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Topic: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!  (Read 2113 times)

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Offline Darth Chandley

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3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« on: November 30, 2004, 09:47:13 pm »
Ok as this suggests, my desperate question revolves around 3DS, the .MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer...... and is all to do with damn smoothing groups....

I'll elaborate... As some of you will know I am making a new Chandley model from scratch using 3DS.... Some wips have been posted before showing my model in 3DS all nice and smooth with all the faces assigned to one group or another. As I have now started texturing I have hit a problem... Part of the reason it takes ages for me to do stuff is that I like to check that what I'm doing looks ok so I took my half textured model, exported it as a MOD and viewed it in the viewer....

What did I find, I hear you ask???

Well, THE BLOODY MODEL LOOKS LIKE IT'S BEEN ATTACKED BY A INDUSTRIAL SANDER as ALL my smoothing groups have been kicked of it to be replace by a single group where EVERYTHING is as smooth as everything else... As a result, it looks lard.....

So, am I doing something wrong here???  Are the 3DS smoothing groups not compatable with the viewer's???  Is my model gonna look arse in game and how do I fix this so it exports the model as I smoothed it not how it wants to??????????

 >:( >:( >:( >:(

Any and all help is greatly appreciated...

DC
« Last Edit: November 30, 2004, 10:16:37 pm by Destiny Calling »
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Offline Sandman3D

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #1 on: November 30, 2004, 10:08:45 pm »
1st question is...when exporting, did you click yes to force smoothing? If so, try it again without. Usually I just click no to both questions when exporting. Next, are you sure it's the smoothing? The reason I ask is that the only problem I usually have is flipped normals. Hope this helps and good luck...
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Offline Darth Chandley

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #2 on: November 30, 2004, 10:15:57 pm »
Thanks Sandman.... In answer, I know about flipped normals and they're not flipped, I've tried all combinations of "yes" and "no" and have had no joy.  I know from past experience that 3DS's smoothing and Milkshape's smoothing aren't compatible but I'm not usung Milkshape at all for this....

Doesn't it make you wanna bang your head against a wall.....

 :D :D :D

DC
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Offline Wicked Zombie

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #3 on: November 30, 2004, 11:20:31 pm »
The only surefire way to get them to work is to detach the part you want to be separately smoothed. The .mod format is somewhat touchy when it comes to certain aspects. For example, if the top of the bridge is oversmoothed, then you would select just the top of it, detach it, then export to .mod. Afterwards, just check the changes in ModViewer and that section of the ship will have it's own individual smoothing.

Essentially you're just breaking your model up into sub-models, each with their own smoothing. When you export to .mod, answer 'no' to 'force smoothing' and the lod question (you want it to be a single sectioned brk model). It's also wise to do all this before you add the illumination maps or hardpoints for simplicity's sake.

Depending on the polygon count and the way your ship is setup in Max (if it's one big model, or every part is it's own object), it could take half an hour or several hours to get all the groups in check.

This isn't exactly the best example but it's enough to go by. Note the difference between the 'wall' of the Warlock's bridge:

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Offline Sandman3D

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #4 on: December 01, 2004, 12:17:21 am »
Good info WZ!!! I thought you used Lightwave? Anyway, still good info... :P
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Offline TheStressPuppy

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #5 on: December 01, 2004, 01:41:47 am »
Another thing that could help... I never collapse my grouped mesh. ill use the group option, but ill never attach 1 group to another that has a different smooth on it, and of course the answer is always NO on the options max's mod export plugin gives.
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Offline Thu11s

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #6 on: December 01, 2004, 05:26:44 am »
If your using Max 5 it may be a problem with the version 4 plugin. When I was on Max 4.5 the plugin worked fine and any and all faces were smoothed correctly when viewed in the Mod viewer or the game itself. Since moving up to Max 5 (with the v4 plugin) I have to select EVERYTHING and remove ALL smoothing else it looks, as you say, like its been attacked by a sander. I had loads of problems with my Lyran stuff, they all looked wrong unless I removed all the smoothing, even one face with smoothing on it would knacker it all :/  As WZ said, the only way I found to stop it was to detach the faces into their own 'smoothing' groups if you will, and go from there. Agro but it works. As for why it happens, beats me ::)

Thu11s
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Offline Darth Chandley

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #7 on: December 01, 2004, 09:55:49 am »
Hmmmmm.....

Thanks for all the info guys... It seems to point to a lot of work in preperation for MOD export... Oh well... It does call into question the point of having  MOD exporter at all when all it does is mess up your model... anyway, I'm not smart enough to write my own exporter so I guess it'll do...  :D :D :D

I'm interested by the whole "worked alright in Max 4.5" comment by Thulls... How hard will it be to get a copy of it anywhere....??

DC
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Offline Wicked Zombie

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #8 on: December 01, 2004, 11:48:14 am »
Quote from: Sandman3D on December 01, 2004, 12:17:21 am
I thought you used Lightwave?

I do use Lightwave, but I need 3ds to convert ships to .mod. Lightwave doesn't support the format and there aren't any other reliable converters that handle .mods with hardpoints and illumination.

Back in the old days we had to use Brad Barr's SCME to convert/extract the files and it was basically a crude, optionless DOS interface doohickey. You had to type in the names and couldn't alter the hardpoints or add light maps, but it was all we had and we liked it! Now there's M6, Milkshape, and the Max plugin - you whippersnappers don't know how easy you have it.

As StressPuppy said, it's best to keep all the parts in their own groups. It makes adding smoothing easier (most of the time you can just hit the smooth button then move on to the next), plus it doesn't take the rest of the ship down with it if something is messed up.
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Offline Sandman3D

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #9 on: December 01, 2004, 12:57:22 pm »
AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! ;D Yes, I remember SCME from when I 1st started trying to model...couldn't get it and gave up. :P
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Offline Darth Chandley

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #10 on: December 01, 2004, 01:51:32 pm »
Just out of curiosity here but does anyone know which program was used by Taldren to create the original ship models????
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Offline FoaS_XC

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #11 on: December 01, 2004, 02:11:23 pm »
3ds Max 4 i think
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Offline fourteen

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #12 on: December 02, 2004, 10:07:21 am »
did not know for sure what you ment bye sandpaper look till yesterday, when i got the same thing, after i combined a bunch of parts, the bottom of looks as if well bad, other words your sandpaper look. I was using milkshape when i had mine happen. would reaplacing the bottom of the ship cure that? or is totalellly toasted now? will have to try later today when i have  achance.
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Offline Darth Chandley

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Re: 3d Studio, the MOD exporter and Taldren's MOD viewer........ HELLLLPP!
« Reply #13 on: December 02, 2004, 05:13:30 pm »
Well it was an export test I was doing to see how the textures were fitting... Its looking like I'll have to split the model up for the sake of the smoothing which is bloody annoying since it shoots the vertex count right up and slows down the in game rendering time....  >:( >:( >:( >:( >:(

Ho hum...........

DC
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Sailors fighting in the dance hall, Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the Lawman beating up the wrong guy, Oh man! Wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
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