RA_Village (warning newbie)

[Isaac The Madd]

The subdivision surface and decimate is use to quickly clean up the mesh afterward.

Just, because it is a pain and doesn't work quite right in one program does not mean there is not an easy way to do it in another program.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Isaac The Madd

[Raap]

The subdivision surface and decimate is use to quickly clean up the mesh afterward.

Just, because it is a pain and doesn't work quite right in one program does not mean there is not an easy way to do it in another program.

 

Fair enough, and I stick to what I wrote; Everyone got their methods, and providing the end result both functions and looks as you want it to, then that's a valid way to work.

 

Do note however that in a job environment you are often forced to work using a specific development method, for various reasons.

Edited June 27, 2016 by Raap

[Isaac The Madd]

Also what I meant to ask was, What are the LevelEdit registries supposed to look like. (Mean where should they have been and what should be there)

[Raap]

Also what I meant to ask was, What are the LevelEdit registries supposed to look like. (Mean where should they have been and what should be there)

 

Open regedit and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Westwood Studios\LevelEdit.

 

In that directory you will find 5 more folders, browse through them and see if you find anything that is pointing to something outside of your APB Level Edit installation directory, then correct it.

 

Do not touch anything else.

 

If in doubt, do not touch anything at all and wait for the new SDK.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Raap

[Isaac The Madd]

Well that made no difference at all, it still list scripts as a blank unselectable nothingness for me.

[Raap]

Something isn't pointing at your APB installation in order to 'fetch' the latest scripts and presets, and to my knowledge, those registry entries are the only ones.

 

I do have a tool that handles this for my version of the tools, but I currently got an old version sitting between what you have and what Pushwall uses, so I think it's best you remain waiting for the SDK release.

[Isaac The Madd]

I couldn't get it to work with any w3d game.

[Raptor29aa]

Sorry I didn't have n update this week work is getting busy. I will give one next week. (More picture to follow)

 

It's interesting there is a big concern over level edit, yet I haven't even gotten that far. Issac_the_madd do you have terrain ready for level edit? If so cool.

 

Side Note: I found models of buildings online... Yet they are the old models. The war factory with the elevators of doom. LoL

[Raap]

Do not use old files for buildings.

 

We no longer directly place buildings into levels. Instead, we use a proxy mesh for this, which uses a dummy version of the actual building. When called in-game or in LE, the proxy mesh causes the actual building file to load in its place.

 

The reason this works like this is two fold; Firstly, if Pushwall wants to make a change to a building, he has to modify just the building file, and all maps are automatically updated (well, minus vertex solve). Secondly, it slightly improves performance in 3DS. The second reason is why I personally proxy up a lot more things than just buildings, but I would not recommend that you do this for now.

 

I've attached a proxy file for you, as well as another file with some common map props. Running your map in an unsupported Level Edit will cause problems, but at least you can weld these objects into your maps. The SDK will no doubt offer a newer version. I'm sharing these files to help you scale your map and help you create your base terrain in advance of the SDK arriving.

 

VERY IMPORTANT: Don't just spam a bunch of these proxy objects like barrels on your map and call it a day, each proxy object is a preset which needs to be loaded in-game. Too many of these will cause significant client performance issues especially without the visibility culling system implemented into your map.

 

If you want a lot of crates somewhere, consider making custom ones and make them a single mesh, or merge all the meshes of the crates. Do not EVER merge two meshes that use different materials, you will get a 3DS message pop up when you do this asking for 3 options, close this window to make sure the object merge does not happen. Meshes with several materials like crates and barrels merged as one, will cause significant performance issues in the W3D engine. I once made this mistake with the advanced sub pen interior, I had to completely re-texture and mesh split the building from scratch to solve it, time you could spend elsewhere.

DeltaOfficialProxyAssets.rar

Edited June 30, 2016 by Raap

[Raptor29aa]

Thanks Raap. I saw your post and will not be using the old assets I have. And Thank You for the new info. I have learned a lot in a short amount of time.

I won't have much time this week for doing 3ds max work, but I will do my best to throw in a few hours more for another update.

