[magatsu1]

Can someone let me know what's up with this ?
When I convert the LODS appear together like weird conjoined triplets or somethin'.


*Edit:image updated*












*nearly there. just this & some pof editin' and it's ready!*

[karajorma]

You've put all the turrets in the LOD0 group. I know that's how the [V] models are done but it won't work for user made ones. Stick the turrets in the main Freespace model group.

[magatsu1]

Ta.
Jeez, that took ages to put 'em all in the Lod0 group. Should Lod0 have a light BTW ? I know Aldo usually doesn't bother.

[karajorma]

Actually don't bother with a LOD0 group. Do the same as with the turrets.

[magatsu1]

I'm an idiot. I AM A F*****G IDIOT. Just did a save object and replaced the group file with Lod0. *bangs head against desk* Thank f**k i saved all sub-objects seperatly. Gotta do all the bloody turrets again now though (35 last count)

Last attempt PCS told me "you forgot to group those objects" so if I add a light to Lod0 that shouls work. Looks like I got a long night ahead of me.

[karajorma]

You don't add a light to LOD0. As soon as you add a turret or lower LOD PCS considers it grouped.

[aldo_14]

The only way PCS will convert a single LOD is to glue a light. That's the ungrouped error PCS gives.

 Albiet, I think it counts if you glue a turret (model+light) to the hull, so this only really applies to fighters.  I think so long as you have at least one light glued somewhere to form a group, it'll convert.

[magatsu1]

okay, here's the latest scene (complete with replaced turrets )

still gettin' lod errors though, Lod3 far as I can tell but Model View won't load the model so I'm not too sure. I've only seen it in the PCS render 'till now.

[karajorma]

Can's see any errors there. What's the turret hierarchy look like?

[magatsu1]

decided to use a fan-made ship as a guide (Aldo's Griffin as it happens)



the only probs now is it's putting lod1 as the final detail (not the 1st) and it's showing "Freespace Model" as a suboject (i don't think that matters though



Turrets should be okay. They'll be dropped into the hull group.

Insidious is the ships working title BTW

[karajorma]

Due to a quirk of either the .cob format or PCS itself LODS are converted in the order you added them to the model not the order the numbers give you. Simply take the LODS out and stick them back in the correct order and you should be free of the problem.

[magatsu1]

that's got it!  Couldn't live without you man, thanks!

that was really doing my head in.

[karajorma]

Been through the same trauma. That's why I always help

[KARMA]

Originally posted by aldo_14
The only way PCS will convert a single LOD is to glue a light. That's the ungrouped error PCS gives.

 

not if it use 2 or more polymodels. So, if you make for example your main hull in 2 or more submodels just group them together and it'll work even without a light

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by KARMA


not if it use 2 or more polymodels. So, if you make for example your main hull in 2 or more submodels just group them together and it'll work even without a light

Er....why would you want to do that, though?

[KARMA]

well, for many reasons.
You have to do so if you use intersections.
Or, you may want to split the mesh to reduce pcount.
for example: if you disconnect a cylinder which starts from one face of a cube, you save lots of polys. If you do this as a general strategy you can save many thousands of polys
Splitting the mesh could be useful if you need to reduce the weird shading effects without using autofacet (so if you use modelview)
It makes it easyer to unwrap the mesh
In theory it makes it faster to build the mesh (not really in my case)
BTW, whatever reason bringed you in that situation, if you have 2 or more submodels on the same hierachy level glued together without a light they should be converted fine

[magatsu1]

thought each submodel had to be a single object ?

[KARMA]

no:)
to make it easyer:

submodel=mesh:
any standalone mesh
subobject=group/layer/level of hierachy:
a layer, which is a group of 1 or more meshes glued together or/and with a light.

Freespace consider as a single functional (sub)object any converted group and not the meshes.
In theory if you can make a void group it'll be converted and used fine as long as it has the right name and the right properties.
In other words freespace (or, to be more exact, the converters) give a sense to the levels (layers) of hierachy and not to what is in the level (for example: the submodels can have any name, but what is important is the name of the groups).
To have a group with only one mesh you need to glue the model to something, a light. But you don't need a light to make a group if you have more submodels. IIRC the the lights are/were used to tell the converters the end of the chunk.
Of course a model with many submodels in each subobject will be less stable than a solid mesh, but the problems are very rare nonetheless.

[aldo_14]

I don't know about the SCP changes, but it used to be that a subobject glued to the hull without a light would cause the points it intersected to become transparent - i.e. if you glued a cylinder to a flat face, that face would become transparent (if it intersected).

[KARMA]

that was caused by the z-buffer, and it was happening even if the submodel was an individual subobject (the infamous turrett bug).
Actually it was happening even when there weren't interesections/disconnections at all, in certain situations, which caused me terrible headaches.
BTW this problem has been fixed many months ago, since IIRC 3.55.
For example, my Fenris has about 140 submodels into IIRC 4 subobjects, and most of those submodels are in the main lod. Actually all the greeblings are disconnected submodels, with a total trianglecount of IIRC ~6500 triangles, when it'd have been over 12k if the mesh was solid....
I don't suggest BTW to use so many submodels, since it can cause the model to be unstable: I spent many hours on the Fenris before getting a stable pof, and I discovered that the amount of submodels can cause the game to crash. Unfourtunately there isn't a clear limit, the Fenris works fine as she is, but she was crashing with 150 submodels, but at the same time I got a model working fine with more than 200 submodels on a single subobject...
Just consider this as an useful strategy sometimes to keep the trianglecount under control...