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Old 26th October 2009, 04:16 PM   #1
SignGuy169
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Default "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch

As a newb who has to learn another 3D app quickly - in midst of working on a game with others and some oddball calamity befell my regular program, which is not to imply AC3D is second fiddle to something else - could someone tell me why AC3D seems to not save textures upon reopening a file even tho' its help file says it does? It does save all this w/imported models, oddly. (Have my share of messes on this PC, drivers-hardware related and early on had to Del the prefs file before I could get AC3D to open and run so the above may/may not have to do with the app per se. I also notice sometimes opening the help file, causes the app to crash)?

If I save a file right before exiting - why does the app ask right away if I want to save the unsaved changes? If I just saved it, uh...

If there's no provision for this in AC3D, is there a workaround to do this: I must be able to set ambient color of assigned textures to 1 (before making an Ogre mesh). How can I do that?

And in using AC3D to make models and then Ogre meshes, anyone know if one should (or must) triangulate all faces before sending it out as Ogre mesh? I did when trying small test mesh, and triangulation worked fine of course - but, does one have to - do you know?

Here and there I found I could Select all, but not Group things: was this perhaps because items may have been locked?

Looks like cool app overall; floundered about (in a new app) a few hours, and actually got some posts, walls and floors made already. And too, if I can get the hang of this, cut down travel
through apps I had until recently, and not convert this and that which can cause problems, this will be really great). ;-)

Many thanks, from newb-dummy on the block. (And what's a Greeble - is that the word)?

Best, (SignGuy169) Pat
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Old 27th October 2009, 04:53 PM   #2
lisa
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Default Re: "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch

Quote:
Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
ould someone tell me why AC3D seems to not save textures upon reopening a file even tho' its help file says it does?
Make sure you don't have spaces in the folder/file name. Something that causes troubles.

Also, try putting the textures in the same folder as the model.

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Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
If I save a file right before exiting - why does the app ask right away if I want to save the unsaved changes? If I just saved it, uh...
I don't know. I always just save it again anyway because I'm paranoid about my files. :-)

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Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
If there's no provision for this in AC3D, is there a workaround to do this: I must be able to set ambient color of assigned textures to 1 (before making an Ogre mesh). How can I do that?

And in using AC3D to make models and then Ogre meshes, anyone know if one should (or must) triangulate all faces before sending it out as Ogre mesh? I did when trying small test mesh, and triangulation worked fine of course - but, does one have to - do you know?
I'm not sure about Ogre in specific, but most game engines are happiest with triangulated faces. Practically all of them triangulate the model before it gets sent to the video card anyway due to how the video hardware works.

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And what's a Greeble - is that the word?
Greebles and nurnies are all the bits of senseless detail that cover sci-fi spacecraft and futuristic cities that give them character. Think of all the hoses, ductwork, odd panels, radar dishes and other parts that coat the surface of the Death Star or a Borg ship. All that collective stuff is referred to as "greebles".

The greeble tool lets you quickly add all that stuff to your model. By default, it creates rectangular/panel-like greebles, but you can tag any model to be used as a greeble by putting //CUSTOM_GREEBLE in the object properties of a mesh and enabling custom greebles in the dialog.

It's very handy for making sci-fi stuff, but the greeble tool can be used for other things, too. For example, you can make a pile of leaves or stones by making a leaf or stone greeble, then applying the greeble tool to a model of a smooth pile. Saves a ton of time over placing stacks of leaves by hand.
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Old 29th October 2009, 12:29 AM   #3
SignGuy169
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Default Re: "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch

Lisa;

Many thanks for your kind reply, and information; people like you helping others truly make or break a forum. "Ya' done good," Kiddo. ;-) As you stated, when I moved all files to the same DIR, AC3D of course opened the model w/textures showing. All's well now.

Let me ask this, if I may: as mentioned in my last post I made part of a model - 6 timbers, 4 walls, and 2 floors. (If AC3D in next ver. addresses things so one can adjust ambient
setting of texture, that I must have for an Ogre mesh, I could do all of what I need in one app which would be great; did try to just edit ambient setting in .mtl file of Ogre mesh, which may or may not work). But, thought I'd export objects I made to another app to adjust texture's ambient setting to see how that went. In this case as I exported each item in turn I later found that each .mtl file as exported from AC3D for an object described all textures in my mini-model; odd, as I had never seen that before in other apps.

Stranger still, when I started to import the 1st AC3D object (into Silo), I got the whole model; no matter what I opened - a timber, or wall, etc., - still got the whole model. Have never seen that happen before - dunno' if this is AC3D, or Silo, that causes this.

Finally... if I won't try your patience: fun part of new apps is "dorking around" to get a sense of things, imo. And with first attempts at subtraction, I end up with an object that has some
blank default color on some faces, not the texture in those few areas; even tried adding texture after subtraction process, and still got the same look. I did something wrong, I assume?

What is "a sense of" scale in AC3D? Some things seem small, brought into AC3D, but may seem real-sized, in other apps. Did see nos. in upper right, showing dimensions of wall, floor, etc. within AC3D which of course helps.

