Hi,
we just started using gamestudio for a project; in which we are modeling a small town. We are using 3ds max for the modeling, not the med. Each house in the town will consist of approximately 600 - 800 triangles and there will be around 100 houses in the town. Other than that we are planning to model trees, rocks, animals, villagers walking around. We are considering to use texturemaps of size 512x512 (1024 would be even better..) and other than that bump, normal, reflection maps if we can.

I have a question regarding the models that we are using. After modelling them (cubical houses with sharp corners) in 3ds max when I import them into med, if I am to close the mesh using the merge button, the model looks distorted and faceted (due to Gouraud shading?), when it is open there is no problem. I have read in the forums that open models cause performance issues so I was wondering if there is any way to get around that faceted look of the models after closing the mesh? or is it perfectly normal for my case to use open models in the game. Considering the polygon count of our final scene ( an openair area with 100 houses with each of the min of 600 trinagles) would you say that we are about to face some real performance issues?

Thank you very much!

open meshes just have more vertices but this shouldn't really matter performance-wise. stencil shadows could be a problem.

If you still don't want to use open models simply make the edges sharp by modeling, every sharp edge must be defined by one "corner edge" and two surrounding edges very close to that corner. I think 3dsmax has a special function for doing so, must be some kind of bevel with special adjustments. If you are unexperienced in modeling, I could find out for you.

i believe you can use ffe to disable gouraud shading

Thank you for your reply. Yes, i think you mean the chamfer tool in 3ds max.. The thing is that this problem is not only limited to the edges but even the smooth surfaces suffer the same.. they look faceted; faces in some polygons reflects the light to different directions - guess i am doing something wrong during modeling.

Thank you! i will try ffe out.

Without gouraud shading there can be no smooth surface, you will always see the facets. But gouraud shading doesn't work if the polys are not connected to each other.
Under some circumstances the smoothing can be destroyed during exporting the file.
Could you post a screenshot and explain step by step what you did?

after exporting my model from 3dsmax as 3ds, the vertices become unwelded, whatever i do. As i import this model to

Gamestudio, the model looks just fine but the mesh tester in med informs me that it is opened. So to close this mesh, (to

weld the vertices) i choose all of them and press the merge button. But as i do this the shading of the geometry gets

distorted and the shading doesnt look correct no more. It looks as if the vertex normals are not right anymore, there seems to be a problem with the smooothing groups of the models. You may try to illustrate this situation by making a model in 3ds max, and appliying all the faces the same smoothing. I have tried to export in other formats from max. (fbx, x, etc..) but the same problems persists. with some formats, when i import into 3ds max, i see that the mesh is not open, the vertices are welded but then again the shading of the model always seem wrong. Do I have to settle with this kind of shading if i am to close the mesh, or is there any solution to this problem? I am sending you some screenshots of the model before after pressing the merge button. (before closing (pressing the merge) the model seems correct but open, after merging closed but seems wrong)


free image hosting


free image hosting

Hi,
I did a few tests with different export settings and I had the same result.
Please correct me if I am wrong but MDL obviously doesn't support smoothing groups.
Here is a workaround (if you need to have your mesh closed):
1. In 3dsmax select all edges you want to be sharp at once.
2. Apply an extrude operation to those edges with Height=0 and Base Width=0 or something very low. Better do this by typing the numbers, not by mouse-dragging.
3. I exported as obj, but other formats should do as well.