dim3 Forum

I tried the feature where you import a .obj file as a map. Interesting stuff, I am somewhat psyched. Allows for multiple usage of content, I mean the same model as a map and as an object.

However there are a lot of errors after the import which are almost impossible to correct. Any ideas what it could be in the original .obj that causes these errors? Obviously some polys just don't get imported.

Compare this one:


To this:

This is a bug in the current version of dim3, more of lack for slanted wall collision feature. :P
The next release will fix this though, don't worry. It will also fix alot of other things and make the editor a heck of alot better. I recommend waiting for the next version before doing much with maps.

Welcome to the forums!
btw: cool map

As ccccc said, wait on this for the next version. It'll support a more modeler like map structure where you'll be able to import such things.

[>] Brian

This is good to hear
I guess I am not the first saying it - When the starting position of the player is outside the map structure, the engine preview crashes on loading. I had an experiment with height maps (good feature btw), imported one. Didn't know how to change the player starting position vertically. The starting position was somewhat 10 meters under the soil - engine preview crash on start.

Another thing: one of my earlier attempts on a space map crashed the Editor on start. The app starts, brings the 'chose from ...' dialog. Hit said space map, OK, crash. I could deliver the crash report, if needed.
Unfortunately I don't exactly remember what I did in the map, but I still have the file. AFAIR it was a small 1 portal map with black textures, then walls and/or floors and/or ceilings deleted.

Honestly I am a little overburdened by the Editor's "polygon only" concept. I've seen Half-Life's Worldcraft once or how that one was called. Similar concept and produced extremely buggy maps.
In the good old Forge days you didn't have portals, which totally bug me as a newbie, since I can't just expand my structure. In Forge you had a snap-to-grid and once you got used to it you could build stuff from above quite fast. The real deal was the texturing and the alignment of textures in visual mode (which by the way I have hardly seen in such a convenient way ever since).
Forge had this height library, which rapidly grew, that was not so good. But right now it looks to me as if Editor assigns such values too much "on sight", as you drag a floor or ceiling poly up or down in visual mode. What if you have a science-fiction design where you want all doors to have the same height and all the standard corridors, too?

You have snap to grid in the editor.

As for portals, you can resize them however you like in portal view, but if you make a bunch of small portals instead of one big one, the engine will go alot faster. Then again, if you have alot of open space you might as well make one big one it probably won't make a difference.

Something new:
I got a 512x512 space nebula texture which is tileable. I wanted to use that for the "Cube" sky box.

I looked at the demo map, it uses this 1024x512 Dark Sky PNG and Dome Hemisphere as sky box setting. Now I made a new space map with an empty PNG as walls/ceilings/floors. So far so good.
Both textures, my own space nebula PNG and the invisible.png are in the Data2/Bitmaps/Textures/ folder. Upon starting a new map Editor shows me the textures in that folder: invisible.png, nebula.png etc.

But when I want to set the sky texture, it does not offer the nebula.ong from the texture drop down. There is only one entry: invisible.png and then only (no texture)'s.
What's going on here?

EDIT: Uh I got it, you first have to import them into the library.

Another problem:
I got a poly selected in visual mode. How do I unselect it? I mean I now have a poly selected (red edges). I want to edit a material in the library, I click on it. The selected poly in visual mode get's this texture. ARGH!

EDIT2:
You can not toggle the from above cam in Editors engine preview, can you?
Uh, I got it, change camera type in map script. I thought you could only set that in the game. CHASE_STATIC seems to be what I need. Can I also set the camera position in the map script or later on?

EDIT3:
No, adding
to the map script in Editor did change nothing in the engine preview.

EDIT4:
New Animation window is missing a Cancel button.

How do I mark a bone for light or halo usage? / Got it ... No wait, I want to assign two bones for two lights (one each), how do i do that?

First off, you don't need a invisible texture, just use the other one with a segment transparency of 0 (double click the segment and type 0 for the transparency.
[EDIT]Sry I got distracted then hit post without answering the question lol.

2nd One: click outside where there are no polys. Normally I'm in a room I'd just click a segment with that texture so it doesn't change anything.

3rd One: Yes, it's normally changed through the course script from the start but you can change it whenever.
Are you in chase camera mode? If not, chaseOffset won't do anything.

4th: Lol that's dumb, Brian??

5th: You go to specail bones and assign them there.

ccccc Wrote:First off, you don't need a invisible texture, just use the other one with a segment transparency of 0 (double click the segment and type 0 for the transparency.

No, now I am used to the invisible texture.

ccccc Wrote:2nd One: click outside where there are no polys. Normally I'm in a room I'd just click a segment with that texture so it doesn't change anything.

Oh man.

ccccc Wrote:3rd One: Yes, it's normally changed through the course script from the start but you can change it whenever.
Are you in chase camera mode? If not, chaseOffset won't do anything.

Nope, CHASE_STATIC.

4th: Lol that's dumb, Brian??

ccccc Wrote:5th: You go to specail bones and assign them there.

I find no place of this name. However I found out by searching and reading that in the current version there is only 1 light and 1 halo per object and that this will be fixed soon.

Umm, maybe I'm using a beta....
Yeah, I am. Download the latest beta (don't worry it's stable) and then try.
In the beta go to model>special bones.