Ok... first, about the material editor, you mentioned some tips you might have, I'm all ears...
Try and put together a decent texture library. Get on a search engine and look for metal, and rust. Since just about every game ever released has rust, it's handy to have, and it's especially relevant to Fallout. Play with metal shaders and composite or blend materials. Basically tool around, see what you can get, and ask about the specifics here.
Second, as I said I'm a total newb to this so this may sound stupid but... how do I make a "Matte Shadow" material to work with?
In the material editor, get a new material (First button on the left. an arrow pointing to a sphere) This should pop up a little browser, and you need to select the "New" radio button. Select "Matte/Shadow" and you're way.
[FOT Specific] Uncheck
Opaque Alpha. Check
Receive Shadows and
Affect Alpha. Check [/b]Apply Atmosphere[/b] and make sure it's applied
at ObjectDepth. Shadow Brightness should 0 and the Matte colour should be black. Name the Material
"Matte Floor"
Now, make a copy of the material, and name the copy to "Matte Sprite" and uncheck
Receive Shadows. This material should be applied to any parts of the sprite you don't want to render, and makes rendering BASE, HAIR, SKIN and TCOL a much simpler process.
[/FOT Specific]
Third, where did you put the light? was it directional or omni... or sunlight?
Lights are Target Direction, and point at the centre of your "Stage" (ie the point your camera revolves around, and where your sprite will be centred.
[FOT Specific] There are two directional lights on the FOT Sprite Stage. One for shadow, the other simply for light. Name them as follows.
Directional SHADOW
Co-ords - (750,-750,4000) with target at (0,0,0)
On - true
Cast Shadows - true
RGB - (199,188,178)
Multiplier - 1.25
Hotspot - 1498.0
Falloff - 1500.0
Object Shadows - true
All other params as default
Directional FILL
Co-ords - (-2322.071, -622.197, 2750) with target at (0,0,0)
On - true
Cast Shadows - false
RGB - (199,195,191)
Multiplier - 1.0
Hotspot - 1498.0
Falloff - 1500.0
Object Shadows - false
All other params as default
And while we're at it...
STAGE Camera (free camera)
Co-ords - (-3036.288, -3036.288, 2621.544)
Rotation - (60, 0, -45)
FOV - 10.0
Far Range - 5694.0
All other params as default
STAGE Dummy
Co-ords - (0,0,0)
All previous objects should be linked to STAGE Dummy.
STAGE Plane
Co-ords - (0,0,0)
Length, Width, Height - (2000, 2000, -10)
...and you've got an authentic, genuine FOT Sprite Stage, that should be saved, marked as read-only, and used whenever you start a new sprite. For scale reference, 25 units (inches) = 1 FOT Unit.
[/FOT Specific]
Are there any tutorials around on how one can build a script like the one you mention...
Leave it to me. I will deal with it myself. I feel up for a challenge, so I'm going to write up a script of sorts to make some of this easier for you guy(s). I could use the MaxScripting practice.
5th question is kind of unrelated to MAX but... i guess it's for modellers in a way... You didn't really use the tools you guys gave us, did you? I see you guys using something more like a really awsome version of Red, by that I mean you could build the sprites in one program or window, then build tiles in another, then lay them both in the level in a thrid... am I totally wrong?
We used the tools we gave you guys, plus two more the Sprite Editor and the Tile Editor, both of which could batch import Sprites/Tiles, and were generally a breeze to use.
For Red's reference:
Naming conventions for .PNG sequences (or .TGAs if you must
)
<name>_<sequence>_<layer>_<animation rotation>_<frame index>
where...
<name> = name of sprite
<sequence> = name of animation sequence*
<layer> = BASE, HAIR, SKIN or TCOL
<animation rotation> = 0 represents North (ie facing top left corner of monitor)
<frame index> = Four digit number representing frame index for animation.
For example -
"Brahmin_StandBreathe_BASE_0_0012.PNG"
* Note: This was not in the original FOT naming scheme, but for the sake of making third party stuff easier, use it!