Bat4Max v2.6 HD

[DazzaDazza 29]

I seem to have a problem with the program the program, it is when I get to the stage of "Render Bat" it gets half way then I get a code = 6 error


 

This is probably because I have not install it right, or I just don’t know how to use the program,  so just a few questions in installing to make shore I have install it right.  

Edit @ (Because I did not way what i wonted to say (it sounded Doggie)  

I am using 3DsMax2009;  SimFox  gave me the link form Rapidshare  for the new scripts that I need to replace so I can use  it with 3Ds max 2009,  in the PM.

What folders do these 2 files need to go into? so i know i put them in the right place

In let there be light, one of the steps is to

replace ALL TB2_CameraLightingRig*.max files found in 3dsMax ...\gamepacks\BAT\scenes\CamLightRigs  and ...\gamepacks\BAT\scenes\startup with one supplied with this download

Do I have to replace all the files in each folder with the one. E.g delete all files in the 2 folders and copy, TB2_CameraLightingRig*.max in to each folder so there is in of each in the folders.

Also as I am not very experience in bating  

1. SD or HD.
   Decide if this models should be exported as SD (standard definition – pixel perfect Zoom5 and 2x stretched Zoom6) or HD (pixel perfect Zoom6 and 2x reduced zoom5). Make a selection. Done that, press Export button. You’ll be asked to save the GMAX file. Do that and give it appropriate name so you could easily identify your coming SC4Model file later in 3ds Max.
   Once export is finished you can return to Max and

How do I do this part?  

[DazzaDazza 29]

 

Hear is the pic of the error

[Xyloxadoria 1,099]

If you are getting a Error 6, it is becsue 3dsMax has ran out of memory. To get around this error, close all the other programs and leave the render alone (Leave the comptuer). That will give max the maximum amount of memory possible.

For your question about TB2_CameraLightingRig.max, yes you must delete every file in that folder and replace it so there is just that one from the LTBL download in it.

Also to pick between HD and SD look in the Preview section of the tools tab (Hammer thing on right)  there should be the option there.

[DazzaDazza 29]

what size do I need to run this program

at the moment I am running XP with

2 x 2.13 GHz

2.00 GB RAM

edit @  The computer doesn’t seem to be struggling with it, it gets to a certain point in the rendering process then I get the message, it dose it every time, even when rendering a plan a square box.  

[zero7 68]

I'm getting a strange error when doing a night export.  I'm using Max 2009 with Bat4Max 2.6 and the Let There Be Light rigs.

This is the .bmp file being produced from a 'dark night' render:

I am aware that there are supposed to be incompatibilities in Max 2009 and 2010, but I thought they were to do with framing rather than image quality.

The day render is fine.  The preview night render is also correct.  Saving the image from the preview pane as 8-bit also gives a clean image.  This only seems to affect the bitmap produced from within the BAT render.

Has anyone ever seen anything similar or have an idea why this might happen?

EDIT:  In the process of doing a 'maxis night' render and from a quick look at the output files it appears OK.  So either there are some key differences in the config between the two night exports or the light level of dark night itself is causing the issue.  Looks like I'll have to find some time to dig into files and do some experimentation unless someone else has already been here before.

[SimFox 802]

Error6 is NOT running out of memory. It is a generic sort of error message that could mean many things (normally, but not exclusively inability to access needed data). As such the causes may be plenty. Including, among others some plugins for 3ds Max.

Memory issue is completely separate from all this. Firs of all BAT (any version of it for 3ds Max) does NOT have any memory management features/capabilities. Consequentially it doesn't have any issues with memory on it's own. When you render with Mental Ray it deals with Memory and OS and all the other stuff. And if your export will run into memory issues, namely MR will run out of it you'll get very explicit message about it. It would read something like "MR can't allocate memory..." Otherwise it is is NOT lack of memory.

And leaving computer alone... well... it's a voodoo kind of medicine... In fact OS has memory management and allocation features and there is NO need to do that. In fact you can set your Max to low priority and do any other task. This will make your render a bit longer, but you'll be able to use computer while it renders in a much more comfortable fashion. Particularly when you do not too CPU intensive tasks like browsing, typing etc...

However in Mental Ray used in Max2009 series there is a bug. It causes Keyboard (at least a USB one to be come extremely sluggish when MR is rendering anything regardless of the priority you assign to the processes. It has never been fixed for that version of MAX. Autodesk simply had chosen to ignore the issue. Worst, it had been replicated in Max2010 at the release. Luckily it has been fixed since (but only for Max2010) in SP1.

