Author Topic: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing  (Read 280981 times)

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
i know i should use pcs2 but even if i convert from 3ds to truespace and then pcs , i got stl error because of the max->.3ds convertion, i m not sure that this way is better..  :confused:

i've open and resave with pcs and then edit the moi with pcs2 and save
$Formula: ( every-time
   ( has-time-elapsed "0" )
   ( Do-Nothing
   )
   ( send-message
      "#Dalek"
      "High"
      "Pro-crasti-nate"
   )
   )
)
+Name: Procratination
+Repeat Count: 99999999999
+Interval: 1

 

Offline Kazan

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
nobody should be using PCS1 anymore, nobody should be using modelview, nobody should be using segeltuch, nobody should using aurora, nobody should be using cob2fs2, nobody should be using the max exporter.

PCS2 has the best model compiler out there hands down.

MAX->.cob->truespace cleanup->.cob->PCS2->.pof
PCS2 2.0.3 | POF CS2 wiki page | Important PCS2 Threads | PCS2 Mantis

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Offline DaBrain

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
Actually MAX doesn't support *.cob. And *.3ds has a vertxpoint limit.

You loose all the nice helper feature the MAX exporter had.

*.3ds support for PCS2 would be nice, but not a real solution. A better format to get all the addional informations (custom properties, glowpoint postions, gunpoints) is needed.


For now I can export the model from MAX too, to be at least able to import the glowpoints into PCS2...
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Offline Kazan

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
DaBrain: either write a .PMF export plugin, or i can give you developer access to PCS2 since it just went release and you can start writing .max support for PCS2.1 :D

though.. bobboau is planning on .obj support
PCS2 2.0.3 | POF CS2 wiki page | Important PCS2 Threads | PCS2 Mantis

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Offline Col. Fishguts

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
Is ASE support still planned for PCS2.1 ?
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Offline Kazan

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
so long as it's not made redundant by .obj

.ASE is the ASCII Version of .max/.3ds
« Last Edit: February 09, 2008, 12:15:11 pm by Kazan »
PCS2 2.0.3 | POF CS2 wiki page | Important PCS2 Threads | PCS2 Mantis

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
Newbie question, sorry, the pof exporter for 3DS Max, I only have v4, I cant get the service pack to make it 4.2 anymore.
Any way, everything crashes from a model I have in max when I export to pof using the maxtopof export tool for 4. I think it is because it was designed for 4.2 but not sure.  I wondered if I needed to rename everything to specific items. I divided them up by layers in Rhino and named them with decriptions 16 characters or less long, I can export to 3ds and import to 3ds with Rhino, but max hoses those object layer names on import. Honestly I find max pretty crude as a modeling tool with the 4.0 version, really clumsy and obtuse. Rhino runs awsome and is very intuitive I'm just trying to find a reasonable format for import/export.

 

Offline Topgun

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
don't use this script. it is absolete. use pcs2.

 

Offline Topgun

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
its only obsolete if you're a newb, i still prefer the max plugin over pcs2 for conversion. im still not gonna say that one converter replaces the other at this point. 3rd party export formats for any modeling program are poorly implemented at best and even if you managed to find a good one you would still suffer data loss. somone write a pmf exporter that works EXACTLY like the pof exporter and il be a happy camper.
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Offline Col. Fishguts

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
Contrary to Kazan's propaganda, Styxx's plugin is still useful. It's still the only way to get proper smooth groups into the game.

It may produce collision detection problems SOMETIMES, but so far PCS2 managed to fix all of them.
"I don't think that people accept the fact that life doesn't make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable. It seems like religion and myth were invented against that, trying to make sense out of it." - D. Lynch

Visit The Babylon Project, now also with HTL flavour  ¦ GTB Rhea

 

Offline Topgun

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
It may produce collision detection problems SOMETIMES, but so far PCS2 managed to fix all of them.

the bottom line is that you still need pcs2.

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
and it has the same main problem as pcs1, insufficient import capability. i should be able to save a file from any modeling program using its own native import/export features and convert it in pcs without a 3rd party utility to convert it to death (where the madel data gets stripped out section by section). pcs is ok for a 2 step convert, but the max converter takes 1 step and is therefor a better choice if you use max. if you use max as a model converter where you take a model, import it to max and then convert it youre gonna have problems, but if youre ship is max modeled and in a .max file then you wont have a problem with it (save for the crashes you get when you fail to convert to poly/name things wrong).
« Last Edit: April 08, 2008, 10:40:46 am by Nuke »
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Offline Topgun

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
look, about 70% of the htl ships have collision problems. why? because they used the max exporter.
either use pcs2 to convert it or resave in pcs2.