Some ideas on the above, Lisa, where I perhaps messed things up?

====

* Had posted earlier note here on AC3D/Ogre mesh exporter, and a long note "Models - collapsing?" on this at Ogre forum; I wonder if AC3D or another app that anyone is aware of may tell me about what went wrong with things lately when I ran into a mess/mesh... wherein (mostly) furniture items in a model went bad, were flattened and stretched like rubber bands or salt-water taffy. Oddly, had used some of those items before, and things worked fine. In one case, put in 1 chair and Ogre
mesh was fine, but when copying chair to other positions around a table, the other chairs would collapse or possibly cause other things to cave in... that had been fine when last seen as an Ogre
mesh. I would dearly love to feed my brain, with an answer, to that question if any pros here have thoughts on that.

Many thanks to you, again.
Best,(SignGuy169) Pat
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Old 29th October 2009, 07:38 PM   #4
lisa
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Default Re: "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch

Happy to help.

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Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
Let me ask this, if I may: as mentioned in my last post I made part of a model - 6 timbers, 4 walls, and 2 floors. (If AC3D in next ver. addresses things so one can adjust ambient
setting of texture, that I must have for an Ogre mesh, I could do all of what I need in one app which would be great; did try to just edit ambient setting in .mtl file of Ogre mesh, which may or may not work). But, thought I'd export objects I made to another app to adjust texture's ambient setting to see how that went. In this case as I exported each item in turn I later found that each .mtl file as exported from AC3D for an object described all textures in my mini-model; odd, as I had never seen that before in other apps.

Stranger still, when I started to import the 1st AC3D object (into Silo), I got the whole model; no matter what I opened - a timber, or wall, etc., - still got the whole model. Have never seen that happen before - dunno' if this is AC3D, or Silo, that causes this.
Ohh... do you mean the *material* ambient color? I thought you meant something else. You can right-click on the materials palette in AC3D to edit the material settings. This will open a dialog with a a slider that will let you set the ambient color.

.mlt ... are you using .obj files as your go-between? If so, if you poke around in the AC3D main settings. File > Settings, and go to the Files tab, there's some settings that will let you tweak how AC3D groups the objects and textures in the file.

There's also a poser export plugin for AC3D that exports yet-another-flavor of obj file.
http://www.independentdeveloper.com/...n-poser-export

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Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
Finally... if I won't try your patience: fun part of new apps is "dorking around" to get a sense of things, imo. And with first attempts at subtraction, I end up with an object that has some
blank default color on some faces, not the texture in those few areas; even tried adding texture after subtraction process, and still got the same look. I did something wrong, I assume?
Did you set your texture coordinates in the TCE? Sometimes new objects have all the coordinates jammed into the lower left corner depending on how they are made. You'll need to map the surfaces with the texture coordinate editor on the "tools" menu to make it right.

Also, if you have bad surfaces normals sometimes the surface will turn completely black. You can flip the normals and/or re-order the vertices from the surfaces menu. This will generally resolve it. The surface might also be degenerate... try triangulating it, or optimizing the vertices and surfaces from the object menu. This also fixes many problems.

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Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
What is "a sense of" scale in AC3D? Some things seem small, brought into AC3D, but may seem real-sized, in other apps. Did see nos. in upper right, showing dimensions of wall, floor, etc. within AC3D which of course helps.
AC3D's units are arbitrary. 1 unit = 1 whatever you want it to be. Most games use feet or meters, so a lot of people treat them as feet or meters.

There's a small arrow to the left of the "size" and "move" tools in the sidebar. If you click the arrow button, it will put the current size or position in the respective box next to the arrow.
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Old 29th October 2009, 11:24 PM   #5
SignGuy169
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Default Re: "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch

Lisa;

THANK YOU. ;-)

You're a most helpful person, as a newb thrashes about, when faced with a new app.

From what you say it sounds as though I can do it all in AC3D. That cuts out using 1-2 other apps (& going thru' several apps may've caused troubles that I ran into). Now, if I learn/use only AC3D, it could be The Holy Grail for what I need.

As I make mostly houses-buildings-furniture for the game that I am working on - I now have to learn the "how-to," in AC3D.
====
Lisa - you zoomed to top of "my xmas card list," for being such a gracious help.
====
* Will try to not peck you to death, with too many questions; did find/get most tuts here on how to make things.
Now, I must be the lowly student again. LOL!

As one who recalls manuals, read them, liked them... would love to find just text info w/illustrations - "to do this, do this," etc. Will have to do a search on this, find all that I can to learn AC3D.

Many thanks again, to you Lisa.
Regards, SignGuy169 (Pat)
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Old 31st October 2009, 06:08 AM   #6
SignGuy169
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Default Re: "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch



Lisa;

Perhaps I should rephrase 1 query so we don't talk at cross-purposes re ambient setting for textures (or materials if so termed that in AC3D).

Yes, I did find setting for new materials and ambient setting that you spoke of - thanks - but not sure if applicable in this instance as I am using existing textures.

