The meshes (3D objects) of each 3D game (like HalfLife, The Sims etc.) or 3D environment like (ActiveWorld, Second Life etc.) have their artistic styles.

Like we, from DMU, are not artists, only programers, we have created an style for our "universe". Something very simple, inspired in LEGO:

Now, we will begin to learn how to create meshes (houses, chairs, cars etc.) to be placed inside a BCG world. So, we will "redefine" what is a "mesh".

A "mesh" for BCG is some things there are inside one .ASE file. Each "mesh", normally is a group of "submeshes".

Are you a little confuse? Let's try to explain this better.

If you have only statics (without movement) 3D objects inside your world (excluded the avatares, of course), you will have the default "Ground" (it's a submesh too) and many other submeshes (walls, static doors, static cars etc.), all inside only one .ASE file: the landn.ase file.

But one "submesh" - an static car, by example - can have many "subsubmeshes".

What defines a "subsubmesh"? It has an exclusive "texture". A "texture" is like an skin. It's a .TGA or .JPG file .

An example? Imagine that we will create an static "d.m.urg" (not an avatar that moves) to be over the Ground.

If we create it beeing only one "submesh" the texture will be very complicated to design (to find what polygon corresponds to the face, by example).

So, what we do? We can divide - there are not an exact rule to do this, it depends of your choice - the submesh in 3 subsubmeshes. (You will learn how to do this in Blender soon).

The first subsubmesh will be the "head+torse". It will have its .JPG texture (UV Map). Easy (ok, not so easy...) to find the polygons of each part.

The second subsubmesh will be the "arms", It will not have an "easy" UV Map but, like all the arms will be of the same color (white) this is not a problem. We will not need to identify any correspondence of parts.

The last subsubmesh of our "d.m.urg" will be the "legs". The UV Map is also not very easy. But it can have only one color (pink) too.

Imagine that our world has only two "submeshes": the Ground and the "d.m.urg". The Ground has (I made it!) only one subsubmesh. The "d.m.urg" has three subsubmeshes. We need only to "joint" (you will learn how to do this in Blender) these four subsubmeshes creating a final: "mesh" -whose name will be "Land". That will be exported to be an .ASE file to be used by Croquet.

So, the sequence for the creation of a "land" (the static - and somethimes the unique - part of an island) is: Primitives -> Subsubmeshes (having UV Maps:Textures) ->submeshes+Ground -> final Mesh:Land -> exported to be a .ASE file -> loaded inside Croquet (the type-World Class).

In the next lessons you will do all these "tricks" in pratice...

TIP: It's important to say that we can have sometimes , inside an island, another meshes that are different .ASE files. Normally these meshes will have animation - but can have not. They can be created inside Blender using our default "BCG Blender", but erasing the Ground first. Some static meshes are created independent of the "land" to be reused inside other islands. We will see how to do this soon.

        PREVIOUS  LESSON      NEXT  LESSON              
T. CONTENTS           HOMEPAGE   

DISCLAIMER: This material can be translated for any language, and reproduced total or partially by anybody using any type of media. But, please, don't put your name like author. And let me know if it was useful (americo@dmu.com).The use of any code, 3D model or technique published is free and doesn't need to have any reference about this source. The author is not responsible for any damage that the material can cause.