Beta and those interested post here

#1 Just a post to say I have got the Beta, thankyou, and will be playing with
it ASAP :D

#2 OK, with a quick skim of the pdf's and after watching the vids I tried my
first PL project, the Bank model from my western town level.
Setup my directory as shown in the PDF, worked out I wanted it as LMA_

First thing I get is an error about a node (as a dae) so tried ase
... no geometry exported.. hmmm.. turns out it was because the scene
was setup for dae export (with a base / start ect) seems pureLight
wants all objects to be unlinked.. no problem I can cope with that :D

Sooo.. I export my concrete base from max as ase, import into Prelight,
convert... play with lightmap size etc.. all good... ok now to see it in
PreLight... and I get...

"Your evaluation trial of purelight has run out" :(

bawwwwwww.... no fair lol.

#3 Umm no idea what going on here. Any help?

Just imported my .dae stuff with prefixes of LMA,LMX,LM (Testing)

And I get this:


I did the export insteriors as collada in torque, and kept the names as is, but then added the prefixes LMA.
I put my collada files in the 3difiles folder and the textures, well, in the textures folder of my purelight project directory. i add them into the project. and click convert and optimize. it comes up with an error, like "The application had an error, if you want the program to ignore the process, press continue. if you want to terminate the apllication, press cancel. I try again by clicking just convert. It goes for about two seconds, and come up with the this program has had an error and needs to close box, show above. same every time.

I dunno what going on, any help?

#4 Update on my issue regarding time limit run out...
I grabbed a few hours kip, came back, and its working :D
(PC was left on)

OK.. on wards and upwards... have had a couple of issues.. big one
being for some reason all my ase files were renamed with a LMM prefix !
Not sure exactly when it happened, I'll keep an eye on this, and hopefully
can re-create it for you with better feedback !

So far am loving it, just doing a long bake, and will post later.

@Matt.. hmm.. at a guess, I would say there is something amiss with
your models.. I suspect David will need to know more about the models.

Having said that, I put my models in the "Module_Common" folder, and didn't
have to put textures in the texture folder, PL found them and copied them
there itself.

#5 OK another update :)

Although using .ase as a file format works fine, there does seem to be a
problem the the .dae import:
From my scene I selected the most simple mesh, a 2 polygon square, and
called it LM_Office_ceiling.DAE

I am using Max2009 ATM, and tried both max's Collada export (all versions)
and the COLLADAMax_0.9.5.447 plug-in.. I also sent the file to a friend and
he exported it in Max2010 so I could test.. below are my results.....


2009- autodesk dae (all versions) = Crash
The crash occurs After Prelight does its converting, Vista gives the following info:

Description:
Stopped working

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: prelight_torque_trial.exe
Problem Signature 02: 3.0.3474.26054
Problem Signature 03: 4a526c7d
Problem Signature 04: mscorlib
Problem Signature 05: 2.0.0.0
Problem Signature 06: 48ead7c2
Problem Signature 07: 15c
Problem Signature 08: 1f
Problem Signature 09: System.ArgumentOutOfRange
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057

2009- COLLADAMax_0.9.5.447 = LM_Office_ceiling.DAE ERROR: Unexpected visual scene library node: node
This plugin seems to export the whole scene, and so is of no use, even if it didn't cause this error


2010- autodesk dae = LM_Office_ceiling.DAE ERROR: Unexpected visual scene library node: rotate
2010- COLLADAMax_0.9.5.447 = LM_Office_ceiling.DAE ERROR: Unexpected visual scene library node: rotate

The above assert occurs before PreLight does any converting

If I manually edit the .dae and remove the rotate node, then PreLight crashes on convert, Vista gives me
the following info:

Description:
Stopped working

Problem signature:
Problem Event Name: CLR20r3
Problem Signature 01: prelight_torque_trial.exe
Problem Signature 02: 3.0.3474.26054
Problem Signature 03: 4a526c7d
Problem Signature 04: mscorlib
Problem Signature 05: 2.0.0.0
Problem Signature 06: 48ead7c2
Problem Signature 07: 15c
Problem Signature 08: 1f
Problem Signature 09: System.ArgumentOutOfRange
OS Version: 6.0.6001.2.1.0.768.3
Locale ID: 2057




There seems to be problems with the dae's PreLight creates from .ase's.
My initial test found that the model size was tiny when imported into T3D, this
may be because I don't understand what to put in the "Physical Units Per Meter"
dialoge in the scene file.. my units in max are in meters, and I noted on the
tutorials the guy says he is using inches.

