BAT Help - Texturing Issues

[GaryReggae 80]

Aha!  You have selected the 'sub' texture, which for some reason does not let you apply it to the object.  Somewhere in the Mtl Editor window (sorry, I don't have access to GMAX at the moment as I'm at work) is a small icon with an up arrow on it.  Click on this once and then you should be able to use the 'Apply' button.

[ElBarto92 7]

Sorry, Gary Reggae, but I can't seem to find that button.... If you could check and tell me where, exactly, I'd really appreciate it. Thanks so much!

[aldara6166 109]

In the texture selection window, when you pick the main texture (not the sub-texture) a button will light up as said.  This button is in the upper right hand corner of the window.  It is the second button from the right.  It is a circle with an arrow and not the red sphere.

 

Hope that helps.

[ElBarto92 7]

Oh, man, thanks so much Gary Reggae and aldara6166!!

[Odainsaker 2,134]

For those of us having issues of textures randomly missing from renders, I hope I may have some help.  Yep, as the models and maps I have slowly been working on have increased in complexity and size, I have also been increasingly plagued by the disappearing textures as well....grrrr.

 

Sometimes, clicking the Reset button for a troublesome material will fix that texture, but other textures will start failing on the renders.  Worse, sometimes different textures or several more of them at the same time will vanish in subsequent preview renders.  Re-importing into new scenes seems like such a hassel and leaves working files everywhere.

 

However, I have noticed something odd in several instances in my encounters with this.  After rendering a preview with missing textures, I looked back at the Material Editor for the texure missing.  I saw that the button Show Map in Viewport for that material was no longer selected as on or selected.  This was odd to me, as out of habit I leave it activated while working so I can see what I am doing in the viewport, and I am too lazy to turn it off when previewing.  It became even more strange as I realized that even though the Show Map in Viewport button was shown as off, the texture was still being shown in the perspective Viewport as if the button were on.  Perplexed, I click on the button a few times to get the button position and its viewport result back in sync.

 

Trying a preview again, the texture whose Show Map in Viewport button was acting up rendered beautifully for the rest of the session.  But to my horror, it was the ONLY texture that rendered--all the others failed to show!  After a few screams, I checked at the Material Editor window for each of those textures, and sure enough, the Show Map in Viewport button was in the off position even though I had original left them on.  Also, regardless of the button being off, the textures were still being shown in the viewport.  ????   I now go through each material and reclick on all the Show Map in Viewport buttons for each texture.

 

Holding my breath, I try another preview render.  Lo and behold, all the textures render wonderfully, and continue to do so for the rest of that session as I go on working with the model.

 

Just to be sure, I watched the pattern over a couple of weeks on different working sessions with the same model.   Random textures would still vanish on the first initial previews, but checking the materials immediately afterwards has consistently shown the Show Map in Viewport weirdness.  After going through each material and correcting the button to match what was happening in the viewport, the missing texture problem goes away.  It may not be a permanent fix, but as a solution, it is working for me.

 

As to what is creating the problem in the first place, I cannot really say.  It may likely be memory, as I am preview rendering a BAT with 188,000 polygons with only 512 MB ram while the all the textures are being shown in the viewport (yeah yeah, a 10-15 minute preview).  Then again, I do have one saved version of my model where the problem always shows at the outset (turn on gmax, load file, run preview), and the textures always seem to disappear in the same almost predictable pattern (first the copper roof, second the windows, then the aspalt roof, etc...).  I wonder if the saved file, which also saved the perspective viewport image the way I left it (with all textures showing), has saved the mismatching Show Map in Viewport button setting glitch.  Or perhaps, as the gmax default setting at startup is for textures not to be shown in the viewport, it may be that a discrepancy is happening when I load the file where the Show Map in Viewport settings were changed.

 

Ah well, the technicalities of it all is out of my field.  The important part is that I found a stop-gap solution that works in my case.  Hopefully, it may be of help to others.

 

___________________________________________________

 

 

I'm going to add an edit here rather than work this into the above text.  To show what I was referring to, I captured a screen with the relevant parts pointed out.  The missing texture from the preview is the green pyramidal roof, which rendered in default grey instead of its Copper Roof.  The Show Map in Viewport button is the blue/white checker cube and is shown in the off setting, even though the viewport still shows its texture.

