[Swamp_Thing]

Quickly, someone hand me a rope and point me to a tall tree!!

I would be seriouslly surprised if yet another set of problems wouldn´t arise.
Seems i´m a magnet to them...
I got passed all the other problems, red page after page ti´ll my eyes refused to work, wrote post after post, and now that i thought i would finally get to see my models in FS, well, i got another problem!!:mad:

To put it simply, my models crash on FRED, as soon as i try to insert them. Everytime it crashes to desktop.
So i made a little experiment:
I made a simple cube and tried it. It worked.
I made a set of cubes, boleean them together, and tried it. It worked.
I made another yet more complex set, with cubes, spheres, odd angles, adding and subtracting pieces at random, and tried it. Again, it worked.
Then i picked up the most simple model i got, with the least ammount of polys, and tried it again. It crashed!!! Oh little wonder...

So, either FRED is picking on me, or my models have geometry problems. So i went and checked them, and double checked them. I triangulized them, looked around for holes, missing faces, anything odd  inside the model, and found nothing.
PCS accepts the models allright, so why doesn´t FRED?
Is it a poly number issue? Can´t be, my models are low on polys.
Is it a scale issue? No, the simple cubes were the same size or bigger than the complex ones.
Is it a texture issue? No, they were all painted using one single texture, some worked (the cubes), some didn´t (the complex ones).
 So what the f**k is wrong with it??? I´m at a loss here.
I´m starting to wonder if it´s all worth the trouble...

[magatsu1]

I'm having similar probs. Have you done any pof. editing or table stuff ? I don't think it's a geomertry problem otherwise PCS wouldn't be having it. Have you tried it in ModelView, or the latest FRED which gives the warnings as it starts up ?

Drives you mad to get this far and have it still not work eh?

[aldo_14]

How many polys do your models have?

(if your using non-SCP FRED, there is a limit of around 850 per object - significantly lower than that of the SCP version)

[magatsu1]

*wahaaha, hi-jacks swampys thread*

mines to within retail limits, but I'm using latest SCP builds. Works okay in FRED_Open, just crashes (in-game) to desktop after x-seconds with no error message.

[Swamp_Thing]

It´s official!! It´s a poly issue!
I just made another model, but kept the polys down, only 572 AFTER triangulization. And it works fine. I just tested it.
So, it is a poly issue.
The question is, what the hell do i do with those models now???
Oh, and just where do i get the FSOpen version of FRED?
Maybe it will let the models in...

I could leave the models "untriangulized", but if i do PCS will always return a error message of "Poly>20". What the hell is that? And PCS also makes a point check, like "Started with 3500 points, finished with 3500". What´s that all about?


PLEASE, post a link for FS_Open FRED, i´m a desperate man!! That rope and tree are looking better and better, the more i think of it!

[magatsu1]

look in the SCP threads for the FRED bulids. Thery're usually bundled with FS Open releses anyway.

[Swamp_Thing]

Originally posted by magatsu1
look in the SCP threads for the FRED bulids. Thery're usually bundled with FS Open releses anyway.

Yeah, silly me!! It was there all this time, hiding from me!


Ok, i tried it with the FSOpen version of FRED, and it works. Kind of... It still crashes when i save the mission. The mission gets saved, but not sure if it was saved correctly. I flew one mission, saw the model, but there were some weird errors, like there are spots on the model you can fly through. Don´t know if the mission got screwed while saving, or wether it´s the model itself that has geometry errors. Gonna check that out now.

[magatsu1]

that's kinda weird 'cos Open builds triangulate models as they're loaded, so if it converts you're usually safe

[Getter Robo G]

I'm NOT a modler but I've been tryingto get ships in for almost 3 years now so here's some rules I lived by under Vanilla FS2..

  Intersecting polys are BAD (remove as many of them as possible if you can).

  Break large models into many subobjects of no more than 850 (or less!)...

  The model needs more work if it crashes in game when destroyed.

   If the model has no collision it is TOO BIG (death star test was fun I flew right through it no damage, oops!)...

   If you got the time have someone double check your model (they might see something you don't!

  IF this sounds too basic sorry... I usually have either a total PCS crash or that stupid BSP 1000 recursion error ect too many polys in same location call stack, so often times I cannot have models the proper size they have to be bigger than normal to convert... Like a 90m fighter instead of  it's proper 10-20m lenght cause of PCS unable to handle it. (atleast in it's untweaked state)...

[Swamp_Thing]

Actually, i don´t really fly throught it, per se. I get stuck inside it!!!
But it´s not just my models. I tried the same using an FS2 model, and the same happens. Tried it with the Colossus, and as soon as i bump the hull, i get pulled in, and then all i see is stars!!
"My god, it´s full of stars!"
Really, it is! Even if the model is set to enemy status, as soon as i bump into it, i get pulled in, and then the target goes friendly green, and no matter how i try and punch the afterburners, i can´t move... And all i see on the screen are stars.
It´s so strange...

I think it might be the influence of some other mod i have in there. I was playing the Eos Affair, and in the last missin, i got these weird errors, of shooting through the targets, not seeing the model at all, only the thrusters, the terran Hecate that was supposed to jump in didn´t appear at all, weird stuff.

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
I could leave the models "untriangulized", but if i do PCS will always return a error message of "Poly>20". What the hell is that?  

I'm guessing that it means a poly is being defined by too many points (i.e. a square is defined by 4, a triangle by 3...etc).  Triangulation is used, BTW, because it makes sure faces aren't curved in any way, which IIRc can srew up the normal calucaltion and whatnot.  (Actually, need to double check this....)

Originally posted by Swamp_Thing
And PCS also makes a point check, like "Started with 3500 points, finished with 3500". What´s that all about?
 

PCS merges identical vertices.  So this lets you know if it's merged any.  Plus i'd imagine it's a good thing for error checking - i.e. making sure that the convertor isn't losing any model data.