Modeler Problems [HELP]

[QuadCoreMax]

Modeler Problems [RESOLVED]

Hi everyone,

When exporting to ASE from Max, I got "Unsupported Multisub Material Found in ASE File. Multisub will be flattened."
Once OK pushed, I see a TEMPCUTTERASEFILE folder holding all my Maya combined meshes which will disappear once process is finished. If I copy these files, to see actually what's inside them, no prob at all, every mesh is there (still some smoothing issues). Once flattened, almost all meshes from that final ASE file generated aren't existing anymore in Modeler visually speaking.

Checking the nb. of mats, I still have them, but most of their names were lost somewhere in the "conversion" process. I just see my exhausts.

What I've done before, prepared/optimized mesh, verified UV's & materials, combined meshes to 7 parts (lights reverse, body_paint, etc...), exported as a FBX file to 3DMax from Maya & finally creating a multisub material & assigning the meshes to their IDs.

Please help me, would love to add more cars...This new car (Audi TT) was "optimized" for Racer.

Like I said before, been testing the ActotX plugin, which exports to static meshes in ASE format from Maya with no luck. Been also trying directly from Maya with wrl format, no luck. Been checking from 3DSim, same issues with 3DO, but somehow I got the same issues when exporting directly to ASE, where Modeler keeps repeating the same warning....=> "Unsupported Multi..."

 

[Mr Whippy]

Is it because of the performance? My algorithms are currently quite slow but I still think it is the best way to get your model from Max to Racer. In fact, the reason I made the DOF exporter was that I wanted to export multi-sub's without any hassle and I wanted to export from Max to DOF directly.

So, use my DOF exporter plugin for Max!

I don't use it because it exports multiple DOF's, one for each unique object.

You can avoid that by attaching all the meshes to each other before export each time, but that isn't ideal... if I group the items into a group named how I would like the DOF to be exported, then that might be a nice way to do it!


Hmmm

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

Well, I don't remember how much I wrote about it in the Readme, but it generates a pretty basic geometry.ini. I guess it is useful for track with lots of models etc..

As Cam said, he wrote a little script for me that takes the user properties from each object and adds them to the geometry.ini, so we can set flags, lod etc... really handy with the huge data sets in modern tracks!

My track is all pre-split, flagged and LOD's set, and all layer managed in 3DS Max... really nice vs using TrackEd, but it could be even better with more work (no time yet but right now it's a much better process!)

Dave

 

[Mr Whippy]

It would be rare that ONE single mesh within a geom needs to be more than 20,000 polys ?

Not really, I'm doing now the car, but for terrain, I'll project to output bigger ASE files, so Modeler/Tracked can split it as he wants it, avoiding to deal with too many exported objects.

For cars, you could split your car like Luthobu told, just add your generic objects in graphics.

After some days of testing (imports / exports), all I can say, the ASE exporter is a nice tool, you could easily export your skeletons, animated objects, etc...=> I'll probably test these as soon as I can ! My UV's are perfect, nothing (Modeler) is really broken once in-game/in-editor.

Yeah Dave, I've spent yesterday the whole day, remapping every piece of the Shift car (F430 GTC from the recent DLC conversion we made) & preparing it for Racer. Just the outside for now, the interior (I'll use the _cockpit.vhf from Shift) I'll get the HP version of the interior.

Shift does have the same shaders as Racer & believe me Racer could be Shift, I know this...
Have been dealing with almost every part in Shift => cars, tracks, particle effects, mats, shaders, characters, audio/video (fev/fsb/bik), chassis physics, collisions meshes (bones/skeletons) etc....

Ruud has already said he doesn't want large meshes because it slows down the pipeline, so I think the limit will be around 20,000 indices per object.

Problem is that Modeller is also running that limitation, so the ASE import will fail with lossy meshes, even if the final output after optimisations is below 20,000 indices, if the input is say 40,000 then you will lose info.

He did mention a 16bit capability for Modeller so it could see massive meshes before optimisation. That might be handy for what you want to do?!


I'm not sure if the TrackEd splitter has to see pre-made DOF's, which again have the limitation above, so it might be best to split these large terrain parts optimally yourself during authoring?!



I had issues with UV's, but it could well have been 3DS Max putting bad data in the ASE, and Modeller seeing it, rather than the ASE itself being 'bad'...

ASE is a great format as it holds everything in a really good format, and has been an export preference for a long time for game developers in my experience.
BUT, how you manage what it stores is important! Modeller is very automated, so as soon as it does something you don't want it to do you have no way to change the way it works. Ie, it has no customisation on how it does things.
My example with the bad UV's is a case in point. Maybe there were two sets of UV's and Modeller just picked the first set? With a warning there were maybe multiples and giving me a choice which to use would have solved that issue right away.

I found a solution, but Some1's tool is the way to go in my view, if you have 3DS Max or whatever. Stecki years ago used Maya > DOF tool, so it's not like avoiding modeller for getting to DOF's is a new thing

When Modeller works it's great, but when it does or reacts to something odd in the files you feed it, it's just frustrating because it doesn't tell you anything about what is going on



I'm finding for tracks at least, Max > DOF using Some1 and Camsinny scripts a really lovely process. Intuitive fast and efficient
TrackEd has it's issues, which I'm sure you will experience as you work more with it. Splitter doing bad renaming is one, nested details being removed and replaced per entry is another... things I'm sure Ruud will improve in time of course.

