26 réponses à ce sujet

[Wall3T]

im sure someone has already asked this question... but im currently having trouble trying to get the texture of my object to show up on the toolset... actualy im having trouble just trying to get it to show up at all lol

i figured the idea was fairly straight forward: make the object, apply the textures, follow through the pwk tutorial, make a new hak and place the .mdl and .pwk in with a placeable file and i was good to go... apparently thats not it at all :-|

ill show an image of what im making down below, its a part of my P.W as an acient Turbine Engine (affiliated with ancient Airships etc etc)

im using gmax with the NWMAX plugin...

[Wall3T]

I did this as a means to try my first real object as my airship was already a premade object:

[OldTimeRadio]

Texture requirements:
* Either has to be in TGA or Bioware proprietary .DDS format
* If TGA, must NOT be compressed (RLE compression)
* Can be in 24 or 32 bit, I believe.
* Must be a power of 2 resolution (i.e. 512x512, 1024x512, 64x32) with preference for square textures if possible.

I think that's it. If I were you I'd throw a UVW Map modifier on that model and change to something like Planar or Box or something like that- looks like it's currently "Face" mapping which tends to look like that.  Be sure all those modifiers are Collapsed to the mesh before exporting, and that the only modifier (in your case) is an Aurora Trimesh modifer on it.  I'm actually thinking the problem you're having is more likely to do with the fact that you've got uncollapsed modifiers on that model because I presume you're probably using a pre-existing texture.  Hope that helps.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 18 mars 2011 - 01:25 .

[Wall3T]

okay thanks Old Time Radio-

ive attempted several times to fix my problem.... but it seems i keep getting a "directory" error every time i set the aurabase to copy tga's then concert to DDS, just like the airship did... i do however have a dds flipper (given graciously here by link) and shall try this route

since i am on that subject of the DDS flipper, do i need the texturematerials to match the name of the plc object? i assume that is always another reason why nothing shows up...

before i go and try to pull my hair out again at trying to get this thing to work, im using custom textures, no pre-exsting. does that effect wether if an object will show up?

[Bannor Bloodfist]

Texture names don't really have to match anything other than length, IE, you should try VERY hard to keep the total character name down to 15characters, not including the "." (period/dot).

TGA flipper typically needs to be run twice on each texture, once, take the result and flip that result. The final file should have been flipped twice.

As to the directory problem you are experiencing within nwmax, I typically do ALL texture processing outside of max, so not entirely sure where the folder settings for that are hidden.

DDS Tools GUI by paradia, is one tool that gives you a GUI where you can pick input and output folders, ALWAYS choose a separate folder for output.  I have never used this one, so I am not positive exactly how good a job it does.

The other one found on the vault DDSTools by Janus requires you to create an Input and an Output folder below where you run the program. They must be called Input/Output respectively.

Those two tools linked above, will take an input DDS and convert it to TGA OR take an input TGA and convert it to DDS.

Please note: DDS is a lossy compression tool. Never extract to TGA and convert back. Always keep original dds files and just rename them as necessary.

Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 18 mars 2011 - 11:12 .

[_six]

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...


Please note: DDS is a lossy compression tool. Never extract to TGA and convert back. Always keep original dds files and just rename them as necessary.

Or even better, if you're using original textures, keep all your original files in tga format and only compress for releasing stuff.

Incidentally, I'm not sure by what method you're using for applying textures (or, if its bringing up directory errors, what method of export you could possibly be using). But simply keeping the textures in the same hak/override as the model is all thats required make them show up ingame - and as far as getting them onto a model in the first place goes, all you really need to do is drag and drop directly from the folder onto an object in max.

[OldTimeRadio]

Yep, basically what Bannor and Six said.  It's great that you're using the Copy TGA's and Convert to DDS functions but going through this the first time it's probably easier just to leave them off.  I habitually copy my textures into my override directory and just drag and drop them from there.  And I never bother with DDS conversion until everything else is done.

That directory error you're getting may be from having one or both of those texture function boxes checked.  If it works at all, those texture copying functions are likely are a straight copy and past from the original Bioware scripts and those relied on having your Export directory set.  If you want to set your export directory in GMax, it's under menu item Customize -> Configure Paths... -> (General tab) Export and then click the Modify... button to set.  I set mine to my NWN overrides directory.

[Michael DarkAngel]

oOKyeOo wrote...
ive attempted several times to fix my problem.... but it seems i keep getting a "directory" error every time i set the aurabase to copy tga's then concert to DDS, just like the airship did...

That error could be caused be gMax's inability to perform any file writing functions on its own.  Hence the reason Snoop needs to be running in order to export a model from gMax.


  MDA

[Wall3T]

wow!

thanks for all the feedback, its just what i was looking for :3 as gar as the error functon i am recieving, im afraid i cant give too much feedback on its specific, but i find it all to be a part of the learning process...

so, i think i know now what to do (if not i have a backup plan) i have an updated model with new facemapping so it looks much better than the one above... i may post a pic when i have it close to being finished...

