[Culando]

A friend and I are trying to start a conversion mod (unrelated to that node map I did. *sigh*, another idea in the trash), but he's having trouble getting the models to convert to POF format. Either he's looking in the wrong spot for the cof to pof editor, or he's just got versions that refuse to work.

The ones he's used are apparently called wincobfs1-0 and cob2pof1-0. If you need more details on his problems, I'll try to drag him onto this MB.

[StratComm]

PCS is good most of the time, as is cob2pof if you can get it to work at all.  If he's using 3ds Max, there's also a converter for that.  But you'd better have him come here and describe his problem, as if cob2pof doesn't work there may be geometry issues that prevent anything from converting.

[Zing]

Uh, hey there, i'm the friend Culando mentioned.

PCS definitely works better, it atleast is telling me whats wrong, though I dont actualy know how to fix it...

It's telling me I need to group the object(s).. I'm using Maya 6 as the modelling tool and 3D Explorer to convert .obj files into .cob's... then I try and convert those into .pof... I grouped the geometry in Maya's heirarchy, but that didnt seem to do anything.

[StratComm]

First, you're new.  So,


I'll skip the normal intro and get straight to the point.  3dexploration isn't the most reliable program in the world to generate POF heirarchy from.  You will need Truespace to make sure the heirarchy is correct.  For the longest time, you could legally get Truespace 3.2, which was horrible to actually model in but works ok for heirarcy stuff, for free from Caligari.  Getting a serial number for it is a bit trickier, since Caligari isn't eager to show that they're doing it.  It should still be possible though and there's a thread near the top of this forum that gives you instructions on how to do it.

EDIT: This page might be helpful too.

[Zing]

Thanks for the welcome.

And.... I was afraid of that.... I tried truespace origionally, and it drove me up the bloody wall.... Which is why I went and got 3D Explorer. I have no idea how to group stuff in that.... or do much of anything with it really..

[StratComm]

Oh, karajorma, I think you're needed here...

Actually, you'll probably want to find the Trueview plugin.  I think it comes with the 3.2 install, actually.  It allows you to manage the heirarchy without the nastyness of actually using Truespace.

And the reason things aren't converting is that you have to have local lights attached to each subobject to designate it as such.  Unfortunately, there's no way to do that except for actually adding the lights in Truespace.

[Zing]

Aahh, thanks, i'm one step closer now.

The model is converting to pof just fine now, but... The texture doesnt appear on it.

[StratComm]

Custom texture, or stock FS2 one?  And what does the textures tab in modelview say?

[Zing]

custom texture, and according to modelview its got the name in there. The texture file is in the same folder and everything, but model view says theres no texture for the model.

Is there something special I gotta do in truespace?

[StratComm]

Nope, if the name's right then you've got the texture right.  If the texture is pcx, you'll need to make sure that it's 8-bit and not 24-bit.  If it's TGA/JPG/DDS, Modelview isn't going to recognise it.  If it's anything besides those formats, you'll need to convert it.

Oh, and modelview only loads maps if they are in your Freespace2/data/maps directory or one of the VPs.  You'll need to put your texture there.

[Spicious]

In my experience Modelview can load textures in the same folder as the model.

[StratComm]

I know it doesn't look in mod directories for them, which is where they always are for me.  I've honestly never tried from the same directory.

But I suspect that his troubles lie in the bit depth of his pcx file anyway, not the path.

[Bobboau]

and on the subject of the lights, I think I should make something clear for you that oftine confuses people. the lights are basicly used as dummy objects, the odd thing about truespace's higherarchy is that an object cannot have childeren in a direct way, but it can be part of a group, and a group may have in it a group, so members of a group that is it'self a member of a group will be essentaly children of the higher group. and members of a group are treated as a single object.

so the lights are only needed were a higherarchy is going to be terminated, that is, any object that doesn't have any children must have a light glued to it to mark it as a seperate object from it's parent, but this is only true if there is only one peice of geometry that you want to be in this object (the only time this realy happens is with turrets that have two barrels)

hope I cleared this up for you

[Zing]

Thanks for the advice guys, you've been extremely helpful.

May have some more questions tomorrow when I try to start adding LOD models and such..

[karajorma]

Originally posted by StratComm
Oh, karajorma, I think you're needed here...

Looks like you've sorted it without me

As always there's a whole lot of useful links in my FAQ which should help with any further problems.

[Culando]

See Zing? I told you these guys would be friendly and helpful.

And speaking of which, thanks a lot guys. Expect more questions from Zing and I in the near future. After he gets that model fully working and with good textures (current ones kinda suck) it's gonna be time to drag it into the pof editor. Whoo, that's gonna be fun. I'll check around for tips on that after school today.

[Bobboau]

just look into my sig, not around my sig, into my sig, you want to learn how to use PCS, yes, you will click the link and read, your reading and reading and learning and when I snap my fingers you will wake up and know how to use PCS one two three and /*snap*/

so how do you feel?
do you understand how to use PCS yet?