And what is an "incompatibility" with image quality? And what is the "image produced from BAT render"? I mean what is BAT render? As far as I know such thing exist ONLY in GMAX, but not in 3ds MAX. In the later the render is what ever you use there as a production renderer - Scanline, Mental Ray, V-ray etc... At any rate what BAT4Max is producing on it's own are those BMPs. However, it not what you see in game. There you see FSHs...

You image is soooo dark it next to impossible to make out anything on it. At least I on my calibrated monitor can't be sure of what I see. Can you describe it in words?

That said I could try to take somewhat educated guess - I know of some issues that are associated with darker night BATs. Given what I've said I just assume that you have run into it. The culprit is FSH converter / FSH conversion. Resulting FSH is a very low bit image (4bit or 16/32 color if memory serves me right) to hide the this shortcoming differing is used (like in GIF). Compression applied can't really deal well with fine gradation of very low volume/brightness levels. Probably the darker areas are given least priority. This may lead to banding of blotches of of flat hue/brightness in there.

If that is a case; than I don't know of any solution as I don't really know much about the working of FSHman of the FSH conversion itself. Could it be somehow tuned with greater priory given to the dark tones? Or is it set in stone? Cause if it is like GIF then there might be custom pallet, or something like that ... May be we should get null45 involved in this discussion.

[zero7 68]

Thanks for replying.

Originally posted by: SimFox

And what is an "incompatibility" with image quality? quote>

In the context I used it - a known incompatibility leading to image quality degradation as opposed to the framing issue that I have seen you mention in regards to Max 2009/2010 previously.

And what is the "image produced from BAT render"? I mean what is BAT render? As far as I know such thing exist ONLY in GMAX, but not in 3ds MAX.

quote>

A render initiated from the BAT4Max export rather than a preview or direct use of the Max render dialogue.  Apologies for the lack of clarity.

In the later the render is what ever you use there as a production renderer - Scanline, Mental Ray, V-ray etc... At any rate what BAT4Max is producing on it's own are those BMPs. However, it not what you see in game. There you see FSHs...

quote>

This is from a mental ray render using the default settings created using the 'Dark Night' button in Let There Be Light.

I chose to look at the BMP to eliminate the possibility of it being an FSH convert error.  The in-game object has the same problem - so it carries over into the FSH files (unsurprisingly as the BMPs are the source files converted to FSH format by FSHman).

You image is soooo dark it next to impossible to make out anything on it. At least I on my calibrated monitor can't be sure of what I see. Can you describe it in words?quote>

That is exactly the problem - it is exceptionally dark and is also suffering from a large amount of RGB grain in the darker areas.  As mentioned in my original post the preview looks completely fine so I was wondering what differences exist between the preview and actual output.

That said I could try to take somewhat educated guess - I know of some issues that are associated with darker night BATs. Given what I've said I just assume that you have run into it. The culprit is FSH converter / FSH conversion.

quote>

That was my initial suspicion, but the BMPs are produced direct from Max - the script uses bmp.settype #paletted to output an 8-bit file - it is here that I think the problem is happening unless there is some exposure variable that is present for the preview render, but not the export.

Interestingly the 'Maxis night' render seems fine so maybe this version of Max is just behaving differently with low light images.  Also the 'save as' 8-bit from the preview gives a correct image, so it seems to be a problem at render time - the 'save as' I presume converts the 24-bit image to 8-bit compared to the export which renders an 8-bit image to start with.

 

I'll keep digging - I was just hoping someone had already found a solution or determined that there isn't one.  

 

[SimCity4IE 202]

I keep getting this error at only zooms 5 and 6. I merged it into a new file and started afresh with it.

Can someone tell me what's causing this?

This is how the building should look:

[DazzaDazza 29]

o.k i found the problem, i had a look at my render setting, i did not click anything under "Preset", and it now works, (i probably should have looked at that first before posting oh well what is done is done"

[SimFox 802]

Zero7:

Where and how did you get the image you8 have posted
 

SimCity4IE:

The problem you have is because game can't find proper textures (FSH files) for Zoom5; so it goes and fishes out something random (in your case it just happened to be smaller zooms of your own model, although it could have been just about anything else) or simply use checker one - that is a giveaway of a missing texture.

 

To say precisely what had caused this even is hard as you haven't really supplied any info to analyze.

But general suggestion would be to open your model in iLive Reader and check that all the required FSHs are in fact there. And then to see if there is some screw up with IDs

BTW what version of Max had you used and what version of Bat4Max? Had this been done as HD or SD model?

