Lots of 'LOD Elements' for trees

leleuxart

I'm working on some trees and when I imported them into UDK, I had over 50 elements that I had to apply the materials to. Normally, I usually only have 2 if I have a separate material for the leaves and bark. My method of modeling them hasn't really changed, so I'm not sure what caused this. I usually model in Maya with cylinders and make the trunk, then I duplicate the cylinders and change their shape a little for the branches, while also removing unnecessary edge loops/ vertices. For the leaves, I just make a card and do the same duplication process. Then, I select all of the objects and 'combine' then export as FBX. I take the FBX and import it into Max to add the vertex colors, export another FBX, then import into UDK. Is this not a good method? Having to add materials to 50 different pieces can be time consuming...

blankslatejoe

Wow..that's amazing. Could be something to do with the combining operation--and it thinking it needed to create dupe materials or something for every pre-combined object...that's when I've seen things like this in the past.

First thing to try: select all the faces and apply a single material/MatID (can't remember what its called in Max) to them all again, just in case?

leleuxart

blankslatejoe wrote: »

Wow..that's amazing. Could be something to do with the combining operation--and it thinking it needed to create dupe materials or something for every pre-combined object...that's when I've seen things like this in the past.

First thing to try: select all the faces and apply a single material/MatID (can't remember what its called in Max) to them all again, just in case?

Yeah, I was working on another tree shortly after this post and it was up to 60 something. I think it's definitely related to me duplicating things over and over, I've just never seen it like this before.

Do you know of anything similar in Maya? That's what I'm using to model in. I only use Max for the vertex colors for animation, because I can't seem to find a way to do it in Maya.

Ark

How many objects does it show in the outliner before you export? Tried deleting the history before exporting?

blankslatejoe

Ah, yeah, if you're using maya--check the outliner to see if there's ugliness going on--even ghostnodes might be being exported as unique subassets. And that would explain the crazy material count.

It's worth mentioning that the 'export selected' for FBX doesn't always ONLY export the selected. I'm still trying to figure that one out too--sometimes it insists on exporting the entire scene.

leleuxart

Ark wrote: »

How many objects does it show in the outliner before you export? Tried deleting the history before exporting?

I'll have to check when I'm back at my computer after class. I did delete the history(I usually do before I export).

blankslatejoe wrote: »

Ah, yeah, if you're using maya--check the outliner to see if there's ugliness going on--even ghostnodes might be being exported as unique subassets. And that would explain the crazy material count.

It's worth mentioning that the 'export selected' for FBX doesn't always ONLY export the selected. I'm still trying to figure that one out too--sometimes it insists on exporting the entire scene.

Another reason I need to learn Max more I'll update later when I get back to my computer and check out the Outliner. The Maya file did have a bunch of other models in it, so maybe their information is being exported as well like you said.

leleuxart

I've checked my Outliner and there was only 20 or so total entries. I went through and removed any thing that didn't exist. There were a lot of objects that weren't there and had a random pivot point. I cleaned out the outliner, deleted my history again for my mesh, and reimported the FBX. Same problem.

I've tried "Connecting Components" in Maya, duplicating it and exporting, importing into UDK with 'combine meshes' ticked, and importing the FBX into a scene of its own to export from. Now, UDK is telling me my import failed when 'combine meshes' is unticked.

blankslatejoe

Did you reapply the single material to the final object again--that was something else we thought could have been the problem--material duplication during combining?


Also, I just thought about this, but check to make sure you haven't been creating new UV sets each time you combined. If you pop up the UV editor there's a drop down that should say 'map1' or UVset1 or etc....see if there's a long list of sets there on the final model.