mrbisonm needs help with gmax

[mrbisonm]

Sorry I fogot to mention, yes,  just the posts in the water, no brown line or anything else. You know like an old wooden quay rottening slowly away.

[callagrafx]

Couple of things...are the LODs skin tight to the meshes?  Also, is this a prop on an invisible LOT?  Try making it so the prop is offset with the 1x1 LOT on land, so any foundation is hidden.

[mrbisonm]

This is a lot with deleted groundtextures, yes, and it is not a prop, but a building and it is on a 4x5 lot, one tile water on one end and one tile ground on the other. I have done similar lots and they all work like this, why not this one?

[BarbyW]

This really would work best as Callagrafx suggested - an overhanging prop on a 1x1 lot. I suspect the problem is with the foundation showing as I am not sure you can ever completely get rid of a building foundation. I am not sure what other lots you have done this way but that would be the solution for this.

[mrbisonm]

Maybe you're right BarbyW, maybe I don't have another choice than to use an overhanging prop.
Here's the other one I did the same way as the last and all seem to be ok on this one.



I will see what I can do later tonight. Thanks


mrb

[Diggis]

Looks like this thread is steering away from being just about Gmax.  Maybe you should just remove the 'with gmax' off? 

Hope you sort this out.  Waaayyy out of my area.

[Pat]

Mr B looking real sweet there and Im glad you are getting a lot of great help!!! BTW what other languages do you speak?

[jmyers2043]

Hello MrB

At the risk of telling you something that you may already know. And I'm not sure how you did yours. But this is how I did these test pilings. I should also say that I have gmax.

1. Create a piling. Made mine .5 radius and 30 meters deep. Skinned it with a brown material.
2. Clicked refit LODs and then deleted LODs 4 and 5
3. Grouped the LOD and piling together.
4. Save as something.
5. Open a new project and merge the above. I then offset it by -18 meters (experiment a little). I then used the array tool to the desired length. Ungrouped them.
6.Save as something.
7.Open a new project. Merge the above and select only the pilings. Save as something (like NEXISPilings)
8.Open a new project. Merge the previous and select only the LODs. Now the question is what to do with all those LODs. Find LOD three. Click the edit mesh tool. Then click on the attach list button. Select all that is on the list. Now you now have a single LOD3.
9.Save as something (like PilingsLOD)
10. Start a new project. Merge NEXISPilings, save as something.
11. Merge PilingsLOD. Clone LOD3 as LOD4 and LOD5.
12. Export.




As you can see, the pilings are an offset prop. (18 meters). I did a quick test lot and placed the lot next to the shore, and then 1 and 2 game tiles away from the shore.



The rest is PIM, LE, and ILive.

Hope this helps. 

[mrbisonm]

Diggis, I think we generally still stick to gmax....lol.....
Pat my languages spoken written and understood are: German, French, Swedish English, Mohawk, Abenaki and Dutch, then I also understand more or less Spanish, italian and some Latin if I may call it a language. But the language spoken most is German and French......Why do want to know? ....if I may ask.

jmyers2043 , I will try that for sure, although it sounds a bit complicated. (I thought that there were only 3 LOD's....hm?) Right now I am too darn busy to do some experimenting with gmax, but I surely will this coming weekend, make sure you'll drop back in then. Hey, Thanks for the help everyone.......now I got something to work with and maybe get those sunken posts working.

mrb

[callagrafx]

If you read JMyers steps closely, you will see that step 14 is where he merges all the LOD elements together to make one LOD object, renamed LOD3.  This is a very well written step by step guide and if you follow it step by step it will produce the results you want.

[jmyers2043]

Ah - Thanks Cal... Let me clarify as well. 

First phase I made a piling and a single LOD. Grouped them together.

Next phase I arrayed the above group. Thus creating 10 pilings and ten LOD's.

Hence the need to use the attach mesh. Combining all the LOD's into a single object called LOD3. By the way, The array tool will rename that first LOD3 into LOD01, LOD02, and so on.

