Offset Rendering

[Diggis]

OK, after making some mistakes I have reached the following conclusions: (bear in mind I am able to reach tall conclusions in a single bound)

1. The size of the blue box in LE is the extents of the LODS? So if you had a custom LOD it will be big enough to cover the max extents of the LODs.

2. The blue box is centred on the 0,0 point of your model regardless of where the actual model is?

3. The LODs and Model can be outside the blue box and will show up the same distance from the centre of the blue box as they are from 0,0 in BAT?

Edit: Fixed typo: Thanks nate

[wouanagaine]

1 => yes
2 => yes
3 => yes

[RippleJet]

Wouanagaine offered the short answers...

1. The size of the blue box in LE is the extents of the LODS? So if you had a custom LOD it will be big enough to cover the max extents of the LODs.

The size of the blue box comes from the Occupant Size property in the building/prop exemplar.
The Occupant Size in turn comes from the extreme coordinates of the LOD box.

After the building or prop has been placed in the lot, the connection is broken though.
The size of the blue box is copied into the LotConfigPropertyLotObject reps.

Changing the Occupant Size after this won't change the blue box, but might cause the Immortal Lot Syndrome if the Occupant Size is increased.

2. The blue box is centred on the 0,0 point of your model regardless of where the actual model is?

Exactly!

3. The LODs and Model can be outside the blue box and will show up the same distance from the centre of the blue box as they are from 0,0 in BAT?

When rendered offset in BAT, the width and depth of the model won't change.
Thus, the occupant size in the building/prop exemplar will be unchanged, regardless of the offset distance.
And consequently, the size of the blue box in the LotConfig exemplar will also stay the same, and not be offset.

[Diggis]

1 => yes
2 => yes
3 => yes

Ta

Wouanagaine offered the short answers...


The size of the blue box comes from the Occupant Size property in the building/prop exemplar.
The Occupant Size in turn comes from the extreme coordinates of the LOD box.

After the building or prop has been placed in the lot, the connection is broken though.
The size of the blue box is copied into the LotConfigPropertyLotObject reps.

Changing the Occupant Size after this won't change the blue box, but might cause the Immortal Lot Syndrome if the Occupant Size is increased.

Oh, I didn't plan on messing with this!  I was just drawing a line through my conclusions.

[wouanagaine]

Check the place you know, I've put pic related to that

[Dark_horse_spirit]

Anyone,

Here is my problem with the blue box, my blue box(lods1,2,3) are way to large for my model, hence when I render the model it shows up in Lot editor as a huge blue box, Eg...I have a 1x1 house, the footprint(bluebox)is a 2x4, I could see the 2 but the 4 is rediculous, this means that I have to open a 3x4or a 4x4 to be able to load my model. I would not normaly care but this makes it hard for growable lots as overhanging blue boxes don't seem to grow, if they do I havn't seen it. I know that the size of the blue box in GMAX can be changed because the same model or same size model will render with a perfect blue box. Where is the console for correcting this. Do I have to change the size of all lods, seems like alot of work.

DHS

[cogeo]

Are the LODs custom?

If not (and they are actually a remain of an older BAT, or a previous state of your BAT), go to the BAT tab and click Refit LODs. This will re-create the LODs (as simple boxes); they will have the minimum size completely encompassing all objects of your scene. If they are custom, well, then there are just wrongly-made (much bigger than needed).

If the LODs are OK (just encompassing the scene's objects) the problem lies in the building/prop exempar (property Occupant Size) and it would be best to re-create the exemplar, using the LE.

But this doesn't have to do with offset rendering, I think...

[Dark_horse_spirit]

If any one is interested in what I did here it is, I opened up Reader and my batt for the model, I then went into Occupant size, I changed the dimensions from here and saved the new changes, opened up lot editor and voila, the changes were made. Pretty straight foreward, I hope that this helps someone else.

DHS

[cogeo]

Hmmm, you may also want to check the actual LODs (the ones in the scene) too. If they are much larger than the model, you may have graphical glitches, like not being able to place props close, or obscuring the automata passing on the road, just to mention a few.

[Dark_horse_spirit]

For some reason my GMAX makes huge lods, but not on all models, I tried resizing the loads a few months back but the model did not render properly with advanced lodding, But the model does render nicely with auto lodding,, just that the boxes are huge. I am hoping that by resizing in the reader will also effect the model,yes,no?

[cogeo]

No!

The actual 3D model rendered ingame is the LODshell; all objects of the scene are projected on the faces of the LODshell.

So by editing the Occupant Size property will make the bule rectangle smaller, but the actual 3D model will still be large.

If you are getting large LODs with autolodding, there is probably something you have "forgotten" in the scene, maybe some nightlights grouped together with non-light object or (invisible) splines.

If you can send me the BAT at my email account (it should be visible in my profile) I could take a look.

[Dark_horse_spirit]

I highlighted everything around the building but nothing showed up, how do I send you the file?

[cogeo]

Click on the envelope under my avatar.
In the email attach a zipfile containing the BAT (.gmax) and its textures.
Or use a file transfer service (mediafire, fileden etc).

[Dark_horse_spirit]

I'm sending the file through your yahoo mail, since it isn't very large I didn't bother compressing it.