Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[argo34116]

I have a .3ds model of a spacecraft that I imported into Anim8or and added textures to(I had to invert the textures on the wings). When I added the model to Celestia 1.6.1 everything was good except the markings and lettering on the wings. When viewed in Anim8or the markings are in the proper place,but in Celestia they are cut off. It appears the size is the issue. What do I do to have the craft appear the same as they do in Anim8or?

[selden]

I have to admit I haven't encountered this particular type of error. A possibility that occurs to me is that the wings are composed of multiple meshes and the surface texture is only being applied to one of them.

Can you provide a zip containing your files so I could inspect them?

Alternatively, can you provide more details about the surface texture image (size, dimensions, format) and the model (size, number of vertices, number of meshes)?

3DS models have quite a few limitations. You might want to consider trying my CMOD export script, which is available at http://www.classe.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/modelling.html#4.1

What graphics hardware do you have?

Some cards can only use surface texture images which have sides which are powers of two. Celestia is supposed to be able to rescale non-conforming surface textures so they're usable, but that's relatively recent code and could be buggy. You might try resizing the surface texture image so that (for example) its dimensions are 1024x1024 pixels.

[argo34116]

The textures are JPG files 1425X1164. I am running Celestia 1.6.1 on windows 7 with AMD A6-3410 MX APU with Radeon HD Graphics 1.60 GHZ. Thank you for your response and your offer to assist me

[argo34116]

Here are some of the textures.

[argo34116]

Here is the whole thing. Images and LWO

[selden]

Unfortunately, when I try to import your model into Anim8or, it complains about a missing LWOBJ. I don't have LightWave.  What version of it do you have installed? (I'm assuming that's what's needed.)

Can you provide the .an8 file?

[RudySchneider]

Yes, indeed, it's a LightWave model:

[selden]

Well,  this is the Anim8or forum.

I managed to import the LWO into Blender and export it as OBJ. (Format conversion is about all I ever use Blender for, I have to admit. It's way too complex for me.)  No surface texture images were associated with the materials in the model's .mtl file, so they have to be associated manually in Anim8or. The .obj model loaded into Anim8or as a single mesh with no subgroups, which is going to make for more manual work.

I used Anim8or's material menu to associate the wing surface textures with appropriate materials, but the textures were not oriented properly so far as Anim8or was concerned: the wings were drawn solid grey. See the 1st image below.

In "Point Edit" I selected the Right Wing's surfaces and used the UV tool to scale and position the surface texture for the Right Wing. See the 2nd image below.

I then exported the model as a CMOD and created the directories and SSC file that Celestia wants. Although the model was drawn, the wings were transparent. Apparently the PNG images have transparency enabled. As a quick fix, I converted them to JPG images since JPG doesn't support an opacity channel. Now the top of the right wing looks OK. See the 3rd image below.

I'm not sure what problem you were encountering, but certainly managing to get the model into Anim8or with the correct format is a stumbling block.

[argo34116]

Here is a bottom and top view as seen in anim8or (I converted the file to 3ds via online converter before using it in anim8or and then just added the textures to the model)

[argo34116]

.....And this is how it appears in Celestia. The idea is that I want the model to appear in Celstia as it does in anim8or. I also want to create three hammerheads flying in formation. I copied and pasted the model,but still get the problem with wing markings,etc. As you can see here

[argo34116]

Is there anyone out there who can correct this problem and provide the proper .cmod,textures,etc here for me? when I used the textures I had to convert them to .jpg format before I used them. It looks great in anim8or, but does not come out that way in Celestia. Thank you all for the imput so far.

[selden]

Which online converter did you use?

One of the problems with the model is that it includes 89866 vertices. The 3DS format can't handle more than 64K vertices per mesh, which is why I used OBJ as an intermediate format. My suspicion is that the online service only partially converted the model, so Anim8or can't properly apply the surface textures.

Have you tried rendering the model in Anim8or rather than just looking at the preview provided in the object editor? Rendered objects sometimes can look quite different. The image shown by the editor's preview is optimized for editing, not to be visually accurate.

As I wrote previously, if you can provide the .AN8 model file (in a zip, just as you did the lwo files), I can try taking a look at it.

[selden]

I downloaded and installed the trial version of Lightwave 2015-3. (It's full-featured but expires after 30 days.)
It was able to read the .lwo file and export it as an OBJ. It could not export it as 3DS for two reasons:
1. the model included thousands of polygons which had more than 3 vertices. 3DS only supports triangle polygons.
2. after using Lighwave to convert them to polygons with 3 vertices (triangles), the resulting model contained more than 64K vertices.

I then imported the OBJ model into Anim8or. Although Anim8or didn't load the surface texture images, the materials were properly associated with the various sections of the model. When I specified which wing textures to use, Anim8or showed them properly. (I only did the wings. I didn't want to take the time to specify all of them.) See the first screengrab below.

I then exported the model as a CMOD. Celestia showed the wings properly. See the second screengrab below.

As I wrote previously, I suspect the problem is with the 3DS model created by conversion site that you used.

[selden]

I edited the OBJ's .MTL file that was created by Lightwave to replace all of the "/" by "\"  (Lightwave used Linux directory syntax) and .tif and .png by .jpg. I used Imagemagick's convert command to converted all of the .tif and .png images to .jpg format and put them in the same directory with the OBJ model.  Anim8or now loads all of the surface textures automatically when it loads the .obj model. See the first screengrab below.  (Neither Anim8or nor Celestia understand TIF format. Using JPG also avoids the unwanted transparency problem.)

I then exported the model in .CMOD format. Celestia now shows the Hammerhead fully textured. See the second screengrab below.

I then created a Celestia "Addon" out of it. It's in  SAAB_HAMMERHEAD.zip below.

And finally, I zipped the .an8 model file. It's in hammerhead-lwo-an8.zip below. Only the model file is included, not any of the surface texture images.

I hope this helps.

[argo34116]

Thank you soooooo much for your work. It looks great. Can you create a group of three flying in formation? Is there a way to import .cmod into anim8or? I also am not very comfortable with the process of exporting as .cmod seems complicated.