3ds2de problem...

[Caravaggio]

My main problem with the program is that I'm not getting any errors. I run it and it doesn't produce anything and doesn't give me any error messages I can look up in the readme.

The thing is right now the crate is 3 different objects in my obj file because that's the only way I can keep each of the 3 different textures on the rights polygons. So what I'm thinking I have to do is learn in max how to assign certain textures to certain faces.

I'm guessing there's a way of labeling those face groups which would then coorespond to the right line in the .un file...
#exec MESHMAP SETTEXTURE MESHMAP=name.bmp NUM=1 TEXTURE=name

I have no idea though.

I'm looking for tutorials in various places like this...
http://www.dxediting.com/tutorials.php?tutorial=35
...But my setup is still shakey.

Any ideas?

edt: been reading more indepth. Think I'll mess with that "Attach List" function.
Why do they make this so perplexing...

edt2: Okay, so that kind of gets it in, but it completely ignores all but the 1st texture and the mesh is retaining it's box stucture while becoming even more jumbled inside the bounds...

...god I hate this thing.

[Phasmatis]

You can't have more than one mesh in a static object because each frame is a mesh.

I'll explain that is a bit more detail.
For an animation, every frame is a mesh. So for a 3 frame sequence you have mesh01 mesh02 mesh03, for a static object you can only have one mesh or things will go all strange.

That's probably why things are screwing up with your model.

Here's a mini tutorial that will hopefully help.

I'll assume your box is still in different parts. In each part select all the polys and give them a different material ID (it's the same as setselection in cinema). You do this in the editmesh properties. So say you have 3 parts, part one will be ID1 part 2 will be ID2 etc. Now attach all the parts together, use the attach button in the edit mesh properties to do that.

I've writen that very quickly so if you don't understand any of if, I'll try to explain a bit more.

[Caravaggio]

Well I got it to be one object with the attach list function. I had a few problems with the normals but I sorted that out. Anyway, it's one object, it's skinned right, the materials show up in the right places. It's just the geometry. Doesn't work. I don't know, I just don't know...

error message is slightly different: "got unkown exception".

I think it might have to do with the fact that I built it incinems, saved to obj, imported that and exported to 3ds. Though I'm not sure why that would be a problem, you just never know.

[Phasmatis]

Could you upload the file somewhere? I'll take a look and tell you what's wrong if I can.

[Caravaggio]

It's gotten to the point where I'm trying things that don't really make sense, like going back and changing all names to less than 8 characters...

I did manage to get it to the point where it works just fine with the single exception that when I get far enough away from it the polygons start to break up.

Anyway, here's a zip of the base if you want to try...

http://pages.prodigy.net/1157/dxmod1/cratemess.zip

[Phasmatis]

It probably is the number of characters in the name because when you export to a .3ds file the names can only be 8 (or 6, I'm not sure) so the last couple of letter may be cut off. As for the polys screwing up when you're far away, that's because of the LOD strength, that can be set in the UC file so don't worry about that.

It seems as if you've got it working now but if I were you I would scale it up a bit it's extremely small. If you do scale it up, remember to reset the Xform, that’s in the utilities tab, just click on it and convert the model to an editable mesh (right click on the model and convert is at the bottom on the right).

[Caravaggio]

That's another strange thing, when I used 3ds2de it made the mesh really small, but if I send it through unr2de it comes out the same size...

If you think the lod setting will help then I'll try that later. Must get food now.

thanks.

[Phasmatis]

Yeah, that's because the Xform needs to be reset.

[Caravaggio]

I take it this xform thing is like cinema's reset system function.

Anyway, it seems to work now. :)

This post has been edited by Caravaggio on May 24 2004, 08:38 PM

[Phasmatis]

Yep, that's exactly what it is. :)