- ◇ General Tips and Troubleshooting
Summary
Sikailu / sikailla = "to act like a pig", a noun and a verb. Sometimes a 3D artist/level artist needs to take an already existing 3D model, and make something completely new out of it, using the parts of the old one. This happens when the old models do not 100% fit the desired design. Rather than making a new model out of scratch, sikailing it is way faster
- Sikailu is used by both the 3D artists and the level artists - this wiki page will cover the 3D side of it only
- The basic principal is the same: bashing different assets together to create something "new"
- The level artists will do this in the Editor, but the 3D artists can create actual fbxmodels out of the sikaille'd models
Sikailu Workflow Steps
- When you get the sikailu task, you first need to find the model/models needed for completing the task
- All the workfiles should be in the SVN workspace, but if you can't find them or if they're outdated, take them from the binary folder
- In most cases, the new sikailu model will be added as an additional fbxmodel to a pre-existing set, so open the file and make a new mesh layer for it in Modo
- It's best to save the file to your computer locally, rather than work from the workspace/binary
- Build the sikailu model required out of the pieces of the old model
- Sometimes you need to use multiple models for this, but if at all possible, don't use multiple texture sets - they will add drawcalls in the Editor, meaning that it will use more memory
- As you're building a new fbxmodel entirely, you can bend and modify the models used as needed, to get the end result you want
- Name the asset in a way that it fits the other, pre-existing models in the set
- Make LODs for the asset
- Export the asset to the Editor
- If you're adding an asset to a pre-existing set, you can only create that one as a new model, and not update the existing models
- Make sure everything works
- It's important to also check that you didn't accidentally break anything from the existing set
- Add the updated workfiles to the workspace SVN
