posted 05-03- 05:00 AM               

I've checked the texture ref.s in OPS/Names and they are correct, and yes, the texture file is where it should be

Thanks for all the help you gave Robert and at the same time myself

posted 05-03- 05:20 AM               

But we will keep trying at it, right Nat?

/Robert

[This message has been edited by Robert (edited 05-03-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Robert (edited 05-03-2000).]

posted 05-03- 07:39 AM            

As far as shading on the wings goes, this should help:

Make sure that you attach the wing tip to the wing.

The first thing you want to do is go into sub-object/face mode and select all the pieces of the wing that touch the flaps and ailerons. What I mean are the vertical pieces at the back of the wings that the flaps/ailerons attach to. Don't move them or anything else, just deatch them. It should be , depending on the type of wings, an E shaped object. Dont forget the little triangle pieces on the sides either. You dont have to do anything with the flaps or ailerons themselves now, so if they are in the way, just move them. Note: if you have any pieces that arent actually shown on the outside view of the wing..like end tips on the inner wing (ie..the F4U Corsair; the wings fold up so it has to have a cap on both sides) make sure you detach those as well.

Then go into vertex mode and select all the vertices for the entire wing (the piece you detach will not be affected). Try welding at a .01 for starters. If none of you wing surfaces loses any faces or collapses, you should be about right.

After this step, go back to face mode and select all of the top wing pieces. You are going to split the wing in two, so pick what you believe should be half of the wing (top/bottom). After you select all the faces, Detach them. You should now have two seperate objects. Get out of sub-object mode and then select the attach button. Now attach whatever side of the wing you detached back to the original piece. You should have one wing again. Back up your work and save it.

Now the hard part. Because you detached the wing at the leading edge, it will need to be smoothed again. This is very tricky. Try selected all of the vertices at the seam and weld at a .001 or below. This should smooth it a little. If you go too much it will have problems or look 'burnt'. This process can take some time to perfect, so make sure you always keep a good back up copy.

Then all you need to do is attach the back piece that you detached at the begging...attach it back to the main wing.

Finally, detach the wing tip from the main wing and save. Then you can export as normal.

Hopefully you will have a nicely shaded wing. I have been pretty successful with the F4 Corsair, with the exception of one part on the bottom. But it does take a lot of practice.

posted 05-03- 11:39 AM               

Use Dan's technique if the shading is messed up.

If the fuse has lost shading altogether, however, then you have lost normals somewhere along the export to .obj process. I think this happens when Max2Obj gets confused about the vertex order. What I would do is weld all the vertices in your fuselage. This will get rid of any extraneous polygons that may not be apparent because they are either too small to be seen or are overlapping other polys. Then, apply your materials and texture map it. Finally, export and see what your get.

Generally speaking, though, get into the habit of welding verts. Certain modeling processes in Max create extraneous polys that aren't always apparent. Because shading and texture mapping depends on vertices, these extraneous polys can cause all sorts of problems for the Max2Obj plugin. Think of the Max2Obj plugin as a very elderly person... it's tempermental and gets confused easily. You need to give it very clean meshes.

Again, if all else fails, don't hesitate to email the files to me.

posted 05-03- 02:06 PM               

I will try your tips. I have now found out this:

1. I texture my different objects with individual .tifs for each objects.

2. Export/Import to OPS. As DanW and Laika pointed out to me (thanks)the texture size, flag and distance will then be messed up. So I;

3. Edit these in the .asc file and rebuild the .sm file.(I looked in the .asc file of a "healthy" .sm plane and changed to the same figures)

4. It looks OK in OPS and ingame! Shading and correct texture.

The thing is I thought you were supposed to texture the whole plane with just one .tif. Is that possible? Some of the planes in SDOE uses just one .tif, at least for the exterior donīt they?
Before, I tried to use the same .tif for the whole plane. I did one that looked like the ones I saw in the different planeīs texture folders, where you see the fuse, wings and so on.In Max I textured the wing, using "crop" to just use the part of the .tif that showed the wing, but in OPS/SDOE the WHOLE .tif was applied to the wing. (Hope Iīm making any sense here!)
Now with with one .tif for each part, except for some that I can use twice, I end up with a lot of .tifs and that seems like the wrong way to do it, doesnīt it?
Well at least now I get shading

DanW, I use Max2Obj.

Nat, you said earlier that you didnīt get any shading on the Yamato(?). Does that problem persist? If so, check the things in OPS I mentioned above in number 2. It seems to have solved the problems I had with the shading at least. Hope that helps, or better, that youīve already solved it yourself.
JT, I tried to email my plane to you a few days ago, but I got a return message that said your address had "permanent fatal errors"! And now at least the shading problem seems solved so... Thanks anyway for the offer, maybe Iīll send it to you if I bump into any more problems. (Iīm sure I will )
Thanks for all your help!

/Robert

[This message has been edited by Robert (edited 05-03-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Robert (edited 05-03-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Robert (edited 05-03-2000).]

posted 05-03- 03:03 PM               

How large was it and did you zip it? I probably can't receive anything larger than 1 MB. If you have a website you can upload it to, that would be another way I could get it.

