BAT - Troubleshooting & General Discussion

[TV-VCR 14]

Originally posted by: Theirishnintendonerd Hello , I know what the problem is. Gmax acts all werid when directx is being used by another program. Simply put windows classic theme on and it should be fixed.

-Trevorquote>

I just tried that and restarted gmax. It didn't work. I'll try rebooting.

Chris.

Edit: Sorry, didn't work.

[Theirishnintendonerd 13]

Hello , I know what the problem is. Gmax acts all werid when directx is being used by another program. Simply put windows classic theme on and it should be fixed.

-Trevor

[JakeMD 107]

I am pretty sure its your 3d engine. Change it to something else like OpenGL or Direct3D. I think you have to re-install gmax to do this, but I am sure I am wrong too. Good luck Chris.

[TV-VCR 14]

Originally posted by: SWAT-MEDIC I am pretty sure its your 3d engine. Change it to something else like OpenGL or Direct3D. I think you have to re-install gmax to do this, but I am sure I am wrong too. Good luck Chris.quote>

Is there a way to change that setting without reinstalling gmax? And which one would I want, OpenGL or Heidi? I would imagine OpenGL?

[JakeMD 107]

Well I go with OpenGL. I don't think there is a change graphics mode so I think a complete re-installation would be in order, or (download the installer again and "install it". You could be prompted to do a change of graphics.)

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Go to Customize>Preferences and go to the Viewports tab. In the lower right hand corner you can change it.

[TV-VCR 14]

I tried OpenGL and now I get "Interactive 3D Renderer initialization failed. Pleace check your device settings by using the -H command line option." I tried adding -H to the end of the target but it still gives me that error. And, OpenGL is working absolutely fine for every other program on this computer (and I have quite a few OpenGL programs).

Argh!

[JakeMD 107]

Lol, try re-installing gmax (it doesn't take that long) and selecting OpenGL as your graphics settings when it first is initialized.

[nycc06 229]

i have a question, i have craeted a new bat, AC Bank Tower V3, but i'm having problems exporting and rendering the bat in general. Every time i try to render the model, a message displays saying maxscript rollout handler exception -- unknown system exception, then the render stops and the file crashes. This happens every time. I've tried putting the model into a new file and even into an existing working file and the same thing always happens. Also i have noticed that this could have something to do with the file size. The bat file is 80,301 KB. but i thought that the model would render as a have a computer with 4 GB of RAM.

if the file size is causing this does anyone know an easy way to reduce the file size without removing the detail from the model or splitting the model into two halves as this will create additional shadow and lighting errors on the model. can anyone help?

[nycc06 229]

no worries, i seem to have solved the problem. i managed to reduce the file size down to 62,000KB by removing all the trees and only including low poly count trees. This has now allowed rendering to work correctly and the model is currently exporting. Expect upload to the stex sometime in the next few days.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Oh noes....

The SimCity game, or the process by which BAT renderings are turned into model files, compresses colors. It has been less noticeable for me in the past, but today's test project got significantly brightened, color shifted, and starkly contrasted given the less available colors for subtle effects.

There is likely nothing we can do with SimCity's limited range of ingame available colors (how old is this game already?), so obviously we must adjust our projects so that the post-processing result ingame will look reasonably close to our BAT intentions. I've never seen numbers for how SimCity does its compression, so I do not know how to control or plan for this in advance. The solution I have used in the past is to blindly tinker with material settings and continuously exporting and testing ingame. Blindly tinkering is very hit-and-miss, not to mention time-consuming when switching between programs and test exports.

While I go back to blind parameter plucking, I wonder if anyone has noticed a pattern or realized a set of typical adjustments or settings that seems to work broadly for them? Or have we all been guess-plucking too?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Yeah, I absolutely hate it. You get something that looks really good in 3ds Max, and then it doesn't look quite as good in the game.

I'm not 100%, but I want to say that it compresses the image into 3 pixel chunks of color, but I really have no idea. And, I wouldn't really mind compression, but what I really don't like is when it doesn't know how to compress it and it uses grey, so there are splotches of grey where there used to be nice details.

But something else I've noticed is that within the context of the game, it doesn't really matter that much, since everything else uses the same compression and since no one really cares anyway.

[Ferrariguy1000 43]

I am exporting a BAT model into SCM file in low quality, after that, it says some render 1:1 screen and the program is nonresponsive according to what the task manager says. is it actually rendering but  can't be interacted or is it actually nonresponsive?

[Jasoncw 11,840]

Yeah, it might do that. If you let it be, when it's done it should respond again.

[Francis90b 748]

This is the model

And these is the mirrored version.

Both of them looks right.But when i try to preview and export them the first version looks right

but the second (modified with the mirror tool) is messed up

And I don't know why.