[Wall3T]

okay so here is an image of the error i am recieving, i think i already know what was doing it but i wanted to post it anyways. the image below shows what i did to get the error (all unintended of course)



er well... the image is kinda smaller than i had wanted, but basicaly i had the copy tgs' checked and then convert to dds checked to give me the error...

Modifié par oOKyeOo, 19 mars 2011 - 10:57 .

[Wall3T]

here is the updated with UVmapping this time, the texture quality is still kinda "shoddy" but its my first time applying textures for a nwn object, so fir a newbie i think its pretty good lol

[Wall3T]

Double Post...

Modifié par oOKyeOo, 19 mars 2011 - 11:04 .

[OldTimeRadio]

Looks like MDA called it correclty.  That error is because the script is trying to call a function which was removed from GMax.  As far as the texture job goes, I don't think it's bad.  If it "fits in" with the rest of the model, you're good.

Oh, and for the actual Aurora Base, it's always best to make sure the export directory is set to your NWN override directory.  There is little benefit to placing it anywhere else unless you're doing tilesets where you're going to mass export tiles or something like that.

Modifié par OldTimeRadio, 20 mars 2011 - 07:14 .

[Wall3T]

okay im back...

as much as i had hoped i wouldnt need to be, ive been hard at work trying to figure out how to re-convert tga's back into dds format... i cant seem to get any of my textures to show up otherwise...

the links provided seem to only go one way: convert dds- tga which is fine... but i need something that the game can read. as every time i go into the toolset with a tga in the hak i use... the object appears all white...

[Michael DarkAngel]

DDSTools should work with no problems, its what I've always used to convert my tgas to BioWare's dds format.  You need to follow what Bannor stated above.  Create two directories inside the directory where you unzip DDSTools.  One labeled in and one labeled out.  Put your tgas into the in directory.  Double-click the runme.bat file, and after you see the MS-DOS window briefly appear you should find a corresponding dds file in the out directory.


  MDA

Modifié par Michael DarkAngel, 24 mars 2011 - 10:13 .

[Bannor Bloodfist]

Remember too: If your TGA was created by you as a new texture, fine, convert them to dds. But if you just exported/converted them from original .dds files, do NOT reconvert them back to dds from tga. Keep the original dds, renaming as necessary if you changed the name of the tga during your processing.

IE, don't export from dds to tga, and then go back to convert to dds from that same tga. Keep the original dds.

Otherwise, each time you convert, you lose quality, and it really, really adds up.

Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 24 mars 2011 - 10:38 .

[Wall3T]

thanks for the quick replies :3

@ Michael DarkAngel - thanks for the link ill be sure to have that up and running in no time, i planned on trying to convert my tga into a dds and ive looked everywhere for a version that actualy works...

& @ Bannor Bloodfist- thanks for the warning! i actualy was just about to do that with my newst airship model

i did a few fixes with its textures so i had to convert it to a tga and planned to re-convert it to a dds again so... i wont be doing that lol

but... without losing quality, how can i make my new changes to the model? im assuming just make a new dds file?

[Bannor Bloodfist]

If you have actually modified the TGA file, then you have no choice but to convert it back to DDS, but if you are just talking about changing what part of the texture is mapped to the model, and not actually changing the TGA then no, you don't need to convert it back.

Anyway, the link that Michael gave you is the same link I had given you before, the DDSTools by Janus. Is not going to give you the reverse option of going from TGA to DDS.

The only one I have found that does that is the original dds.zip by bioware. You create two sub folders below where you have the .exe file, "IN", "OUT" and place the source file(s) in the "IN" folder. run the batch files called runme.bat file and it will convert from whatever form is in the input folder and place the results in the output folder.

Note that the runme.bat file assumes your are going from tga to dds. The processtextures.exe CAN go both ways, but you would have to create another runme2.bat and change the contents to handle processing in reverse order:
--------

cd in
REM First we rename all *.DDS to *. so we can remove the .DDS extension
REM For the mipmap processing
ren *.dds *.
REM Cycle every *. in the /in/ directory
FOR %%i in (*.) DO (
	ECHO Processing %%i.dds
	
	REM Rename it back to a .DDS
	ren %%i %%i.dds
	REM Convert it from DDS to TGA
	..\\DDSTools.exe -d %%i.dds
	
	REM delete the mipmaps
	IF EXIST %%i1.tga DEL %%i1.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i2.tga DEL %%i2.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i3.tga DEL %%i3.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i4.tga DEL %%i4.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i5.tga DEL %%i5.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i6.tga DEL %%i6.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i7.tga DEL %%i7.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i8.tga DEL %%i8.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i9.tga DEL %%i9.tga 
	IF EXIST %%i10.tga DEL %%i10.tga 
	
	REM Rename the 0 to remove the 0 index
	IF EXIST %%i0.tga ren %%i0.tga %%i.tga
	
	REM And move it to the /out/ folder
	IF EXIST %%i.tga move %%i.tga ..\\out\\
)
pause

--------


I am not sure who gave me that code, but it wasn't me. It may actually have been Michael at some point in the past. Just name that batch file to be "dds2tga.bat" and rename your runme.bat to be tga2dds.bat and you should be fine.

