Hard Light Productions Forums
Modding, Mission Design, and Coding => The Modding Workshop => Topic started by: EAD_Agamemnon on February 12, 2007, 05:49:33 pm
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Okay. First of all I got the idea of toying around and made myself a space paddle steam boat. It's not all that complex, particularly the hull itself. I have it more or less assigned a hierarchy, but I wanted to make sure that I could actually use the model before I went further. Some models I've made PCS wont use because it goes over the polygon limit of 20 vertices in some places. Now for my problem...
I open PCS. I go to the Conversion pull down menu and chose COB to POF. I select the ship from the directory. It acts like its working for a second then the main PCS window goes white and I get an hourglass that wont go away. The program fails to respond at all. I have to shut it down using CTRL + ALT + DEL.
Now I KNOW this ship has few polys than some of my other models...but its not working. I was looking forward to using the ship and watching wing mates get shot down by a 19th/early 20th century paddle steamer complete with 7 cannons and 6 defensive gatling guns.
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Did you try triangulating it? And does it have a UV projection applied? (cubic, planar, spherical, full on UV map - anything so long as you're not trying to convert un UVed geometry, cos I know that can cause crashes)
If neither of those help, upload the cob and I'll have a look, because it would probably indicate a geometry error.
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I even tried it triangulated. As for UV projection I dont think I have the stuff to do that with even if I knew how to do it. I loaded up one of my other older models with no problem. The one giving me trouble has lots of small parts. About 50 columns or so that 'help support the awnings' on the decks. A couple flights of stairs.
It dont even tell me anything when I try to load...it just sits idle like it tries to load it but it cant.
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What program are you working in? If truespace, you do the UV projection by selecting your object and pressing the blue&white checkered cube/plane button on the bottom toolbar.
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/UV_Projection.jpg)
This will assign the selected object a UV projection (how the textures will be applied) but doesn't assign any textures. It's probably a good idea to just give it a simple one:
To assign a texture (in TS6 at least), go to the material editor (the paint pallet - bottom toolbar). Expand the colour window; the red line points it out below: (Note that by default the colour will be a solid grey colour - not a texture. To make it a texture, right-click the preview in the colour window and from the colour shaders box that pops up, select the caligari logo - "texture map")
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/MaterialEditor.jpg)
To change the image used as your texture, right click the caligari logo texture in the colour window, and it will bring up a browse dialogue. Find a nice and boring one and use that to test with.
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Problem there. I'm using TS3...cant afford to buy a more current one. I looked and it doesnt appear to have that option in it.
EDIT: It does. Just wasnt where I thought it was.
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BAH! I tried the UV thing on the triangulated version and it didnt work....PCS still just hangs there all bleach blank.
Tried it on an untriangulated version....with the UV....now it dont freeze at least...now I gotta find where i got more than 20 sides to a polygon. I can only ASSUME that the more than 20 points includes the 4 points that surround the columns....if thats so I'm over the limit by like 50+ on the 2 lower decks. Since I'm not sure...I'll post a screen of the ship. NOTE: The stock-TS3 textures are merely substitutes until I get it into MODVIEW and there I can give it better..though not proper ones since I have no texture-making skills or tools.
(http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/4321/paddlesteamerangle1qk9.th.jpg) (http://img211.imageshack.us/my.php?image=paddlesteamerangle1qk9.jpg)
(http://img409.imageshack.us/img409/4319/decksgrtrthn20pointsid0.th.jpg) (http://img409.imageshack.us/my.php?image=decksgrtrthn20pointsid0.jpg)
Do I have too many columns on this one? I loaded just this part of the ship and it gives me the >20 error. Needless to say itd cause a problem with the ship hull too. If I have too I can remove them..or at least most and lleave the ones on the corners.
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Now thats a neat ship :D
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Thank You. ATM I'm trying to carefully remove some of the columns by starting with every other one. Just the DECK section alone gives PCS a hernia. If I try to do it too quick....TS3 has a coronary and I gotta CTRL ALT DEL it to end program....
