Author Topic: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)  (Read 30101 times)

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Using the collada importer?
That's cool and ....disturbing at the same time o_o  - Vasudan Admiral

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like, that is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor. And you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."

"Quick everyone out of the universe now!"

 

Offline Spoon

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline chief1983

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
yeah we're all aware of the old POF exporter, but it's not been updated in some time, and has enough of its own issues that many modelers have encountered, that it has prompted the switch to the Collada conversion process.
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
yeah we're all aware of the old POF exporter, but it's not been updated in some time, and has enough of its own issues that many modelers have encountered, that it has prompted the switch to the Collada conversion process.
Well it works like a charm for me... aside from the occasional random for no apparant reason crash when exporting. What kind of issues are we talking about here? From what i've gathered in this thread, the collada importer seems a bit of a roundabout way of doing things. (I could of course be completely off with this, im not speaking from experience) 

(my above post with link was meant as a direct reply to scooby's question btw. Not as a "hey look guys, I found this interesting thing you may not have heard of" kind of post  :p )
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 
Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Kazan has reported that it can bork up the pof model.
That's cool and ....disturbing at the same time o_o  - Vasudan Admiral

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like, that is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor. And you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."

"Quick everyone out of the universe now!"

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Lots of folks actually....

Jacek's going to help me with another method bless his soul,
after that I'll try cracking this tut. May end up making my tutorial after all
if there's another method worth mentioning.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
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Offline Spoon

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Bork it up in what way?
I have encountered no problems whatsoever so far.
Urutorahappī!!

[02:42] <@Axem> spoon somethings wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> critically wrong
[02:42] <@Axem> im happy with these missions now
[02:44] <@Axem> well
[02:44] <@Axem> with 2 of them

 

Offline chief1983

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Some types of models will often end up with broken collision data for one, and I'm not a modeler so I can't give you the list, but there's enough of them around here who have had it with that exporter.  Collada may seem a bit roundabout, but it's a multi-platform solution, and you should be able to transfer from one program to another without losing any important data.  It's just pickier though.
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"You may not sell or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you created based on the source." -- Excerpt from FSO license, for reference

Nuclear1:  Jesus Christ zack you're a little too hamyurger for HLP right now...
iamzack:  i dont have hamynerge i just want ptatoc hips D:
redsniper:  Platonic hips?!
iamzack:  lays

 

Offline Spicious

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
You should be able to call your turret bases and arms whatever you want; it's all based on finding firepoints (at least I think it is). -destroyed naming is entirely a FS2 requirement.

 
Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
For some reason when I tried that it decided that the -destroyed was choosen as a child  :confused:
That's cool and ....disturbing at the same time o_o  - Vasudan Admiral

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like, that is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor. And you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."

"Quick everyone out of the universe now!"

 

Offline Spicious

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
You'll still need to put the -destroyed one at the same hierarchy as the non-destroyed version. I think that's also a FS2 requirement. There's no smart way to choose which subobject is meant to be the barrels if there is more than one so it just picks the first one it finds. Somewhere along the line the child ordering is probably non-deterministic and so all that is guaranteed is that one child object will be selected as the barrels.

 
Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
I had it as
  • detail0
    • turret
      • turret-arm
    • turret-destroyed
and renamed turret-arm and thats what happened

edit: here's the result
  • detail0
    • turret
      • turret-destroyed
    • turretbarrel
« Last Edit: June 09, 2009, 03:09:20 am by Scooby_Doo »
That's cool and ....disturbing at the same time o_o  - Vasudan Admiral

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like, that is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor. And you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."

"Quick everyone out of the universe now!"

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
I've got a question -

To handle the conversion of the model and setup cockpit glass, is that done the same ways
as in the MAX-POF exporter plugin tut... or does it have to be setup differently?

I know that you typically cut the glass mesh from the model, after that my memory is fuzzy.

Might help complete this out.

Edit - Here's what's in the Styxx tut

Quote
Transparent Faces

Glass, transparency-blended nameplates, and other transparent textures should come last in the model. An easy way to accomplish this is to select all faces that use the material of your glass texture, detach them from the model, re-attach them with the attach tool, select the faces near the edge (all faces in the model may be appropriate) and perform a vertex weld with a threshold of 0.01. This will move the transparent faces to the end of the model's face list and will ensure proper rendering in-game.