I wouldn't say it's difficult but one does have to be a bit organized in their thoughts. I find that file naming is critical for me to keep things straight. Such as:

Click save as "a_piling_with_LOD.gmax"

Click save as "pilings_no_LODs.gmax"

Click save as "pilings_LOD.gmax"

[Pat]

English is only my fourth language, therefore I have some problems explaining things in details and/or understand *professional* words. But this is the best that I can explain what I would like:
I want to be able to choose all of them (the posts standing up vertically) and then make them all longer of 1.2 meters at the same time in one shot. Is that possible or not?
That should be simple and clear enough as a question. Is there a simple and clear answer for this?

Well Mr B based on that qoute there I thought you do so well with english and that gotten me intrigued with how many other languages you do speak...  Sorta like curosity killed the cat...  Ive been watching you working @ ST and also asking question here Mr B and I comend you for doing something I can't even do is touch BAT....

[mrbisonm]

I guess I still have a lot to learn about the LOD's, sound more complicated than I thought. Thanks for the help jmyers2043 and  callagrafx . I will experiment with what I learned now and hopefully will be able to solve that problem. One thing though, the foundation is still to be seen although I completely deleted the retaining wall and foundation in LE. How's that possible?

Pat, learning a language for some is difficult and for others easy and I think I was blessed with it, since it just came naturally and very easy.  Like I said, english is my fourth language and only spoken here (on the net) and when I go tanking in the US (New Hampshire) only about 5 miles from where I live. Of course in business I sometimes use the english language also.

mrb

[RippleJet]

my languages spoken written and understood are: German, French, Swedish English, Mohawk, Abenaki and Dutch, then I also understand more or less Spanish, italian and some Latin if I may call it a language.

Kom och hälsa på oss här då!

Come visit us where we speak Swenglish as well!

[sam]

While doing everything as supposed to in the gmax and the LE, the lot does not come out as all the others I did that way.
It is a ploppable land/water lot 1x5 that I deleted the textures,  and it is showing somethin as a foundation everytime I render or redo it in the LE. I even deleted the foundation and the retaining walls in the LE and still this brown line is showing.
Does anyone know what can be done?
I have done it exactly like all the others, while they came out just fine......

Thanks

If you are using your model as a building, and if you haven't already done so, try setting the building foundation  in the building exemplar to the invisible foundation (make sure the first rep is set to 0x194B1000). If the foundation is not present or 0x0000000 then the foundation will default to the red brick, which you dont' want.

You can sometimes get away without doing this if you use the lot on water tiles only, but as soon as you use the lot on transitional tiles you will get a foundation unless you specifically set the building foundation to 0x194B1000.

[mrbisonm]

RippleJet , thanks for the invitation, I might drop in later and leave a message.

sam, that sounds good and simple, will try it it first when I get back to the drawing board. I am offline right now for a few days, taking profit of the beautiful weather we have right now here and enjoy the outdoors for a few days....................be back soon.
Thanks

Fred/mrb

[mrbisonm]

Thanks to you all I was able to work out the last problem of the posts showing a foundation when rendered. Thank you all.

Now I have another problem, well,...... not really a problem but more like not knowing how to........
I am working right now on a model, the skywalk of the Grand Canyon, and I can't seem to find a darn way to make the U-shaped ramp, frame and glassfence. Nor I couldn't find any info on it.
Could someone please point out how to create a U-shape model and lead me on the right way? I know it must quite easy, but I just can't figure it out.

(oh, and I just learned how to make things transparent....lol)

Thanks,
        Fred/ mrb



Edit: I just wanted to show to what point I got before I blocked. This I have done with the Textletter *U*, then extruded to the height I wanted and then played with boolean a lot to get it to this shape. But there must be an easier way I am sure, because this took me nearly an hour to do and it doesn't come out as good as I wanted.......now the part where I got stuck is the sideglass and the rail (pipe)



Thanks

[mightygoose]

make a cross section of all the parts of the walkway then create a spline that follows the path of the U, select each cross sectional element in turn and then select the loft modifier, then click the get path and click on the large U, repeat for all elements and that should give you the basics of what you want.

[Pat]

Hey Fred that is looking real good there!!! I've done a yahoo search and here [linkie] I hope those work out for you on the photo's.... Also Fred found Some more pics [linkie]....

[callagrafx]

make a cross section of all the parts of the walkway then create a spline that follows the path of the U, select each cross sectional element in turn and then select the loft modifier, then click the get path and click on the large U, repeat for all elements and that should give you the basics of what you want.

"Get Path" is hit and miss at the best of times...select the path, choose "move" and then "get shape"