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2. Meshing dictionary

A little basic terms to keep you from getting lost. The helpfile that can be downloaded at the MilkShape site is also highly recommendable.

Mesh: 3d shape

Skn and cmx file: The mesh you'll be doing will be saved as a skn file. The cmx file is needed to make the mesh show up in the game, but it is not the actual 3d mesh. When you've completed the mesh just use cmx maker to generate a cmx file to go with the skn file.

Texture: picture/painting to put on the mesh, in this case 256 color bmp.

Texture mapping: the way the texture is wrapped around the mesh - what parts of the bmp goes where on the mesh.

UV map: a 2d map that shows how the texture is wrapped on the mesh - very useful for skinning the mesh.

X,Y,Z: the 3d space in which you'll be working is made up by 3 axes - x, y, and z. In Milkshape the x axis (left-right) is yellow, the y axis (up-down) is blue and the z axis (back-forth) is pink.

Vertex (pl. vertices): Shows as a dot in Milkshape. It is the simply a point in the 3d space and is the base for creating. 3 vertices define a triangle on the mesh.

Face: the space between the 3 vertices, always a triangle. By using connected triangles you can model petty much any shape you'd like.

Joints: the joints of the sim body. If you're familiar with Simpose you will know most of the names already. When a joint moves in the game, the part of the mesh that is assigned to it will move to. So a shoe must be assign to the foot joint, a belt to the pelvis joint and so on.

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