Google sketchup/anim8or problems

[:(!]
Guys i need your help!
iv been making all of my objects on google sketchup for the last 8 months and its been working out just fine for me...but
iv heard this from many people that the lighting on GS is messed up once imported into NL... only expirienced that on one occasion but it hasnt happend since then...anyway, iv started my SaW-The ride recreation (for myself but if its good enough then ill release it) and i was bored one day a few months back and built the whole saw the ride station building etc. and continued with it for the last few days now and iv textured it and everything and its looking good and realistic....so heres the problem...exported it from GS in 3Ds format and put it in NL and BOOOOOM! all my textures gone, suuuuuper bad lighting problems and the worst of all, half of the faces are missing..from what i know in RCT3,all the faces must be reversed till only white faces show.. tried that and same thing happens, few less wals r missing but its still all messed up[:(!]

sooooooooo iv been told to use Anim8or to create my scenery/objects.. ONE PROBLEM.. i have absolutely nooo clue how to use Anim8or seeing that iv build up expirience on Sketchup over the last few years, im not exactly planning on learning how to use it du

Image Insert:

717.65 KBe to a lack of time and its way to much effort..

so here was my plan wich faild AGAIN expoting to 3Ds from GS and imorting that file into Anim8or...works BUT ERROR on the textures (FML) sooo i removed all the textures and tried, works perfectly.. Export, put into NL....lighting is fine but half of the faces missing AGAIN[:(!] (FFS)

SORRY for the suuuuuper long msg but i really need your help because this hasnt happend to me before and my SaW The Ride is comin slong suuper well and iv put waaay to much work into this to jus give up

anyway, so id be suuper greatfull if u hav any suggestions or know wat to do ...maybe this has even happend to you

Intamania x[?][?][8D][8D][^][^]

I'd say that learning Anim8or, 3DS Max, or other more powerful modelers would be helpful; you'd do those with slow/old computers a favor by having optimized models. Or figure out a way to optimize them in Sketchup or something. From the looks of it, it doesn't seem to work; you need to be able to change which side the faces show up on and Sketchup doesn't seem to like to allow you to use that functuality. Thus your only alternative is to make all faces double sided which causes framerates to plummet by doubling the amount of polys.

Anim8or however, is a real prick with textures. It only supports .bmp, .jpg, and .gif formats and not .png which is much more common for textures than .jpg. Make sure your textures are all in the right directory (same place as the models) and in .jpg format.

Actually, you can fix the problem with the faces in Anim8or itself. You have to go to point edit mode, select the affected faces (you can sort of tell if you're looking at a backface if it's slightly discolored; this polygon will not show up in NL) and use the flip normals function. I don't know if Sketchup can do this and if it can't, it's garbage. (I'd rather not jump to conclusions here though; Sketchup may actually be decent for modeling despite it's inability to export 3DS materials properly, though Anim8or doesn't have a clean record on 3DS exports either; lack of .png and environmental map support, along with bad smooth shading, usually screws it up.)

thanks for the tip ill keep on experimenting with it and post it here if if i have any success. and GS does indeed tell you wich direction the face is facing so it isnt garbage, GS is a very reliable and user friendly modeling program so i think ill stick to it but please anyone is welcome to give tips or suggestions that might help.. im obviously not the most clued up one here so maybe im just doing something very stupid/simple

so iv just had a look at 3D max.. seems very decent.. im going to give it a try aswell. im sure its just my problem with faces in the wrong direction.. iv also realised that i might kill a older/slow pc with all my faces, so im going to edit it to reduce unecissary ones

First off, that model looks amazing!

Anyway, I use a combination of sketchup and anim8or for my 3d modeling. I do all of my actual modeling in Sketchup, export it as a .3ds (using the pro trial on a separate computer) then adjust the lightning in Anim8or. Not only does anim8or remove all of the lighting issues, it also fixes double-sided face problems, which can be both a FPS-saver and a complete pain in the ass (it forces you to design all of your sketchup walls to have a thickness). I know there's a tutorial out there somewhere that tells you how to do it, I'll look it up and find it for you.

EDIT: after doing a quick search, I didn't find any links, so I'll tell you myself. When you import the .3ds model into anim8or, it will show up (obviously). Don't worry about panning around and viewing the entire model, as you won't need it and to be honest I have yet to figure that out! Anyway, in the toolbar at the top, you will see a button that has 4 black circles in it. Click that, and a lits of all of the materials used in the model will show up. Now comes the tough part (well, not really, but it's the most tedious): double click on a material, any material (preferably the top one) and what will show up is another window with a bunch of settings in it. All you need to do (unless you want to do more) is click on the "=" button in that window. Then, close the window and repeat for all of the other textures.
Back to that settings box: there are a lot of settings that can be messed around with, such as the ambient lighting and stuff, but I haven't found a use for them beyond making the window look more complicated. If you wanna play around with them, go ahead, but I won't be able to help you at all.

