Shnappz Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Hey Everyone, Just wondering what was the *best* way of doing the internals of buildings. I've seen some mention of "proxies" and i'm not 100% sure how it works. I've dissected the APB building files and from what i can tell, the internal structure of the building is held in a seperate W3D file Mbar_int or whatever. What i want to know is, is this merged with the building exterior at the map making part or is it added as a proxy on LevelEdit? Or am i very confused 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonsense715 Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Let me explain proxies in a simple way. Let's say you have a box building with a box interior and one door. (all this is irrelevant but just picture it) You want to place and position spawners in renx/3dsmax. You do this: create any primitive (e.g. a box), place it into your box building and you name it "GDI Spawner~00" and then a second box called "GDI Spawner~01" and so on. When you export this boxbuilding with these special named primitive models and load it in Level Edit, they will be replaced by real GDI spawners in the editor. It looks for the matching preset name and places them to the proxy's position. Do you now understand what proxies are? APB did this in the past: they exported the building interiors and added them to the LevelEdit preset tree and named the preset mbar_int or whatever. Then in 3dsmax/renx on a new map they only placed the exterior of the building and a primitve model in the middle of it named "mbar_int~00" and exported the map. In LevelEdit that proxy is replaced by the interior they added previously to the preset tree. So proxies are very good for placing LE objects in 3dsmax/renx. For whatever reason (faster placing, preciness, etc) If anything is still unclear just ask. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shnappz Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Hello Moonsense, This helps a lot. I do have a couple of questions though: in the APB Level edit Gamma, it appears that the only interior sutff that's added by level edit is some detail models like boxes and barrels and stuff. There is no proxy for the actual internal structure. could it be that they started doing it this way after they released the APB Gamma level edit? Or am i looking in the wrong place (Level Edit - Building Tiles > Bulding_whatever)? I actually did try this, added it as a primiative with the name "whatver_01#". I then added the building tile for my building and pointed at the W3D for my interior. It appeared on Level Edit as a tiny little thing in the middle of my building, rather than the size it should've been. I checked and it is the correct size in 3ds/Ren X. Could it be that i'm exporting the interior as "Terrain" is this where i'm going wrong? Really appreciate your help! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonsense715 Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Does it appear as a skeleton-box in level edit? If so then Level Edit can't find the w3d file for the preset. I suggest you try to place spawners or vehicles via proxying first. I haven't seen the APB LE for some time but IIRC building stuff are under Terrain AND/OR Tiles. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shnappz Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 No it comes up with the actual model, fully textured, it's just real tony :0! 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChopBam Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 I'm quite sure that the building interiors are proxied in, but they're considered terrain, rather than tiles. As far as your exterior and interior, did you create them from the same file to ensure that they naturally fit with each other's sizes? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shnappz Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 Hey Chopbam, yes i created the interior by creating a cube inside my structure and them flipped it and cut out some faces for a door way. I see so rather than the tile menu, i should be looking at the terrain meny? 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChopBam Posted February 1, 2015 Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 The reason the barrels and things are tiles is because they have been set up with LOD. You can export the interior and exterior together; they don't need to be separate. Should fix the scaling issue, hopefully? Also consider that your units setup might be different somehow. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shnappz Posted February 1, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2015 I think i'm getting close now. I can now add it as a tile and it IS the right size (that was my just being stupid before) but whenever i add it as Terrain, it appears in my "instances" and when i click to view it, it's there, BUT it's in the bluehell somewhere... I think it's to do with the map hierarchy I dont think i'm actually adding it to the terrain mesh. Thanks as always Chopbam, and i guess you're right i could always export it with the int and ext, it just feels like it would be tidier if i did it with proxies. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
moonsense715 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Terrain is always placed at 0,0,0 unless you proxy it in with another terrain. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shnappz Posted February 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 (edited) Yeah, i've worked it out now. I've proxied it with a box primative and it loads it automatically in LE now! Thank you! Edited February 2, 2015 by Shnappz 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
danpaul88 Posted February 2, 2015 Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 Proxies are a powerful way to add buildings, walls, defences, etc to your maps and have them accurately placed. Only downside to adding walls and defences this way is that it requires terrian re-exporting if you want to tweak the positions of the defences, whilst LE placed ones can just be dragged around as necessary. (Note: Yes, I am aware you can move proxied objects if you unlock them, but they snap back to their original locations if you subsequently reload the LE project.) 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shnappz Posted February 2, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2015 That's interested to know... i didn't know you could move them... although it does seem a bit redundant if they snap back to their original location when you reload LE.... I 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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