Import model made from 3DWS to another modeling program

[Rick]

Has anyone had any luck with importing some model they have made from 3DWS into another modeling program? I exported from 3DWS to .x format, and then in Blender (I know, but it's all I have) and it doesn't seem to work. Blender can import .x files but I don't see my model there at all.

 

Any other ideas? I'm open to other ideas with this. Really all I want to do is be able to assign bones to a bunch of separate models but have those separated models be one model in the end.

 

I have UU3D. Can I do this in there? It doesn't look like I can open multiple model file to combine them.

 

The idea that I'm doing is multiple floors to a building, and each floor is a separate model, and I'll assign a bone to each floor mesh and then assemble them into 1 model so I can find the bones in code and hide/show each floor as the character is walking through them. I'd rather do this than deal with hiding/showing floor models as separate models.

[Rick]

Or even for testing purposes, if I could give someone my 2 .x files that I made, if they could combine them and assign a bone to each "floor" and name the bones like floor1, floor2. I kind of want to see how this plays.

[macklebee]

You can do this via uu3d... it has a merge option. Also, when you export from 3dws to X format, there will be a world bone assigned. In uu3d, you can rename it to whatever you wish. But keep in mind this will require you to use the skin shader.

[Rick]

Good call. So if I just merge these all in UU3D, each will have it's own bone and I assume that bone is attached to that .x model that I merged in? So I could just rename the bones when I merge the models to their floor number and then hiding that bone would hide that floor model?

 

If that's the base, this might be easier than I thought. I could piece each floor in 3DWS, group them, and save each one as it's own .x. They would have the correct location also so I wouldn't have to line them up in UU3D. I'll give this a shot. Thanks.

[macklebee]

No, i don't believe hiding a bone of a model will hide the model. A bone is just a child of a model. Hiding a parent hides the parent and children, but hiding children does not hide the parent. You will probably have issues with setting the location though... you will probably need to do this via the Move option in UU3D after you scale the model. If all you are trying to do is hide models, then just build them in 3dws at the location you want, then export them individually as 3dw files. Use the 3dw2gmf converter to get the scale correct, then just hide based on the gmf model name inside LE as needed.

[Rick]

So I must have done something wrong. I created the building by floor in 3DWS. Exported each floor out at a time to .x. Imported/merged each floor into UU3D and renamed each bone as I imported to Floor1, Floor2, Roof. Exported to gmf from UU3D. Converted the jpg textures I was using to DDS with mipmaps. Create mat files for each texture using the skin shader, but when I look in the model viewer I don't see anything. I try to import into the Editor and again I see nothing.

 

I zipped up all the files, including the UU3D files of all floors merged. It's a pretty boring building just for tests with only 3 textures. What am I missing?

 

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1293842/TestBuilding.zip

[macklebee]

if you export a model with a bone and you use the skin shader, you have to export to gmf with the animation option checked even if there is no animation.

[Rick]

No, i don't believe hiding a bone of a model will hide the model. A bone is just a child of a model. Hiding a parent hides the parent and children, but hiding children does not hide the parent. You will probably have issues with setting the location though... you will probably need to do this via the Move option in UU3D after you scale the model. If all you are trying to do is hide models, then just build them in 3dws at the location you want, then export them individually as 3dw files. Use the 3dw2gmf converter to get the scale correct, then just hide based on the gmf model name inside LE.

 

Really? I would have thought that if I could find a bone in a model and I move it, and the child model part moves, that if I hide it the child model parts would also be hidden. Isn't the bone the parent to the verts skinned to it?

 

 

if you export a model with a bone and you use the skin shader, you have to export to gmf with the animation option checked even if there is no animation.

 

It's checked. The only thing not checked in the GMF save dialog is Export multiple uvsets and Export vertex colors.

[macklebee]

Also, one of the reasons you dont see anything is because the scale of your model is wayyy large... typically the scale from 3dws to LE is 0.0078125 to get normal size objects in LE units.

