My 1st Fighter and a Problem

Major · Post by **Major** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 10:43 pm

OK, i made my first Fighter today. It is not finished yet, i have to change some details. Moreover, i got a problem: when i try to export the imagemap, Wings crashes. On a simple Model it works. Maybe the area where the cannons come out of the ship is too complicated for a texture-map.

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 10:57 pm

what sort of crash. and with which version of wings, and what'your OS? For me, I experienced many problems with maps bigger than 2048*2048 px.
Otherwise your ship is really nice !
fond of concept of guns near cockpit

Major · Post by **Major** » Fri Jun 13, 2003 11:53 pm

I was sure i forgot something

I got the newest version of Wings 0.98.10d running on Win2000 with SP3.
When i choose "continue by --> Unfolding" I see only the error message

Dump written 2003-6-14_0-27
Window: geom
Crashed in:
{crash,{badarith,[{e3d_mat,rotate_s_to_t_1,2},
{auv_seg_ui,seg_map_chart,6},
{wings_wm,handle_event,3},
{wings_wm,send_event,2},
{wings_wm,do_dispatch,2},
{lists,foreach,2},
{wings_wm,'-redraw_all/0-anonymous-2-',1},
{lists,foreach,2}|
more]}}

But i finally managed to export and import the map.

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 12:04 am

btw, what means "LOD" ?

Post by **hurleybird** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 1:02 am

Level of detail. Different units can have different models for various LOD's

Duality · Post by **Duality** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 1:14 am

There was an error when unfolding a UV map??

I think I had that kind of problem before...

Here are two methods when you get this error:

1. Goto Body mode by pressing "B".. Select the entire mesh, right click and then select "Clean Up".

2. Try doing a simple test UV by going to Segmentation By > Projection and unfold.. If you still get this error, go back to body mode and select the entire mesh.. Then don't touch anything and switch to vertex mode or pressing "v".. Finally, press the "c" button. You have to still do the clean up command on the model before you do that..

And hopefully the error will go away..

pincushionman · Post by **pincushionman** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 2:36 am

Keep in mind the "continue by >> unfolding" does not ACTUALLY unfold the faces in the strictest sense. It uses some other algorithm that creates an effect that is adequate most of the time. But it is not a true sheetmetal-like unfolding (called a development).

There's a few posts discussing this somewhere in here on the Wings forum...that link should take you to the correct page...

On the ship I'm working on right now, the "unfolding" algorithm for some reason cannot unfold the shape to anything that is even close to being an appropriate shape -- maybe your ship is just an even more extreme example of the need for a true unfolding algorithm.

I think someone's working on it but I don't know how it's going.

You may have to settle for projection for the time being.

-pincushionman

Major · Post by **Major** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 10:40 am

I think that Wings doesnÂ´t really know how to unfold models at a certain complexitivity.
i tried to assign the segments manually but that never worked. After that i tried it with an earlier version of my fighter and after doing some simplifications i managed to get an imagemap that i can use.

Maybe this will be a "civil" version or a little scout. Or i will add a cannon.

Next step will be texturing after Weekend. I know Photoshop but i have absolutely no idea about texturing. But i found a way to create cool cannons or turbines:

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 12:49 pm

it might boost your polycount. Don't you thing you should fill the little holes in your guns? a black dot instead and you will gain 8 polygon per hole, then, in your case, 64 polys, and after, on "round" part , you should erase the vertices: you got something like this: / | \
__|__
\ | /
(not really good ascii art

)
if you erase middle vertices, you will go from 4 polys to 1, which will give you a total of 24*4=96 polygons less
For now we have removed 96+64 polys= 160 polys: nice beginning

and to finish: the antenna in the nose: you might use a cylinder with only 4 or 6 faces, you won't notify any differences but polycount will decrease. I'm not currently behind my computer, but if you want more explanations I should send you some screenshots, or post how to low poly modelling, or low poly tips in the wiki

Major · Post by **Major** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 4:01 pm

THX for the tips. I already thought that there are too many details, but that ship was just an experiment to test what i could do with wings-3D.

I modified the "Civil" ship and made one ship that looks as if itÂ´s much faster:

Moreover i made a version with 2 cannons:

Unforunately, i wasnÂ´t able to produce textures that didnÂ´t look badly. Maybe someone wants to texture the model?

Major · Post by **Major** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 4:28 pm

and another fast one:

Duality · Post by **Duality** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 5:47 pm

I use wings version 0.98.08e.. the stable version..

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 6:03 pm

0.98.10: some littles improvments in uv mapper, and the possibilitie to work on 2048*2048 textures, intead of 1024*1024 with older versions

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Sat Jun 14, 2003 6:25 pm

From the Wings3D-homepage:

Latest release: Wings 0.98.10e:
More bug fixes. Candidate for latest stable release.

Pontiac

Duality · Post by **Duality** » Sun Jun 15, 2003 11:56 pm

Ok the reason I do not like getting the later versions of wings is that because they removed the "Import" and "Export" commands from the AutoUV mode so I have no clue on how to find the import command texture on the later versions of wings.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 12:16 am

I just upgraded my wings version yesterday, and I ran across that horrible, horrible change.

Does anyone know of anywhere where I can get an older release of wings? I clicked around their website without any luck.

Duality · Post by **Duality** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 12:43 am

Try this site:

http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=165451

hopefully I'll find a way to import the model textures in the latest version of wings but for now...

Here is the previous versions of wings.

peteyg · Post by **peteyg** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 12:57 am

Great! Any idea how far back I have to go before I get export capabilities?

Never mind, I'll just trial and error it and post a version here.

Duality · Post by **Duality** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 3:05 am

Curreny using 0.98.08e.

Post by **zaydana** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 2:00 pm

youi can impoty textures by going File->Import Image, then Going Window->Object Outliner. Then once you are in the AutoUV Map, drag the image from them object outliner onto the Map Window, and its textured

Yay! But i still can't figure out how to export the map...

etheral walker · Post by **etheral walker** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 2:56 pm

right clic on the img in outliner windows, make external

pontiac · Post by **pontiac** » Mon Jun 16, 2003 4:39 pm

etheral walker wrote:right clic on the img in outliner windows, make external

That's the way to link (making an external texuremap it into wings (not saved in the ".wings"-file), though it also exports the image.
To "only" export it select the Export point in the same menu

Pontiac

PS: updated the "guidelines for useable textures" in the Texturing Howto