 

mrDazza_460:

nope, you're wrong there. You don't need to select any of the presets, in fact you SHOULDN'T! Cause if you do the settings made by LetTherBeLight will be lost.

[SimCity4IE 202]

I'm using 3ds Max 8 and this was rendered in SD and with BAT4MAX 2.6.

I opened it in iLives Reader, and these are the corrupted s3d files:

The strange thing is that all of the fsh files have no corruption

[zero7 68]

Originally posted by: SimFox

Zero7:

Where and how did you get the image you8 have posted

 

 

quote>

It's from folder C:\Max2009\gamepacks\BAT\Outputfiles\zero7_Natama-0x5ad0e817_0xb8144390_0x40000 and then the working folder for the export process;  within that folder are the folders for each view holding a .bmp for the full colour output plus the alpha mask - 0000.bmp and 0000-a.bmp

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

SimCity4IE: When you export, remove everything in your plugins folder (so Gmax doesn't get confused) and then try changing the size of your lods slightly, and make a new model file from them.

Also, make sure you have the BAT texture fix from maxis/EA:

https://www.sc4devotion.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=44&Itemid=

When this happens to me, it really isn't based on anything that I have done wrong, its just quirks with the programs (mostly just Gmax), causing all sorts of irregularities. Hope that helps,

-Todd

[SimCity4IE 202]

I use 3ds Max 8 though, and I have nothing in my plugins folder except for the buildings I'm making.

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Yes but you still have to use GMAX to create the model file, and that is where many issues may arise.

[SimFox 802]

SimHotToDDy | SimCity4IE:

I don't think that there is EVER any risk that GMAX get "confused"! It doesn't do 2-way communication with anything in Plugin folder what so ever. It's strictly one way - namely GMAX dumps there what it makes.

If you haven't installed new naming script for GMAX your first BAT will most definitely be corrupt. You can re-save your scene with a new name (no need to export-import anything) and export LODs again you'll get new SC4Modle file and it (if it is that naming bug) should be fine. If it will not then I would suggest to you to post this SC4Modle file (from second export) somewhere (like Rapidshare) and I'll take a look at it.

Zero7:

Strange, I took a look at the picture you've posted on the uncalibrated monitor and it looks like Something that would be result of the bad conversion, although the noise may be a bit to fine for it as well. Anyway it isn't really RGB noise either.

As is my only idea is that you haven't installed LetThereBeLight properly (check you if you've set GAMMA properly in your MAX as it has to be done manually for all version prior to MAX2010), or there is some conflict with some plugin you've installed in MAX (not terribly likely but...)

btw, you use old version of BAT4Max2.6, the one that is incompatible with Max2009/2010, right? And LetThereBeLight from STEX?

[DazzaDazza 29]

o.k. I will have a look, if it stuffs up every thing I will reinstall it again, any other reason why i could be getting that error . e.g setting

[zero7 68]

Originally posted by: SimFox

Zero7:

Strange, I took a look at the picture you've posted on the uncalibrated monitor and it looks like Something that would be result of the bad conversion, although the noise may be a bit to fine for it as well. Anyway it isn't really RGB noise either.

As is my only idea is that you haven't installed LetThereBeLight properly (check you if you've set GAMMA properly in your MAX as it has to be done manually for all version prior to MAX2010), or there is some conflict with some plugin you've installed in MAX (not terribly likely but...)

btw, you use old version of BAT4Max2.6, the one that is incompatible with Max2009/2010, right? And LetThereBeLight from STEX?quote>

As far as I can tell there's nothing wrong with the installation.  The gamma is set as per the instructions for Max 2008.  I don't use any other plugins.

This is an installation  on a new laptop.  The differences from my old setup are the version of Max - 2009 rather than 9, Windows 7 rather than Vista and 64bit.

I'm using the the current STEX version of BAT4Max2.6 and LetThereBeLight - I haven't overlooked a newer release have I?

If I have time this evening I'll see what happens with a simple matte white test object.

[SimFox 802]

Zero7:

yep it is a real problem and not a result of some accident. It only shows in DarkNite mode cause it occurs only at near total black values. So theoretically it may sometimes be seen even at day renders, but since in real life such near black values aren't really possible with properly set up materials...

Anyway i think I devised a solution that will deal with it once and for all setting everything on a proper basis, but I would need a little time to test it, or to be precise test it integration into the main scripts. The solution itself is already tested and it is working.

