This two part article presents a tutorial about Pulse3D written by Dan Meblin, and is reprinted
here with the kind permission of Pulse, Dan Meblin and Electronic Arts.
Dan Meblin is the Senior Technology Evangelist at Pulse Entertainment
and has been with the company since its founding in 1994. Dan teaches weekly Pulse-sponsored Pulse technology workshops in and around San Francisco. He is also a 3D modeling instructor at
The Center For Electronic Art, and the San Francisco State Multimedia Studies Program.
Now on the the article:
Gone are the days when you, as animators and developers, had to completely reinvent your original 3D assets for online use. Also gone is the need for a gaggle of engineers and programmers to guide you through the programming pitfalls of the web.
With Pulse Technology, it's now virtually painless to import animated characters to the web, where they'll enjoy new life and create new revenue streams. This is good news for both one-person-do-it-yourself animators and larger animation houses. Pulse 3D technology enables fast and easy importing of 3D creative to the web, allowing animators to focus on creativity rather than the dreary dictates of .HTML and JavaScript.
Other Pulse benefits include:
- Small file size/fast download (370k)
- Ability to create non-linear interactive activity
- 32 bit rendering/excellent image quality
- Automatic lip synching
- Adaptive Subdivision Surfaces (winged-edge smoothing)
- Deformation bones
In this step-by-step tutorial you can see how Electronic Arts used Pulse to
take the original Alice 3D game character model from 3D Studio Max and directly
re-purpose it for use on the Alice website (http://www.alice.ea.com/main.html.)
When users log onto the site, they are interacting with the same 3D models,
animations and texture maps created for the game, but in a completely web-based environment.
This tutorial will cover:
- Model building
- Texture Mapping
- Exporting Files
- Adding Bones
- Scene Creation/Geometry
- Creating Animation
- Property Setting
- Streaming Behaviors and Audio
- Linking 3D Content to Web Pages
Pulse Producer and Pulse Creator can both be downloaded and used for free on the Pulse
website (http://www.pulse3d.com). 3D content can also be posted on the Internet free of
charge with the Pulse logo watermark.
Building the Model
The Alice model was built and textured in 3D Studio Max, and then exported via Pulse Producer,
Pulse's 3D Studio Max exporter plug-in. Virtually any geometry type can be exported from
3D Studio Max. Parametric geometry such as Patch and Nurbs models must first be converted
to an Editable Mesh before exporting using Pulse Producer.
Texture Mapping the Model
Multi-Sub-Object mapping was used in 3D Stuido Max to allow multiple texture maps to be
applied to various parts of the Alice Model. Upon export, Pulse Producer automatically combines
the maps into a single file for optimization. In addition, all UV mapping coordinates will be exported allowing models to be custom un-wrapped using 3D Studio Max's "UVW Unwrap" modifier.
Next page > Exporting > Page 1, 2
