Hello there, i have a problem regarding the openCollada Plugin for 3ds Max. I already looked in the Forum but the search is pretty much useless for a multiple keywords. So please don't be mad when this problem has been dealt with before. I want do export my model to .dea, the integrated Export plugin works, except the model is missing all its textures: When I use the current OpenCollada plugin, the materials seem to be alright, but it ignores the origin of all the parts and therefore is rotating the meshes wrong ingame. I'm not sure, but I think the origins are set ok: What do you think? Is there maybe a bug with openCollada and 3dsMax 2014, or am I using the wrong settings.
Export FBX In 3ds Max and import it to Blender -> Export DAE in Blender. Anyways if you really want to export a buggy mesh, then you can export it directly from 3ds Max. For misplaced pivots ive found a way to export it to be fine in game, but it needs alot of patience and you will probably have to do the same thing over and over again if it doesnt work. Basically, select all objects, reset pivots, reset transform and scale, affect pivot only and edit it to 0, 0, 0. Now select edit working pivot, edit it to 0, 0, 0 and select use working pivot. Thats all.
Reexporting through Blender is a bad idea as it will lose the smoothing groups and possibly mess up the materials. Don't do it. You need to search through the settings in OpenCollada, I used to have similar issues in both Maya and 3dsmax, but there is an options screen for OpenCollada where you can tell it what to do with the pivots. You will have to manually freeze xforms and move the pivots somehow, I forgot how it's done exactly, think you need to freeze xforms in the tab with the little hammer... :/ You can tell the 3dsMax Collada exporter to export materials too, but I seem to recall it still has some other issue that only OpenCollada can fix...
I tried all these settings already before and just did it in exactly your order, it didn't help. I hoped I could avoid using another modeler to export it. Back when I used the MayaToJbeam Converter, I used Maya to export to .dae, that worked ok but all the Textures were wrongly placed. Besides that, Maya's control is horrible when you're used to anything else, it kinda hurts your Brain . I guess I at least try it with Blender... That is what I saw in the forum a lot, that's another reason I didn't try it yet. I posted a pic above, showing my selected setting upon export, are these the setting you mean. I just applied Freeze Xforms again, sadly did not help either.
Not sure, I think you're using a different version of OpenCollada than me, as I don't remember that window at all... I had to do some funky things with the freeze xform as well when I was using max, didn't work with just applying it. If I were you, I'd just mess with all the settings that have even remotely to do with pivots and transforms(animation for example), turn them on if they were off before or vice versa, and re-export, see if it makes a difference... Perhaps you can try checking the settings for the default Max exporter, if it has any?
Its not a bad idea to to export it to blender, since i did it with my mod and everything was fine, even materials were as supposed to be, but you have to apply edge split modifier to make it smooth again in blender. I dont exactly remember how i did it with pivots, but after some time of tweaking i came up to result that it showed fine in blender and in game also. For more about edge split in blender, see my solved question HERE
Well, more or less thanks to mythbuster i got it working, after roughly a month of being stuck. Apparently it isn't enough to just apply the Reset XForm -> Reset Selected function. What I did in the end was: Alt+right click -> Freeze Transform, Freeze Rotation, Transform to Zero, Rotation to Zero, then Reset Xform, then collapse all modifiers, and tadaaa Before that I centered the Pivot probably a thousand times, by entering 0,0,0, and set the absolute world position of the Part to 0,0,0 as well... Now it was just a matter of rotating the mesh, and I can export the mesh. But im actually still not 100% sure what was the problem or what helped. BTW, I tried importing into Blender, and as Mythbuster predicted, Blender seems to be ignoring the smoothing groups, both when import via .fbx and .3ds. thank you guys for helping
Serious? You think some automated function can do the same work as someone spending hours(while modeling) setting stuff to hard or soft edges by hand? No you can't fix it properly, and yes it is a really bad idea. It may look "fine" in a lot of areas, but it'll make things hard edged when they shouldn't be, or soft edged when they shouldn't be... Blender uses a very annoyingly automated system for it's smooth/hard edges. You simply CANNOT fix all the smooth/hard edges accurately with some stupid automated function when you've spent hours(while modeling) putting stuff to hard edges or soft edges in Max or Maya... It is impossible. Some objects you'll want to be hard edged, like a 6-sided cylinder representing a bolt on a real vehicle... But then parts on the body or other detailed bits which might have a bigger angle, you'll want them to be soft-edged... Or the other way around: a 5-sided circle representing something very small round object, you'll want it to be soft-edged, but something with a smaller, blunter angle, you'll want those to be hard-edged... And Blender would just do the exact opposite... Just putting in an arbitrary number won't EVER get this right. I can usually tell when someone's been messing with my or Gabes meshes in Blender to make a mod and they've just thrown on a smooth modifier, was so obvious with the MV4 and the Burnside in Rigs of Rods when people did that shit :/ In fact the shading system in Blender is so bad that when I was a/o baking my Lotus Esprit, it couldn't get most of the interior to be shaded right and thanks to that there's now dark/light lines on parts when there shouldn't be, and I had to fix it in Photoshop to make it look even remotely good :/ Then again, the a/o baking in Maya is crap so didn't have much of a choice at the time than to do it in Blender...
Yeah true... But its possible if you are making a simple mesh, but in this case its a car so its totally different. I forgot his mesh must have its hard or soft smoothing where there are all the details. Im myself modeling a car and now also jbeaming a tank, so i know about those things, but i just wanted to give him a simple answer..
