Model Miningcart

As far as I can see everything needed is now working, it has a basic collision mesh and texture. I've zipped the files with the correct directory path, so hopefully merging this with your tf folder should put the files in the right place.

Unless there's anything thats needed from the sourse_sdk this should hopefully work for you.

If you have any opinions / advice I'd be glad to hear, obviously this is my first prop, way two many polygons (about 10000 too many I imagine) but yeah, anything really

Thank you to everyone who offerd advice, really appreciate it

Thank you for the advice, I'll give it another go.

4th times the charm.





Ok, the physics model hasnt connected to it, but its in game, its not a massive monstrosity or a very bright rolerskate. Turned out I had one too many directories in the .QC so it was looking for its texture in a file bellow where i put it.

Thanks for the help

It'll be a while before I can release it, at nearly 12,000 triangles, its going to be a wee bit too heavy for a proformance. (infact, what sort of poly count should I be aiming to keep it under? I asume a couple of thousand at most?)

Ill work on a lower polly count version as soon as ive got a few last issues with the import process ironed out. those pesky physics boxes for instance. (any ideas, i did export the physics layer from maya)

Also, should I be making a bumpmap with this sort of model, it doesnt seem like it needs it though it would possible help with the smaller details (which have lifted my poly count so much (the metal support strips on the side of the cart for instanse)

Ok, daft question, but I know these things can sometimes upset it. I was just looking at my maya file and noticed although I had a physics layer it was hidden ("V" toggled off). I dont remember if I had revealed if for the compiling process, if it wasnt, would that effect it?

I need to re-import the model into TF2 anyway so its not a big deal (I followed a HL2 guide rigidly to make sure it worked)

Ill try get it bellow 2k I think, in the past i've tried to make objects out of as few polygon cubes as possible, so in this case, all of the container part of the cart is one objects, then the bumpers, then the wheels (both duplicated) etc.

I was thinking of using bumps to make the steal support strips stand out rather than modeling them so pretty simple stuff.

Cheers

PS

$modelname "modelsrc/redcart.mdl"


$cdmaterials "models/redcart"



$scale 1

$surfaceprop "Wood_Plank"

$staticprop

$body "Body" "redcart"

$sequence idle "redcart_idle" loop fps 1

$collisionmodel "redcart_phy.smd"

{

$mass 50

$concave

}

Click to expand...

$collisionmodel is in there and its not "_phys" due to how "Prall" works.

Bit of an update, I started the export process from scratch, and noticed this.



So, am I right in saying the collision model is the physics box?

If so, it was definatly selected this time and on its physics layer, so I dont know why it wouldn't be exporting.

Any ideas?

Ok, I think I may be screwed :S

I found something about Prall not understand " " spaces in the directory paths and that it can cause issues. The bottom of this screenshot of script editor seems to agree, maybe. I have to say this stuff means basically nothing to me. Large blocks of text, especially ones which as far as I'm concerned arn't even english, are going to cause me grief.



I'm going to add my files onto a download link as a .zip (the texture and maya model), if anyone wouldn't mind having a go at compiling it for me, at least then I can eliminate my model as the cause of the issue. If I'm right about the directory spaces being an issue, then I basically need to reinstall everything I imagin. Unless some one knows a handy way of renaming c:\program files(86)\ directory?

I've managed to do as you sergested, and the new directory seems to be coming up with everything to do with Prall. Still no luck getting the physics model to export.

Infact I've taken a step back now, lost the texture.

Are the orange box tf2 studiomdl.exe and vtex.exe ok to use? or should I just stick with the HL2 ones and somehow move the model and texture over afterwards (how easy is it to move a prop from one game to another?)

I'm packing this in for the day, just going round in circles getting very frustrated.

I dont understand why the reference model will export but not the physics model. I've made a low poly physics box as like I've said, its insainly high poly count. I can't see anything wrong with the physics box but I cant think of much else, Prall is able to export the "reference" model so I dont see why it wouldn't be able to export the "physics", even with that command line space issue surely it wouldnt work atall if it was the problem.

Sorry to prattle on here, reserching a solution to this is proving pretty fruitless atm.

I might try exporting the reference layer as the physics as well, just incase it is something to do with the low poly physics box. I at least know that layer reference can escape maya but id rather not confine all the props i make to a map skybox.

Also found there was an updated version of Prall (bringing it to 2.6) im going to try get that working tomorrow, my attemts today haven't had much success.

Why can't this all be like playing with crayons or carboard boxes and sticky tape

Parhaps a little explanation, It may not be the cart, but that little colourful box does have a collision mesh

Now I just need to follow the same path again for the cart .

For those who are interrested, this guide http://www.northcapestudios.com/blog/?p=45 seems to be pretty good. though, I couldnt get their texture method to work, so i used the direct vtex.exe method, seemed to work fine.

I can't remember the last time I was this happy

I'll put the files up on here to replace the maya files asap, if you want to have a look.

Like I have said previously, the model is way to heavy poly wise to actually be used on a map.

Now time to make better lower poly versions