 

you can try it, but hiding children in every other aspect of LE only results in hiding the child and not the parent.

 

in any case, you are making this harder than it needs to be... just hide the model... no reason to add a step to the conversion process, find the bone name, then attempt to hide the model based on its bone name... just hide the model.... easy-peasy...

[Rick]

The other issue I would have with loading each floor separate would be LOD's. If the idea was to have a huge city with a ton of buildings you can go into, I would think it would be ideal that the LOD's are solid and you can't go into them, but the LOD that is within range turns into the one model that you can get into.

 

I'll play around with the scaling from within UU3D and see if I can get it. Thanks!

 

in any case, you are making this harder than it needs to be... just hide the model... no reason to add a step to the conversion process, find the bone name, then attempt to hide the model based on its bone name... just hide the model.... easy-peasy...

 

That assumes loading each floor as a separate model, which I would assume LOD issues come from that. Well not really issues, but it would be a pain to just make block LOD's for each floor, and wouldn't get the best benefit from just having 1 model for the entire building for LOD. I suppose you could make the 1 block building as the floor1 LOD and then check the distance manually fro the other floors and just hide them if far enough away. Was just trying to use the built in LOD system LE has.

 

And plus avoiding the whole assembling each floor in the editor.

[macklebee]

still making it harder than needed i believe... the LOD can be whatever model you want... all of that is handled by the LE naming scheme for LODs. So just create your models at the location you want them at... save as 3dw, convert with 3dw2gmf, give the base file a script that loads the individual parts, then have the LOD for the base file be the entire building... set the LOD distance setting to be the same as the entity view range as the models you imported with the base file.

[Rick]

Weird, I can see the building fine in the modeler viewer, but in the editor it's funky. If I have it selected I can see the building outline in the red selection color, but unselected it's invisible. Very strange. It's also doing that crazy mouse jerking thing. Maybe reboot is in order.

[Rick]

set the LOD distance setting to be the same as the entity view range as the models you imported with the base file.

 

That would be the piece I was missing. I wasn't aware of that, so that's why I was thinking the LOD stuff would be a pain. Was going to try and avoid Lua altogether with this one, but I guess it's not the end of the world if I have to build the buildings with it.

 

Do you know if each of the none base models that I load dynamically in Lua are accessible via name from none Lua code by default or would I have to set each one to be a child of the base model and access them that way?

[macklebee]

Weird, I can see the building fine in the modeler viewer, but in the editor it's funky. If I have it selected I can see the building outline in the red selection color, but unselected it's invisible. Very strange. It's also doing that crazy mouse jerking thing. Maybe reboot is in order.

 

yeah... i actually forgot about that... its almost like the bone from 3dws doesn't play well with the gmf version... which is another reason why i would suggest just do everything in 3dws and convert directly to gmf instead of adding more work for yourself...

[Rick]

Why would it work in the model viewer though? That seems odd.

[macklebee]

yeah it does seem odd but then again the modelviewer was created back in 2.2X? maybe the issue is there... dunno... never took the time to try to figure it out...

[Rick]

Getting the bone and hiding it didn't work (like you were thinking), so seems I pretty much have to do what you suggested.

[Rick]

Something funky is going on. So I saved each floor in it's own .3dw file. Run the conversion tool with the following:

 

3dw2gmf.exe +scale 0.0078125 +file "myfile.3dw"

 

But I'm getting the same issue in the editor where if it's highlighted you can see the outline of the model, but it's invisible otherwise. There should be no bones since I'm going right from 3dw to gmf. Anyone else have this issue?

[macklebee]

have you tried rearranging the parameters? file before scale? it shouldnt make any difference but thats the order i use in my gui for the converter and it works fine... other than that all i can think is its an issue with your MAT file

[Rick]

Oh, yeah good call. They were left over using the skin shader. >< Guess I should have been more patient with getting an answer because I just started a fresh install of LE. Oh well, my LE dir was getting messy anyway

 

Thanks for jogging my memory about the mat files.