problem with convertxsi, Softimage and 3dMax plugin

from Sins Forums

ok time to get some help. Major stress and i have been trying to get one of our ships ingame and look properly. Now i figured out that you can use softimage to save the format to xsi format by using either dotxsi or using croswalk to export it to xsi format. But i gotta tell ya, neither work. First off softimage is rather complicated to just plugin textures. Took me a few our but i finally got some of it worked out. I also don't understand why if there's only 1 material it imports 25-30 of them. Converting with convertxsi is bad in both all sorts of misc errors, most of them texture errors.

the 3dmax plugin however seems to work better, a lot less errors, but i did manage to only get texture errors. Once you get these errors the rest of the mesh file halts to write, so what are we missing here? alittle help please

modding
6,513 views 5 replies
Reply #1 from Sins Forums Top
The thing is if you dont know softimage you are just fumbling around and accomplishing nothing.

I have asked the dev's for a walkthrough in setting up a mesh made in 3dsmax already uv mapped for softimage export to xsi. I think if we get that much of our problems will be solved.
Reply #2 from Sins Forums Top
1. If you have only one material to export, remove all other materials from the material manager. Press Ctrl-7 and delete all but the material you use for the model.

2. Crosswalk does not work with the converter. Use dotXSI.

3. Remember to assign tangents to the mesh.

4. If you are getting invalid poly errors, SoaSE works only with quads and triangles. Though I managed to import models using 5+ sided polygons without much issue, but maybe I just didn't see some geometry error despite close-up inspection.
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Reply #3 from Sins Forums Top
What texture problems are you having with the 3ds Max script?
From the first post it sounds like the problems are whilst exporting rather than ingame, and the only error i have seen whilst exporting is related to not having all 3 textures setup, which is rectified by pointing them to "black-da.dds" until you have created the texture in question.

Reply #4 from Sins Forums Top
this is the problem convert spits out after using dotxsi



C:\ConvertXSI>Convertxsi Sovereign.xsi Sovereign.mesh
Ignoring unknown material type (24): DefaultLib.Scene_Material
Valid Material not found for PolygonList: DefaultLib.Scene_Material
Bounding Information Calculated - Radius:-1.00
Optimizing...
Pre-Optimization Vertex Count = 0
Post-Optimization Vertex Count = 0


This is what i get using the 3dmax plugin


C:\ConvertXSI>convertxsi Sovereign3.xsi Sovereign3.mesh
Ignoring unknown material type (24): Scene_Root
Ignoring unknown material type (24): 01_-_Default
Bounding Information Calculated - Radius:-1.00
Optimizing...
Pre-Optimization Vertex Count = 0
Post-Optimization Vertex Count = 0


and of course using the exporter script isn't going to work for max, becuase while i may be able to export the ship, it's exported into binary, so your not able to edit it and input the proper textures
Reply #5 from Sins Forums Top
The material errors are inconsequential, I get them every single time. As long as the mesh is mapped, you can add the correct texture files data later by directly editing the .mesh file.

As for -1.00 bounding radius and 0 vertex, seems something is not compatible in the .xsi format. The only times I got those errors was when I have set the dotXSI exporter to export the mesh using triangles instead of polygons, and when I tried to use Crosswalk. Oh, and when I tried earlier .xsi formats. Use the latest on the list, should be 3.6 if I am not mistaken. Only the latest two formats are compatible.

If your .mesh file ends up listing several materials, open the material browser (Ctrl-7) in XSI and delete all materials except the one used to map the model. You should still get material error reports, but as I said, I successfuly imported models in SoaSE regardless.