Importing SpeedTree trees... crashes!

[nioxin]

Hi everybody... my first post here... and I was actually referred here from the Bethesda Game Studios/Oblivion/TESCS Forums because they said you guys would be more knowledgeable in all things SpeedTree. This may seem a bit confusing, but maybe someone could really help me out on this one!

Anyway, I am currently having a problem with importing any new custom SpeedTree (.spt) trees I have made into my world.


After I make a new Tree entity and select my .spt (my tree) and my .dds texture (for the leaves), the new tree appears in the entity list. HOWEVER, when I click-drag my new tree into the world scene, the CS crashes with no explanation... just that it has encountered a problem and needs to close. Now I'm pretty sure my textures are all in the correct folders/directories and should be seeing them correctly. I originally thought it was a texture-path problem, where SpeedTreeCAD was hard-coding the texture path to the wrong directory.

For example:
My .spt is in:
Oblivion\Data\Trees\BeechTree.spt

My trunk .dds and normal map are in:
Oblivion\Data\textures\trees\branches\BeechTreeBark.dds
Oblivion\Data\textures\trees\branches\BeechTreeBark_n.dds

And my .dds leaves are in:
Oblivion\Data\textures\trees\leaves\BeechLeaves.dds (saved as a DXT3/alpha)

And in SpeedTreeCAD, I have the trunk texture pointing to:
Oblivion\importdir\BeechTree\BeechTreeBark.dds

And if I had a billboard for that, I would put it in the Billboard directory with the same name.


Now I did a little test to make sure it wasn't necessarily a problem with texture paths, but I'm still not sure.
I copied one of the original Oblivion .spt files, pasted it, and renamed it:
aaaTest2.spt ((as an example)).

I then imported it into the CS, made a new entity into the Tree category, selected the leaf texture and gave it a random seed number.
And, yet again, it crashed when placing in the world. I don't know what could be causing it.

It's just strange... I can make new Tree entities in the Tree category that already existed... but I can't make new one's with my custom Trees anymore.

I never used to have this problem before.... however, I just upgraded to Vista and I'm also using SpeedTreeCAD 4.1 instead of SpeedTreeCAD 3 (although, I don't think that should matter). I tried importing .spt trees I made with SpeedTreeCAD 3 and that still doesn't work. ((And I'm also using the newer updated patches)).

--> Would anyone have the slightest idea what might be causing this?
--> Could it be possible that I need to re-install something?
--> Do I need to have a Billboard... I'm sure it's optional.

--- Thanx a ton in advance, as I am really hoping to put some of my SpeedTrees into my demo reel.
- nioxin

[FLESH]

When you say crashes, do you mean an error pops up? I have some experience with importing ST trees into the CS, you get an error most of the time but I just click ignore as it means nothing and does not affect the game or the trees. I'm going to make a few guesses at the problems you are having:

1) I know it seems like it's not this, but my first guess would be wrong file directories.
2) There could be something in the new CS preventing ST importing (has anyone tested importing new trees with the new CS yet?). If that is the case use the old version, it should not make a difference to your mod as I know people use the old version for Voice Acting. Something in the new one prevents adding new voice files or something of the nature. This could be the same thing happening here. Now that i think about it this seems very likely as you said you are using the new patches.

And to my knowledge you do not need Billboards, I never had any thats for sure. So try it with the old CS and see if it works

-Flesh

[nioxin]

The guys over at the other forum figured it out.

Apparently... I actually DO NEED a billboard texture. I just find it weird because I don't ever remember having to make one before and it worked.


However, I encountered a smaller (not-such-a-big-deal), problem. I think it may be a bug with my version of SpeedTree 4.1 (and yes, I am using the new SpeedTreeCAD)... when I make a Billboard, the resulting .tga comes out pure black, but the alpha is there (when viewed in Photoshop). Very strange, but It's not so bad, because I just ended up taking a picture of my tree and paste/blending it into the alpha and it looks fine.

Well, anyway, thank-you for helping me out, I guess I just kept omitting that step, or forgot about it.

Thanx again guys!

- Nioxin

[FLESH]

Thats very weird. It never crashed for me, and I imported some pretty large trees too Well at least the problem was solved :goodjob: