Default buildings

[jonpatch 1]

Will do, Arno. And if you have SGX installed, that's the quickest way to get a view of the texture combinations available.Jon

[arno 1]

OK, I do have a (not completely up to date) build of SGX installed, maybe that will give me an overview of code examples as well.

[Guest artmartin]

Tore into GMAX this weekend. That's why I haven't checked this forum. Man, it's very powerful but what a lot to remember. I've done some pretty complicated things so far but get stuck on things that seem like they should be easy. I've found some good tutorials but of course each is missing that one key step you stumble on so you're constantly switching back and forth between them. I can see though that once I figure it out, putting together a building, as long as I have good textures for it, will be rather quick. Glad to see this discussion blossomed so well. Think there's real potential in the generic buildings.Art

[Bill Womack 7]

Glad to hear you and Gmax are getting along, Art! One thing to bear in mind regarding texturing: when they made the switch from version 1.1 to 1.2, Discrete completely overhauled the texture assignment windows and processes to more closely match those of Gmax's payware big brother 3DS Max. So if you find a tutorial on texture mapping where the examples don't look or work like your copy of Gmax, that would be why.thx,

[Guest artmartin]

Well that's good to know cause I ran up against a brick wall last night trying to create a building with a central tower in the form of a cylinder. Going through the tutorials, I figured out how to create a composite texture file for the building with separate images inside that file to make up each of the faces. Followed the examples for the UVW mapping on the main boxes that define the building parts around that central tower and it was pretty straightforward defining the part of the texture image for each face. However, when I went to do the same thing with the cylinder I had created, it turns out to be made up of way too many individual segments and faces. I couldn't figure out just how to wrap the portion of the picture I wanted around the entire outer face of the cylinder. There's simply no way that I've found to select those outer segments as a whole. Just before I left for work I found a part of the texturing window that dealt with a cropped piece of the picture you're dealing with and that seems to have some promise but none of the tutorials mention it. I'll look today for some tutorials on texturing in 3D Max.Thanks,Art

[jonpatch 1]

You are a brave man, Art! And you will note that when creating an object that gmax uses the same parameters as the last time that object was created. For example, if you create a cylinder with 5 height segments and 20 sides one time, that will be the default the next time. In reality you may only need 8 sides and a single height segment, so you've created 100 polys where 8 would do. Makes selection more difficult as you note, and kills frame rates when you decide to use 200 of these cylinders for a fence post . . .In terms of selection, convert your cylinder to an editable poly, choose polygons, select the edged faces viewing window option, ensure that "ignore backfacing" is not checked, and with the "select object" cursor click and drag the selection box around the whole object. Then you can hold done ctrl, turn on "ignore backfacing" and click on the top of the cylinder to deselect it.Tutorial-wise, pardon me if I missed it, but the most helpful one is in the MS SDK. Ensure you can make that lovely house.Jon

[Guest artmartin]

Thanks Jon. Sounds very helpful. I will begin in earnest at lovely house creation. In research today I did find out that most people creating textured cylinders do so by defining the wrap type as cylindrical. So far I had only been using the UVW Unwrap feature and never saw that option.It's interesting that my first cylinder created in GMAX had so many sides and segments defined. You would think that all those things would be set low initially but I guess the defaults are set for realism and not frame rate. It appeared to me though that even when I set the sides to a low value and the height segments to 1 that the polygons on the sides were not rectangular but made up of pairs of triangles. I could see the need for subdividing the polygons like that if your cylinder were going to be tapered but, if the diameter never changes, what's the need? What's the least number of sides to the cylinder that are necessary to get a smooth round transition in FS? Is it better technique to use the cylinder or to simply draw and circle and extrude it? Have the feeling the simplest and most efficient method is to draw out the layout of your building with simple shapes in the overhead view and extrude them all up as needed.ArtArt

[Bill Womack 7]

Hi Art,If I can jump in here for a minute, I'd like to clarify the triangular polygon concept. All 3D models are composed of sets of triangular polygons that are defined by three points in space. Any rectangle is composed of two triangles in modeling; they're the base unit. As far as the number of sides required to make the cylinder appear smooth in FS, it depends on how you'll be using it. If the end caps of the cylinder are large and will be clearly visible in FS, you will find that it takes more sides to smooth them out. However, if the cylinder is small, like a fencepost for example, you can get away with fewer sides. My fenceposts are usually 5-sided. Sure, it looks a little goofy if you really get up close to them, but in normal FS operation you seldom do. Because of polygon surface smoothing, you can get away with far fewer sides if the ends of the cylinder are surrounded with another model. It's the ends that give away the low poly count. Properly done, a 5-sided cylinder can look perfectly smooth and round unless you look closely at the ends.thx,

[Guest artmartin]

I suspected that all true polygons might actually be 3 sided since it is the only way with certainty to define a flat surface for light reflections/mappings. Other 3d programs I've dealt with in the past however have allowed polygons of more sides and hidden the underlying triangles from the user. Now that I know it's not that big a deal but it does make it harder to see the boundaries of one side of a small cylinder or other object. Be nice to have a flag you could check that would turn off the intermediate line defining the two polys. So in essence, if you define an 8 sided cylinder, you actually create 16 polygons around the outside. Art

[Bill Womack 7]

You get used to looking at all polys as triangles this way pretty quickly, in my experience. And yes, if you have a single-segment, 18-sided cylinder you are creating 16 triangles around it. Obviously, you have to factor in the polys for the end caps as well if you have them.

[Guest luissa]

>Another tool needed might be one that will measure distances>from one point to another in the sim. That would allow XML>scaling to be better than trial and error, and would be handy>to know meters for gmax creations.Hi Dick,Following your suggestion, I added a measure tool to SB. It does not allow to measure distances directly in the sim, but you can add 2 dummy objects to SB using fsuipc and then measure the distance between them.http://www.ptsim.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=411Regards, Luis

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Luis.You may have saved me some work! :)Dick

[jonpatch 1]

I find the AI Aardvark 100m measuring stick useful as well.Jon

[jonpatch 1]

Art try also:http://simviation.com/gmaxindex.htmJon

[Joe W 0]

"I like the Gmax Bible myself, but it's rather thick, and covers a lot of game-specific info that isn't applicable to FS. "Where can I find this Bible?As far as textures....... It has taken me 3 months to learn how to place textures.... excuse me.... Materials to an object.Thanks Bill.... I didn't know there was a Gmax Bible.Joe W.