Introducing myself and pl_snail rail

[The301stSpartan]

Uhm, you could just redo the uv map to use the same material and texture.

problem is, I have no idea how to unwrap UVs in XSI.

Also you could have made that prop two separate quarter-circles, the larger of which could just be used twice. And that's still assuming the small one wasn't the same size as four 22.5-degree bends (or close enough for government work).

I will use those 22.5s if everyting else fails but I want to get this export thing down for later models that I can't download here.

 

[The301stSpartan]

I figured it out! I managed to bake the textures in C4D and get them into a mod tool material.
Nothing can stop me now!

 

[The301stSpartan]

Ok, except by the atrocious compiling process of the .smd. Valve, why?
I have the model ready and I installed this tool studiomdlGUI so I have something to click on. But when I load in my track model and use this default QC-file from the developer wiki

$modelname "props\myfirstmodel.mdl"
$body mybody "myfirstmodel-ref.smd"
$staticprop
$surfaceprop combine_metal
$cdmaterials "models\props"

$sequence idle "myfirstmodel-ref.smd"

$collisionmodel "myfirstmodel-phys.smd" { $concave }

The program goes apeshit and spits out so many error that it makes my PC freeze for a couple seconds.
Also I apparently need seperate "-ref" and "-phys" models? And what is the problem with concave shapes?
Oh and I DID edit "myfirstmodel.smd" and such to the actual name of my model.
This is horrible, I just want my model in hammer

 

[henke37]

You can skip the collision model for the tracks, valve did.

Just remember to mark them as non solid in hammer, otherwise you get console spam.

 

[The301stSpartan]

Thank you so much, i actually worked! my model is in hammer!
Now we face one last obstacle:

Why is it purple? The textures definately worked in XSI mod tool and it should have exported them into the .smd

Is there something I have to do while compiling? Do I have to put the textures in a specific folder or something?

EDIT: Also the model comes out too big. Can I re-scale it in hammer or do I actually have to change the size all the way back in XSI?

 

[Pocket]

Are you using the stock textures? If so, the references to material files in the QC should point to models\props_mining (I think that's it).

This being the first time I've ever paid much attention to the QC format, it's odd to me that it only stores the directory for the material files, and not the actual filename. I thought I remember reading somewhere that models with multiple skins use the QC file for their skin data, so how does that work exactly?

 

[The301stSpartan]

I thought the QC didn't store any information about textures but that is already packed into the .smd.
I was using the stock textures as a starting point long ago but the files aren't relevant anymore. Iwish I could simply use the default textures and put them on the right object, but I can't here, so what I did was extracting the default textures with gcfscape, modifying them in photoshop, loading them onto the models in C4D, changing UVs and stuff until it fits, then baking them seperately. This means I now have one rather huge UV map texture for all of the wood slabs and one for the rails. Then I imported both seperately into XSI and just textured them with the pics. Then I exported everything into .smd. Since XSI didn't ask me for any path to store textures seperately I can only think that they must be within the .smd.

Otherwise, I have no idea.

 

[henke37]

Hammer can not rescale models. It is an idiotic engine limitation.

 

[The301stSpartan]

Ok, I can resize that in XSI I hope. The bigger problem is the texture, I have no idea what's causing the problem so I don't know how to possibly fix it too. Can't really go on without help there.

 

[Pocket]

Hammer can not rescale models. It is an idiotic engine limitation.

I dunno. I've come to appreciate the fact that a certain object can only be the correct size for that kind of object to be, assuming they made it the correct size in the first place. I'd rather not have people randomly making things inconsistent sizes because, to their untrained eyes, the default size looks wrong. The only case where being able to freely resize a prop would actually come in handy, other than putting it into the skybox, is if you made it the wrong size to begin with and are trying to fix it in Hammer instead of fixing the model itself.

Also, Spartan, what do you mean when you say the textures "aren't relevant anymore"? They're used by all of the stock track pieces, as well as the community-made ones that were added to the game for Nightfall.

Granted, in hindsight I probably should have recommended importing and modifying one of the stock models in the first place instead of building one from scratch. I'm pretty sure that's how the Nightfall ones were made, and I imagine it makes the UV mapping a lot simpler.