Note that the actual .exe is called processtextures.exe and MUST be run by batch file. Depending on windows version, you may have issues with rights, and for that, I can't really help much.

Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 25 mars 2011 - 10:00 .

[Wall3T]

alright-

without further ado i present to all the airship ive worked rather hard on to get right... and still im not satisfied quite yet lol

@ B.B- thanks for the dds link, but it seems that when i re-converted the quality of the tga degrated so terribly that it messed up inside the toolset rendering it... useless so ive been trying to opt for a "bit" better txture but could only find what i have below...



so far... this is it for my airship, when i release it i am in high hopes that someone will come by and add/ improve upon them better than i can... of course im still willing to work on it if anyone has any suggestions :3

[Zwerkules]

You need more textures than just one for that airship. Even if you only used one texture for all the wooden parts, you'd still need a fabric texture for the sails, a rope texture and a metal texture for the propellers.
If this is based on an NWN2 ship, you'd have to use the texture for that ship as a base for the texture you are making, or you'd have to take the ship apart so you could texture the ropes and sails and so on separately. NWN2 uses a single texture for the whole placeable.

[Wall3T]

yeah... ive noticed that about nwn2 objects, and ive changed the texture so it looks much better than this. the only problem ive ran into is when i try to put in multiple textures i get alot of problems for them to show up even when i link them to the base (aurorabase)

i really wanted to keep the origional... but i had big problems with the rope part of the texture appearing on different parts of the ship, so i opted to go for a completly different look...

now origionaly i attempted to change that texture (thus the reason why i made this topic) and eliminated the rope altogether... but re-converting it back into a dds made it worse...

other than that im keeping at it when i can, rl stuff is getting in my way... so i hope to have a better model to show for soon...

Modifié par oOKyeOo, 27 mars 2011 - 10:26 .

[Wall3T]

now...

ive got some ideas to add/ improve on the ships texture, but id hate to ask... if anyone could actualy provide with .dds of the ghost ship without the ship mast texture that would be great! i cant seem to create one without it going on the fritz :-|

[Zwerkules]

You want the mast texture removed? Why? The file will be the same size with or without the mast texture so you could just leave it in. Or do you want it replaced by a different texture?

I just had a look at the texture and the model and there is no texture for just the mast anyway. The mast uses the same part of the texture as other wooden parts of the ship.
There's a part of the texture that is only used for the sails and one for the rigging, so those could be removed, but I don't see why. If you don't want the mast or the sails, simply remove those elements of the model instead of removing the texture. That will also save a lot of polygons.
If you want another texture for the mast, you'll have to detach the mast from the model and assign a different texture to it, because if you just replace the part of the whole ghostship texture that is used for the mast, you'll also have other parts of the ship change texture.
Also the mast is very long, but only uses a tiny bit of the texture, so the texture is very streched and almost appears smeared. It would improve the look of the ship if the mast was detached and got a better texture and a new uvw map so the texture wouldn't be so streched.

Modifié par Zwerkules, 29 mars 2011 - 03:20 .

[Wall3T]

lol okay ill show you why...

i am confidant there to be a mast/ rope texture for the greyghost, the image below proves it lol are you sure it was that you were looking at?

as you can the "mast/ rope" texture overlaps the ship in various sections so i want to get rid of it... period... if i cant then its the reason why i am going for plan b: texturize the airship using bioware ship textures... it wont look as pretty but it will get the job done...



BARE IN MIND: ive taken into account what your telling me and i really appreciate it! :3

but ive already eliminated much of the ships' exterior. The rope that held up the masts are gone as well... so ive pretty much have already done what i wanted with it i just need it to be fixed in a way that looks nice :-S

[Zwerkules]

Have you attached your additions to the NWN2 model of the ghostship or are they still separate?
If you didn't attach them to it, I suggest you remove the NWN2 model and put the original model in its stead because it will be properly textured again. Removing the parts of the ship again that need removing will take less time than getting the textures right again.
It looks like you applied one texture to the whole ship. That won't work. Even though the original model uses just one texture the parts of it were textured separately and then put together.
You could select parts of the model, do an uvw unwrap and move the tverts to the proper part of the
texture again, but that would take forever.
It would be far easier to get the original model which already is textured properly back and remove the parts you don't need again.
Keep your additions separate from the original model and from each other so you can texture each of them. You can't texture them all at once. Some are cylinders, some boxes and some are cones and each of them need to be textured in a different way.

I looked for a texturing tutorial at the vault, but most of those don't exist any more, so I can't give you a useful link here. Maybe Bannor Bloodfist has a texturing tutorial somewhere.

Also a word of warning: Since you use a model from NWN 2, turn the shadow of it off. In the best case you might get proper shadows, but they will be far more complex than they need be and will slow the engine down. Propably the shadows won't work and you will get very bad and strange shadows. And in the worst case turning on shadows of an NWN model can crash the game or cause errors in the toolset.
They way NWN 1 handles shadows is very different from NWN 2.

Modifié par Zwerkules, 29 mars 2011 - 08:00 .