[Odainsaker 2,134]

Unfortunately, that is the infamous gmax Mirror Tool Bug, one of the earliest BAT dilemmas. The mirror tool in gmax is simply broken in that it does not work the way we would expect--there is a complicated technical reason for it producing the results it does, but for our purposes, it is just broken. Don't ever use the Mirror Tool from the Tools dropdown menu...it offers only guaranteed grief.

However, others have discovered that to mirror an object you can instead successfully apply and use the Mirror Modifier found under Parametric Modifiers in the the Modifiers menu dropdown. Select everything you want mirrored, and then apply the modifier.

The effects of the broken gmax Mirror Tool Bug are often not realized until long after the tool was used and then textures applied. Skewed textures which can never be realigned correctly or intuitively are the telltale sign. If you want to salvage any current work you have done with the broken Mirror Tool, it has been suggested in the past that you attach the mirrored object(s) to a new object(s). What apparently has happened is something like the normals in the geometry of the mirrored objects have also been somehow twisted by the Mirror Tool, but by attaching the skewed mirrored object as a sub-object onto a master object with proper normals, those proper normals will then be grafted onto the geometry of the object you are attaching. You can then then delete or detach unwanted geometry from the now combined object and continue tinkering with the newly corrected object, which should now behave--err--normally, though you may have to redo any textures or mapping.

[Francis90b 748]

Thank you very much

[art128 4,618]

this house look good my friend

[msernst 10]

Ok, so I have a valid copy of simcity on my computer. I have a problem though, I can't install the BAT because it's saying that sim city does not appear to be installed. Apparently it isn't looking hard enough. Anywho, how do I get around this problem? Uninstalling and reinstalling is not an option as I cant find disk two of my sim city deluxe disks. Any ideas?

[SimFox 802]

I bet you have some sort of "doctored" version of SimCity... probably one that doesn't ask for a Disk when game starts. -that uses modified EXE file and Bat doesn't recognize it, or to be precise - recognizes it and penalizing you for it...

[msernst 10]

ah, that might be it. It IS a valid copy of sim city that I bought at best buy...but I found it odd that it has NEVER asked for my disk to play the game. I think I'm just gonna go buy the game again. *shrugs*

[thecarl3 2]

  I really want to learn how to use the program Gmax so I can creats SC4 buildings and contribute to the site. Mainly because I have lots of good ideas but have no way to share them. I havent been able to find any tutorials to help me get started.

Can anyone help me or direct me towards a good tutorial.

I know nothing about this program, so just learning to create a simply box with mabye a window would be a start!  

 

Thanks!

[Cockatoo 2,256]

This is THE best tutorial on the web. It'll teach you all the basics that you need to know, after that, just start a BAT thread, ask when you need help and look around the forums.

[ColonialReceiver 0]

thank you for that link, i was looking for somthing on that as well.

[JakeMD 107]

You might as well just sift through this entire forum and read all of those articles.

[thecarl3 2]

I am learning to create buildings using gmax but right now I cant figure out how to texture very well. I figured out how to draw a texture onto a shape and thats about it.

I was following the BAT essentials tutorial which helped a ton but I can't understand the texture part. I am lost on how to do it wih a UVW map. Also I found a brick texture and placed it on my building but the bricks were huge!! Only about 5 showed on the building. They were bigger then the windows. How do I scale that down!! or what do I do??

Can't find any tutorial here or on the web really, can anyone help me!!

[_Atticus 10]

Here is a link to Jasoncw's texturing tutorial. Hope it helps.

-Pingangster

[thecarl3 2]

I am a new BAT creator and I want to know how to post the rendering on the forums. If anyone can help me with this just tell me! Hahha

I am going to show some of BAT's that I have done and hopefully someone can help me improve. I have much to learn with Gmax. I have plenty of ideas.....I just dont know how to create much detail using Gmax. All I have learned so far is pretty much boxes, I dont even know how to create say a house roof!

So someone please help me--How do I get my building renderings on Gmax!

I posted the pic on word but can't convert it so the computer sees it as a picture and not a text doc.

Thx!

[madhatter106 3,903]

Once you have done a preview render (usually at high quality), simply line the day and night shots up so they don't overlap each other and hit "print screen." Then open up Photoshop or whatever you use to manipulate images with, and create a new document and paste the screenshot into it. Crop, resize, save, and publish. Easy as that!

[Jasoncw 11,840]

You can do previews at low quality, they take a lot less time and look almost exactly the same.

If you don't have Adobe Photoshop, you can download "The GIMP" (search google for their website), which is free, and has most of the same capabilities. Their site also has tutorials on how to use it. Getting good with an image editing program is very important for texturing BATs, and it's useful for all kinds of non-BAT every day type stuff too.