Looks like I'm badly mistaken on GS again. I've just seen hordes of unoptimized, poorly textured models made with it and coupled with the problems exporting materials, I jumped to conclusions once again.

The problems I currently have with 3DS Max is that I'm unable to use many basic functions of manipulating points, edges, and even polygons. The program is obviously fairly complicated. However, I'm usually able to model in a way that prevents the need for individual manipulation of points/edges/faces thanks to a good library of primitives, boolean, and other tools.

I may try out Sketchup eventually if I have extra time just because it's supposed to be faster to work with. It looks like primarily a tool for modeling buildings and architecture which I can already do with ease in Anim8or and 3DS, but I may be able to work faster and do more in Sketchup.

Anyways, when you import something into Anim8or, it all depends on what you need to edit. If you're having trouble viewing your model, try pressing F to center the entire model onto the viewing area. Go to the eye icon on the upper left of the left panel and you'll find viewing tools there. You'll want to be in perspective view to view everything in full 3D. A good view is important to removing unecessary faces, flipping the ones that need to be, and other minor editing as well as major.

If you're going to rely on Anim8or, take some time to figure out how it goes. As boneplaya mentioned, you don't have to fumble with the views at all if you're just fixing materials, but if you want to adjust smooth shading you may need to. Whenever importing 3DS's you will always have to ungroup everything (press U) as well.

Lastly, I'd strongly suggest using the latest versions of Anim8or (v0.95 or v0.97 preview) as they all have the keyboard shortcuts I mentioned. v0.97 also has a considerably better texture mapper, though it's obviously still not as good as 3DS's.


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Now some long thoughts on 3D modeling in NL:

When optimizing for unecessary faces, you have to sort of think of it in a certain way. The main question is, will the user, in most normal conditions, ever see or need to see this polygon? Part of it depends on what you're trying to show to the user. If you don't expect them to go to fly view and/or just don't care and only want to cover the ride experience, you can save a LOT of polys but the scene ultimately ends up lacking depth. On the other hand, more time focused to modeling for the ride could make for a better ride experience which is certainly worth more than demonstrating your ability to wrap long queues around the ride.

But aside from the large scale, the ride builder needs to examine the small. For example, when you create a cylinder, ask yourself: how many sides does it REALLY need? Is the smooth shading working? How will I get the texture to map on it right? And very important; do I need the endcap faces?

The first question of how many sides is a fairly subjective one but common sense does come into play. If you're model is a footer and your cylinder is a bolt on the footer, you DO NOT need 16 sides on it. Four, six, or eight would be the maximum in this case. You want the endcap to show up on the top obviously, but the bottom should be removed. So it's just one face, no big deal right? Actually, you will copy and paste this cylinder at least four times for your footer, and how many footers will your coaster have? It will probably add up to hundreds of faces, which should stay below 1000 triangles. By today's standards, 1000 may not be that many, but 1000 here on your footers and 1000 there on your buildings, scenery, etc. will add up to quite a bit and for most users, those thousands could save as much as 20-40fps. For someone with a modern DX11 card, it may only save 10-20 or maybe less, but it's still something.

I will admit I've done a few bad models and techniques on some of my rides. The asteroids in Neon Niter (won't link to it because that would just hijack the thread) are all individually 3D (and the sides you aren't able to see aren't even removed), high detailed rocks when I should've used a simple plane for each with an RGBA texture mapped onto it. My excuse was that the 3D geometry would look better, but for all I know it could've given a slight framerate boost. The effect of these slight boosts is amplified when things like vsync are taken to account.

On the other hand, you don't want your models to look miserable like NL's station, trees, and catwalks. The purpose of 3D models is to bring life into the scene and if your station is going to use paper-flat railings, you might as well "model" with supports instead.

All this may seem measly in the grand scheme of things; after all you have a track and supports to worry about, but environmental art is the icing on the cake and can really enhance the riding experience.

firstly thank you for the compliment and secondly i want to thank you guys for giving me these 'proper' answers and for all the time and effort you have spent on explaining these things to me -impressed- haha. I recoment trying GS coasteragent99. its very good and ill take all those tips into consideration the nextime i work on this again.. if you like what im doing then ill keep you updated on the progress of this project

I really feel bad not being able to reply with a SUPER long msg like you guys are haha but im going to try out many thing.. got 3d Max last night and am busy intalling as we speak haha
thanks guys x