Problems Exporting a Hummer Vehicle to DTS

#1 The first thing I would do is resize your textures to no bigger than 1024 x 1024. I don't think Torque supports anything above that but I could be wrong. If a model is too poly intensive Torque WILL crash, we've had the same problem before however I don't think 6000 poly's would cause a crash unless you're dropping the model into an already poly intensive level.

#2 MM you re rigth changing the textures to 1024 seems to make it at least not to crash.

But still my carmesh size is -1 in the dump, so i cant see the model, im now resizing the textures used in the 3ds to see if it exports ok.

#3 Jorge-

Are you exporting from 3dsmax? Something I learned after lots of pain was that it kept culling all my nodes, and I found it hard to get a cfg file working, so I just untick the 'collapse transforms' option when exporting a vehicle.
Also: when a mesh is invisible it might be that you haven't set up the hierarchy correct, i.e. haven't attached the mesh to the correct detail object?

#4 Sam is correct on both counts. 'Collapse Transforms' should always be unchecked and if your mesh does not appear in-game but the bounds box does that indicates a foul up in the node structure.

As for the mesh vehicle polycount is largely determined by the type of game you're making. If your're building a single player action adventure I'd come down a bit on polys, maybe 4000 to 4500. If your making a MMO where the vehicle IS the player then 2500 to 3500. And if you're making an MMO where you have player models that run around the game and can mount vehicles the polycount should be around 1500.

Either way your textures too large and your polycount is too low. Low-poly modeling takes time to master but you'd surpised what you can do with just a handful of geometry.

#5 Thanks for the info, i unchecked te Collapse Transform option, but i still cant see the model when i export it.

The Hierarchy of this model is exactly the same as the CARpack model, wich was woking.

The only extrange thing i can see is this, the col-01 have the outside appareance of the Humvee, except that the mirrors and the turret mount of the Carmesh kinda go outside the Col-01, why i saw rendering the Col-01 in the showtool is that the Col-01 take shape of this mirrors and turret mount in itself.

Maybe im messing up with the collision object or something, but still in the dump both col-01 and Carmesh have size -1.

BTW this model polycount is that high becouse mainly that it have all the interiors made, in fact i have 2 textures, one for the outside of the vehicle and one for the interiors (im not sure how can i do to lower this down).

#6 Just a guess, but try using Col_01, not Col-01. The - is interpreted as a negative sign, and therefore sets your detail level to be a negative value--which is read by the engine as "never render".

Edit: The syntax for dash vs underline is different in the max and maya exporter requirements, and for the life of me (not an artist!) I don't remember which is which, but Adam DeGrandis and Alex Swanson brought this issue up in our last Torque Boot Camp for Artists, and this issue sounds very similar.

#7 Thanks Stephen and all of you for helping me.

Zepp, i still have problems, if i change Col-01 to Col_01 then this object will render exactly as my carmesh in showtool if i check the option to render colision meshes.

So now i see a complete shape of my carmesh but in the Col_01 object.

The weird thing is that im using the same Objects and Hierarchy of the Carpack, and all i did is change the carmesh of my own carmesh and resized the colision objects and bounds propertly for this objects.

I also cloned the carmesh after i did all resizes, and deleted the original one, if you dont do this you will get size -1 on the exporter dump, but still it isnt working in this case.

This is my first time making a vhc of my own, i didnt had this problems with exporting guns or characters.

The humvee object is not completely closed, it have a hatch opened on the top for the gunner, does this might be the cause of the problem?

#8 I'm beyond the limit of my knowledge unfortunately--you may want to repost this in the exporter forums, because many of the artists "in the know" don't have access to this particular forum.

It might also be helpful to post screenshots of your hierarchy, and possibly the contents of your .dump file.

#9 Ok before i post this again in the Exporter Forums, i uploaded the dump file and the complete Hierarchy.

http://birdman.he-labs.com.ar/trouble/dump.dmp

http://birdman.he-labs.com.ar/trouble/problem_hierarchy.jpg

notice that i changed the col object back to Col-01 for testing something.

Thans again in advance

Note: One quick question while im here, what node of the player is used to sit over the Mount of the vehicle?
Since the Soldier pack seems to positionate different than the ork on the tanks for example..

#10 Your carmesh isnt exporting because it has no detail number associated with it. Name it carmesh100 and give it a try. That should work.

Also, I believe a player gets mounted by its bounds pivot. I could be mistaken on that, though.

#11 MMM you are right, i didnt did it before becouse the original carpack mesh name was just plain carmesh and it worked, weird thing!

Thanks a lot to everybody it finally exported, even when its very high poly and i had to finish wheels and everything, i at least can see it to start working on it.