[Raptor29aa]

Update I had a few hours to throw in. Life is still busy, but I found a few hours to bring the map a little more shape.

 

.

PS the blue box is a 15x15 cube, so I don't lose perspective

[Pushwall]

If you want a lot of crates somewhere, consider making custom ones and make them a single mesh, or merge all the meshes of the crates. Do not EVER merge two meshes that use different materials, you will get a 3DS message pop up when you do this asking for 3 options, close this window to make sure the object merge does not happen. Meshes with several materials like crates and barrels merged as one, will cause significant performance issues in the W3D engine.

It's okay merge barrels now as they use an updated texture with only 1 material - they just didn't back when you were doing the advanced naval buildings. Large wooden crates also use only 1 material but the small ones don't. But still yeah, never merge anything together if it results in the three-choice popup.

Another important thing is that there can only be so much going on in a single mesh before LevelEdit just refuses to load a terrain model. I don't know the exact limit and whether it's a limit of polys, tris, vertices or what, but I've always found I can't go over ~4500 polys per mesh without that happening. So keep that in mind if you're merging a lot of props or have a particularly defined backdrop (which Raptor's appears to be) - you'll have to split the extras off into separate meshes.

[Raap]

 

If you want a lot of crates somewhere, consider making custom ones and make them a single mesh, or merge all the meshes of the crates. Do not EVER merge two meshes that use different materials, you will get a 3DS message pop up when you do this asking for 3 options, close this window to make sure the object merge does not happen. Meshes with several materials like crates and barrels merged as one, will cause significant performance issues in the W3D engine.

 

Another important thing is that there can only be so much going on in a single mesh before LevelEdit just refuses to load a terrain model. I don't know the exact limit and whether it's a limit of polys, tris, vertices or what, but I've always found I can't go over ~4500 polys per mesh without that happening. So keep that in mind if you're merging a lot of props or have a particularly defined backdrop (which Raptor's appears to be) - you'll have to split the extras off into separate meshes.

 

 

That's always a big problem when trying to optimize a level. I run into it especially often with grass and bushes despite the polygon count being fairly low.

 

Another killer in this regard is the shipping container model, it's really poorly optimized (frankly, a lot of the props are, including small crates and oil cans) and merging just two is already enough to encounter the problem of LE, the game, or W3D viewer crashing upon trying to load it.

 

So it's certainly an issue within the W3D file architecture. Any chance Saberhawk can give it a look? If we didn't have this limitation then we could cut down the number of draw calls dramatically on each map and essentially merge all meshes that share the same material.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Raap

[ChopBam]

If ALL meshes of the same material were merged, VIS would be much less effective.

[Raap]

If ALL meshes of the same material were merged, VIS would be much less effective.

 

You might not be do dependent on VIS then either. However VIS primarily serves to hide vehicles and infantry you cannot render, and especially vehicles are some of the most taxing things on W3D. And in this situation VIS will always work based on the actual VIS set-up and not the terrain.

 

Besides, in a perfect world, a culling system would decide to render any polygons regardless of the object they belong to.

[ChopBam]

True enough. In a perfect world, VIS would be able to set itself up automatically, as it does in newer games.

[Raap]

True enough. In a perfect world, VIS would be able to set itself up automatically, as it does in newer games.

 

Don't get me started on that one. An automatic culling system would be amazing.

 

But like so many hard-tech things for W3D, the complete show stopping fact is that we lack programming contributors.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Raap

[Raptor29aa]

Update: Life is crazy busy but a found a few more hours to throw in... The Mountains are taking shape. I was thinking of the description for the map. Soviets land a base on shore and prepare for a sneak attack on through the mountain pass. All that stands in the way of their victory is an allied base with a forest village between.

(One map boundary is shore)

Also: I will increase the map size... The blue square is the approx size of a war factory (15x50x50).

[ChopBam]

The left side of the perspective viewport looks like it's shaping up! The rest of the sides resemble my first test map.

