help with my models

posted on July 19th, 2011, 4:21 am

im making some models of my own and put them into a2 patch 1.2.5 but when i put the model in and i build the ship nothing is there just the circle that shows you selected something. i checked and it has a texture so it should show up not sure what i did wrong the right name is on the odf and the sod the files are in the rights places. what i did was made the model on 3ds max then exported to ms3d format and opened with milkshape 3d  then add the hp and textures then export to sod format and nothing any help would be greatly appreciated.

posted on July 19th, 2011, 1:16 pm

I'm new at this myself but I think I can provide a little help here.  If you are using 3DS Max, then you'll want to do the following.

Hardpoint Hierarchy

Code: Select all

root
        hardpoints
                hp01
                hp02
                ...
        m_meshname
                meshname



Material Instructions:

Go into the material editor and under the "Shader Basic Parameters", there will be a dropdown menu on the left.  Select "Blinn".

Directly underneath that, there should be a "Blinn Basic Parameters".  Inside that area to the left, select the ambient color box, which should be a dark-gray box.  Turn the color to black.  The diffuse color will also be black, but just ignore that as the texture will override that anyways.  The ambient needs to be black or the entire vessel will give off light.

To the right of the ambient color box, you'll see another color box labeled Self-Illumination.  Click the "Color" checkbox and make sure that the color is black.  The texture's alpha channel will determine this thing.

I'm sure you are familior with how to put in the Diffuse and Self-Illumination maps.  So select the Diffuse map, and under "Alpha Source", select none and deselect "Premultiplied Alpha", which is directly underneath it.  For the Self-Illumination map, under "Alpha Source", select "Image Alpha" and deselect "Premultiplied Alpha".

That should just about do it.  It worked for me.

posted on July 19th, 2011, 1:48 pm

im making some models of my own and put them into a2 patch 1.2.5 but when i put the model in and i build the ship nothing is there just the circle that shows you selected something. i checked and it has a texture so it should show up not sure what i did wrong the right name is on the odf and the sod the files are in the rights places. what i did was made the model on 3ds max then exported to ms3d format and opened with milkshape 3d  then add the hp and textures then export to sod format and nothing any help would be greatly appreciated.

Ok lets see, I assume you don't have 3ds max 5 as your exporting with milkshape so your hardpoints should look something as follows:

root
    damage
        etc...
    lights
        etc...
    geometry
        m_meshname        <--- meshname is the actual name of the object in ms3d
                                          you need one of these nodes for each object

I'd also check your texture is an uncompressed 32 bit tga is the texture you've selected in milkshape in the correct folder before you select it (it should be in /data/textures) If I remember right I've had problems with that before.

Also does your texture have an alpha channel? If it does you need to sort out your material name.
I'd suggest you stick with material names such as !phong_meshname_!default

If you think it might be a hardpoint problem simply only include the root, geometry and meshname hardpoints and export like that to test it first.

If you haven't already I'd download the BBOM and read the chapters on modelling in max, modelling in ms3d and texturing.

I'm new at this myself but I think I can provide a little help here.  If you are using 3DS Max, then you'll want to do the following.

Hardpoint Hierarchy

Code: Select all

root
        hardpoints
                hp01
                hp02
                ...
        m_meshname
                meshname



Material Instructions:

Go into the material editor and under the "Shader Basic Parameters", there will be a dropdown menu on the left.  Select "Blinn".

Directly underneath that, there should be a "Blinn Basic Parameters".  Inside that area to the left, select the ambient color box, which should be a dark-gray box.  Turn the color to black.  The diffuse color will also be black, but just ignore that as the texture will override that anyways.  The ambient needs to be black or the entire vessel will give off light.

To the right of the ambient color box, you'll see another color box labeled Self-Illumination.  Click the "Color" checkbox and make sure that the color is black.  The texture's alpha channel will determine this thing.

I'm sure you are familior with how to put in the Diffuse and Self-Illumination maps.  So select the Diffuse map, and under "Alpha Source", select none and deselect "Premultiplied Alpha", which is directly underneath it.  For the Self-Illumination map, under "Alpha Source", select "Image Alpha" and deselect "Premultiplied Alpha".

That should just about do it.  It worked for me.

Hmm as he's exporting with milkshape I don't think your suggestions will do him much good. Also in max there is no need to mess with the ambient and diffuse colours unless you think they will improve the lighting of the model they will never make it invisible. Your missing some steps for applying lightmaps correctly and your hardpoint hierarchy is a bit messed up. You don't need a root hardpoint in max the scene root is used, where you have m_meshname it should be Geometry. There is no need to create hardpoints for each mesh but simply attach each mesh to the geometry node. You also might want to re-read the bbom

posted on July 19th, 2011, 5:14 pm

well first i see this was moved to other section models so sorry about putting in wrong spot second thanks for the quick replies!!! and third you guys rock lol it was just the hardpoint problem i had the root and light and dmg but missed that last one geometry and bamm there it was thanks a bunch also just found out my object came out of shipyard side ways lol but anyway thats a quick fix thanks a bunch guys think i will read that bbom alot thanks for the like for that also.

sincerely,
Mason16ca

posted on July 19th, 2011, 8:49 pm

Hmm as he's exporting with milkshape I don't think your suggestions will do him much good.

Oops!  I guess I missed that part.  Sorry.

Also in max there is no need to mess with the ambient and diffuse colours unless you think they will improve the lighting of the model

The ambient color will affect the amount of light emitted by the entire model.  Making this black makes it so that the model only emits light in the areas described by the lightmap.  The diffuse color will turn black with the ambient color but is overridden by the texture.

[/quote]they will never make it invisible.[/quote]
The ambient color lights up the model like a star and partially overrides the lightmap based on the ambient color.  The diffuse color does nothing as it is overridden by the texture.  The model won't be invisible as long as the texture is set to "no alpha."

Your missing some steps for applying lightmaps correctly

Really?  It seems to have worked for the defense drone of the Tereanan Empire mod.  Self-Illumination color set to black and the Self-Illumination's map alpha source set to "image alpha."  And put the ambient color of the material at black.

and your hardpoint hierarchy is a bit messed up.

But it worked for me.

You don't need a root hardpoint in max the scene root is used,

Wouldn't that cause some problems when a weapon is assigned to the "root" hardpoint?

where you have m_meshname it should be Geometry.

Okay...

There is no need to create hardpoints for each mesh but simply attach each mesh to the geometry node.

Thanks for the information.  That'll save me a lot of time with the hardpointing.

You also might want to re-read the bbom

Thanks for the advice.  Looks like I'll have to re-hardpoint my models.

posted on July 19th, 2011, 11:13 pm

any screenshots?:D I'm curious!

posted on July 21st, 2011, 4:59 am

any screenshots?:D I'm curious!

Here is a pic of the test object i put into it im putting bunch of diffrent sci-fi races in the game and im learning how to make models and this is attempt number 1 lol didnt try to make it very detailed yet cause wanted to test in game. but here is a screenshot of my very badly made model lol

Attachments

[The extension has been deactivated and can no longer be displayed.]

posted on July 21st, 2011, 9:53 am

Some theories as to why the model might be invisible:
1) You exported the model as an A1 Sod and not an A2 sod. In the A1 format any alphas on the texture will make it transparent in those spots rather then affected by lighting (and thus completely invisible if the whole texture has a black alpha layer).
2) an m_ joint is missing for one or more of the mesh's groups.