Hiho everyone,
some BIG problems have occured which might hinder me from continueing this entry!
Problem:
Some of my 3D-models cause the particles to disappear! (Man, this sounds stupid, but it is reality!)
When you look at them from some angles or distances they just vanish and as soon as you move to another distance or angle they are displyed again!
I already send a "problem"-demo to Mike, cause I found out that "set object smoothing Obj-ID, SmoothValue" had an impact on it, BUT in this problem-demo I found a way to prevent this bug. Unfortunately this work-around doesn't work in my entry-demo, cause the "disappearing" already happens when I load an other 3D-model! (No smoothing active.)
Well, time will tell, if I find a solution for this desaster!
Update:
Seems like my car-model caused the problem (never worked with model in DB-Pro before, a shame I know!)! I splited it up into seperate parts and now it works somehow?! (As long as it works, I don't waste time for the reasons!)
Update-2:
I found out that my car-model in it's "planed"-version, looked fine in the scene, BUT caused the particles to disappear. Now that I tried to "play with limbs, gluing objects, etc." all these methods ended up in a unsatisfying way (Limbs: transprerancey couldn't be set for the windows! "Glued objects": wasn't simulated (treated together) with the main-car-object!)!
The (partial) breakthrough was achieved when I turned on the option "Optimize Mesh" within the Panda-3D-X-Exporter for 3D-S-Max! Now the car look (mostly) the way it should (some parts/normals of the model are messedup somehow) AND the particles don't diappear anymore! I give the "visible particles" a higher priority here! (See picture 4. and 5.!)
Update-3:
I thought to do a bit for optic of my entry, but what would I expect else than problems?
Problem: My "Wind-Channel"-object won't texture somehow! Even a simple texture won't get applied! i'm sure I have exported texture-coords etc. from 3DS-Max, but when I try to "texture object" I see nothing is textured at all! (I never used objects in my last entry and was too afraid to use DP for a long time! So this is my first try in useing non-promitive-3D-objects!)
Update-4:
"Texutreing-resistent" 3D-objects were caused by textureing the object BEFORE the "set object smoothing"-command (it was put as close as possible to the main-loop, cause it prevented the "particles-disappearing" in some cases!)! Now I texture my objects right after this and all works fine! Sometimes the details metter!
Car-Model seems possible to be used in it's original "best-mode"! I found a work-around for most cases of the "disappearing-praticles"-problem!
Update-5:
Added a Parallax-Mapping-Effect, but I'm unsure about which texture to use (what scaling it might look best), cause it shold look "aerodynamic" and still a bit like metal. So I don't know what size the plates should have! It would be nice, if someone tells me what he thinks about it!
Update-6 (20.07. Preview-Submission):
I hope the line for the file-size "Max Zipped Size" -> 5Megs from
http://physxcomp.thegamecreators.com/details.html
is correct! If only the media-directory would be allowed to be '5Megs', then I have a problem! (Car-Model it-self has 5.7 Megs!)
Zipped up, I have a size of 4.x MB total! (Exe, Media, Author.txt, Source)!
So I hope I'm still in, otherwise I would have to change this into an 'Über-Demo'! (What I really don't want to!)
Update-7 (22.07.):
Found a way to "fix" my "too-big"-car-model-problem!
Now exporting as the "Binary with compression"-method instead of "Text"-method! (Used the "Text"-method for compatibility reasons, but that precaution was unnecessary, cause my demo also works fine with the compressed models!)
Result:
(car-model only) before 5.7 MBs --> now 533 kb
(complete Media-Folder) before 6.5 MBs --> now 1.14 MBs
So far I would say that my "size"-problem for the "final"-submission should be fixed at the moment!
Hoozer