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Crikey, never seen such jagged edges as in that top pic - I think something's wrong with your display settings there. :\
As for the >20 error, that means you either have more than 20 verticies forming a single face, or more than 20 verticies all connected by edges to a single verticie. That it brings this error up when the thing is triangulated suggests the latter, as a 20vert face would be split into triangles.
I suspect it may be caused by having all those columns attached to the deck/roof parts. Can you get a screenie of what it looks like once triangulated?
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I'm not running my old GForce2 64meg at 1600x1200 is why....
Ok. Ill post the triangulated version (with the columns) TS3 is being a headache with my trying to remove them. So I'm going back to an early version of the decks and removing the columns (the columns are 1 entire thing per tier....so Ill just delete them) and put back on the substitute textures.
Notable it is a mess.
(http://img187.imageshack.us/img187/189/triangulatedxd3.th.jpg) (http://img187.imageshack.us/my.php?image=triangulatedxd3.jpg)
Even the no-columns made PCS crap...onto the hull i go now
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Ah - ok, that confirms it - the problem is having those columns attached to the underside of the roof. What it means is that instead of just being two triangles, the underside of the roof becomes rather polygon heavy. Have a look:
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y184/VA--Twisted_Infinities/Misc/CauseOf20VertsError.jpg)
The top one is what it should be like - two separate pieces, and the bottom is what it is. Basically, at least two verts on each of the columns that touches the roof is connecting to a vert on the corner of the roof. That's easily enough to break the <20 limit.
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it did that even before it was triangulated...
the deck version w/o the columns PCS accepts...now my prob is prob with the hull....or....the guns....
I'll have to fiddle with this tomorrow....nearly 10pm atm here and i got to leave at 4:30 for work at 6
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okay I tried loading just the hull into PCS...no problems....the steam plant...no problems...the weapons...no prob...
but when I load the entire thing (the above mentioned are not merged to each other as the others would be destroyable subobjects of the hull itself)...it wont work and gives me the >20 thingamajiggawopper
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If you're doing boolean joins, it's easy to get extra vertexes that're really hard to see without zooming way in. trueSpace often doesn't like to do boolean operations on objects that're perfectly aligned along edges or faces.
IF a mod would do a Sticky thread or better yet, a trueSpace subforum, I'd be happy to post stuff on how to do stuff in tS3.2 that's not normally possible using just the tools available in the program's interface.
I posted a mini-tutorial a while back on how to triangulate a single face in tS3. It takes a few steps but gets the same results as the Add Edge tool in later versions.
tS3.2 tends to spaz out often, usually at the worst moment. SAVE OFTEN! When it goes wonky, 99.999% of the time it also flushes its undo buffer.
Some of my olde stuff I did with older versions of trueSpace. http://members.aceweb.com/gregg1/oldweb/
As for the jagged edges on the render, he needs to enable anti-aliasing. To enable that, rightclick the Render group, that's between the Display group and the View group, down in the bottom right corner. (Unless you're one of those top-menu weirdos... ;) )
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Doesn't look like it's just missing AA - look closer at the grid compared to the mesh. It's like it's actively....jaggying it up. :\
As to the problem, post the cob and I'll take a look. :) It sounds to me like you've got multiple errors all probably relating to booleans.
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And this is the final straw. As soon as the HTL Loki is complete, I'm going to begin writing that Blender tutorial so people don't have to deal with this sort of TS-3.2-related rubbish when they're only trying to learn to model. Modeling itself is difficult enough to learn without the program you're using doing it's level best to ruin your model and/or your sanity at every turn.
Blender is free as well and kicks the crap out of TS 3.2 in every way possible.