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//drivemenuts.jpg align=baseline>

 

Oddly enough, this green roof texture is almost always the first to go.  It is not my largest texture, but is different from all the others in that its base image file is stored in a completely different folder and directory from the other textures.

 

Just to throw one more tidbit in an already bloated post, as I was trying to put together this screenshot, I had the hardest time recreating the problem.  The textures still vanished in the first previews, but the Show Map in Viewport buttons for the materials now decided to all look like they were set correctly (unlike the past few weeks).  Sigh, the Fates are having Fun with me!  However, clicking through them anyway to be sure they are working correctly still restored the missing textures for me.  Also, while trying to make a nice pretty preview image of the entire building to use in the screenshot, I tried changing Zoom level in the BAT Rollout.  To my surprise, doing that also restored the missing textures on renders and alleviated the problem.  (lol, won't work render correctly when I want it to; won't render incorrectly when I need it to!)  Perhaps it is due to the zoom change forcing a complete redraw of the viewports, in a way similar to the Show Map in Viewport button forcing a texture redraw.

 

Whatever the reason, as long as it works, all is well that ends well.

 

[aldara6166 109]

I have noticed over several BATs that this disappearing texture problem always seems to crop up when I go over like 5-10 textures and I add a new texture to the mix.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

I'm having the same problem too, and am experiencing the same symptoms. At first I just reloaded all the texture maps, and it seemed to work for a time. Right now, all textures will show up on previews after I reload them, but when I export right after previewing, the problem textures disappear again! Re-checking show in viewport pretty much results in the same problem.

Odainsaker, you may have found something when you said that the texture you were having problems with was in a different folder. I'm going to consolidate everything into one folder and see if that solves the problem. I have several different folders that I'm using, so that may just freak GMax out. In any case, it is worth trying! Thanks!

[jestarr 3,410]

After I started putting my textures in the folder with the model, the missing texture problem disappeared for me.  You may want to try it and see if it works for you.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Well, I've done everything that has been suggested, but haven't had time to export a test of the overall BAT yet....

While I was doing this though, a good question came to mind:

What the heck is a multi-material? I haven't figured out what that does and I can't find anything about it anywhere....

[jestarr 3,410]

I'm not sure about this, but I think a multi-material is a combined texture, (i.e. one that has the sides, top, and end textures all in one graphic).  This is applied and then mapped to the model, with different parts of the texture pulled into position (mapped) to various parts of the mesh.   Also, as near as I can tell, what's termed a skin and a multi-material are basically the same thing.

[Odd from Sweden 129]

Odainsaker, first I would like to compliment You for a fantastic model!

Now on to the textures. In my experience, BAT messes up textures when it has two or more bitmaps where the same first eight digits in the file name are the same. This might very likely happen if You test-and-improve textures and end up with files in Your texture folder like nicewall.jpg, nicewalllighter.jpg, nicewallighterfixed.jpg etc. If You are old enough You might remember the times before Windows 98 came out, when file names could only be eight digits long (plus the three-digit extension). I think that GMAX incorporates some old code (stealing is the programers best friend :-) that not uses more than eight digits of the file name, thus confuses the program and greys out the textures.

[yayaville 0]

I'm just beginning to learn the BAT and I've got a few questions about re-using existing textures and props for my own buildings and lots.

 

1) Is it permitted?  Obviously if someone posts here's a set of textures to use in gmax then it's OK, but what about the texture mega-packs that are released by BSC, NDEX, or some of the more prolific BATters? 

 

2) Assuming it's OK, how do I extract them from a .dat file?  Ilive Reader? Darkmatter's DatGen program?

 

3) Are the textures released in .dat files all lot textures?  It seems that, since the buildings are all pre-rendered and not rendered during gameplay, the game wouldn't need the textures that make up the building, right?

 

 

[GaryReggae 80]

Hi Yayaville,

1. If the textures are posted on the STEX then generally it's OK to use them but you must not include the texture files in your upload, you must ask people to download them from the original location.

2. I'm not sure.

3. Yes, any 'textures' released to the STEX are generally base/overlay textures for Lot Editor. Once a building has been rendered, there is no way of extracting the textures as the rendered building is just a 'snapshot' of the model from different zooms/angles.

[sparkythepenguin 90]

Does anyone know why this occurs and how to fix it? It looks like parts of my texture have somehow peeled off!



