can't export anything and bring it into PureLight :(

#1 What are your export settings set to for ase? We've never used 3DS Max 7 here. If you could send a sample ase and dae mesh to support@purelighttech.com we can have a look at what is going on. But, if its giving the "file contains no geometry objects" message, then there is no mesh being actually exported.

#2 Pic, if you haven't already, try exporting a light in aswell - no light source = crash on convert.

I'm using Blender and had nothing but crashes as you describe last night (it was very late though) with both ASE and DAE. But finally got a result after heading over to YouTube for the export/import tut.

#3 In fact I don't think you would want to look at the models because I simply made some boxes and one light in the world. I tried exporting them with the following options checked in the both exporters :

I didn't expected to be that hard to get the models in preLight.
Everything seems to be so easy but I get that error message that there is no geometry. But I am pretty sure that the exported files are valid.
I don't know where the problem is. I hope these 30 days for the trial to be enough for me to get things working.
Also do I have to setup the scene under c:/ProgramsFiles/Purelight/scenes/my scene? I guess there should be no problem to have the scene in d:/my scene for instance?

Steve , thanks for the suggestion. Actually there are a lot of thing I am going to try to make this program working. I like it a lot and won't give up.

#4 The scene can be located anywhere on your system, that doesn't matter.

Those export settings look correct to me.

I would still like to have a look at those mesh files, the fact that they are boxes and nothing fancy is irrelevant (actually makes it easier to manually read the file than some complicated mesh).

If you look inside the ase files generated, do you see any *GEOMOBJECT or *MESH blocks?

#5 Hello,

What type of object are you trying to export? Is it part of a group? Is it an instance? Does it have a complex modifier stack on it? Is it procedural (ie a mesh around a spline)?

To export geometry, make sure that the object (in max at least) is collapsed into a single editable poly or mesh. You cannot (at this time) export selections, groups, etc.

As Tom said, are .ase files generated? What is inside these .ase files? (can you post one?). Are you exporting to a protected folder? (you may have issue exporting from max to ProgramFiles in vista). Can you export the .ase files to your desktop?

#6 Thomas I am sending all my *.ASE files with folders setup in a *.rar to you right now.

By the way I managed to change the ERROR message to "Input string was not i a correct format"

#7 Tom can tell us for sure (so keep sending the files) but for it to give an incorrect format warning - are you using any sort of 3rd party materials? Any non-texture based materials? Are you using and plugins?

Thanks.

A

#8 Andrew,
I am using a "standard" material. The scene consists of three cubes and one omni light. the cubes are editable meshes. In their modifier stack there is only one modifier "UVWMapping" with "Box" mapping setup.
Nothing complicated in the scene. Just simple objects.

#9 Thanks for the response - that sounds like it should export just fine; I don't think you are having a material or modifier issue. Tom should be able to tell us exactly what is off in the .ase files... (are you exporting them with the correct prefixes within the correct directory structure?)

In response to Steve - you should be able to convert a scene without a light source. I have started many a project by exporting / converting the geometry and adding lights later (or using just the background color for base lighting). The export / conversion process is the same for a single mesh at the start, a single mesh as a change, or hundreds of meshes in one large batch.

As for the "import process being this hard" - once we figure out the specific reason your files aren't exporting I'm sure you will find the process a _lot_ easier! The "file contains no geometry objects" error literally means the .ase file has no geometry data in it... preLIGHT will do the best it can, but I'm sure its not the only ap that would have difficulty importing an empty file...

The exporter for Max 7 should generate stable .ase files - we haven't used this in our shop for years, but I did a lot of my old gaming work on Max 5 through Max 7 via .ase files and never had any issues.

A

#10

the objects (LMA_cube1.ase , LMA_cube2.ase , LMA_cube3.ase) are located in "Module_Common". Their texture is in "Textures".
the light (LS_omni.ase) is located in Lights_Common

#11 This is a really, really weird one. The ase files themselves are fine. But, what appears to be happening, is preLIGHT is using your local culture setting to format its output numbers, in this case using comma's instead of a period for decimal numbers, which is throwing off pureLIGHT.

This is certainly an unexpected twist.

#12 I've cleared up the culture specific issues.

As a temporary workaround, you can try changing your culture to English-Canada or English-US.

Any data files (the .scene file and any .3diobj files generated) created with a culture that doesn't use periods as a decimal seperator should just be deleted.

Sorry about this, this is something that none of us thought to test out.

#13 2 cultures seperated by a common language? ;)

#14 lol , Thomas,
I changed the regional settings to english(United States) and I successfully got the *.ase files in preLight :))))

Thanks a lot!