I have now played a lot with GS for the last days, and have encountered some critical obstacles.

Maybe it's just me, but I got the impression that the Engine is causing more problems than it solves. Even the simplest concepts of LowP display features (like smoothing groups) are not properly implemented. Let's say I import a FBX File of a really basic Object like a wooden plank which has smoothing groups on it. The Smoothing groups (given in 3ds max) are imported as well as long as you don't rescale the object (which also "explodes" the mesh a bit - vertices are toring apart as well). The Mesh is consistent and all vertices are welded where they should be but nevertheless: The mesh is loosing the smoothing groups while scaling.

Okay, so just to make sure I open MED and weld those Vertices again and group everything together and recalculate the normals which gives it the smoothing groups again - thing is: This destroys the UV coords I created before - thats just hillarious.

... and the same problem remains within the engine: Things explode; groups lost (also varieng Phong Shading values does not have any effect).

To make things even more confusing: All smoothing Groups work properly with the Editors (MED & WED), but not within the engine (well, I am not allowed to scale or everthing will be lost).

Seriously: I have never seen an engine which is obviously unable to fulfill these most basic lowP rendering issues.

But again: Maybe it's just me. Maybe I am doing things the wrong way, but I can't imagine what those mistakes could be, because I am doing exactly the same things which I have done in the last years within the game industry throughout europe.

Any advice to get those Smoothing Groups to work?

Thanks

Tristan

can you post some screenshots of the "explosions"? you must be doing something wrong.

gamestudio and its editors don't support smoothing groups. this only is a workflow issue though and shouldn't be a big problem. with gamestudio it's the job of the importers/exporters (or the modeler if the importers/exporters don't do it ) to split vertices at hard edges. this is the way directx needs the mesh data anyway. you shouldn't weld the vertices again if you don't want to lose the hard edges!

Thanks for your quick answer

Yeah, well explode is a big (and wrong) word which I have used - it's just a narrow gap between Polygons - this is not an issue if I do keep things in a reasonable size (close to the original importing size, which I measured in meters within 3ds max, to keep things at a real scale); so the probplem is avoidable if I work very carefuly within WED. However - those Smoothing Groups are clearly visible within the editors. I pressume its about the phong shading. Anyway... hard edge lighting brings those edges up again (can't be eliminated with smoothing texture option I think), which is the common omni lighting of GS - so smoothing groups are useless anyway I pressume (I've exported the mesh with max in various formats at very high vertex precision - so things actually are consistent).

I am sorry if I sounded too frustrated, but... If you invest lots of hours with those basic features without getting close to a solution... it's ruin the day, ya know?

Maybe it's possible to get a workaroung with some extra shading code... have to get into this

You just need time to learn what GStudio suite can do for you first before comparing it to specialised applications you may have used in the past. Its not a game engine by the way, its a 3D development suite so if you want to make games with it, actually make a game! This way you will cover a lot of ground work and come to a quick understanding of how you need to approach using GStudio for game building.

Most start of with the templates (I did ) and learn a huge amount from that process alone, then somewhere along the line they try free scripting and discover another whole new world of possibilities which by that time anyway, they learn what the engine can be made to do as it it.

To advance further then, some specialise in plug in scripts, dlls or sub appliations to use with in the dev environment thay have set up and on and on it goes, just like with any engine on the market.

For your seeming needs, perhaps another engine may hold the features you are looking for?

Thanks

I just think it's a bit odd, that GS is providing the possibility for such advanced things like Normal Maps and does not provide one of the most "ancient" functions of Low Poly shading concepts like Smoothing groups at the same time

In conjunction with Normal Maps those smoothing groups I mentioned are technicaly essential to get a reasonable shading result of character models... which has a huge impact to the style and presentation of a modeled creature/character. It's just an essential concept which confuses me that GS do not provide it (but got Normal Maps at the same time). Ya know?

Don't want to complain too much, but I think it would be a good point for a next version of GS and would push up the graphical standard a fair bit into the sky.

the graphics hardware, directx and opengl don't support smoothing groups. if an edge is supposed to be hard, then the vertices have to be split at that area. that's how it works.

smoothing groups just are a workflow improvement for modeling applications, so that modelers don't have to work with doubled vertices all the time which would be a pain. (actually smoothing groups still are a pain. something like maya's soft/hard edges is much nicer to use. )

it's a disadvantage that MED and WED don't support smoothing groups but since most people don't really model in there anyway it shouldn't be a big problem. the mdl7 exporter or MED/WED importer you use should split vertices automatically according to the smoothing information of your model. or some applications like blender have a split modifier which can do this before exporting.

many other engines like ogre3d don't support smoothing groups either. it's an importer/exporter thing and if it doesn't work for you then you either do something wrong or the importer/exporter isn't working correctly. from this thread it's hard to say where exactly your problem lies.

I am using FBX exporting, and it's lined up correctly. The breaking Vertices thing has been told from another user and is a good Idea anyway. And if the mdl7 System is providing this, everything will be fine as well

Sounds a bit odd, but I got some WIP Images of models within an engine I worked for a game company some time ago which shows those Groups on those models - but not allowed to show them in public (this embarrasing rule is called "non-disclosure-agreement"... I had to sign it to be allowed working on their games; so I am not even allowed to use those for a showreel... that's just ridiculous).

Doubled Vertices are not the only reason to keep Smoothing Groups in mind. It's a very useful and practical way to organise the models in a good and precious way. e.g.: Keeping the pectoralis/deltoid muscles visualy apart from abdominal and biceps muscleparts would be impossible without extra edges... or using smoothing groups. That's why smoothing groups are so essential - It keeps things simple and look more complex in the same time. This is not just a helper for modelers - it's implemented into the game engines to improve the visual appearance and shading of 3d game models.

If 3ds Max displays the smoothing groups correctly then it also has to convert it to DirectX and OpenGL through cutting meshes on the fly.

By the way: If you split meshes then you get open meshes and althogh you got hard edges you lose the chance to use stencil shadows at the same time since stencil shadows need closed meshes.
So there is a trade-off between those shading options and the use of this shadow technique.

I may be wrong here, but I thought eventually smoothing groups all boil down to the creation or splitting of extra vertices to create the smoothness, and the "tool" of smoothing groups simply automated the process, rather than creating them all by hand?