Wall Worm Forums

I'm not sure but I remember having had such problems before. Would you please mention which kind of collision you are using? Since a prop_dynamic is used here, they can have 2 different kinds of collisions:

• A static one (like in static_props) which goes under the .QC command $collisionmodel.
• One used for animated props, such as dynamics or ragdolls, which go under the .QC command $collisionjoints.

I think I dabbled with the latter one, where I had mixed results due to them being parented to a bone (and as such change in rotation). Do note that if you are using a dynamic prop that will not change in position, simply use $collisionmodel.

If nothing helps, consider resetting the xForm of the collisionmodel itself in 3DS Max. Let us know if you were able to fix it.

You can find more information about both of these through the following links:
$collisionmodel
$collisionjoints

Go to your CS:GO VPK, open up the materials folder, go to foliage, and open the vmt's for any of the big detailed trees that all CS:GO maps use. They have the $treesway command. You'll have to experiment with it. I think env_wind also affects the strength of this effect. Currently there are no articles on the SDK Docs wiki, which is sad and surprising imo.

Quote from: the6thmonkey on January 05, 2017, 12:54:42 AM
I encountered three main issues with my entry. 

The first issue
The second issue
The third issue

All these issues meant that the time investment required to produce a quality entry eventually forced me out.

Thank you for your input to the contest. While I very much wanted to participate, I couldn't (I let Shawn know in advance), so I feel I have little right to argue about experiences on how working on an entry for the contest through WW and 3DS Max helps/slows down.

However, I would love to shed some light on my experience with de_cathedral which was also done for a contest, as well as adress a few of your issues.

Firstly, when designing cathedral, I knew that I would never be able to do it in hammer because of its complexity. In almost every aspect, Wall Worm helped me to do things that I couldn't (3D Skybox, designing the 3D geometry alongside brushes etc). After all, the whole project got from 0 to a full cathedral in just under 3 months. To do that in Hammer, it would not only be of an atrocious standard (brushes-only churches only go so far), but it is downright impossible. It's just kind of impossible. Sure some people can pull it off (FM-Pone, Skybex, catfood, that's about it...?), as they have this workflow so in hand, coupled with a limitless amount of talent, but those are exceptions and 99% of the other mappers (including me!!!), they couldn't unless they had a year or more. I'm specifically talking about the 3-month challenge.

With that said, I agree with your first issue only on the texturing aspect. Unless you have PolygonMap, texturing in 3DS Max can only be a pain if you are not familiar with UVW-mapping and the concept of planar texturing. Things like textures with 2-1 powered resolutions which cannot get the ratio right, or wanting the same scale and alignment on nearby objects etc... all of that is solved with PolygonMap however, and if you have the plugin, it's freaking ass-kicking and so much faster with the automatic mapping tools. What I'm trying to say is that I feel it's more fair to blame 3DS Max for most of the difficulties, rather than Wall Worm (Wall Worm has, as a matter of fact, nothing to do with texturing brushes or models. Only Corvex/Shellvex/Detailer and other plugins do some part of the texturing automatically).

The only thing I really do not understand is how everything had to be custom content. Can you direct to the rule that states this? I think custom content was a requirement, but that can be combined with existing textures and models from Source (especially, since Shawn extended the contest with the release of native .mdl support).

For everything else, I agree with you, and your third issue is probably the main problem for many people. WALL WORM, in my opinion, is easy to learn. I learned the Wall Worm Modeling Tools relatively quickly at the time, and used it in many projects. The Level Design tools I mainly learned during my time with cathedral, about 3 months, but I had the luxury that at the start I already knew for a big part the way 3DS Max worked for modeling and texturing (and even then, if I look at what I know now, I would have done things differently). 3DS Max however... I remember spending almost 2 years understanding how texturing finally worked, and that might set off some people.

In hammer yes, for brushes you can just pick the neighbour face and then continue down the line to have the same align. This method is super-easy, it's so easy in fact it makes you lazy and you forget all about planar texturing. I think this bridge is often discarded, and people then don't understand texturing in 3DS Max, because it's too advanced. Shortly said Hammer is too rigid and 3DS Max allows to much freedom you get lost.

---

I blame myself for not participating, and for still not having made videos on so many of these aspects. I'm in the position to share a lot of knowledge about Wall Worm from a customer perspective who started from 0 (Shawn surely started from 0, but he is a god amongst mere mortals at this point). I have already decided to free up time after my master degree to set this right, but for me the timing for many thing on the computer for this year, is just completely off.

In fact there have been 2 contests (Day of Infamy and Christmass contest) that I could have won (at least the second one, blatantly), provided I had 3 full months. I saw some big names enter the contest, none of them made an entry, and pretty much all the entries that got into the christmas one... I have never seen such an overall low-quality submission pool. But I just couldn't participate, I had no time whatsoever.

