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..."

 

[Some1]

If you have 3DS Max, you can try my DOF exporter plugin, which should be able to export from Max to DOF directly.

http://www.mediafire.com/file/4zyy0dtqfwm/DOF-Exporter-0.2b5.zip
(The readme is included in the zip!)

 

[QuadCoreMax]

With my 3DS Max 2009 it won't work & I'm really frustrated right now. Beginning to think this Modeler app isn't really optimized in any ways to load & convert proper 3DS max or Maya files.

I thought I would be doing great things, doesn't look that way, it would be better to integrate the "worldwide known cross-app" formats like Collada (dae) or the WaveFront (obj) format, without them, we can't really work fast & efficiently.

Just an info for my future Racer projects, I would be willing to bring Shift cars over Racer, I have a deep understanding how Shift cars are structured/builded, so theoretically it should be quite easy if I didn't have all these "boring" issues.

@Some1

Thx...
I tried the 8 & 2010 with/without the dll, nothing works...Do you have for 2009 ?

@ALL

Please help, if I don't find any solution, I'll just quit like with Shift, which is one of the most hardcore games currently moddable, because of 3DSim/Zmod bad format conversion/generation formats => meb + none is dealing with the binary material file (bmt)...haaa !!

I see Ruud been doing a great job in producing those binary dof files, still we need to have an easy export procedure for our various 3D content (cars, characters, anims, etc..)

 

[Some1]

Ok, I have compiled for Max9, but I cannot guarantee that it'll work. I've had problems with various Max versions before, but I haven't had time to sort out the issues with the plugin.

If you're able, use Max 7, the DOF plugin works fine for me and you don't need to use Racer Modeler.

 

[QuadCoreMax]

Once 3DS format into Modeler loaded => TEMPASECUTTERFILES>TEMPASECUTTERFILES>

xxx_0_node1.ase
xxx_1_node1.ase
xxx_2_node1.ase
xxx_3_node1.ase
etc...

Sometimes, Modeler takes too much time when generating the ASE from the 3DS format...Anyone have same issues ? My car is around 12K.

===========================

Could I use more dofs for building up my car like hood, bumper, etc...in a structured way ?

In Shift for example, there's a vhf file ruling the car parts positions & scaling...I tried in car.ini :

model
{
file=body.dof
file=new_part_1.dof
file=new_part_2.dof
}

&

model
{
file=body.dof
model
{
file=new_part_1.dof
file=new_part_2.dof
}
}

but nothing works really, is there any work-around/trick ?

@Some1

Thx man for your help !
I'll follow your tips...

 

[Some1]

You can only use one DOF per model. See the tutorials on racer.nl and use use the default lambo car as an example.

Creating content for Racer is really more than just exporting your models from 3DS Max.

 

[QuadCoreMax]

You can only use one DOF per model. See the tutorials on racer.nl and use use the default lambo car as an example.

Creating content for Racer is really more than just exporting your models from 3DS Max.

Thx, sure before posting here, I went thru Ruud Official Documentation. My worries are more graphical, actually if you look at most cars, the converters guys didn't really done a perfect job, lots of smoothing issues & UV layouts too.

Ok finally I cleaned my Shift car (all non visible parts :engine, etc...), redone a UV layout using only 1 texture map, optimized mesh, exported, imported to 3DS Max for re-export as ASE without touching it, re-opened in Modeler for optimize & finally re-export...with success as you can see !

Anyone here reading this, sees what's the prob here....couldn't it be even more difficult ? Kidding...

P.S.: I've tried your last release, didn't work either...

===============
From optimized to non-optimized ASE/DOF files in Modeler, there's quite a huge difference...so sticking to this particular function is quite handful.

 

[QuadCoreMax]

My mistake was combining/collapsing those meshes in Maya, all problems are gone, looks perfect ! I have a multisub finally, so I'll probably generate some cool maps too...& I won't forget my collision mesh !

 

[luthobu]

You can only use one DOF per model.

Not quite true.. you can use the graphics{ generic{} } for adding more objects
as I did with the Cuda mod:

graphics
{
  ; Generic models
  generic
  {
    model0
    {
	file=mirrors.dof
    }
    model1
    {
	file=sidemirrors.dof
    }
   model2
   {
       file=guitar.dof
   }
   model3
   {
       file=suitcases.dof
   }
   model4
   {
      file=spare.dof
   }
  }
}

 

[QuadCoreMax]

Thx Luthobu, I'll try it today !

Does this work as well in body {} ?

 

[luthobu]

@QuadCoreMax: IIRC it did not, that's why I put it in the graphics{} - but the way I see it, the graphics{} tag is just a placeholder for additional dofs so you can virtually put whatever you want there. Don't know the limit though, on how many.. Ruud knows for sure?

