Hi there! You are currently browsing as a guest. Why not create an account? Then you get less ads, can thank creators, post feedback, keep a list of your favourites, and more!
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#1 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 10:05 AM Last edited by sailfindragon : 20th Aug 2009 at 4:57 PM.
Default Issue when importing mesh into Milkshape
I am currently following the DD tutorial, which is great so far BTW.

I imported the first mcfg file and then imported my mesh, renamed my mesh file to group00, moved my mesh into place and exported. Perfect, not a problem.

However, when importing the 3 other mcfg files (the ones that control the shadows) I have an issue. I import the first one, then as I did before with the main mesh, I import my own mesh. But for some reason my mesh ends up half the size as the EA mesh. I am unsure of how to proceed.

Would be grateful for any assistance. I have attached a screenshot so you can see the problem I am having.

Many thanks
Screenshots

You can find some of my creations here and the rest over at the following Dragon Black Sims
Advertisement
Test Subject
#2 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 1:42 PM
I had have same problem...I also not sloved..
Scholar
#3 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 1:53 PM
Maybe try keeping open the first mcfg file in Milkshape that worked with your custom mesh. Then, go to your joints and delete them. Then import the 2nd mcfg file, since you already have your mesh in it.

Or you could just scale your mesh to make it bigger. Select your custom chair mesh in Milkshape, then click on the Model tab near the top right of the screen and click on scale.
All the way at the bottom of that you will see X,Y,and Z with numbers on top. Change all the numbers to say, 1.01, and keep on clicking scale til it gets to the size you want.
Me? Sarcastic? Never.
staff: administrator
#4 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 3:28 PM
They are supposed to be different sizes. It has to do with shadows. You need to rescale as FP said. I find this crazy how the game does shadows, no wonder my computer has issues rendering.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#5 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 3:58 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Fresh-Prince
Maybe try keeping open the first mcfg file in Milkshape that worked with your custom mesh. Then, go to your joints and delete them. Then import the 2nd mcfg file, since you already have your mesh in it.

Or you could just scale your mesh to make it bigger. Select your custom chair mesh in Milkshape, then click on the Model tab near the top right of the screen and click on scale.
All the way at the bottom of that you will see X,Y,and Z with numbers on top. Change all the numbers to say, 1.01, and keep on clicking scale til it gets to the size you want.


Tried deleting joints of first mesh and bringing in second mcfg file, it does exactly the same thing as before. It moves my mesh and makes it smaller, just as in the last screenshot. Thank you for you help fresh-prince, it is much appreciated.

I will try the scaling and see if that works.

HL - Just noticed your post. LOL. Thanks for the response. Appreciated.

You can find some of my creations here and the rest over at the following Dragon Black Sims
Alchemist
#6 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 4:21 PM
Whoa. You are not accurately observing what happens, and thus misunderstand what you are doing.

To start, you should resize the joints in preferences to 0.012. You don't need all those "blue lines" cluttering up your view.

Next, pay attention to the yellow, red and blue lines. That is where the origin is. Not every object is at the origin, paintings are above and behind it, but chairs are.

In the screenshot above, the chair with the back cushion is at the origin... the other is not. Your mesh didn't move, but when the second was brought in, the camera was adjusted so that both fit into view. The shadow meshes are generally not at the origin, and are many time scaled differently. The space between them and the "base" mesh becomes part of the calculation for the shadow itself, which is not drawn in a DDS, but calculated by the game from the size and positions of the meshes.

If you want the shadows to work properly, you have to remake them the way they are in the game. If you just want to see your chair in the game, you need only edit the .lod file with a group of "00000000" and play with that.

The game is pretty consistent in the sizes the objects themselves are, it is scaled to one meter, the same as TS2. Meshes you find at TurboSquid and so on may be sized differently, and have to be rescaled to match the game.

<* Wes *>

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#7 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 4:44 PM
Quote: Originally posted by WesHowe
Whoa. You are not accurately observing what happens, and thus misunderstand what you are doing.

To start, you should resize the joints in preferences to 0.012. You don't need all those "blue lines" cluttering up your view.

Next, pay attention to the yellow, red and blue lines. That is where the origin is. Not every object is at the origin, paintings are above and behind it, but chairs are.

In the screenshot above, the chair with the back cushion is at the origin... the other is not. Your mesh didn't move, but when the second was brought in, the camera was adjusted so that both fit into view. The shadow meshes are generally not at the origin, and are many time scaled differently. The space between them and the "base" mesh becomes part of the calculation for the shadow itself, which is not drawn in a DDS, but calculated by the game from the size and positions of the meshes.

If you want the shadows to work properly, you have to remake them the way they are in the game. If you just want to see your chair in the game, you need only edit the .lod file with a group of "00000000" and play with that.

The game is pretty consistent in the sizes the objects themselves are, it is scaled to one meter, the same as TS2. Meshes you find at TurboSquid and so on may be sized differently, and have to be rescaled to match the game.

<* Wes *>


Wes -Thank you very much for your response. I now realise exactly what is happening when the mesh is imported.
I have also changed the preferences, so the joints are now 0.012
So in order to ensure the shadows work correctly, I need to scale my mesh to match the game?
I do not mesh in milkshape, I do all my meshes in Maya and import as obj.

You can find some of my creations here and the rest over at the following Dragon Black Sims
Alchemist
#8 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 5:33 PM
I understand. You can study some of the mesh packages, and look at the origin, you will see what I mean about them being offset. Scaling is not very hard to learn in MilkShape, it may take less time than repeatedly transferring .obj meshes.

In Maya, I seemed to always get .obj meshes exported with centimeters instead of meters as the scale, and I don't know how to change that, Meters is the right scale for TS3 meshing.

If you study the shadow meshes, you will also find that they usually do not have UVs or Normals, and generally have all of the edges welded. Making models be that way is more work, but it will make smaller shadow mesh objects. The exporter code itself knows how to delete normals and UVs, but as long as you have split UVs in your mesh, the exporter will split the vertices to accomodate them. My observation is that EA spent a lot of time making the shadows right, in terms of positioning, scaling (sometimes distorting) and formatting.

This is something new to us, dynamic shadow making, so there is some learning curve that we need to go through before we can call ourselves masters of the process. It actually looks like a very advanced procedure, and seems to make very good shadows (for a video game), but it does require some extra effort.

I would recommend that you spend the effort first at placing your "00000000" mesh in the game, and work on the texturing and so on. When you are pretty well happy with that, use the final mesh to make your "00000001" LOD (by removing detail) and make the shadow meshes from your models in maya. You can always tweak the scale and placement slightly in MilkShape, but I know that removing detail will be a lot easier in Maya.

<* Wes *>

If you like to say what you think, be sure you know which to do first.
Field Researcher
Original Poster
#9 Old 20th Aug 2009 at 6:02 PM
Thank you very much for the advice. I think working on getting the mesh into the game and the textures correct would be the right way to go at the moment. Once I have done (and some-what mastered) that I could then concentrate on getting the shadows working.
(I did manage to scale my mesh up in mikshape to roughly the same size as the EA mesh. Yay for me.)

I have no idea either on how to change the exported meshes from cm to meters. It has never been an issue with TS2, so I have had no reason to look into it. I wonder if it is possible.

I totally agree on the whole giant learning curve as far as the shadows go, but I am sure it won't take long before there is a much more efficient way of doing them.

I must say I am impressed with how easy the tools avaliable are to use. Thank you, I really appreciate the amount of work that has gone into making these tools.

Debs

You can find some of my creations here and the rest over at the following Dragon Black Sims
Back to top