*The export was set as High-Quality.

*It's only showing up in Lot Editor or in-game- It looks OK in preview renders and during the export process in Gmax.

*Moving the building around in LE doesn't make it go away.

*I'm using a cylindrical, capped UVW map that is wide, high, and long enough to cover all the surfaces on the object. (two renders with different UVW maping attributes came up with the same results).

*This only is visible from one viewing angle (can't remember if it was north, south, etc.. in Gmax/BAT), and at all zoom levels in just that angle. From all the other angles, it does not show up and looks like nothing is wrong.

I'm at my wit's end with it. Please Hellllllllpppppppp!!!

[TwinPineapples 0]

For me, bump maps won't show on the model.

I used a black & white map. Umm...Black is
dent, and white is bump...correct?

I applied it after I did all the UV stuff,
which I know I did right.

The sphere in the material editor shows my
desired bumps, but the model won't. I even
made the bump map value at 100%...nothing.

I figured that mabe I need a shadow-casting
light, but that didn't work either.

I'm stuck here, and I'm not going to model
every window; the render time is long enough
as it is.

Any ideas?

[bixel 1,223]

sparkythepenguin: I am assuming you've tried all the normal problems solvers, re-load all textures 1 by 1, resave file under new name, select all objects save selected into a new file, yadda yadda yadda. If you've rendered this guy 10 times, then the only thing I can think is to have someone else render it and see what happens. Sometimes I render Paulvmontfort's stuff for him, PM me if your interested. (Just a thought, save file under new version name, select the objects that are having the problem and collapse them into a mesh. Who knows? If you haven't already done that, it might work. However when you collapse an object you cannot edit the mapping afterwards.)

 

BTW if you don't know how to do it, select the object, then from the edit menu on the right where it says:

 

UMV Mapping

   Extrude

   Line

 

Right-click and a menu will appear, select Collapse All.

 

[Edit] Guess I didn't read your post correctly! I didn't know it was only doing this in LOT Editor and game, perhaps you should crank open that iLive Reader and open the model file in that. Then select the individual fsh files, iLive reader with show them for you, if its showing up there as well then its a render export problem, if its not then its a Maxis problem.

TwinPineapples: As far as i know gmax does not recognize bump mapping in the export phase, nor does it seems to recognize noise mapping or gradient-noise maps either. I do know that BAT4MaxV2 does recognise bump mapping as RaphaelNinja has showed us, though you will need some version of 3DS Max to use it.

[coultharda 135]

I can't seem to get it so that the apply button is clickable when I want to apply textures. The object to apply it to is selected, and I'm pretty sure it has a UVW map. Help!

[Kwakelaar 92]

Hello Coultharda and welcome to Simtropolis.

You will need to get the material onto a 'ball' in the Material Editor.
Starting from your screen picture, you will have to pick the material again from the Material Navigator. Look under Browse from: and Scene here Entire should be active.
Dubbel click on the 'ball' with your desiered material and it should now show up in the Material Editor. Now you can use the apply button in the Material Editor.

If it is not clear just let me know and I will post some images.

[TheCrybKeeper 300]

Date: 1/16/2006 9:39:25 PM Author: bixel

 

TwinPineapples: As far as i know gmax does not recognize bump mapping in the export phase, nor does it seems to recognize noise mapping or gradient-noise maps either. I do know that BAT4MaxV2 does recognise bump mapping as RaphaelNinja has showed us, though you will need some version of 3DS Max to use it.

quote>

Yep, thopught I would break down and purchase 3DsMax8, with my income tax returns: Holy Pockets Batman! $3700.00 dollars?!  Sticker shock is still ailing me 3 daze later.

[coultharda 135]

Date: 1/21/2006 4:28:10 AM Author: Kwakelaar Hello Coultharda and welcome to Simtropolis. You will need to get the material onto a 'ball' in the Material Editor. Starting from your screen picture, you will have to pick the material again from the Material Navigator. Look under 'Browse from:' and 'Scene' here 'Entire' should be active. Dubbel click on the 'ball' with your desiered material and it should now show up in the Material Editor. Now you can use the apply button in the Material Editor. If it is not clear just let me know and I will post some images.

 

 http://img33.imageshack.us/my.php?image=prob21tu.jpg

I don't quite understand. Where are the textures?