 

[QuadCoreMax]

Thx again, works in Graphics but not in Body. This could be great for bodykits...

You talking about limits, what's the polycount limit for a single exported dof ? And what's the limit for a entire scene ?

As far as I remember, Carlswood Track from Ruud got ~ 115K, in Crytek Engine 2 (Sandbox 2) for example, I getting trouble once the scene reaching literally 2 millions of polys...

If you using Zbrush for character animation/modeling, the scenes support more than 8 millions of polys easily without no crash...sure you better have some RAM.

===============
Phenom X4 9950 BE OC 2900MHZ
OCZ Gold DDR2 4GB OC 1066MHZ
Gigabyte GA-MA78G-DS3H Rev2.0
ATI HD 4870 1GB
ATI HD 4670 1GB
Corsair TX 750W
Triple Screen 19" LCD 3x DVI-D [SoftTh Powered]
G25 + G15
XP SP 3

 

[camsinny]

They're different API's and everything. You can't just compare Zbrush to racer, Zbrush does really smart subdividing and everything, racer simply has the static mesh it has to pass to the rendering pipeline.
W.R.T max polycounts...there is a maximum on the no. of indices in a geob, but there can be multiple geobs per geom.
geoms are basically .dof files.
Max indices is 21845 and indice is a list basically of all the faces and which verts use these. So basically no more than 21845 faces per material (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) but you can have more than that per dof.

Check the racer.nl site under technical docs and there's some more hardcore info about the renderer and the amount of polies it supports.

 

[Mr Whippy]

I thought it was 21845 faces per geob (geometric object), and a "car.dof" can have say 100 geobs in it (to make a geom (geometric object))?

Basically, as long as no single selectable mesh in the authoring app is over 20,000 indicies you should be ok. This is because the pipeline is limited to so many verts (8bit??) which makes it much quicker than 16bit...

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


I generally agree with the pipeline for cars though. Some1's tool works fine for me in Max9 and is excellent for tracks, not so nice for cars where it's all one DOF currently.
The Max > ASE > dof does lots of weird stuff. I had to go Max > 3ds (no uvw's) > Max > reload UVW's > ase > dof with my M3 because the ASE importer to Modeller was picking up some really weird UVW's from god only knows where, and even UVW delete/reapply/reset x form/reset everything even via 3ds didn't work!

That is why I now like going Max > dof, because it's much more wysiwyg and I avoid the random unknown background goings on of the ASE importer...

I'm sure modeller could be excellent, but it's trying to do too much, or making too many bad assumptions, and so giving us our meshes imported badly.



Generally as per Shift 'imports', you really want to be re-working cars for the Racer engine. I've moved a few cars from Shift to Racer and the whole ideology behind the cars texturing and build is quite different. It's not really a simple procedural task of pressing buttons and making it work. You can do that, but the end result just looks a bit naff imo. Racers engine just isn't set up for some of the tricks that Shift does (yet)... with it's HUGE library of shaders for every single different object/material.

Dave

 

[Some1]

Some1's tool works fine for me in Max9 and is excellent for tracks, not so nice for cars where it's all one DOF currently.

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!

 

[QuadCoreMax]

@camsinny

Thx for precision, I'll do some more testing to confirm it...

@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....

@Some1

I've tested your initial plugin & it's a great tool, but when you compare both (ASE export UI + your DOF Exporter UI), there are some more options in the "default" Max ASE exporter. Still your plugin works like it should.

So you're using the DOF exporter, but still need to re-import the dof to optimize it for the game...or is it outputting directly an optimized DOF file ? Didn't pay attention...

When I export an ASE file to DOF without optimize (Modeler) & do the same but optimize the DOF, I have almost a compression of x3-x5, so I had a single DOF about 1.300 Ko optimized to 300 ko.

 

[Some1]

So you're using the DOF exporter, but still need to re-import the dof to optimize it for the game...or is it outputting directly an optimized DOF file ? Didn't pay attention...

When I export an ASE file to DOF without optimize (Modeler) & do the same but optimize the DOF, I have almost a compression of x3-x5, so I had a single DOF about 1.300 Ko optimized to 300 ko.

Yes, my exporter can do the optimization. Actually, It uses the same piece of code for DOF optimization as Modeler, so ideally, you don't need Modeler at all.

 

[QuadCoreMax]

Yes, my exporter can do the optimization. Actually, It uses the same piece of code for DOF optimization as Modeler, so ideally, you don't need Modeler at all.

Right just gave a look at it, and what about the geometry.ini ? Does it do a good job once generated ?

 

[Some1]

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..

 

[camsinny]

Some1, you may want to have a look at my script for the geometry.ini. I've made it so that it reads from the user defined properties so the author can put in things like lod distance etc. Dave finds it great so if you could update your code a bit to do that I know he'd be happy.