1) If (for example) you create a cube, slap a texture (like wood or stone) on it, export it as an Ogre mesh & then open the material file for the mesh you just made in Notepad, what I need for making Ogre models that I really hope can be done within AC3D, should read like the below item, describing in this case an item brought in from another 3D app wherein I could readily adjust ambient setting on this texture - for a window frame, in this example.

ambient 1 1 1 0.996078
diffuse 0.737255 0.737255 0.737255 0.996078
scene_blend alpha_blend
alpha_rejection greater 0
cull_hardware none
cull_software none
texture_unit
{
texture BROD3.JPG 2147483647


But in AC3D if I texture an item, use it as part of the same mesh, the material file for that item/texture reads:

specular 0.2 0.2 0.2 1 128
alpha_rejection greater 0
cull_hardware none
cull_software none
texture_unit
{
texture SG44.JPG 2147483647

You can readily see the difference, and The Big Question (for me) is: can I within AC3D get ambient setting of the texture itself (wood/stone/what have you), cranked up to 1? "Brightness" of a texture really is key here & what I'm after. IF I can do this in AC3D, I'll be a True Believer, I promise. ;-)

2) Re booleans, textures: again, I am doubtless doing this wrong I hope, as if AC3D always or often disturbs a texure on something when performing booleans, then the app has it wrong *** and I am not taking potshots at AC3D but if my very old truSpace can do this with no sweat, I have to assume that AC3D a much newer app can do it too and hence, I assume dipstick newbie here still has the technique wrong.

If I make a cube, I then select Poly, Flat, 2S; do a normal Subtract operation... and then I find usually that the texture's messed up. Have even tried several choices re Booleans, in case I was going at things sideways (and trust me, it wouldn't be the first or last time that I gaffed).

I did get a basic fireplace, primitive chair made, but gave up on Booleans and just Grouped the items together in order to keep textures intact.

3) Scale: ah, still bit lost here. Did find arrows you spoke of near Size, Move operations. And you said, correctly about the normal gaming scale used, and hitherto (in The Other 3D App) I had set World Scale to metres and Ojbect Scale to Feet or I could easily flip over to check something in Inches, if making small items. So, if 1 is 1 whatever I want as you prev. said... is there just a permanent "sense of" scale that I can set in AC3D, and forget about it thereafter?

*** OK -- very sorry about all the idiot questions all at once, but if you can help - thanks, and I will cook and clean for you, whatever you like, to get some help for The New Kid. LOL!

Many, many, many thanks,
SignGuy169 (Pat)
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Old 2nd November 2009, 04:49 PM   #7
lisa
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Default Re: "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch

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1) IYou can readily see the difference, and The Big Question (for me) is: can I within AC3D get ambient setting of the texture itself (wood/stone/what have you), cranked up to 1? "Brightness" of a texture really is key here & what I'm after. IF I can do this in AC3D, I'll be a True Believer, I promise. ;-)
To clarify again... are you using the Orge mesh exporter, or an OBJ exporter?

If it's Ogre mesh directly, I don't know enough about that exporter to answer the question.

If you're using OBJ, try this exporter instead of the built-in:
http://www.independentdeveloper.com/...n-poser-export

Quote:
Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
2) Re booleans, textures: again, I am doubtless doing this wrong I hope, as if AC3D always or often disturbs a texure on something when performing booleans, then the app has it wrong *** and I am not taking potshots at AC3D but if my very old truSpace can do this with no sweat, I have to assume that AC3D a much newer app can do it too and hence, I assume dipstick newbie here still has the technique wrong.
AC3D does, indeed, have trouble with booleans sometimes. There are a few things you can do to improve it, such as avoiding coincident vertices, but most people on the forums seem to avoid them in general.

There's an alternate knife tool you can download from supercoldmilk.com that's pretty good for cutting holes. Most other boolean operations can be worked around with merge, weld and create ordered surface.

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Originally Posted by SignGuy169 View Post
3) Scale: ah, still bit lost here. Did find arrows you spoke of near Size, Move operations. And you said, correctly about the normal gaming scale used, and hitherto (in The Other 3D App) I had set World Scale to metres and Ojbect Scale to Feet or I could easily flip over to check something in Inches, if making small items. So, if 1 is 1 whatever I want as you prev. said... is there just a permanent "sense of" scale that I can set in AC3D, and forget about it thereafter?
Hmm. Perhaps it would be more clear to say that AC3D is "scaleless". A unit is whatever you are inclined to say it is, there is no specific settings for feet/meters/etc.
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Old 3rd November 2009, 10:33 AM   #8
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Default Re: "New kid, in town..." at the AC3D ranch

Lisa,

Thanks again for your reply.

Am using AC3D Ogre mesh exporter; but leave that aside for now: I'd try to do everything in AC3D (rather than using several apps as I had done) if possible; that depends... the big question is, after assigning a texture to an item, can I or can I not within AC3D then set that texture's ambient setting to 1? Gotta' have that for Ogre meshes, else a model's too dark - almost black, actually.

Thanks, SignGuy169 (Pat)
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