Railings in GMAX

[Guest JTWhite]

I know ther's a way in FSDS to turn a box into just a line object to create such things as railings around a building, but is there a way to do it in GMAX??Ive searched through some of the properties boxes, but either Id idnt see it or I didnt recognize it.Thanks for any help.John W

[Shaka 2]

... disregard - I didn't read the question...

[arno 1]

If you use line_ prefix for you material name lines will be drawn instead of polygons. This is similar to the FSDS function you name.

[Guest JTWhite]

Thanks, Arno, works like a charm.I must say, you are extremely helpful fellow.Earlier when I was doing some scenery, you came through with a tip for me.Just want to say, I,for one, appreciate your help andknowledge.John W

[Guest JTWhite]

One more question , Arno, if you dont mind.Im creating trees using a textuer in the diffuse map and a greyscale one in the opacity channel in order to get transparency among the leaves..Yet when I go to export it, it gives me a message about not being able to apply a texture in channel 6, textuer will be ignored"Would you know what Im doing wrong???JohnW

[arno 1]

I think MakeMDL does not support that.What I do is just assign the texture I want in the diffuse map. For the texture folder in FS I then make an extended (DXT1) bitmap that also contains an alpha channel for the transparant parts (this alpha channel is the image you have in the opacity channel).So I have a normal bitmap to load into GMax and the extended bitmap with the transparancy information for FS.

[Guest JTWhite]

Another question:My trees come out looking OK... I use to rectangles offset by 90 degrees. The only problem is, when the light changes, one rectangle looks brighter than the other, thus destroying the overall illusion. Is there an accepted way of counteracting this???Thanks.John

[arno 1]

No, this is a known problem and I think nobody has found a fix yet.I always use trees with only one polygon, that rotates to the viewpoint of the user. Then you still get the color difference of course with the sun, but it is the same all over the tree.