Help with 3dstudio & multiface meshes needed

[Estimated]

Hello, ive been pulling my hair out last few days over 3d studio not allowing me to have mutliple faces on meshes i try to import to sl. Something i used to have working fine on v2012 with the 2011.3 exporter app only a few months ago. I've tried the following versions:

v2009 w/ 2011.3 exporter app.

v2012 w/ 2011.3 exporter app. and also with built in collada exporer

v2013 w/ 2011.3 exporter app. and also with built in collada exporer

My test object is a simple Poly Box, with Multi-Sub material and a couple of sub materials, here's the one thing that happens in all version of my 3d studio, when i edit the .dae file in notepad the <material> -tags are completely gone and therefore the object remains one sided :(

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. 

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

It shouldn't make a difference, but did you use spaces in the material names?

Did you actually apply all the sub materials to the object? (do the different sides of your box have different material ID's)

I'm using 3ds max design 2013 with the 2013 autodesk FBX exporter (I think that's built in) and have never had any issues.

[Drongle McMahon]

It shouldn't make a difference, but did you use spaces in the material names?

I think it can matter. It depends on how the exporter treats the names. I am pretty sure Collada does not allow spaces in the IDs of elements (as they are technically something like URLs). The Blender exporter uses names as IDs, but replaces spaces with underscores, presumably for this reason. I am sure the SL uploader does not handle IDs with spaces.

[Chip Midnight]

I'm using 2013 at the moment but my workflow is to export from max as fbx, take it into the 2013 standalone fbx converter and convert it to 2011 fbx, then into the 2011 standalone fbx converter to convert to collada. I think the problem may be the fbx version and you'll need to run it through a newer version of the converter and save as fbx 2011 before using 2011.3 to convert to collada.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

@ Drongle

That's exactly why I asked, I remember you or someone else posting about that. As far as I know 3ds max doesn't have any problems with spaces though.

@ Chip

I removed that workaround from the wiki, since SL can read Collada 1.4.1 now. Are you sure you need the 2011.3 FBX converter? (and if so can you post for what specific features). I use 3ds Max 2013 aswell (the design version, but I can't imagine that's different from the "normal/game" version) and can use the 2013 Collada (dae) exporter for geometry, rigging, materials and UV mapping. I was convinced the conversion was no longer needed since the moment SL upgraded from Collada 1.4.0.

[Chip Midnight]

I've kept doing it because I have no idea what version of Collada the 2013 converter is putting out so I just stuck with what works. I'd try it just for the sake of argument to see if it clears up your problem. I've never had any issues getting multiface meshes into SL,

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

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Chip Midnight wrote:

I've kept doing it because I have no idea what version of Collada the 2013 converter is putting out so I just stuck with what works. I'd try it just for the sake of argument to see if it clears up your problem. I've never had any issues getting multiface meshes into SL,

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Don't try it for the sake of argument, try it to skip an annoying step. As far as I know there is no need to export to fbx then convert to dae anymore. I don't use the 2013 converter, I use the 2013 exporter (which exports to 1.4.1). Still curious if it works for you aswell.

[Chip Midnight]

So you're going straight out of Max 2013 as DAE? I've not ever tried that since I assumed SL was still using an earlier version of Collada. I've never had any luck with SL automatically bringing in the materials though. I just set up the MatID's and drop the maps on manually after upload.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Straight out of max yes, no converting.

Never looked at how 3ds max stores the textures in the dae file, I think I heard it had something to do with how the paths are stored. Anyway, I upload my textures seperately aswell.

[Chip Midnight]

Nice. I will definitely try that next time. Now if only we could eliminate having to edit the name_array,

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Yes that's very annoying, there's a link in the wiki to a program/script that adds the bones, but it doesn't work for me. Tried it on both Win XP Pro (32 bit) and Win 7 Pro (64 bit).

I can't program, but looking at how the dae file is compiled and what we need to change manually, it doesn't look very diffcult (for someone who can code) to write such a program, Wiz Daxter maybe? I'd pay for it if it's in the SLAv pricerange.

[Chip Midnight]

You probably already know this but bone names can be repeated without any problems in the array so you don't have to go through and remove the duplicates. Just paste the whole bone list at the end of the array. That's simple enough that you could probably set up a macro with something like WinAutomation to do it.

[Kwakkelde Kwak]

Yes I only recently heard you can add all bones after the list in the dae. No idea how to write something like that though, the only scripting I've ever done is LSL.

All the program needs to do, is change the number in joints array to 26 and add the entire list of bones in the next line.