 

[The301stSpartan]

Also, Spartan, what do you mean when you say the textures "aren't relevant anymore"? They're used by all of the stock track pieces, as well as the community-made ones that were added to the game for Nightfall.

Granted, in hindsight I probably should have recommended importing and modifying one of the stock models in the first place instead of building one from scratch. I'm pretty sure that's how the Nightfall ones were made, and I imagine it makes the UV mapping a lot simpler.

Nono, that's not how I meant it. What I meant was that the stock texture files are in no way relevant to fixing my texture problem as I have modified and re-saved them numerous times.

As for the model resizing, I would agree with you if the process of getting a model into hammer wasn't so obnoxious. Especially since I don't have any reference for C4D regarding the global size of the object (the proportions should be correct) so I will have to make reference screenshots of the oversized prop in hammer, then adjust it in C4D and go through all the hassle again.


-That, only when I know how to fix the textures though. So I help someone has an idea what could be causing this.

 

[The301stSpartan]

I should also note that all these modified texture files are clogging up my desktop right now and I cannot move them before I fixed it because then I would get errors trying to load the textures.


So this is really screwing me up in a variety of ways

 

[The301stSpartan]

No update in a long time!

I know how to re-scale stuff now, I think I nailed the size now more or less. But the texture problem remains and I have no idea how to solve it!

I really need your help here, I just cannot continue with the map without knowing how to fix this because I'm really going to make several custom props and this is important.

I converted my two texture images into .vtf and created the according .vmt files with VTFEdit. I placed the 4 files in a "mytextures" folder that I made in my tf/materials folder. I used the .vtf files in softimage mod tool to texture the model. Then I saved it all as .smd. Before I compiled it I made sure to redirect "material" in the qc-file to the "mytextures" folder. Then I compiled it and loaded it into hammer. Purple.

What am I missing? I'm doing something wrong but have no idea what.

HELP.

 

[The301stSpartan]

Mappers, pls. I want to continue the map

 

[GPuzzle]

I have no idea. But it is interesting.

 

[Seba]

Post your .vmt and .qc

 

[omegasupreme]

And the first 10-15 lines of your smd

 

[The301stSpartan]

There are two textures. Here the .vmts:

Metal rails texture:

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "mytextures/metallschienen"
"$surfaceprop" "Metal"
}

Wood planks texture:

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "mytextures/holzschienen"
"$surfaceprop" "Wood_Plank"
}

The .qc:

$modelname "props\grossekurve2.mdl"
$body mybody "kurve.smd"
$staticprop
$surfaceprop combine_metal
$cdmaterials ""C:\Program Files(x86)\Steam\SteamApps\teh301stspartan\team fortress 2\tf\materials\mytextures""

$sequence idle "kurve.smd"

Copypasted and edited from a default one from the developer wiki-because I have no idea what I am doing.


And all lines from the .smd that are not a wall of numbers:

version 1
nodes
0 "Sweep-NURBS_1" -1
1 "W_rfel_0_1" -1
end
skeleton
time 0
0 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.570796 -0.000000 0.000000
1 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 1.570796 -0.000000 0.000000
end
triangles
metallschienen.vtf

I guess something is wrong in these, I just have no idea what.

 

[omegasupreme]

You should probably put the textures in the materials/models/mytextures folder, rather than materials/mytextures. Assuming you do this, try these.

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "models/mytextures/metallschienen"
"$surfaceprop" "Metal"
}

"LightmappedGeneric"
{
"$basetexture" "models/mytextures/holzschienen"
"$surfaceprop" "Wood_Plank"
}

$modelname "props\grossekurve2.mdl"
$body mybody "kurve.smd"
$staticprop
$surfaceprop combine_metal
$cdmaterials "models\mytextures\"

$sequence idle "kurve.smd"

 

[Bloodhound]

For one of my old models it looked like this:

Spoiler

version 1
nodes
0 "static_prop" -1
end
skeleton
time 0
0 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
end
triangles
window001.bmp
0 3.999999 45.570690 30.380461 0.000000 0.000000 -1.000000 0.000000 -0.870072
...
...
end

Take a look at the nods.
You have some weired things there. But I got static_prop.

You can take a look at my source files here:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/54434157/textures/SwiftWindows_src.zip

You can also add me on Steam, I'm german too.