UVW Problem exporting to Source Engine

TorQue[MoD] · Jul 2009

Hey guys!

Was wondering if any of you might have an idea as to what's happening with my export here...

I've exported models to Source a dozen times before (though it has been a few months) and I've never run into this problem...

It seems that the export is somehow screwing up my UWV maps, but its not like its loosing them completely, only partially.

Anyone have a clue as to what might be wrong?

Thanks in advance!

Farfarer · Jul 2009

Is it possible you've accidentally jumped to the second UV channel for your unwrap or something like that?

Mark Dygert · Jul 2009

It would be interesting to see what it looks like in max. Those look like edges you shift/dragged out after UV'ing which would never give you good UV's unless you go back in and edit them.

Or possibly its like Talon said, you're good layout is on the wrong channel or you have too many channels loaded. Save your good layout and load it into UV1. Then delete the others.

To view how many UV channels you have: Go Tools > Channel Info they are called 1:Map, 2:Map ect.
To delete a UV channel: Click the channel and click clear, or apply an "UVW Mapping Clear" modifier and collapse the modifier stack.

TorQue[MoD] · Jul 2009

Thanks for the reply guys. I'm guessing its something to do with too many channels loaded. I'm still learning to unwrap models so I didn't do a single UVW layout . Instead I simply used a UWV map with Box mapping for each piece. I realize this is more system intensive, but it hasn't been problematic before. Then again, this scene is a lot larger so I've probably got about 18 1024x1024 textures loaded.

Here's a look at the same piece with Edge Faces turned on and in wireframe...

As you can see, the UVWs are fine in Max, they just get borked during the export, which like I said before, hasn't happened before. I've tried re-exporting, making sure all of the meshes are using smoothing group 1 but it doesn't seem to have an effect.
I'll take a look at how many channels I have loaded and let you know what the number is.
I guess I might have to take a bit longer and figure out how to do a proper unwrap.

Mark Dygert · Jul 2009

18 1024's? That seems a bit excessive you could probably do the whole thing uniquely with 1, maybe 2. Or use much more efficient tiles.

Most of that could be done in Hammer and not be as expensive as a huge prop.

Either way, its probably a smart thing to start unwrapping things using standard "unwrap UVW" techniques. It sounds like you used "box" in UVWMap kind of like the planar option in UnwrapUVW.

TorQue[MoD] · Jul 2009

Yeah I did. I was being lazy because I didn't want to take the extra time to learn to unwrap and I figured Hammer uses a bazillion different textures (one for each face) so I didn't think it would make a difference if I used a similar method in Max. Actually I'm only using 12 1024 textures. 6 were for the skybox effect. I'm not making this scene in Hammer because of the complexity of the animation... you can't tell right now, but once I start showing the map, it will make sense. I figured out a basic way to unwrap, it just takes a long time and I didn't want to do the work, but now I guess I''ll have to :P Better for me in the long run anyway.

Thanks for the help.

Minos · Jul 2009

Learn to unwrap your models properly!! You might think you are wasting time learning it now but it will really cut your production time as unwrapping is one of the most time consuming tasks.

This model is actually quite easy to texture using the standard uvw map modifier only: Select the faces you want to tile, add a new uvw map modifier, adjust the parameters and after you are done add a new "Edit Poly" modifier on top of it, select the next faces you want to edit and repeat the process. I've done this for ages and never had any problems.

You should also watch for T-Junctions on your mesh because those can also give nasty errors when imported into source.

TorQue[MoD] · Jul 2009

Thanks for the advice, I'll definitely give it a try. Anything has to be faster than the method I came up with :P

TorQue[MoD] · Jul 2009

hmm... I checked the Channel Info like Vig suggested and it doesn't seem like there should be too many channels.

I know I ultimately need to re-map these models so they're done properly, but its just bugging me that its not working the way it should. Like I said, I've never had the problem before.

Mark Dygert · Jul 2009

Did you collapse the modifier stack? I don't think the smd exporter likes long modifier stacks... that's all I've got without looking at the file, sorry =/

TorQue[MoD] · Jul 2009

I always convert everything back down to an editable poly before I export. Like I said, this really has me stumped. Hopefully when I re-do all of the UWVs properly it will fix the problem.

Thanks!

UVW Problem exporting to Source Engine

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