3DVIA®

As mentioned in our first Tips & Tricks post, DCC stands for Digital Content Creation.  It is the industry term defining the use of 3D applications like 3DVIA Shape, Maya, 3D Studio Max and XSI  and the creation of 3D content for use in films and real time interactive applications like games and virtual training. In this blog, I’ll cover the best file format to upload to 3DVIA, as well as some of the processes you can use to get the best results.

File Format

A small industry by comparison, 3D is still not without its industry standard format disputes.  There are well over a dozen established 3D file formats.  Recently however there has been a push to develop an industry-wide format that would work for all DCC applications.  The most widely used are also the oldest formats, often dropping support for newer functions due to their age.  Formats like OBJ and 3DS format, were created long ago (in a galaxy far away)  and cannot possibly contain some of the newer and now standard information in a 3D file.

The OBJ and 3DS File formats are the old work horses of the industry. Unfortunately, sometimes they don’t handle transparencies and smoothing groups that well, which makes their use a bit random in quality consistency.

The DAE File format is an open source format, in use by or supported by all the major DCC applications and fully supported here at 3DVIA.  If possible, this is the format we recommend you use when uploading your models to the website.  You can find information about the Collida DAE exporter from Feeling Software’s website.

Textures

The best practices for creating textures for use on 3DVIA can be found here.

Processing and Set up

Our player has basic lighting, so in order to showcase your model at its best, add as much lighting information as possible into the textures.  Using hand-painted highlights and shadows, all the way to baking the lighting and occlusion information into a file and layering it on top of your texture is the best way to show off your model on 3DVIA.

Most DCC applications will let you bake the lighting information onto a texture file, but if you can’t, you can simply add some highlights and shadows to your models texture.  Just grab a color,  make it a little darker or lighter and paint!  Its very similar to hand painting miniatures for table top games like Games-Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000.

A model always looks better in its environment.   Something as simple as adding a ground plane to showcase the shadows will add much realism and weight to your model.   If you go further, you can create a small diorama or piece of terrain for your model to sit on.  Always remember not to overdo it, the focus of your attention should be on your model not your setting!

Shaders

The standard staples are the best when it comes to displaying your work online. Lambert and Blinn shaders can handle a large variety of options. The 3DVIA Web Player currently picks up on Diffuse, Ambient, Transparency, and Specularity with more support for advance features currently in the works. Only the diffuse channel can have a texture map. As a general tip, however, go through your shaders before exporting and if you see your ambient value is set to 0 (or ambient color set to black), change it or move the slider up to 40% of the way. This will ensure your textures show up with rich color under the default lighting. Kind of like TV star needing make up to be on stage!

Construction

As I’ve discussed in this post, there are two types of rendering, Pre-Rendering and Real-Time Rendering. 3DVIA’s web player falls into the Real-Time Rendering category, just like the games we all play everyday. It’s optimally rendering the view on the screen 30 times every second (also called the frame rate).

As artists, we do everything we can to maintain a good frame rate when we are working on a model for use in a Real-Time Rendering application. Along with the tips I’ve covered in “Staying on your Polygon Diet” blog post, pay attention to your texture file sizes as these are the largest contributors to your overall model file size.  Anything you can do to reduce the size of your uploaded file will help the player display your model more fluidly.

Lastly, remember that the 3DVIA Player has the option to view your models in wireframe.  There are many DCC artists out there, and we have a tendency to judge not just by looks but also by quality of construction. Always check the poly flow of a model, and give it a final pass over before you upload.  If you want to learn more as to why polyflow is important, check out one of my previous posts on the subject here.

That’s all I have for DCC tips for now,
This is Juan, Signing Off.