[Hamza97]

Hello Everybody... :) :)
I am working on a High Detailed version of an Indian Railways Locomotive, intended for Open Rails only. I have almost completed the model, sans some minor detailing and adjustments. I am using Blender 2.7x for modelling and export it as .3ds, open it in Gmax, configure the materials and export it. The models export after 10 mins or sometimes gets completely failed... :bigboss:

Here is picture of model in Shape Viewer :
http://i1369.photobucket.com/albums/ag213/HamzaP/Wcam2pSV_zpscwcnsure.jpg?t=1430657134

Now here is the problem.... (highlighted in red)
http://i1369.photobucket.com/albums/ag213/HamzaP/ORwcam_zpset5lyman.jpg?t=1430657334

1) The louvers are not being displayed properly.
2) The wheels on front bogie are missing.
3) The pantograph at back is missing.

Please not that for now the whole locomotive is a single object named "main".

I am having hard time figuring out what is the problem. Any help is appreciated... :) :)

[Mipman25]

Usually, the wheels and bogies are in their own sub-hierarchies, so that's where your wheel issue could come in. Fantastic work, by the way.

[captain_bazza]

Quote

Please not that for now the whole locomotive is a single object named "main".

I am having hard time figuring out what is the problem. Any help is appreciated

(You answered the question, it wont export as a single object.)

Cheers Bazza.

[asullenger]

I've also found that anything over about 60,000 polys and things start getting weird when exporting.... objects disappear and others just get "scrambled". I'm exporting out of gmax also.

[Hamza97]

Quote

You answered the question, it wont export as a
single object.

Dear Sir, it exported correctly because it displays correctly Shape Viewer (first picture in my post) but has problems in Open Rails.

Quote

I've also found that anything over about 60,000
polys and things start getting weird when
exporting.... objects disappear and others just get
"scrambled". I'm exporting out of gmax also.

This locomotive is little over 33000 polys .

[captain_bazza]

Have you tried processing the shape file in ShapeFix? Sometimes that will 'repair' a model. You can read about using SF in one of the forums, it's a pinned topic.

Cheers Bazza.

[JohnnyS]

Hamza97, on 04 May 2015 - 07:44 PM, said:

Dear Sir, it exported correctly because it displays correctly Shape Viewer (first picture in my post) but has problems in Open Rails.

What you see in shape viewer is not always what you get in the sim. For example a freightanim with the origin mistakenly set to object center rather than 0 will display correctly in shape viewer but not in game. Check your hierarchy/parenting and points of origin.

Can you confirm the model confirms to the accepted norms of hierarchy explained here: http://msts.steam4me...ro_gmax_12.html? Especially with regard to the disappearing wheels, wheels should have the origin centered to object and have the relevant bogie as parent. Bogies origin should be centered to object and be parented to main. Edit: Last bit isn't true in certain situations. If your bogie is asymmetric or offset the origin should be where the pivot point is on the z-axis.

There is a native msts/OR exporter for blender available on these boards. You can eliminate the .3ds/Gmax step.

I have experienced similar problems to those detailed by asullenger, though I have been using TSM rather than Gmax and the problems started at somewhere around 40k polys, running the uncompressed models through polymaster provided a cure for me.

[asullenger]

Capt Bazz is still right then. Any one part over 6 or 7k ( I think) will start to mess things up. It will look right in shape viewer, but will not be right in open rails.

Break it down into smaller sections and see how that works. BUT be sure not to go over 60 separate parts. That's the number I've found that if you go over the same problems you're having now will come back.

[Hamza97]

Hi everybody :) :)
I installed the BlendertoMSTS plugin from link given by JohnnyS (Thank You). It worked wonderfully, it broked the model into 4 subobjects (which was still one object named "main" ) and it rendered correctly in both SV and OR.
Thank you to all members, I can now hopefully continue work on it. :)

[JohnnyS]

asullenger, on 05 May 2015 - 01:01 PM, said:

BUT be sure not to go over 60 separate parts.

My model in progress has over 100 parts (will be optimising it at some point to reduce the horrendous amount of draw calls) both before and after the polymaster process, it renders correctly in OR post polymaster, so i'm not sure the number of parts is a factor.

Hamza97, on 06 May 2015 - 07:43 PM, said:

It worked wonderfully, it broked the model into 4 subobjects (which was still one object named "main" ) and it rendered correctly in both SV and OR.

OK, that's good, incidentally captain_bazza's suggestion to use the shape fix utility was apposite, as that utility would also have created the required subobjects.