Most of these problems won't be evident if you are converting, becuase there is very little 'try it and see' kind of development. My current track is a development track and I export every hour or so to make sure the balance of textures looks nice, the LOD's look non-obvious, the grasses blend nicely, the lumps work ok, etc etc etc... so the "all automatic from 3DS MAX" route in 5 mins for me works better than the almost 2 hour process of re-setting up the ASE's, multi-sub splits, splitter, re-flagging etc etc





No doubt Shift cars can come across quickly if you want, but I'd want to re-work plenty of details on them to make them the very best.
This is the benefit of Racer content having a development time as long as it takes to make it good, rather than a budget and time scale limits!

The Shift cars are no doubt damn good, but they could have lots more done to make them truly stunning (my pet hate is chrome exhausts without masks which are still reflecting the sky half way under the back bumper!!)

Personally, I'd love to see some Shift cars in Racer if they are converted and re-worked really faithfully with fantastic ini's, sounds and all the features working as they should be... but still no small feat to achieve even for an experienced person


Good luck. I'd personally love the Veyron


Dave

 

[Some1]

I don't use it because it exports multiple DOF's, one for each unique object.

You can avoid that by attaching all the meshes to each other before export each time, but that isn't ideal... if I group the items into a group named how I would like the DOF to be exported, then that might be a nice way to do it!


Hmmm

Dave

In max, you can collapse a group of objects into a mesh. I suppose I could somehow add functionality to export all selected objects as one DOF, need time and knowledge though.

 

[camsinny]

Not 100% on how yours is coded, but it should just be instead of saying
For objects in selection
just say export instead of having the for{} loop...
at least that's how mine was setup when it was using maxscript

Hmmm...

 

[Some1]

Not 100% on how yours is coded, but it should just be instead of saying
For objects in selection
just say export instead of having the for{} loop...
at least that's how mine was setup when it was using maxscript

Well, yeah, only that I'm not using maxscript, but rather C++ programming language

 

[gtpdzbiz]

As Cam said, he wrote a little script for me that takes the user properties from each object and adds them to the geometry.ini, so we can set flags, lod etc... really handy with the huge data sets in modern tracks!

My track is all pre-split, flagged and LOD's set, and all layer managed in 3DS Max... really nice vs using TrackEd, but it could be even better with more work (no time yet but right now it's a much better process!)

Dave

The script sounds very handy, so it will be handy for setting LOD for object sets after the ASE cutting? Any chance of trying that out?

 

[QuadCoreMax]

The Shift cars are no doubt damn good, but they could have lots more done to make them truly stunning (my pet hate is chrome exhausts without masks which are still reflecting the sky half way under the back bumper!!)

Personally, I'd love to see some Shift cars in Racer if they are converted and re-worked really faithfully with fantastic ini's, sounds and all the features working as they should be... but still no small feat to achieve even for an experienced person


Good luck. I'd personally love the Veyron


Dave

You're right Dave, anyway I've finished the graphical part (some very minor details still have to be fixed) & generally speaking it's looking better than Shift, no lies !

Been doing both, exterior & interior...There are lots of things to do, I'm projecting a lot more time than originally thought, it isn't really a straight forward conversion. Hope to be able to config my first car so it's drivable with a steering wheel too, that's also one reason I'm here, to experiment/test simulations !

 

[QuadCoreMax]

One question, how do I avoid getting the "q_generated" texture when looking into information of the DOF in Modeler, so it means I haven't been able to actually see my car correctly textured ?

So for now, debug is more in-game than in-editor, hope it can be fixed !

One other thing, the interior.dof won't work/load by default (in Racer.ini > body) but if putting in graphics as a generic object it will load properly ? Any ideas ?

 

[Ruud]

q_generated is created when a material doesn't have a diffuse texture defined.
The idea is to push more of the editing into Racer; Modeler uses an old renderer and it's time-consuming to keep up the tools wrt the render engine.

An interior should go into 'model_incar', like 'model' (in car.ini). When selecting the interior model, it will use the model defined under 'model_incar'.

 

[QuadCoreMax]

q_generated is created when a material doesn't have a diffuse texture defined.
The idea is to push more of the editing into Racer; Modeler uses an old renderer and it's time-consuming to keep up the tools wrt the render engine.

An interior should go into 'model_incar', like 'model' (in car.ini). When selecting the interior model, it will use the model defined under 'model_incar'.

I didn't knew, anyway I'm comfortable debugging directly in-game, I'll follow your advices, I do know how time-consuming maintaining an application is, good work for your editors.

For the interior, I'll give another try, not sure why exactly it's not showing up once the dof in model_incar is...Everything's perfect when using the generic models which seems best for
organizational or practical usage.

 

[ammods]

just a question, why does this sometimes not export..sometimes it just says its done...but then i get 0 of 1 done or something like that...right now i cant seem to repeat it..if anyone understands what i'm saying please help this n0ob thanks

ok i've been able to repeat it, anty ideas?