HEY ALL, HERE IS SOME TIPS ON MODELING:
1. WHEN YOU SAVE OUT OF SOLIDWORKS CHECK OUT THE OPTIONS BOX, YOU CAN ALTER THE DETAIL LEVEL THERE AND IT HAS A HUGE EFFECT ON THE NUMBERS OF POLYS OF THE SAVED STL.
2. THE LOWER THE POLYS THE BETTER, I WOULD RECOMEND A REASONABLE LIMIT OF 30,000 FOR EACH MESH. HOPEFULLY A LOT LESS.
3. ANYTHING THAT IS A COMPONENT THAT CAN BE USED AGAIN AND AGAIN SHOULD BE MODELED SEPERATELY, UT3 DEFINITELY LIKES MULTIPLE USE OF ONE STATIC MESH THAN MULTIPLE DIFFERENT ONES. THIS WILL PROBABLY EFFECT JULES' POLES.
4. KIMBERLEY, IT'S FINE (EVEN GOOD) THAT YOU ARE GOING OVERBOARD WITH THE STACK MODEL. LARGE ELEMENTS THAT ARE SUCH AN INTEGRAL PART OF THE SITE SHOULD HAVE MORE DETAIL.
5. SMALL, AND PERIPHERAL, THINGS CAN BE MODELED WITH LESS DETAIL.
6. AS JULES NOTES THERE REALLY IS NO POINT IN COMPILING ALL THE SOLIDWORKS PARTS TOGETHER IN AN ASSEMBLY AS THEY GET SAVED AS STL'S SEPERATLY ANYWAY. BRING THEM TOGETHER IN 3DSMAX.
5. YOU CAN OPTIMISE IN 3DSMAX, USING THE OPTIMISE MODIFIER, BUT THIS WILL REALLY ONLY HELP WITH CURVING SURFACES. ORTHOGONAL SURFACES WILL BE OPTIMISED WHEN SAVED OUT OF SOLIDWORKS AND ANY ATTEMPT TO OPTIMIZE THEM FURTHER WILL ALTER THE GEOMETRY...POSSIBLY SIGNIFICANTLY. HOTKEY "7" WILL GIVE A POLY COUNT.
6. REMINDER OF THE EXPORT > IMPORT PROCESS
A) IN SOLIDWORKS BEFORE YOU SAVE CHANGE THE UNITS TO INCHES
B) SAVE AS *.STL FROM SOLIDWORKS (TRY ALTERING DETAIL SETTINGS UNDER OPTIONS)
B) IMPORT INTO 3DSMAX AND MAKE MINOR SCALE ADJUSTMENTS AS NECESSARY. SCLAE AGAINST A BOX 90 x 50 x 35.
C) CREATE A MATERIAL BY ASSIGNING A TEXTURE (USE A UT3 COMPATIBLE TEXTURE, I RECOMEND ONE OF YOU CREATE A CHECKER TEXTURE 512 x 512 THAT YOU CAN ALL USE. THIS WILL HELP YOU TO SEE THE LEVEL OF DETAIL IN THE TEXTURE ON YOUR OBJECT i.e. IT'S EASIER TO SEE THE UV's WHEN IT'S NOT AN HOMOGONOUS TEXTURE, LIKE YOUR BOXBOARD IDEA) TO THE DIFUSE COLOUR CHANEL OF A STANDARD MATERIAL.
D) ASSIGN THE MATERIAL TO THE WHOLE OBJECT (I'M RECOMENDING A SIMPLE MODEL WITH JUST ONE MATERIAL AS A GOOD STARTING POINT).
E) CHECK SHOW MATERIAL IN VIEWPORT IN THE MATERIAL EDITOR (HOTKEY = M TO OPEN THE MATERIAL EDITOR)
F) APPLY A UVW MODIFIER. ADJUST TO SUIT.
G) BRING TO A BOIL. KIDDING.
H) EXPORT AS A *.ASCii FILE. CHECK BOXES TOP LEFT 2, BOTTOM LEFT 2, MIDDLE TOP 1.
I) IMPORT TO UT3. GENERIC BROWSER > FILE > IMPORT.
J) OPEN IN STATIC MESH BROWSER. UNDER "LOD" UNCHECK ALL COLLISION TYPES EXCEPT "SIMPLE LINE COLLISION". WE MIGHT MAKE COLLISION BOXES LATER IF THIS LEVEL OF COLLISION (THE HIGHEST) GET TOO MUCH FOR OUR COMPUTERS TO HANDLE IN GAME.
K) ASSIGN YOUR "BOXBOARD" MATERIAL TO THE MATERIAL SLOT.
DONE
LEAVE QUESTIONS AND TIPS FOR MODELING IN THE COMMENTS
Brochure Design
14 years ago
4 comments:
I have been experimenting further with my poles:
Russell there is a few benefits of composing an assembly in solidworks,
It saves all the stl files with references to their position so you dont need to worry about moving them around in max, just scaling them all together.
It's just a question of what program you'd rather use to postion the parts, i preferred solidworks as i had the ggogle earth image in a flat view (not perspective) visible to position from.
However an assembly that contains assemblies doesn't work perfectly, the traffic light for example was a part that i combined with a series of poles to make assemblies that i then combined with the overall assembly of the site. When exporting as an stl file it only recognised the big site assembly of parts and didn't include any of the assemblies within this assembly (hope you're following that). It required making the indivual poles parts in their own right, which was a bit of a hassle
I did a few tests on importing static meshes to UT3.
It basically tops out at about 60000-65000 trianles taking about 10 minutes for around 65000 triangles.
I graphed about 10 timed results from my 3d max model of poles deleting 5 poles each time. The graph (which i will try to post somewhere) shows pretty much an exponential curve that can't reach 70000 triangles.
This was demonstrated in the timed session with an hour and a half going by without any result on the meshes with many triangles.
These results are on the lab 2 computers and they have provided a fairly consistant guide since.
QUESTION
Is it better to create a static mesh that contains all the poles or to have each as a separate static mesh.
Both have advantages and disadvantages.
ONE BIG STATIC MESH
Advantages:
Easier to make
Don't need to move the poles around again inside UT3
Gets around the problem Russell mentions of UT3 liking one static mesh repeated rather than lots of separate meshes as there will no longer be lots of static meshes.
Disadvantages:
Any large static mesh plays havoc on lighting and rendering as it is always visible and many lights touch it, which is bad
Less flexibility for moving and assigning materials or altering colissions.
LOTS OF INDIVIDUAL STATIC MESHES
Advantages:
oodles of flexibility, materials scaling, collisions, etc can be done as required on each pole
Disadvantages:
Will require me to move each one to the origin in max and save out as an ASE file
Will require them to be moved in UT3.
I'm thinking lots of separate static meshes is best, any thoughts?
TIP
Transferring files from solidworks to 3d Max
If you've changed units to inches it appears you need to scale up the object in Max by 125%
If you haven't changed units to inches in solidworks you need to scale down the object in max to 5%
Seems odd but it works
Both methods achieve almost exactly the same size. You could figure out exactly what factor to scale by to achieve exactly the right sizes but i kept it at round figures
Post a Comment