Maya CM Export Issues

[Sastrei]

Okay, since CFHod doesn't understand them and Maya 5 can't export them, I'm at a loss as to how I reliably get working CM's in my ships.

Has anyone EVER gotten reliable CM's for their mods? EVER?

-Stefan-

[Zatch]

Collision meshes? Copy and paste your hull mesh, rename it CM_HULL. Tadaa.

[Sastrei]

And it works for you all the time? It never works for me! It either gives me the "No CM found" error or simply ignores it and uses an auto colbox.



-Stefan-

[evillejedi]

trick to getting reliable cms is as follows

only have one CM mesh per ship
never have open geometry or subobjects in the CM
make sure the CM is as few tris as possible
I also put it into the CM group in the relationship editor
I additional make sure it is named CM_HULL
make sure no shader is assigned to them


everything in warlords is done this way

[Zatch]

It may have something to do with the version of Maya being used. I'm using Maya 5 and haven't had issues, no idea about the newer versions as I don't intend to upgrade.

[evillejedi]

had very few issues with 3 or 5 myself

[Sastrei]

I also put it into the CM group in the relationship editor

How do I do this? I see the window>relationship editors menu, but what do I do from there?

make sure no shader is assigned to them

So no Lambert1 shader? Just go into hypershader and delete any shaders attached?

-Stefan-

[Zatch]

The default shading group should be applied (Lambert.) He's referring to the HW2Shader, which should not be applied to non-renderable objects such as the CM.

[Sastrei]

Ah ok, just wanted to make sure.

-Stefan-

[4E534B]

Okay, since CFHod doesn't understand them

CFHodEd *completely* supports Collision Meshes. All you have to do is to create one (on a per joint basis, ie, for root, you'll have Root_CM) and select it, then push the "Import" button. It'll import from OBJ, and if it has more than one part, then it will be appended into the first part. In other words, CFHodEd will handle multi-part OBJs for you.

[evillejedi]

however it will not prevent intersecting geomtry which causes all sorts of issues in game, the point being multiple objects in the obj that are not connected by edges and faces, multiple individual CMs are buggy as well because of the larger bounding box.

[Sastrei]

I tried using CFhod, 4E, but it ignored 'em. And I did double-check to make sure I actually exported the vertex normals too (Blender doesn't, by default).

Yet to try with all of EJ's tips, will try that soon.

-Stefan-

[4E534B]

but it ignored 'em.

CFHodEd or HW2? Please elaborate.

[Sastrei]

CFhod imported them, had them named and assigned apparently correctly, however on starting up HW2 and testing them out the game didn't seem to realize they were there and used the autogen'd colboxes that Maya had given the HOD instead, when I originally exported it.

-Stefan-

[4E534B]

autogen'd colboxes that Maya had given the HOD instead

If you're talking about the thing said in the art pipeline pdf, (the plugins create a box instead, if no CM is available) then let me tell you that's loosely said. There isn't actually a collision mesh (it may be a BSRM[Battle Scar Ref Mesh] bounding box instead, which isn't considered as geometry, it's two vectors, for min-max extents).
Talking about BSRMS, I've observed that, somethimes, instead of having the actual geometry present (which is in the corresponing Multi-mesh), it has Collision Mesh data instead. Try replacing BSRM data with CM. (keep CM as is, don't remove it)
Basically, if the CM is present\HW2 detects it, then it uses CM for the hyperspace effect. Otherwise, it uses the main mesh itself (multi-mesh). You could try replacing the CM with another shape, like sphere, to test if the CM is being used by HW2. Ofcourse, the unit should be able to hyperspace, so you'll have to temporary enable that, to see whether the CM is being ignored or not.