Exporting from Gmax to Fsregen

[Guest]

HelloI have a couple of questions that someone might be able to help me out with. I've read the Fsregen tutorial to create a lake and place it within an LOD 13 grid. I'm wondering that after the lake is placed into the grid and working, will the autogen features around the lake area or within the entire LOD 13 grid still be active? From my experiments with the technique to use the resample method, the entire placed ground cover takes out the autogen features which is not acceptable for me.Next, I followed along with the Fsregen lake tutorial creating a lake area in Gmax and when I get to the part to "Select All", (triangles), I find that all the triangles disapear although I believe they are all selected because I see the arrows, straight up and pointed to the right, within the center of the lake area. I then bring up the "Material Editor" and within the large Highlight Tab I set the level to 100 and on the small Color Tab I click the color box then set a fully saturated Blue color of 0-0-255. Now according to the tutorial I'm supposed to APPLY this material to the ALL SELECTED triangles but after I click the Apply button and exit the Material Editor window, nothing seems to have changed, I still see no triangles but it appears they are selected still.Next, the lake tutorial is very clear and to the point about making sure the lake area is completely enclosed and I was very careful to make sure each line has only ONE VERTICE at each end and that each end in connected to the next vertice. With that, I select to "Export" my project which brings up the MiddleMan program and I then select to "Save Files", set the center coordinates, Load FS Defaults, and then click "GO". After selecting Go I get this error message:Running modelStart! (C:gmaxgamepacksFlightSimBush02)Loading X C:gmaxgamepacksFlightSimBush02...Error in exporter: Mismatch between # vertices (2) and # normals (0) in part Line01.Error!Error!I've completely re-started the project 4 times to ensure I've followed the tutorial to the letter but I haven't had successfull results to this point. Hopefully, and with appreciation, someone can show me what I'm doing wrong and give me a helping hand. Ken

[Guest]

Hi Ken, wish I could help you but I haven't tried to do this yet. I just wanted to say hi, seems like its been a year since I've seen you post. Bob B

[Guest]

Hi Ken.Make sure you have the latest makemdl and see if not using middleman fixes the prob. You can do that by clicking the "Keep files" in the makemdl options.Cheers George

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Ken.TMF water will cancel an autogen in the water area only... not on the land nearby.Also, a TMF mesh-clinging decal polygon will automatically have it's own autogen assigned by it's texture. The rest of the LOD13 area will have the original autogen. In another post, I presented a set of macros to allow a CFS2-style reference to textures for lines and decals. That way should allow you to call the texture by name... so it can exist in a local texture folder, and be a custom home-made texture, with it's own custom autogen, if desired. I don't know if seasonal changes will be allowed by that method. Also, I do not know the effect of alpha transparency used with a custom texture and a decal... I don't know if it becomes water, or is just transparent, or maybe isn't allowed at all. ( I hope it would be transparent, as that should allow autogen laid down with a transparent decal sheet... an interesting possibility. )I need at least 2 weeks to piece together a tutorial.Check out the images hereThe lake, shoreline, and stream lie over the TMF decal... no shrubs in the water, or on the default desert ground-tile.... but autogen shrubbery in the exposed decal area.Also, the coding examples by George and myself cover one LOD13 tile, but many can be in the same bgl. There are 1024 LOD13 tiles in a single LOD8 Group, and many groups can also be present in one bgl... I don't know what the final limit will be. M$ seems to keep it to 4 LOD8 groups, but I think that was done to keep the design team organized.

[Guest]

Thanks for the reply George and my hats off to you for developing FsRegen and all the help you give others. I've tried your suggestion but that didn't seem to help although I had a different error message stating gmax couldn't find Makemdl. This morning I downloaded gmax 1.1 and installed it thinking my cd version may be messed up or something but doing that didn't work either.As a test I exported your lake1.gmax example and it seemed to work just fine and saving the proper files as well. I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I have a preference not setup correctly or something like that. What seems wierd to me is that can't seem to add the BLUE color for some reason. When I use the Select All menu I'm seeing all the triangles turn white but then when I right click and select "Convert to Editable Mesh" all the triangles disapear and after completing the "Material Editor" they all are still gone looking which I don't think is right. Your lake1.gmax looks just like in your tutorial so I must be missing something somewhere.Thanks again George for all your efforts.Ken

[Guest]

Hello rhumbaflappyThanks for the autogen answer, it was just what I'm looking for to create Bush Pilot scenery in a more default way. With that I should be able to add a Forest autogen with LandClass Assistant aroung that lake area once I get gmax working for me that is.Also, I just have to commend you as I have George for all the time and efforts you've dedicated yourself for helping the community in the way you do. I have to agree too that Christain, Arno, and others like Bob Bernstein's efforts have brought us much farther than MS have. I really wish MS could be a little more detailed with the SDK's though.Anyway, I'm truly looking forward to see how well your experiments go. It's beginning to look like the near future will bring some great developments. I'm a happy camper for sure!!!!!!!!!Thanks to all you guys!!Ken

[Guest]

Hi Ken.It's a nice thing to have friends all around the globe, and that's the best thing in it for me.Another thing that comes to mind is that you do not go out of vertex edit mode before selecting all. Make sure the button with the three red dots in edit panel is not pressed.If after you convert to Editable mesh the inside of the triangles in perspective viewport appear filled in then you are on the right track.CheersGeorge

[Guest]

Dang, I just am not getting it to work. I still have the line option selected when I select all. The Modify tab will not show the modify options such as polygon mode, vertex mode, and etc. Any possible ideas?Ken

[Guest]

About your error message;That is a standard gmax error message. It means that you have 2 vertices standing next to each other. Weld them together(treshold 0,001m) and everything should be fine.Tomas

[Guest]

Hi TomasI don't understand why I would get such a message as I've set the Gmax magnet 2 which auto snaps to grid and places the vertices together. Also and to ensure accuracy, I've redesigned the project 4 times, then downloaded and installed Gmax version 1.1 as well. Still, something isn't right!!!If you or someone would like to check out my .gmax source file, I'd be more than happy to send it and I'd appreciate ANY help I can get.ThanksKen