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Boolean functions in just about ANY 3D program will cause the creation of lots of unwanted verts. This is one of the reasons why the SCP is such a benefit. The new game versions allow you to intersect parts without htings blowing up. Saves hugely on issues like this, and makes booleans unecessary.
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Agreed....to an extent. I don't like Booleans in general (I never use them actually), but also it's generally bad modeling practice to assemble ships out of multiple separate objects. It causes more conversion problems than it solves, causes UV mapping area wastage and is a bit lazy really. ;)
There was a debate between me and Scooby Doo about this a while back, here (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php/topic,42319.0.html).
Essentially; yes having ships made out of separate pieces makes them a bit easier to take apart and debug, but if you build your ship out of a solid mesh, you shouldn't ever get the those errors in the first place! :p
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Not sure if I understand this all correctly....but here's my understanding starting with how I currently have the model.
The section with the decks: 1 separate uni-body part of the hull....the version w/o the columns PCS accepts since the one w/ gave PCS fits.
The engine section (the 2 towers on it): PCS accepts this just fine w/o trouble.
The hull/wheels: PCS gives no trouble with these either. The hull and wheels are seperate pieces.
The above are not glued together but are simply grouped objects, though each is composed of multiple glued-together polygons to make one single shape.
When I group all the objects together, PCS craps out. The version with the models PCS would have white outs and not do squat...the version w/o the columns just gives the >20 error.
How can I get said error when the mentioned individual sections of the ship pass okay, and when simply grouped together to form a whole do they cause a fit? I dont mean to repeat myself, but just wanting to be sure I got out correctly what I had done and what the problem was.
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but also it's generally bad modeling practice to assemble ships out of multiple separate objects. It causes more conversion problems than it solves
Told you already. ;)
And:
As to the problem, post the cob and I'll take a look. :)
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Question (don't bite my head off pls!)
If a ship converted before to .pof but I had to break it up in order to cleanly edit some stuff out and now am stuck with 52 objects off one of 5 main parts and it fails conversion cause of this, HOW can I merge all those objects into one part again? (Using only ts3.2) is it possible? I tried union but nothing happens.
Irony of Ironies, I just realized with my latest one I'm probably in the top ten for most amount of conversions done for Fs2 :D
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Ok. I've been modeling for quite a while now, and I've tried out many 3d apps, including TS 3.2, 5 and 6, Blender, Lightwave, Milkshape, 3ds Max, gmax and even DOGA. They all have their strengths and weaknesses and all have their own sets of techniques that work and don't work.
So please believe me when I say that TS 3.2 is probably the biggest problem both of you and many others have at this time. In fact, I don't know of a single person on HLP who has produced even a moderately detailed ship using only 3.2.
The program is simply incapable of producing stable complex shapes! Even the simpler things that would take minutes in a normal app can take ages in 3.2.
As such, there is no reason to be relying on it as heavily as a lot of new FS modders do. It's like trying to learn to fly a helicopter by riding a bike. You'll never get off the ground.
Saying 'but it's free' is no excuse either. :p Blender and possibly Wings3d will be along shortly to beat you to death with a trout. If you want a totally free and legal way to do 3d modeling for Freespace, you barely need to use TS 3.2 at all.
ALL you would actually need it for is to set up the heirarchy of all your existing and positioned objects, scale the whole thing and then to save it as a COB/SCN.
I know I must sound like a broken record when it comes to TS vs Blender, and please don't think I'm attacking anyone, but I just get so tired of HLP modders getting stuck on 3.2 when they don't have to be. Many such modelers have given up modeling completely, no matter how much potential their designs show. 3.2 just strangles them with problems of every kind, and gives them next to no real modeling power in return. Modelers should be limited by time and imagination. NOT their chosen program. ;)
For example:
If a ship converted before to .pof but I had to break it up in order to cleanly edit some stuff out and now am stuck with 52 objects off one of 5 main parts and it fails conversion cause of this, HOW can I merge all those objects into one part again? (Using only ts3.2) is it possible? I tried union but nothing happens.