Also, there are problems with the polysoup collision mesh, my player in-game
gets stuck on the imported model (PureLights .dae's)

I can zip up my test files and send them if needed.


Apart from the above, I found using PL a great experience, I got exactly the results
I wanted in terms of the actual lighting, if we can sort out these import/export
issues I think we'll be rocking :D

Oh, my systems specs:

HP Pavilion Laptop
Core2Duo P8400 (2.26 GHz)
3GB system ram
Nvidia 9600M GT (512Mb dedicated Vram)
Vista SP1 32bit

Cheers,

Hewster

#6 Okay, thanks for the info. We'll look into this today. We've had some major issues with Collada because of it's inconsistency.

@Matt, your folder structure should look like this


The .dae files for geometry need to go into the Module_Common folder and the lights into the Lights_Common.

#7 Hi everyone, I'm pureLIGHT's lead programmer.

Thanks for reporting these issues, we're having a look into them here. As a general warning here, the collada import code is rather experimental at this point. The XSI collada exporter is outputing a bunch of stuff that we've never seen before in a dae file.

@Hewster, that sucks with the false positive on the trial expiry, at least its working for you now. We'll see if we can track down what was happening there.

Also, if you could send us your scene, we'll look at sorting out the scaling issues. Ideally, the max file, ase files, and the initial dae files that you were having troubles with, and we can see exactly what's going on.

@Matt Young, we'll have to add in some sort of gracefull handling for that situation (the silly little things that slip through the cracks). See Dave's post above mine for how to resolve this issue.

#8 Okay, thanks everyone. Ill see if i can import my collada into blender and export it so .ASE if anything else goes wrong.

Thanks Again,
Matt

#9 @Matt Tom has a proper ASE exporter for Blender that he is going to provide.

#10 The ASE export script that comes with Blender doesn't support outputting lights, and I think there was something else weird with it (but I don't recall exactly what it was now, been a long time). We'll upload a copy of it somewhere for you, and I'll see if I can get my changes in it into the main Blender distribution.

#11 Yeah, i'm still having trouble. But i think its actually the files, because im having trouble importing them into blender as well.

Something must be up with the difs, or the collada.

#12 If anyone is having problems they can zip up and send the files to me and we'll look at them.

#13 Heres My Files. Includes DIF's DAE's And All The Constructor Files If Needed. Try them out, and see what happens.

www.mediafire.com/download.php?mmzz2m1nqdw

Yes, i used your textures.

#14 @Matt

I think I found the problem.


Not sure where this is occuring, but it might be the T3D Collada exporter.

#15 @Matt Young - Thanks, we'll have a look at them here and see what happens.

@Hewster - Forgot to mention this in my last post. If you are having troubles with the polysoup collision, that is probably more of a general T3D issue than a pureLIGHT specific issue. You might want to consider creating a simplified version of your mesh to place invisibly in T3D (though I'm not sure if there is a way of doing that) for collision and turn collision off on the complex mesh. This might be a side effect of the scaling being off as well, really dense small triangles might be responsible for the collision troubles.

#16 ACtually, I Think its contructors Geometry. If Any .DIF shapes within the file collide, the mesh dissapears. Ill have to sumbit the bug, but i think its what im doing.

Ill try to make like a simple cube, sphere, etc and see what happpens.

Theres also Map2Dif Too If you want to try using that..

#17 Still Crashes With The Cube.

#18 Tom had a look at the files and it seems to work on our end. We'll keep looking though.

#19 Hmm.. Only Vista Compatable?

#20 The 32 bit version will run just fine in XP.