Overview

Overview

The basic structure for creating a tree to use in CryENGINE is the same in all DCC's. However, the setup is different for each 3D package due to their individual limitations. This section shows how to setup a tree in XSI for CryENGINE.

Hierarchical Setup in XSI

• Create a CryExportNode by selecting Crytek > Create CryExportNode.

• Change the Filetype to CGF.
• Set the Filename to the name you want for the exported CGF file (for this tutorial use tree_breakable).
• Make sure Exportable is on.
• Make sure MergeObjects checkbox is off (otherwise your tree object will not work in Sandbox).

• All the mesh objects that you want to export have to be children of the CryExportNode.
• Create the individual pieces (trunk, leaves, proxy_AI, proxy_bending) for the tree setup and merge them together using Choose Create > Poly. Mesh > Merge.

• Make sure to set Tolerance to 0 (This is to avoid welding of any vertices among the different meshes)
• Click on Merge for Materials, UVs, VertexColors, WeightMaps (This will merge materials, UVs (which are very important), VertexColors in case of vegetation assets, etc.)
• Click on Merge for Shape Animation, Envelope Weights (This transfers all history to Modeling Construction mode)

Now, create clusters for the individual pieces.

• Trunk.
• Leaf (this cluster contains all the leaves that share the same UV Map).

• ProxyAI.
• ProxyBend.

Material Setup in XSI

Rename the Material Library name from DefaultLib to the name you want for the .mtl file. For this tutorial, you should name the material to Tree and name the Scene_Material to Trunk. You will create three more materials and name them leaf, proxy_AI, proxy_bend.

Select all materials in order and use Crytek > Convert selected materials to CryShader .

Please look at Creating Material Files for further information on setting up materials in XSI for exporting to CryENGINE.

You can see now the materials are named with an "_01_, _02_..." in front of the actual material names.

Use the following settings for each material:

A different color and transparency is set to differentiate between individual pieces of the tree. This is a visual aid when sharing files among multiple artists.

Touch Bending Setup

Refer to the XSI specific section in the Touch Bending documentation.

Detail Bending for Vegetation

Refer to the XSI specific section in the Detail Bending documentation.

Exporting the Tree

Great, now you have your tree ready to be exported.

Because you are only exporting a geometry file, go to Crytek > Export Geometry.

You will notice a window appear and then close. Your exporting has finished when the pop-up window has closed.

Make sure you go to your export path to check that a CGF file has been created. If not, please refer to Debug options to find out what the problem could be. You can always read the log file created to check what could be the problem. The log file is located in the same folder where you exported your CGF file.

Now you are ready to load a level and place your tree in Sandbox.