    * If you have a single map that is partially transparent, do this on the specific faces that will end up transparent.
    * All transparent textures should be part of the root geometry (detail-0), without exception. Faces behind transparent textures, such as a pilot, are more likely to work correctly when these faces are a separate subobject.

Which forgive a poor modeling noob, but with my limited knowledge, if your model already has vertices arranged
for a glass outline, and a texture applied to it that looks like glass... why would you detatch and the retattach the glass section?
It basically does nothing but put the same thing back where it was. 1 piece became two, then back to 1 piece.

It's not exactly written to be stupid proof I guess, and I'm more of a "why doesn't it work?" than a "just do it this way cause that's
how it's done."
« Last Edit: June 10, 2009, 01:40:40 pm by JGZinv »
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 
Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Unless I'm wrong, glass is simply a texture (of course with alpha transparency). 

The material list above doesn't include it because that one was for cap ships, but my common material list for fighters includes glass as one of it's textures.  I've always attached the glass to the mesh and kept the cockpit as a separate subobject.
That's cool and ....disturbing at the same time o_o  - Vasudan Admiral

"Don't play games with me. You just killed someone I like, that is not a safe place to stand. I'm the Doctor. And you're in the biggest library in the universe. Look me up."

"Quick everyone out of the universe now!"

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Would you mind terribly putting up a pre-Dae Max file with the tut Scooby?
I'd like to take a visual look at how some things are arranged in the scene.

jacek walked me though getting just a textured model from max, to a dae file, but
we didn't do any setup really. I'm trying to come up with a list so I know exactly
how much I can do in PCS2, and how much "must" be done in max... like making a shield mesh, LODs...

I'm starting to record myself going through most of this too, so once I've got it figured out, I can
make a proper video tutorial.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 

Offline Spicious

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
The game does funny things with the order of rendering. If your transparent thing is rendered before what's behind it (or maybe the other way around) the thing behind it won't get rendered. The importer had a way to deal with this for transparency of one subobject over itself, but it sort of got cut when naming became case insensitive.

Are there any changes you'd like to see in the importer/exporter to make this easier, without breaking current compatibility (too much).

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
If you're asking me, my number one request would be decent documentation.
The most powerful tools are not worth anything if they can't be implemented.

Scooby's taken a monumental chunk out of the issue with the tut here, but "recent"
PCS2 specific documentation is something you still have to piece together.

Perhaps some form of key bindings so you can use a center mouse button/wheel
more along the lines of sketchup or Max's viewport controls? The less you have to mess
with on a keyboard for view, the faster you can move about.

Oh I "do" know of one. There's a bit of a bug when you have Windows set to use large fonts
and a higher dpi. I have poor eyesight and had to switch to a desktop recently, so I bumped up the
appearance settings. However in PCS2, this makes several of the menu buttons and fields barely
visible or partially hidden.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 

Offline chief1983

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Heck they're all squished together in the right column even at default sizes, I always have to expand the pane myself to get it to fit right.
Fate of the Galaxy - Now Hiring!  Apply within | Diaspora | SCP Home | Collada Importer for PCS2
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"You may not sell or otherwise commercially exploit the source or things you created based on the source." -- Excerpt from FSO license, for reference

Nuclear1:  Jesus Christ zack you're a little too hamyurger for HLP right now...
iamzack:  i dont have hamynerge i just want ptatoc hips D:
redsniper:  Platonic hips?!
iamzack:  lays

 

Offline JGZinv

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Well in my case, expanding the pane doesn't help even if you maximize the window.
You can't reach the controls.
True power comes not from strength, but from the soul and imagination.
Max to PCS2 to FS2 SCP Guide
The FringeSpace Conversion Mod

 

Offline Vasudan Admiral

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Re: Max to PCS2 tutorial (Plus ideas how to make work simplier)
Errr, fellas:
Are there any changes you'd like to see in the importer/exporter to make this easier, without breaking current compatibility (too much).
:p
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