 

You might want to try your map out ingame, even in its early stages, to see how well the terrain in W3D will work as you desire. You're welcome to apply a quick texture, UVW map, and collision settings; followed by a LE export with only the basics needed to test what you want. I do this every time I'm working on a map. The reason I do this, is that sometimes things look a lot different in 3DS Max than they will ingame, so I'll check often to make sure I don't waste a lot of time building things around a mistake.

[Raap]

The reason I do this, is that sometimes things look a lot different in 3DS Max than they will ingame, so I'll check often to make sure I don't waste a lot of time building things around a mistake.

 

He means to say, things always look different. Especially materials since 3DS isn't capable of displaying all W3D material settings. So it's a solid tip to get a feel for how your work is actually going to appear. I do it all the time as well, make 3DS changes then test them in-game. It's a time consuming process and one of the reasons I work with several W3D files for one level, to speed up export times (If I were to merge all Siege files into one, a single export would take like 3 minutes).

Edited July 28, 2016 by Raap

[Raptor29aa]

 

Ok, so all 4 sides are done. mountains on 3 sides and ocean on the fourth.

I also increased the size by (140%) The blue and red squares represent war factories

Although I have not been able to successfully import it into level edit. (and thus my newbishness shows)

So to back up my work I made a quick height map

-Next: I'll be viewing more videos to see how to get the terrain from 3ds max 8 to level edit (I can't wait to walk around it)

[ChopBam]

What exact steps are you taking to get the map into LE? What is failing about the process?

[Raptor29aa]

As to not flood the page with photos I'm putting them all in Links

Step 1: Preparation/ clean up

So to make the transition easy I deleted the red and blue War Factory approx boxes. So there is only one mesh (and its a plane... just to keep it simple).

Then I go over to tools and select w3d Pic

 

Step 2: Selection of Collision Properties (I selected everything). Physical, Projectile, Vehicle, Vis, Camera. Pic

 

Step 3: Went to Export and Selected W3D (and named it of course) Pic

 

Step 4: Selected Renegade Terrain and Vertex Smoothe Pic

 

Step 5: Looked at readout... (have no idea what I'm looking at) Pic

 

Step 6: Fired up level Editor (and created new mod folder... clean slate this time) And clicked Terrain Tab Pic

 

Step 7: Created new Temp Terrain, named it, and selected the w3d model (ps I moved it into one of the level editor folders) Pic

 

Step 8: Hit Ok, then selected the temp terrain and hit the magical make button Pic

 

Result: It crashed Pic

 

I am not sure what I am doing incorrectly, any input is welcome

Edited August 29, 2016 by Raptor29aa

[Isaac The Madd]

I believe models go in the always folder.

[ChopBam]

Step 2: Collision properties: deselect vehicle (physical already covers this) and vis (terrain meshes aren't used for vis, that'll be on a different mesh that encompasses the terrain).

 

Step 4: No need to select vertex smoothing here. I don't think it'll cause harm, but it's an extra unnecessary step.

 

I think you may have too many triangles in your main mesh. LevelEdit will crash if there are too many triangles in a single mesh. Try splitting the mesh up into multiple meshes. I don't know the exact number, but I prefer to use just a few thousand as my general max-out number. I'd select 5000 or fewer polies, and then hit "detach." Do this until there are no more meshes with more than that. Don't forget to apply collision to the new meshes. Let me know your findings.

[Raptor29aa]

Success, Thank you.

Translation: I took the Terrain in 3ds max, edited the poly by multiple detachments, made sure the count was low, w3d configured each one, and Bam it worked!!!

I am going to Celebrate!!!

 

...After celebrating (Lifts up glass), I realized my terrain is like a butterfly. Beautiful from a long distance, but ugly in the face when up close. I have cliffs to redo.

 

Next step/challenge... uhh... learn about level edit, lol.

 

SideNote: this weekend will make my co-workers in insane (my bosses least favorite work... Overtime). I won't be updating anytime this and possibly next weekend.

Edited August 31, 2016 by Raptor29aa

[ChopBam]

Take your time! Let us know if you have any more questions or issues, and I look forward to seeing progress!