In Blender, you would shift+right-click select all the objects you wanted to make a part of the same object, and press ctrl+j.
In 3ds Max you would just select one object, click 'attach list' and select all the objects you wanted to attach in a nice neat list form.
How do you do it in TS? Well first you will need to make sure none of the objects are inside each other and that they aren't touching each other anywhere. Then you select one object, select the boolean union tool and proceed to boolean every object together one at a time. Be careful on the order in which you select them or you might put one of the yet-to-be-attached ones inside the bounding box of the attached ones, which has caused headaches before. Also be careful which ones you click - TS doesn't always go for the one you click on. If there was something behind it, more often than not you will grab it and not the object. Aside from that, it's good to save right before trying this whole operation because TS will very often crash at seemingly random ones, and the undo only undoes some of them some of the time. Be sure to save right afterwards as well. Once that's done, if any objects were in or touching each other before you moved them, you'll now have to border-select all their verts or faces and move them back into place.
And no I'm not talking about simply gluing objects together. That does not join them into one mesh object as the method I've described will do in each program.
As I've said in many of my previous broken record loops, if anyone out there has a simpler method for doing the above in TS 3.2, then please let me know!
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Thanks for the explanation, and yes it makes TS sound retarded...
Lets just say I gained access to MAX and LW recently... But I still know more about TS... Hopefully that will change in time.
(Note, if I ever won the lottery a certain not named game would have a shipyard program :D)
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Why do I use TS3.2? Its FREE! I dont have several Ben Franklins to spare to simply buy a modeling program that I may not use all the time. Making models is something I do occasionally and none are meant to be ground breaking....and textures I'm 99.5% content to live with what I can mix n match from released mods.
Unless you know of a better model-making program that dont cost both arms, both legs, AND the kitchen sink. 100 bucks is the most I'd ever want to spend on such a thing....and that would be with a very great deal of reluctance. Most of the stuff I fool around with, or at least try to, is with ship weapons. If I had a better understanding...better yet if FRED wasnt so confusing to me....I'd be working on my own mini-mod.
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:blah:
Saying 'but it's free' is no excuse either. :p Blender and possibly Wings3d will be along shortly to beat you to death with a trout. If you want a totally free and legal way to do 3d modeling for Freespace, you barely need to use TS 3.2 at all.
ALL you would actually need it for is to set up the heirarchy of all your existing and positioned objects, scale the whole thing and then to save it as a COB/SCN.
*watches the fish beating* :p
Blender is free. It kicks the crap out of TS in every possible way. If the fact that it is free is the only reason you're using 3.2, switch! Now!
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if you are a sap with very little money to be spared on such extravagenes...then "but its free" IS an excuse
where might i find BLENDER then...and in my case...
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maybe I should rephrase.
I use(d*) because its the one I knew for sure was free. I dont model enough nor am I so bound up in it that I can justify buying the bigger better stuff. I just want something that will make what I try to make...work.
Im currently looking into BLENDER and 3DPlus2...I'll keep searching till I find one not quite as tempramental as TS.
(*)Note: reference to used: searching for different program: as of this moment: 2 possibilities found
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http://www.blender3d.com/
Link found off freespace oracle (Karajorna's site)
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downloaded BLENDER....the graphics of the controls look like something from 20 years ago....looks like itd be at home in WIN3.1
gonna take a long time learn that from the looks of it...
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downloaded BLENDER....the graphics of the controls look like something from 20 years ago....looks like itd be at home in WIN3.1
gonna take a long time learn that from the looks of it...
You won't get any argument from me. :lol:
Not to mention the flow of the program is pretty bad.
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Mate, look. Blenders work flow is just as fast as that of any other program - it's the user that defines it. Once you know your way around the shortcut keys, Blender is a breeze.
