I have a largish level that I successfully exported to FBX out of WED, then converted to OBJ which I then imported into Blender so I could remove duplicate vertices and do other cleanup, then I exported (again, successfully) from Blender to OBJ, then converted to FBX, and then imported into WED. When the level shows up in WED, it is as a model. Fine, so I select it, and then in its properties I de-select the "concave" check box, and I get the message "Convert mesh to block?" and I hit okay.

...and nothing happens.
The "concave" check box just checks itself again as if I hadn't chosen anything.
And for the record, I tried importing the FBX both with and without de-selecting the "concave" option in the import dialogue, and I get the same result either way.

Is this a bug? Or am I missing something? I want to convert my level, which is currently in model form, back to level "blocks", and I thought 3DGS supported this option.

Thanks in advance...

So... nobody else has had a problem importing FBX's into WED as level blocks? I'm the only one?

Choose the convert to block mode or something similar, on the right side of the dialogue box.

Yeah, that's what I've been trying and it just isn't working.

I just tried the same with with an MDL7 file, exported directly from Blender. It imports into WED the same way, as a model, and when I de-select "concave" in the properties, I get the "do you want to convert this to block" dialogue, I click OK, and nothing happens.

I mean, shouldn't "concave" de-select after this, and instead of a model, shouldn't I now see the hundreds of blocks that make up the level? Am I totally misunderstanding the purpose of this?

Okay, well, I'm taking the lack of responses to mean either I'm the only one experiencing this or nobody knows the answer...

So, different question then: are there any kind of "clean-up" routines I can run on a WMP file to have it automatically find and get rid of extra/duplicate vertices, invalid blocks, etc? When I export to FBX-->OBJ-->Blender, and I run the "remove duplicate vertices" script, I actually discover that I have a *lot* of them in there, though I don't see any indication of them in WED, so either WED isn't seeing them, or they are only being created through some bug in the import process. Any thoughts? Thanks...

The conversion will keep the form of the model shape but to test just apply a standard WAD texture and if it applies, youve got a block geometry construct as models cant be textured in WED.
Then build, you should get a longer build time that if it was a model.

It could be that Blender is creating the extra artifacts as each app has its own format and some would tend to convert files to their own use as MED does by triangulating quads on import.

The idea is to test each of the functions you engage to determin if they suit or are converted poperly.

Standard functions during any dev process will indicate if a conversion actually happened or not by the results you get.

By deselecting convex, there is no need for the app to object to generate multiple blocks to form the shape.

A counter test is to keep the convex and see what results from that.

Thank you, Nems. It does apply the texture when I try it, so it seems that they are indeed level blocks. Or should I say "block", in the singular, as it appears to be importing as one single large (and complex!) block rather than all the pieces that originally assembled it. I'm not sure this is going to do anything for me in he long-run, though I may tinker a bit to see if I can get it to import as all pieces rather than 1.

Also, I was very careful when I rebuilt my level using grid snapping the last time around, and I took pains not to leave any "extra" vertices, etc, and I don't see anything like that when I examine my level, so I think you're right that something is happening along the way of importing to Blender.

Can you recommend any kind of "clean-up" routines, or other optimizations I can perform from inside WED on my level? I've been trying to scale down textures and simplify architecture, but my level is really quite large because the main building is large, and I can't divide the building into different levels because it has to look like it does in real life, and because it has a very "open" layout, chopping it up would look odd and immediately obvious. When the camera swings by the main portion of the level from along the radius, the framerate drops a lot because of the complexity. I was hoping there was something I could do to alleviate this drop...

USe Model format so that you can employ fustrum culling or clip culling (search for both with the Search button)where if any poly's are not seen by the camera they are culled out.
Models also do not require as many resources as block geometry as there is no extra collision checking for the engine to do as would be the case with block geometry.
Unfortunatly, model does not have the same shadowing features as blocks and you would then need to apply lightmapping to get similar results, a feature that is in its infancy in GStudio.
How ever, the lagging probs would dissapear using models.

Another method is to use clip_range with dynamic screenshots where the screen shots replace the geometry past the clipping range as a background image but I have no idea how to approach that one

There really isnt any method to optimise large area spaces as all engines have this prob due to the way rendering levels work for real time viewing.

Thank you for the advice. I may very well try using/converting to a large model after I'm finished building my level in WED.

Is there any way to use frustrum or clip culling with blocks in WED?