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Ok folks, it seems I cannot perform simple tasks anymore :(

I created a little guy, flat vertical plane in Gmax. He shows up fine in FS after compiling the MDL.

I tweak the MDL so that it always follows user, well I don't expect him to follow me but at least to look in my direction :D

I compile, he shows up in MCX but not in FS. What am I doing wrong?

Thanks,
 
Last edited:

arno

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Hi Patrick,

What direction is your place facing in GMax? It might be it is rotating away from you now. If I remember correctly it needs to face towards the minus Y direction in GMax to work correctly.
 
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Hello Arno,

Thanks for your input.
The objects are developed in SU and both sides are textured (that's another issue actually but not in that case. See my P.S.).

There are situations I feel a rotating object doesn't make sense so I was hoping to create 2 libraries, one static and one rotating.
Since I don't know of an easy trick to have 2 faces in Gmax other than sealing 2 planes together I developed them in SU. However I did some tests with some objects (people) developped in Gmax and facing the -Y and got the same result.

P.S. SU started texturing both sides of my ALL polys for no reason. Any idea why?
 
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Problem solved...in a way.

Actually I should say problemS

#1 For some odd reason BGLComp would compile a BGL with no object if I was providing the full path of the MDL in the XML...go figure.

#2 Once #1 was solved I ended up in this situation: http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=75095 where my object was loading in the tweaker horizontally instead of vertically.

Solution: develop those objects in Gmax (that I have come to really hate).

In the process I discovered that to tweak an object to follow the user the textured face must be the one on the negative side of Y (as Arno mentioned).
And also the minimum height to create an MDL without an MakeMDL crash is 1.5 meters. I think the width is 1.0 meter (not %100 sure).
 
Last edited:

hcornea

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Perhaps removing crash geometry will enable you to make a smaller model. Certainly this is the case with Xtomdl

Of course you could also place a redundant poly gon somewhere to expand the size of the bounding box.
 
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Indeed...I was creating sitting people that of course were too short so I just added another poly at the top to make it to 1.5m.
 
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I am confused about the tweaking process and what should show up in MDL Tweaker? Here is the step by step of what I did.

  • Create plane in Gmax
  • Rotate plane on x axis 90 deg. so it's facing me
  • Clone plane
  • Move clone back a bit so it's behind plane #1
  • Rotate clone on y axis 180 deg. so it's facing away from me
  • Create material with a test texture
  • Apply material to plane #1
  • Apply UVW Map Modifier to plane #1
  • Apply Unwrap UVW Modifier to plane #1
  • Position texture according to direction, that is - Y
  • Repeat the procedure for the clone, positioning texture to show + Y
  • Export model
  • Tweak model in MDL Tweaker
  • Run FS
  • The regular (untweaked) MDL show this (both sides shown):
    async

  • The tweaked MDL shows this:
    async

  • Knowing the + Y side (the clone) is the one showing in the tweaked MDL I create a new material with my real texture.
  • Apply Unwrap UVW Modifier to clone
  • Position texture to show people
  • Export model
  • Tweak model in MDL Tweaker
  • Run FS
  • The regular (untweaked) MDL show this (both sides shown):
    async

  • The tweaked MDL shows this:
    async

  • So basically all is working fine

    [*]And that's when it's bizarre:
  • I delete the original plane in Gmax since the clone is the one showing in the tweaked MDL
  • Export model
  • And it's not showing in MDL Tweaker anymore
  • I tweak it anyway
  • Run FS
  • Both versions show properly, with of course the fix version having only 1 textured side.
 
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I forgot to say that in the last test if I keep plane #1 instead of the clone and texture it, it will show in MDL tweaker but will not show in FS.
 
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