Hi JK,
All my tracks except LiL Track was made via BTB....so I'm the One of the few Ones who knows all the secrets & all the procedures to get the most professional results.
It's your lucky day & here's the Know-How from my 4 years experience...
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To get nice tracks via BTB over 3DSimEd, Maya 2010, 3DS Max 2009 & Racer
- Build your track in BTB
- Export as X files
- Open them in 3DSimED (first Sobjects i.e.)
- Filter them -> delete everything except the skids i.e.
- Re-do the operation with the other meshes once you finish on 1 object
- Rename the material to the desired name- Skids, Trees etc..
- Explode & assign all pieces to the newly created material (operation needed to delete all materials for all separate faces)
- Purge Materials & verify in Material Filter (1 material ONLY / per Skids, Rocks...)
- Check faces count (20.000 max for Racer Geodes)
- If necessary, cut faces & paste into a new 3DSimED file to avoid reopening the other meshes
- Export as DAE to Maya Import directory
- Open Maya, create new project & import DAE
- In Maya Settings (Preferences) > Up Axis = Z / centimeters / degrees
- In UV Set Editor, rename the UV sets to 'map1' for later combining (its needed or you'll have more than one UV channel)
- Do a vertex merge 0.0001 or less 0.001 + a soften edge
- Verify materials assigned by selecting objects from Hypershade
- Verify scene objects visually & fix eventually problems
- Once all done, combine objects with the same material together (check polycount < 20K)
- Reassign the material to the combined object
- Correctly rename all objects for later in Racer (cleanest way of doing it)
- Export as FBX > Edge Smoothing ON, the rest OFF, Convert to : NURBS, centimeters, Y Axis, SHow UI, FBX200611
- Open 3DS Max 2009 & import FBX file
- In Max, Customize > Units Setup > Metric : Meters , Lighting : International
- In FBX Import, Animation OFF, Re-evaluate SG : ON, Scale Factor 1, File units : Centimeters, Show : ALL ON
- In Utilities, use the CTR Racer plugin
- Choose track folder, create geom.ini, Optimize
- Manage Flags & LODs eventually
- Export selected objects
- Done !
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Keep in mind, that I have created custom Xpacks not released to the public because it was specifically engineered for Racer where different 'ad panels' meshes with their UVs are regrouped into a single UV map (texture) to get a low # of materials in Racer.
I've also created one of the best low pol 'collidable' tree (not Xtrees) for collision realism purpose which isn't the case with Xtree. Check my website in diaporama to see its structure.
Take your time to experiment, I wish you all the best for your project & hope that this top secret infos which I've kept for myself will help anyone really interested in this subject...
Actually speaking, as revealed recently here in RD, my skills & knowledge allows me to create a BTB track from scratch in less than 1 day with my custom Xpack, that's why all the objects thru almost all my tracks (16 free tracks) are the same, basically for simplicity & rapidity. Some were build in CE which is even quicker than BTB, but that's another discussion.
I'm still amazed of the ignorance worldwide, personally, I never failed to satisfy & follow my spiritual inspirations...& indeed am proud to destroy any mystifications, illusions & lies people will tell you, no matter what, in which area of life.
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[Spiritualist / Futurist / Awaken SouL]