Can't get my multi-object mesh model into SL

[Sutra Scribe]

Greetings everyone.

I have spent the past 3 odd weeks (on and off) trying to get my "multi-object" mesh model into SL, I have read the forums and looked through the wiki with no luck.  It is a home structure with many different pieces and for quite obvious of reasons, I would like to upload it all at once (As a linkset? Coalesced item?).  I am using Maya 2011 and have successfully loaded single mesh objects in the past, however, this is my first attempt at uploading an entire Maya scene all in one piece. (Note that I am not "combining" anything in Maya, just shift-selecting > export).

When I export single pieces of the scene/home structure -- say just the floor, it uploads to SL just fine.  But alas, when I export the floor, walls, ceiling, door, etc all in a single file.... the upload into SL fails. It says "Loading..." down at the bottom when I ask it to calculate costs, but it never does anything beyond that.  I do not believe that any of my pieces are larger than 64m and it is a very low poly build.  Can anyone shed some light on what I may be doing wrong, or request any additional information I may need to provide?

 

~sutra

[Chosen Few]

What happens if you try to do just a really simple multi-object scene, like say just a sphere and a cube?  If you're able to get that to upload, then you know the problem has somehting to do with the particular items you've been having trouble with.  If that doesn't work, then it's something more fundamental.

[Sutra Scribe]

Thank you, after creating new scenes and successfully uploading basic multi-object models into SL, I still could not replicate that with my original scene (or, more complex objects), nor could I pinpoint the reason why.  I finally decided to try a new viewer and it uploads with no issues! (Was using Firestorm, and now on the Official Viewer).

 

I did have another inquiry, though: in the mesh preview window I can ask it to show "textures," where is it pulling these textures from?     In Maya, my scene is completely baked with really nice textures, but in the preview window it is displaying some old textures from my initial building stage.

Furthermore, has there been reports of anyone successfully loading mesh models already textured?  The Wiki says it is not possible but I am wondering if that is out-dated information?

 

~sutra

 

[Gaia Clary]

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Sutra Scribe wrote:

 

Furthermore, has there been reports of anyone successfully loading mesh models already textured?  The Wiki says it is not possible but I am wondering if that is out-dated information?

 

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I have been experimenting a bit with textures and here are some observations (for windows):

 

1. If the .dae file references files with relative pathes, then the SL importer recognizes these files and displays them in the preview window (and also uploads them on demand).
2. I had some trouble when i tried to import .dae files which contain absoute pathes. I am not sure if i made something wrong during my exports (with blender) or if the sl importer does not like absoute pathes (on windows)
3. The sl import tries to reload "old" data whenever it can from some intermediate files which it creates on the fly during import. (search for *.slm) In general pushing the "reset & clear forms" button on the main tab of the SL importer will correct that.
4. As soon as the mesh contains rigg information (weight group information and skeleton) the texture display&upload is broken.

 

These problems are currently in the Jira and there is some hope that these issues will be fixed someday hopefully

[Drongle McMahon]

"... displays them ni the preview..."

? :matte-motes-smile:

[Gaia Clary]

:smileytongue:

[Sutra Scribe]

Hi Gaia, thank you for the reply!

I played around with this a bit and I was indeed able to upload my structure with the textures already on (Which is great!) however, I am still not understanding exactly what folder it is pulling these textures from, or how it is doing so. I apologize, I am unsure how to quote your post but what do you mean by "Absolute paths"?

I baked a new scene and saved it as a brand new *.dae file (I do see the *.slm as well), but now I can not even get the textures to display in the preview window when I ask it do, and when I upload my model it is completely black with 0 textures.  (This is a building structure so no rigging done on it.) I have tried opening the material attribute editor and applying the baked textures to a "file" path as well.  No difference.

Very confused as to what happened between this new export displaying 0 textures and the previous export displaying old textures.  Any idea why my new *.dae file is no longer displaying textures in the preview window now? (Which I am sure is directly related to my model importing texture-less too!) :smileyfrustrated:  Hope you, or any fellow mesh-ers, can shed some light on this.

 

 

[Gaia Clary]

Honestly i would wait for a couple of weeks. Blender 2.64 will make exporting with textures much easier. And Linden Labs are working on the texture import issue now. So there is hope that some time in the near future this issue just goes away.

 

• An absolute path is a file location that you always can find again on your file system as long as you remember the path itself. An example:
  
  c:\\my\\personal\\textures\\my_texture.png

• a relative path is an incomplete path and it is always meant relative to some other location, like relative to the location of the dae file. This is an example relative path:
  
  ..\\textures\\my_texture.png
  
  So you first have to know where the dae file is, then you can find the textures by moving ony folder up (indicated by the initial "..", then move down to the "textures" folder. There you find the file my_texture.png

 

The SL importer possibly has issues with absoute pathes. Blender 2.64 will be able to export textures to the same folder where it places the .dae file and it has a mode that allows to use relative pathes without need to first configure blender.

Maybe you should remove the slm file (press the "reset & clear form" button in the SL importer)

[Sutra Scribe]

I am on maya 2011 and it appears to be exporting the *.dae and texture bakes into the same folder.

I checked the *.dae file of both my initial upload attempt (where it pulled old textures) and my new upload attempt (where it won't pull any textures) and both contain absolute paths to the jpg texture files.

I will definitely try deleting the *.slm file and crossing my fingers for all of this to be ironed out!

 

Thank you, Gaia

[Gaia Clary]

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Sutra Scribe wrote:

I am on maya 2011 and ...

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Apologize,my fault. I should have looked further up in the thread first :matte-motes-sour: