GMAX Objects Mangled in FS

[Guest]

BTW does anyone know why some objects come out mishappen when output to FS from GMAX? See attached screenshot.I must not be awake. The left control is the throttle lever with a flatted oval handle and the right control is the mixture lever with a thin cylinder handle.Steve

[Guest]

>BTW does anyone know why some objects come out mishappen >when output to FS from GMAX? See attached screenshot. >>I must not be awake. The left control is the throttle lever >with a flatted oval handle and the right control is the >mixture lever with a thin cylinder handle. How many 'sides' on the cylinder you used for the throttle/mixture handles?Don't be too stingy. Because they're such small parts, small defects become grossly magnified.I used 24 sided cylinder for the throttle, with 4 'height' segments, so I could apply a uniform scalar to both ends of the cylinder to give it 'roundness.'I used a 12 sided cylinder for the mixture knob, then moved enough vertices to the top to give it the characteristic scalloped appearance...

[Guest]

I'll post a pic of the wireframe.This should be the same object as the one in the previous screentshot. I had to reduce the number of polys drastically on the throttle lever because it would not export.I seem to constantly get that 'colocated vertice" error on export and have to reduce the complexity of my models or make them larger so MakeMDL won't complain. It really disgusts me after working for hours on a part only to not be able to export it with full detail.Maybe I'm a detail freak.Steve

[Guest]

>This should be the same object as the one in the previous >screentshot. I had to reduce the number of polys drastically >on the throttle lever because it would not export. >>I seem to constantly get that 'colocated vertice" error on >export and have to reduce the complexity of my models or >make them larger so MakeMDL won't complain. It really >disgusts me after working for hours on a part only to not be >able to export it with full detail. >>Maybe I'm a detail freak. For what you are doing, most of those polys are totally wasted!For the throttle knob, you could reduce that to about 12 polys, since you aren't trying to give a 'taper' at the ends.Here is a screen shot of my controls...

[Guest]

>For what you are doing, most of those polys are totally >wasted! >>For the throttle knob, you could reduce that to about 12 >polys, since you aren't trying to give a 'taper' at the >ends. >>Here is a screen shot of my controls... BTW, total poly count for all three controls is 268.

[Guest]

The "colocated vertice" I have generated resulted from me trying to make too small of parts. gmax won't let you click and drag smaller then what the makemdl can compile. However, if you make a part large, then scale to a smaller size, you have sneaked around the gmax guard. Likewise if you click and drag and then go into the keyboard roll down and downsize the part you have also sneaked around the guard. The gmax guard is on the conservative sice of things. I read recently, can't remember where as Bill can, that the lower limit between adjacent vertex is about .0?5 meters. I got in this trouble when try to make the cup on my Stanley stainless steel thermos cup. Bob

[Guest]

I tend to make objects with a little more polys or vertices than I think necessary for a "low poly count and high quality texture" model that most FS default a/c are. I figure that I have a small a/c that I can lavish detail on, actually modelling small parts instead of just flopping a texture on them for detail. When you make small parts you want to have enough polys/vertices to avoid aliasing in the detail because the texture may not provide enough detail to hide it. I'm being 'careful' to have enough polys! Just an explanation for how I get into this problem.Another reason why I may have more polys than necessary is that I learned to create objects with a lot of vertices so I could have more places to define curves, etc. This was before I learned to use Tessellate to add more "cross-sections" when I needed to make adjustments or more vertices to model a section. Before I thought you could never add vertices, so I started with a lot of them.Yes, I do use scaling a lot. Without a plan or knowing what the exact size of a part is because of it being a homebuilt a/c or not being able to find specs, I have to guess and then when I go to fit it to the a/c it may be too big and instead of starting from the beginning I just scale it down. That is probably where I get most of my export failures. I did not know scale was essentially a loophole through the FS minimums, but I guess it was obvious that I was falling below the minimum vertex spacing.The cylinder knob uses the default 18 sides, because I thought, well, if GMAX suggests it, perhaps there is some reason.Well enough blathering...My new mixture knob has 1 height seg, 1 cap seg, 12 sides. Still looks pretty good in GMAX.I just measured my hand and it seems that my handle was too narrow. I am making a replacement 8cm wide. I had used a squashed cyl for this, but I will use an oval from the start this time. I created an ellipse primitive 6cm X 3cm extruded it out to 8cm. I can see I really goofed up on the estimated sizes for these controls. They are way too small. A 3cm handle would be like a stick in your hand. I've increased the size of the control box accordingly.I notice the parts look smoother now that they are bigger.Extended the lever arms. Reset the pivots for the correct rotation in the animation. Works!Okay, that exported fine.Thanks everyone. I will post a picture later.Steve

[Guest]

my new engine controlsthey look much better

[Guest]

>my new engine controls >they look much better Yes! GMax is the perfect platform to remember that quite often "less is actually more!"The fewer the polys you can reasonably use, the better. Let GMax earn its keep by doing all the hard stuff, like smoothing... :)

[Guest]

The most experience I have had with a 3D architect program is actually building virtual golf courses, which the landscape is one gigantic mesh. Acres! 30MB files were typical! One error in the mesh and poof! 400 hours of design work gone. This is why I prefer GMAX. At least I can do one part at a time and back them up. I had 2GB of backups of a golf course landplot on my HD, saving every few steps.Of course I save very frequently with GMAX because I have had the same problem, meshes that get damaged and will not open. But the files are a lot smaller.Smoothing on the landplot actually added structure to the mesh so it increased poly count. It also could affect areas very distant on the landplot so it was very tricky.Steve