And when you say flow of the program, how far into that flow did you actually get before deciding it was 'bad'? I haven't fully learned the ropes in 3ds max yet, so I can't model anything in it that comes close to what I can make in Blender. Does that mean 3ds max's workflow is bad? No! Just means I still have to learn how to use it. The same applies to you. :p
As for the interface, it's rendered through openGL, as the program is designed to be multi-platform with minimal effort. Besides that, the openGL interface means you can move the panels to where you want them, scale them to the size you're happy with, line them up wherever, group them into tab groups however you like and can even change the colours to whatever strikes your fancy. Combine this with the window system, and you've got a very powerful interface.
In fact I'd love it if more programs used similar user interface systems.
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Agamemnon: If you try and teach yourself how to use Blender from scratch, it will take a long time. I know because that's exactly what I did.
Nowadays though you have some video tutorials to get you into it quickly: http://www.blender.org/tutorials-help/video-tutorials
If that doesn't help, look here for a plenty of other tutorials: http://www.blender.org/tutorials-help/tutorials/
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Is blender.org having troubles? I can't seem to connect with it.
Also how well is your blender to pof converter work? Can you create smoothing groups or at least import 3ds smoothgroups?
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Hmm, yeah, it looks down atm. I think they've just released a new version, so it's possible they got bandwidth starved I guess.
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About the converter, I assume you mean the cob exporter? It's going nowhere till someone who knows python scripting can get it to interpret heirarchy, object centres, multiple texture names and object names correctly. :(
It's annoying how close it is - PCS accepts the cob files it exports, including complex geometry, UVs, scale and object offsets, but the cob export script itself won't do anything more than that.
That said, the .X exporter works fine on all but heirarchy. This means I can build my model completely in Blender; debris, lods, turrets - the lot, export it as a .X file, open it up in TS, drag/drop assemble the heirarchy there, scale it all and save.
Considering I used to have to UV, texture, turret, lod, debrisify AND heirarchify (yes I am making up words now) each model in TS, this system is an enormous improvement. :D
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As for smoothgroups, well I know Blender has the features needed, but I've never bothered looking into it. I much prefer to let the models geometric detail define the shape and leave the ship completely faceted. Basically, all edges/creases in the mesh are meant to be there, and form the hull shape as it would if it were a real object. Let the mesh's detail speak for itself as it were. ;)
If I really need to fiddle with smoothgroups though, I do it in TS. You take your texture, pick faceted/smooth/autofaceted (each different angle on autofacet will form a different smoothgroup), and apply it to the parts you want faceted/smooth/autofaceted. During conversion, PCS will correctly interpret the smoothings, but merge the materials back into one so you don't end up with copies of the same texture all applied to your mesh.
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As for smoothgroups, well I know Blender has the features needed, but I've never bothered looking into it. I much prefer to let the models geometric detail define the shape and leave the ship completely faceted. Basically, all edges/creases in the mesh are meant to be there, and form the hull shape as it would if it were a real object. Let the mesh's detail speak for itself as it were. ;)
If I really need to fiddle with smoothgroups though, I do it in TS. You take your texture, pick faceted/smooth/autofaceted (each different angle on autofacet will form a different smoothgroup), and apply it to the parts you want faceted/smooth/autofaceted. During conversion, PCS will correctly interpret the smoothings, but merge the materials back into one so you don't end up with copies of the same texture all applied to your mesh.
I prefer on most models to do smoothing manually or at least first do automatic then adjust each poly as needed. I've noticed on some models the polys get assigned to the wrong group. Mostly because the angle between the correct polys is greater than that of the of the misgrouped polys. I wonder where the smoothing gets lots, in truespace or in 3d exploration.
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It'd be 3d Ex. Max has propper smoothgroup information, while TS just has them as a byproduct of it's texture system. I doubt there's any hope of TS being able to interpret them from Max at all.
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Yuck... another thing I noticed it's really hard to get a moving smooth mapping in truespace, static pictures don't work that well.