>The thing is I thought you were supposed to texture the whole plane with just one .tif. Is that possible? Some of the planes in SDOE uses just one .tif, at least for the exterior donīt they?

You can use as many tifs as you like really, but putting everything on one tif is ideal because it means that you will use less texture memory. I spread the P-47 exterior onto two tifs, but that's because I lack restraint. Anyway, the idea is to use as few tifs as you can and use as much space on the tifs as possible. Blank space on tifs is just wasted space.

>In Max I textured the wing, using "crop" to just use the part of the .tif that showed the wing, but in OPS/SDOE the WHOLE .tif was applied to the wing.

Don't use that cropping feature. Simply move, rotate, and scale the portion of texture you want to use onto the shape you're mapping.

>Now with with one .tif for each part, except for some that I can use twice, I end up with a lot of .tifs and that seems like the wrong way to do it, doesnīt it?

You should put as many parts on one tif as you can. If you need to map certain polys within a shape independently from other polys then simply select faces within your editable mesh, apply the material, and then apply the UVW map. Then, to map the remaining faces, either collapse the stack, or apply a "Mesh Select" modifier (this will allow you to select new faces).

The best way to get a sense for this stuff is to look at the way other people and Parsoft have done it.

[This message has been edited by JT (edited 05-03-2000).]

posted 05-03- 06:03 PM               

Yes, I zipped it and it ended up at 207kB. I can try sending it again, but since Iīm not having SO much problem with the plane now that the shading and texturing seems to work, perhaps I donīt have to? If youīre just curious Iīd love to send a copy of it, perhaps you can see some "problems coming" in it.(Thereīs probably a few )
OK, a tried again texturing using the template Iīve made of the plane, where I have the fuse, up/underside of the wings, and so on. But I didnīt use the cropping tool this time, and it worked! Great! Thank you!
And thereīs still some room left on that tif, so Iīll squeeze in some more parts.

BTW, 256x256 seems to be standard size for a plane template. Thatīs what Iīve made mine. Somehow I just think it looks more "blocky" than the others in the game, when I resize the "gizmo" during texturing to fit it, the pixels start to show. Any tips on that?

Again, thanks for all your help, I really appreciate it.

posted 05-03- 06:21 PM               

Thanks for all the help guys, Robert, I haven't had shading problems myself, I think it all seems OK, but then there's a big difference between a ships hull, and what you're doing...

posted 05-03- 07:13 PM               

Well, hope youīll get it right. My textures also looked OK in OPS , but all messed up in SDOE. Until I changed those "flags", "size" and "distance" for the texture in OPS. Now itīs fine.
I totally agree with you on the community, I think itīs so cool the way it works, that people are so devoted and helpful, that we are so crazy we actually sit here in the middle of the night and try to learn something about a computergame! Itīs been a long time since Iīve been so eager to learn something as this.(Tears start to fill my eyes) I canīt see wat iīm riting anumore...

posted 05-03- 08:39 PM            

I can try and help you guys with your projects, but not until the semester is over (May 15th) and the finals that come with it.

posted 05-03- 08:52 PM               

Really though Dan, you've been a great help with all this, and I do know how to add textures now which I couldn't before and it really bugged me.. just that one prob left. I'm really glad that you and the others have taken time to write long and explanitory replies to us to help us out.. very cool Thanks

posted 05-03- 08:57 PM               

I can do nothing but agree with Nat about all the help weīre getting here, you guys are just great.

posted 05-03- 10:55 PM               

Glad to hear you're having success.

Nat,

I'll need to look at your files to figure out what's wrong. Feel free to send them zipped to jtrivelli@adelphia.net if you like.

posted 05-04- 08:34 AM               

Texturing takes time and is painstaking, but right now I kinda think itīs fun. I mean, a couple of days ago I knew nothing about it, but now, thanks to all you guys...

posted 05-04- 06:00 PM               

Thanks alot If you find the problem.. please tell me what it was so I can learn from it

posted 05-05- 07:03 AM               

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C/O Jagdgeschwader 5 'Eismeer'

posted 05-05- 03:30 PM               

Thanks to help from JT the Hull texture is showing up now, somewhere along the way the SM refs for the texture had gotten screwed up in the asc file, after his advice it's showing up

posted 05-06- 04:51 AM               

If you build a new object, you should try to keep the sm file clean. I replace all of the existing texture references with my own textures - just change the name of a texture before you import a new part out of a .obj file (i.e. you want to import a part textured with a texture called "Pe2Fuse.tif" - open the existing .sm file in OPS and look into the names section - search for a good texture (care about transparency !) to replace (lanc.tif or whatever you donīt need any longer) - doubleclick and put in the new folders and the name of your texture (/Pe2/textures/Pe2Fuse.tif). Reload. import the new part. Reload. Your texture should be there and no new name in the names list ! Now it might be necessary to change the size of the texture in OPS, but you donīt need to fiddle with flags and such stuff.

posted 05-09- 03:13 AM               

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C/O Jagdgeschwader 5 'Eismeer'