bone and it will be assigned as the parent otherwise edit the bone to assign the parent.
Each Bone has a set of vertices it influences. Vertices can be influenced by more than one bone. Selected the vertice and use the Set Bone on Selection function.
The offset matrix tells where the bone is in relation to its parent. You can set it manually or move the Bone with mouse controls. See appendix.
Add an Animation, select a Key Time then select the Bone you want to animate. Now Click the Add Key Time Bone button (+). Select that bone from the Key Time Bones list. The red highlight next to the listbox indicates that movements will effect the Key Time Bone (not the bone itself). If you make any mistakes you can reset the Key Time Bone matrix easily with the Reset button.
If you have multiple models with the same bone structure you can import animations from another model.

Keyboard Control

F - Add a face connecting the last three selected vertices
1,Q,A,Z - coorespond to Actions: Select, Add, Camera and Move
X,C,V,B - coorespond to Views: Vertex, Normal, Material, and Animation

Mouse Control

View Mode	Mouse Button	Action Select	Action Add	Action Camera	Action Move
VERTICES AND FACES	Left	Select Verts and Faces	Add Vertex	(X,Y)Move Camera	(X,Y)Move Vertices
	Left Shift	Select More		(X,Z)Move Camera	(X,Z)Move Vertices
	Left Cntrl	Select Less			Bubble Vertices
	Right	Select Vertex	Add Face	(X,Y)Rotate Camera	(X,Y)Rotate Vertices
	Right Shift	Select Face		(X,Z)Rotate Camera	(X,Z)Rotate Vertices
	Right Cntrl	Clear Selection		Zero Camera	Twist Vertices
NORMALS AND DUPS	Left	Select Verts and Faces		(X,Y)Move Camera	(X,Y)Point Normals
	Left Shift	Select More		(X,Z)Move Camera	(X,Z)Point Normals
	Left Cntrl	Select Less			Bubble Normals
	Right	Select Vertex		(X,Y)Rotate Camera	(X,Y)Rotate Normals
	Right Shift	Select Face		(X,Z)Rotate Camera	(X,Z)Rotate Normals
	Right Cntrl	Clear Selection		Zero Camera	Twist Normals
MATERIALS AND TEXTURE	Left	Select Verts and Faces		(X,Y)Move Camera	(X,Y)Move TexCoords
	Left Shift	Select More		(X,Z)Move Camera	(X,Y)Move Light
	Left Cntrl	Select Less
	Right	Select Vertex		(X,Y)Rotate Camera
	Right Shift	Select Face		(X,Z)Rotate Camera
	Right Cntrl	Clear Selection		Zero Camera
BONES AND ANIMATION	Left	Select Vertices	Add Bone	(X,Y)Move Camera	(X,Y)Move Bone
	Left Shift	Select More		(X,Z)Move Camera	(X,Z)Move Bone
	Left Cntrl	Select Less
	Right	Select Bone		(X,Y)Rotate Camera	(X,Y)Rotate Bone
	Right Shift	Select Key Bone		(X,Z)Rotate Camera	(X,Z)Rotate Bone
	Right Cntrl	Clear Selection		Zero Camera	Reset Key Bone

Limits

A3fEdit hasn't been fully tested outside of certain limits. These are:

Max Vertices 9999 (this is a soft ceiling as display areas are about this length)
Max Faces 9999
Max Materials 32 (remember only material #1 is used in the game engine)
Max Bones 128 (the human hand has over 200 bones - don't model the human hand!)
Max Animations 32
Max Anim Key Times 32
Max Name Length 32 (for materials, bones and animations)
Max Undo Buffer 65536 (or approx 4096 edits) this is a wrap around buffer.
Max Fun unlimited

Download A3fEdit