[Kwakelaar 92]

I shall try to be a bit more clear. Sorry that I'm not such a great tutorial writer.

 

I assume you will have downloaded some textures and that you have put them in gmax Maps.

 

In gmax when you want to open a new material from the Maps folder you will have to use the Material Navigator. Notice that in the Material Navigator you have; 'Browse from' and just like in the screen below this should be set to 'New'. In the Material Navigator dubbel click on the Bitmap and you should get the possiblity to open a new texture (you may have to browse to the correct folder).

 

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/2100/tutorial13ar.jpg align=baseline>

 

This is what you will see, just like your first screen image. But you can also see that the apply button is not active.

 

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/2353/tutorial29cu.jpg align=baseline>

 

You then have to go back to the Material Navigator and first set 'Browse from' to 'Entire'  (nr 1 in red) and then again dubbelclick on the material on the sphere (and not the flat texture) you want to use (nr 2 in red).

 

http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/8373/tutorial37ud.jpg align=baseline>

 

In this last screen you can see the material applied to a sphere and that the Apply button is active, meaning you can now apply your material to whatever shape you have made.

http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/8409/tutorial44er.jpg align=baseline>

 

I hope you can follow this and that you can go futher with what seems that it will be an interesting project.

Good luck!

[coultharda 135]

Got it! Thank you so much

[TheCrybKeeper 300]

Uuhh, what do you mean you are not good at tutorials? this is definitely a TUT above the rest, Kwakelaar!

I finally understand, how you BATters keep those textures from confusing you.

[spa 968]

Hello everyone. I'm working on my first real BAT and everything was going really well until I started to get ahead of myself and tried to test it in the game (the sides and back aren't done). Unfortunately I did find a problem. When I render my BAT the textures on one side go all wonky and I haven't been able to figure out why or how to fix it. This is what it looks like and this is with a high quality render. As you can see one side gets wrecked and the other is fine.

 

https://www.simtropolis.com/idealbb/files//Problem2.BMP align=baseline>

 

Has anyone encountered this? It's not a problem with just one texture it's one whole side. Reloading the texture did no good because the problem isn't limited to just one texture. The black tile texture and the stone facade have the same wonky affect, it's just not as noticable as it is one the brick. Does anyone have any ideas as to how I can fix this? It's very annoying.

[Kwakelaar 92]

Spa, this seems to be the problem with the mirror function in gmax. There is no real solution to it (that I know of), except don't use it. Try if you can use copy and rotate instead.

[spa 968]

Date: 1/26/2006 6:04:32 AM Author: Kwakelaar Spa, this seems to be the problem with the mirror function in gmax. There is no real solution to it (that I know of), except don't use it. Try if you can use copy and rotate instead.

Ahh that makes sense! I did mirror all the pieces on that side, not because I really needed to, but just because I knew the distance to enter thus avoiding a few steps. I can break out the copy and rotate easily enough. Do you know if this problem is restricted to just the mirror command? Is array fine to use? Thanks so much for your response. The mirror command would never have occurred to me as the source of the problem since my BAT looked fine in gmax and just seemed to run into trouble when I rendered.

 

-Sam

[SimGoober 2,351]

The mirror tool in gmax is a roll of the dice.  sometimes it comes out ok, other times not.  Seems about a 50/50 chance.  I stopped using it a long time ago due to this, but tried it recently on a complex model (SimTropolis Station), and I got lucky.  Tried it again later and didn't.

 

This is the only tool I know of that has this sort of issue.

[spa 968]

Thanks for the info guys. I have redone the wall in question and it is now working properly. Good to know about the mirrow tool. I won't be using it anymore.

-Sam

[Odd from Sweden 129]

The mirror tool makes textures goofy, but it is fortunately a REALLY simple workaround if You want to mirror Your stuff. Do not use the mirror TOOL/COMMAND (in the main toolbar), use the mirror MODIFIER (found in the modifier rollout).

Thanks to the person (do not remember who) who pointed out this to me some time ago!

[Mickebear 2]

I have also ran into troubles with the mirror tool - I have some relatively complex models like rounded staircases, where I wanted to use mirror tool. It would have saved so much time - but no - on that model the mirroring just didn't work. I think Simgoober got lucky when he didn't have to redo half of his station