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
i find that funny because most people go the cob route anyway and use other modeling programs besides max. the 70% of those collision problems come from excessive exporting/importing.

say sombody starts a model in truespace 4, they finish it right, then they hate the uv tools and export it to another program like blender and add uv data. or pass it on to another team member for the uv map. so now you got a ship in blender, uv mapped and good to go, but wait you need hierarchy, so you go back to truespace and import it and set up the hierarchy. but alas in the confusion of file format hopping, you lost your uv data. sad. so you send it back to blender for a re-uv map, thus loosing the hierarchy. after finally getting it back to cob format in a convertible state, you convert, get it into game and find that there are collision holes all over the place.

the best way to gain full control over what goes into your model is by doing the whole model start to finish in one program. your output is only as good as your input (and the code doing the conversion). in other words crap in, crap out. modeling formats are proprietary for the most part, they have several versions of those formats under the same extension, and the developers of various 3d packages really aren't obligated to supporting 3rd party formats anyway, so they half ass the effort of implementation. i do look forwart to seeing what format support gets added to pcs2, but i absolutely refuse to use a 3rd application between max and pcs2.
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

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Offline Vasudan Admiral

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
Errm, I used to go blend>dxf>cob>lum>cob>pof. Never had any sort of collision mesh error that wasn't a mistake on my part or a now known bug in early PCS1 versions. ;)

Far more common it's bad modelling practices that cause errors - I hardly think it's the export and import processes that just randomly 'corrupt' data like that. Certainly you can lose bits like smoothgroups, UV data, hierarchy, material names, get all your faces disconnected, face normals inverted etc - some of which can go on to cause errors later in the process, but other than that the data that goes in is what comes out.

Heck as I'm sure you know, most model formats just store the data as vert and face lists one way or another. There's not a lot to get mysteriously corrupted in that.
Get the 2014 Media VPs and report any bugs you find in them to the FSU Mantis so that we may squish them. || Blender to POF model conversion guide
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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
I used to make planes in Combat Flight Simulator.
That was a fun process using ABACUS not nearly this complicated.
I Have Rhinocerous, but the help pages for making FS2 models is gone.
Unfortunate because Rhino is so easy to model in for me.
I also have 3DS Max 4,
but it is not very easy to model in and the command structure is more from an engineering standpoint than a design one in such an old build.
So far skinning the models would seem to be the toughest part, just getting a mesh unwrapped to begin.
It would seem I have to select every single mesh triangle?
I tried LithUnwrap and everything unwrapped over itself on the page.
I couldn't select the individual points to move them around so I gave up there.
It would seem I have to map a light to every part as well before I can UV Map the ship?

[attachment deleted by ninja]

 

Offline Nuke

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
Errm, I used to go blend>dxf>cob>lum>cob>pof. Never had any sort of collision mesh error that wasn't a mistake on my part or a now known bug in early PCS1 versions. ;)

Far more common it's bad modelling practices that cause errors - I hardly think it's the export and import processes that just randomly 'corrupt' data like that. Certainly you can lose bits like smoothgroups, UV data, hierarchy, material names, get all your faces disconnected, face normals inverted etc - some of which can go on to cause errors later in the process, but other than that the data that goes in is what comes out.

Heck as I'm sure you know, most model formats just store the data as vert and face lists one way or another. There's not a lot to get mysteriously corrupted in that.

you seem to have some luck it seems. i would never do it that way, due to my experiences with model conversion. but the rest of what you say is accurate, bad modeling is the prime reason for collision errors. but you see i view over conversion as bad modeling practice. if you can get it to work, good for you (same as how i managed to make decent models purely in truespace, such an accomplishment :D ).

but anyway my main complaint is that people are being told that the max plugin is totally useless, obsolete, total crap or whatever.  i think it still has its place in modding. a skilled max user can still manage to make and export a model with it and have perfect collision detection.
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

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Offline Vasudan Admiral

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
but anyway my main complaint is that people are being told that the max plugin is totally useless, obsolete, total crap or whatever.  i think it still has its place in modding. a skilled max user can still manage to make and export a model with it and have perfect collision detection.
That is true. :)
However, there appears to be some aspect of the conversion process that if done/not done will result in horrible collision errors all over the model.

One of the things I've done for the next VP set is to look for collision errors in every HTL model in the package. Of the models converted using the POF Exporter all of Stratcomm, Firecrack and Taristins (except the Sobek) conversions were totally solid. However every single one that Galemp has converted has had massive collision errors somewhere on it that go beyond the occasional geometry error in the model. I've fixed all of them now, but whatever he did/didn't do is still unknown and can cause problems for others.

Is there anything you know of in the process that could affect that?
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Offline Nuke

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Re: POF exporter for MAX - Need people with MAX 4, 5 and 6 for testing
im not really sure. the usual suspects are micropolies, duplicate points, holes, non-flat polies, polies with too many points, and some issues parsing the scientific notation used in very large or very small numbers in ascii formats (ive only seen that happen once). im not really sure about how the process for generating the collision trees works.
I can no longer sit back and allow communist infiltration, communist indoctrination, communist subversion, and the international communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.

Nuke's Scripting SVN