[zero7 68]

Originally posted by: SimFox

Anyway i think I devised a solution that will deal with it once and for all setting everything on a proper basis, but I would need a little time to test it, or to be precise test it integration into the main scripts. The solution itself is already tested and it is workingquote>

Glad you were able to reproduce the problem and even better that you have already devised a solution. I'll put this model to one side until you are ready to make the solution available.

Thanks

[SimFox 802]

well here it is:

as you can see it's a mixed bag of nuts... I've done my part - the exported bmp is now perfect (with perfection is being defined as 100% likeness of what one sees in preview). I've written routine that applies all the necessary gamma correction not to the 8bit per channel image as before but to the 32bit per channel image as it is generated by MAX.

Yet in the end the party is pooped by the FSH conversion. So if anyone knows something about FSH, compression used there and how one can control it, advise would be greatly appreciated.

[Cockatoo 2,256]

Yet in the end the party is pooped by the FSH conversion. So if anyone knows something about FSH, compression used there and how one can control it, advise would be greatly appreciated.quote>

Yes! I was waiting for this to come up. IMO, this is the number one issue that needs to be solved with the BAT4Max export process.

I'm usually very disappointed the first time I look at a model in game after an export because it always looked so much nicer in the previews. Is it actually possible to have resulting FSH match the BMP pixel to pixel, or at least have it look better than it does now? Would that require someone to do some tweaking of the fshtool.exe? I have no idea about any of this, but I know it needs to be fixed.

[zero7 68]

Originally posted by: SimFox

as you can see it's a mixed bag of nuts... I've done my part - the exported bmp is now perfect (with perfection is being defined as 100% likeness of what one sees in preview). I've written routine that applies all the necessary gamma correction not to the 8bit per channel image as before but to the 32bit per channel image as it is generated by MAX.

Yet in the end the party is pooped by the FSH conversion. So if anyone knows something about FSH, compression used there and how one can control it, advise would be greatly appreciated.

quote>

Sounds like an improvement in as much as FSH will now get the best source file it can accept.  What the FSH conversion does to it is another matter.  I have come across a few BMP to FSH converters, but all rely on the same underlying dll for the conversion that FSHman and FSHtool use - so that doesn't help.  

Something I have seen from googling around is that there is a PNG to FSH converter by null45 being used to create textures for lots and automata.  I don't know whether this might provide a better alternative to the current bmp to fsh converter.

(I think I just lost my weekend to graphics conversions!)

[SimFox 802]

yep I've posted the question to Null45, let's see what he could add to this discussion. As far as the new BAT4MAX is concerned I think it should be ready shortly, although there is always something else to improve etc... But this is endless process. So I just have to make a pause somewhere and I think this is a good one. this new version will give better color rendition that is at the same time more in line with game lighting and gives more color neutral output, fixes compatibility with MentalRay in latest incarnations of 3dsMax and HDR gamma conversion as well. This version will be fully backward compatible all the way to the Max5 and all the original lighting option (for older version of MAX) but I think the way forward in farther streamlining and cleaning up of the code making it more compatible with latest versions of MAX would need to drop some of the old stuff...

[thianz 62]

I'm using 3ds Max 2009 and this was rendered in SD and with BAT4MAX 2.6.

the building :460meters height

wireframe is complete.

texture is half.

i use i made Cameralightrig,the lightingrig mainlignt is 10000 meters height.

[SimFox 802]

Thianz, what is your renderer? V-ray?

[thianz 62]

Yes, V-ray

[SimFox 802]

and there you go!

[SAVAGExPHOENIX 955]

Okay, I know this is a fairly old thread, but I'm extremely new to the SC4 modding community. I have 3ds max 2011 Design, and i've read this and a couple other threads, but nothing in regards to compatibility with bat4max. I'm a fairly good modeler (>example]), but I'd like to move away from the C&C military-based modeling to civilian (case in point-SC4) modeling.

Also, is the "no space in path" still relevant? I really don't want to search for my max 11 disc again (just moved back home from fort hood, crap everywhere.), and it's in my program files (x86) menu.. reinstalling is a pain in the balls. My main thing though, is compatibility with 3ds max 2011 design. Any help at all would be so greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advanced

[SimHoTToDDy 2,938]

Yay! I love talented new BATers coming to the world of SimCity. You have been here for quite some time, but since this is your first post, let me welcome you to Simtropolis!

Anyway, you will want to take a look in this thread, it is the most up to date BAT4MAX and I believe the space-in-path issue has been dealt with. It should also function with 2011.

Best of luck, and I hope to see your adventures in modeling soon,

-Todd