Silgrad Tower from the Ashes

OK. My problem is simple. Well, who knows, its not simple to me else it wouldnt be a problem.

I have a portal as i shall call it. I made it in 3DS Max 8 and have tried exporting it to a nif file to play in game.

First off, i made the shape. It played in game fine.

I then learnt how to add own textures to make it look more real. Still works fine.

I then try to make it so i can select it in game. (so it can teleport me).

To do this i used the Nif utility in 3DS max 8 and made each object "is collision mesh". Set to stone and static. On export the file seems to be all screwed up as it is no longer an object. When imported into construction set, nothing shows up. Ive tried many settings and have viewed this fabulous site for help. But nothing works. So ive signed up in the hope that there is a great response time, and a response at all

What im asking is that some one can some how advise me what im doing wrong, and/or get it working on their pc and export it back to me, explaining what they did.

Thanks all. :goodjob:

the attachment is the nif file when incorrectly working

First guess: you made you original mesh a collision mesh. If so, you have to copy your original mesh to a duplicate and make the duplicate mesh a CM. Looking at your invisible NIF seems to confirm that.

EDIT: Just to clarify, duplicate your mesh within the same Max scene, not to a whole new file.

Later,
Steve

Hi DoomsKnight, welcome to our neck of the woods.

I'm with sacarrow on that one. Your nif only contains the collision mesh, while a proper model needs both a real model (the one the player sees) and a collision mesh he can bump into. Apart from that the collision in your nif looks corrupted. (Btw the collision mesh needs to be heavily optimized since I believe it's handled by the CPU rather than the 3d card, so it doesn't play by the same rules as a visual model do.) If you supply me the .max I'd be happy to take a look at it and send it back.

ye, i tried to upload the 3ds file. 200mb. but its too big or incorrect file type. Maybe uploading to a link or summat would help. How would i do this?

Ill try what u said, and see if it works. And thanks for that response time and welcoming


Edit 22:12 : omg it just hit me what u mean when i was reading it. You mean 2 meshes overlapping one another. One which is the texture based mesh, the other plain but collidable. Hence, when collidable, invisible nodes(blank textures) are exported.

Edit 22:20 : im loading and exporting it now, i think its working :banana: :banana: :banana:

Edit 22:31 : ok, it works/doesnt work. I can now select the portal in game play (get teleported by it to another location). Problems are, i can still walk through the object, but more to the point, it loads slower when i get close to the object. Just for info, the NIF file is 1.7mb. Any ideas, You lot are a great help.

I use http://www.filefront.com a lot, it's very handy for sharing files as they stay available permanently (whereas other services delete the files after a period of time after the last person downloaded).

Here is an example of a collision mesh, from one of my recent models:


As you can see in the second image I just drew a box primitive over the platform to create its collision mesh, which is all that's really needed for that model. The floor boards are aligned unevenly along the Z plane, which I think creates a nice rickety feel and makes it look less unnatural, but they're still even enough for a simple box primitive collision mesh to work. That box primitive is the one that should be set as collision mesh and given an appropriate layer/material setting (in that case static/wood). Good luck!

I see. thats what i was thinking when i read the post. Ye, makes sense. Does it matter if it has a mesh on, cos i just copied the origional objects


hmmm, in game, only one of the 5 objects is touchable. (4 small items in each corner of the portal) . one edge one is touchable. Ill upload the file and send u a link. Im a tired guy most of the time and its past my bed time. (bless me )

there is a picture to let u see the problem, the textures have been taken off, and the purple is the mesh which is collidable, the others arnt.

Quote:Originally posted by DoomsKnight
Does it matter if it has a mesh on, cos I just copied the origional objects

Collision meshes need to be very optimized. I made a mistake like that early on after the exporter had been released, and dumb as I was I didn't playtest nearly as much as I should have. I just modelled on, happy as a lark, and filled a house in the CS full of new misc objects. I was pretty pleased with myself and merrily fired up the game to check it out in-game -- and a chill ran down my spine as the FPS dropped to literally one frame per secone. The realization set in, and I had to remake the collision meshes all over again. And there were over a hundred of them, so, I learnt my lesson after that. From that point on I tried to keep all my collision meshes below 100 faces. (Not 100 polygons, 100 faces). So I would strongly advise making it as optimized as you possibly can.

Quote:Originally posted by DoomsKnight
hmmm, in game, only one of the 5 objects is touchable. (4 small items in each corner of the portal) . one edge one is touchable.

Yes, I believe you can only use one collision mesh in a nif file exported with the max exporter.

oh, if its only one object per nif file, then ill make the middle bit collidable.

one problem solved. next problem, how to change the amount of faces so it runs faster.

and also, how to stop me from walking thorugh the portal. one thing is clicking on it. but i want it to stop me walkin through it if i try... thanks bud


btw. i love ur plank board. Looks realistic

here is my file link. Use any blank texture for now. i can add my texture back if u get a working solution. Thanks

http://files.filefront.com//;6194331;;/

EDIT: off to bed. post ur solution if u can please. ill try it tommorow evening when i get time and get straight back to you. :goodjob:

I hope you had a good night's rest.

Well, you can make the whole thing have collision as long as the collision is one mesh (even if it appears to be made up of different parts). Just attach them to one another, by converting one to an editable mesh and clicking "Attach List" in the parameter rollout and selecting the other parts that you want the collision mesh to use.

This would be my solution:

It came to 160 faces, but I bet it'll be alright because I was pretty extreme when I said 100. I created it by drawing splines in the front viewport to roughly match the outline of your model (nice work on it by the way), then converted them to editable polys, moved them forward so the plane was in front of your model, selected their border, extruded the border backwards, and finally added a "cap holes" modifier to form an irregular box encompassing it.

I didn't modify the textures. If you meant in regards to the collision mesh then those don't have textures. It doesn't do anything bad if they have them, it just doesn't matter.

Quote:Originally posted by DoomsKnight
and also, how to stop me from walking thorugh the portal. one thing is clicking on it. but I want it to stop me walkin through it if I try...

It should always hinder the player from walking through it, unless you intentionally set the layer as NonCollideable. That layer is as good as only used for plants, which you want the player to be able to harvest ingredients from but not stop him. Not necessarily all plants though, for instance I recall using a static layer for the hackle-lo (it's sortof a thick, man-sized palm tree) because it'd look mighty funny if the player could walk through that one.

Quote:Originally posted by DoomsKnight
btw. I love ur plank board. Looks realistic

Thanks

Quote:nice work on it by the way

thanks

Quote:I recall using a static layer for the hackle-lo (it's sortof a thick, man-sized palm tree) because it'd look mighty funny if the player could walk through that one.

lmao, it sure would




thanks alot for everything, im just gunna try it now



Edit: It works!!!! (not sounding supprised, but infact very very very happy) :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana: :banana:

i tried to see ur seperate collidable mesh but there seems to be none, so i guess youve linked them together. what buttons would i need to click and do to achieve what u have on any other object. ( a basic but detailed instruction on how to do this if u can. thanks )

also, one last thing, is there an object, script or summat that makes the portal kind of seem active, like a cold blast magic style thing coming off it all the time. If u dont know what i mean, i understand lol. Its just, its sat there not seeming active like a portal should be. Colour blue btw.

im off to school for a bit. (unfortuanately)

thanks