The only thing I can think off, is to either start a contest after some people (± 10) have showcased actual working levels, as proof they understand how 3DS Max and the tools work (we had at least 4 people I think for this contest, I hope the other 2 can share a bit on their side, even if it's just saying 'Had no time/desire'), or start a collab with a community like MapCore or GameBanana. When through a community, make a small contest, like maps for ar_ modes or demolition (small maps).

Overall I think a bridge needs to be crossed for many people, and perhaps through a buildup with small contests to begin with, that's a good start. At least to get many people on board (enough so a contest can actually have place).

I won't be of much help for this particular issue, since I'm not experienced with SFM, nor with the DMX format. But I have a question out of pure curiosity: What is the difference between both file extensions, and why not just use .smd if that seems to work for you (I guess there's a good reason for it, which is why I would like to know).

In the mean time I'm sure Shawn will be able to help you when he has the time  :)

NVM I mistook your I for a nr1. Seems that you are using 2016 with the latest SP, which should give you no errors. In that case, first of all do you have the latest Wall Worm version? If you're not sure, download a new copy now and re-install the fils. Then, are you sure you have a fresh install of CS:GO? Sometimes when you mess around with the VPK files, it might be that Wall Worm cannot properly access the files. Try verifying the integrity of the game's cache.

If that didn't help, make sure you have the right settings for CS:GO (you can do this by going to the Wall Worm settings, import GameConfig and find the gameconfig in the bin folder of CS:GO). It needs to know in which directory it has to look for VPK's.

If that didn't help, check (in settings) if the field next to the 'Prop Library' button has the following: $imports

That should give you a direction to see if that caused the error. If you still haven't fixed it by then, only Shawn will be able to help you further  :)

Quote from: Ivan on December 27, 2016, 02:25:49 AM
Every time I press "Import MDL" button from Wall Worm Importers menu I get "Unknown system exception" error.

That's odd. Which version are you currently using? If you are having 3DS Max 2015 or 2017, SP1 is outdated. For 2015 the latest Service Pack is 4, and for 2017 the latest is SP3 (released this month). They fix a ton of issues (for 2017 a viewport rendering bug in particular which was extremely annoying).

Service pack 4 (2015): https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/downloads/caas/downloads/content/3ds-max-2015-service-pack-4.html
Service pack 3 (2017): https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/3ds-max/downloads/caas/downloads/content/3ds-max-2017-service-pack-3.html

Let us know if you were able to fix it  :)

Quote from: jonathan on September 10, 2016, 05:27:26 AM
I am trying to import cache into 3ds max and then export it to cinema 4d for a animation I am working on. I have everything set up correctly because I can for example import Dust2 and Inferno fine without errors. However whenever I try to import de_cache non of the models are showing up. I have extracted the embedded content in the cache bsp, and decompiled the models and converted the vtf's to tga. I then placed the decompiled models in the /modelsrc/ folder where I have with all the other decompiled models and placed the vtf's, vmt's and tga in my /materials/ folder which I use for WW.
When importing the vmf I first import prop library, then make a new document and then select import models and then import the vmf.
Is this the wrong way to go about importing de_cache? If anyone can help me I would greatly appreciate that.
Thank you
Jonathan

Hey, usually I would come with suggestions to help, but instead, I would wait if I were you, because in just a week or two, a huge update will come to Wall Worm (both free and Pro) that will allow the native importing of MDL's, meaning your problem about models will become irrelevant (= it will become much easier). Wait on Shawn for a better explanation though :S

This simply means that your collision model has geometry that is smaller than 1 inch (generally this means that you included a single, standalone concave face or geometry with co-planar vertices inside your collision model). That, or you included multiple elements inside your collision model but forgot to tick the $concave tag.

In any event, make sure your collision mesh consists of convex elements only, and that no block or element has a general shape smaller than 1 inch on the grid.

For more information, check these links:
http://dev.wallworm.com/document/69/collision_hulls_in_3ds_max_for_source.html
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Collision_mesh
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/$collisionmodel

Damn I can't wait  8)!

Haha wooow, 180.000 verts  :o wth, I have never even seen this possibility in Hammer. If I was to open a model this expensive in model viewer it would simply crash on the spot. I don't understand what is happening, however you should check whether all your vertices are welded. It is possibly that each and every polygon is detached, resulting in having tons of additional vertices on one and the same spot (kind of like 'co-planar' vertices which aren't always easy to spot).

Just select your model in vertex mode, press CTRL+A and read how many vertices are being selected.

Other than that, maybe there is geometry hidden in your object and you're not seeing it. Anything that is hiddin WITHIN a model STILL gets exported to Source SDK. Select your model in polygon mode, and press unhide to see if there is something popping up.

If all that fails, then only Shawn can help you.

FYI, I would avoid working with editable mesh, it's outdated and editable poly is far better for possibly everything you could imagine.

Hey, this is usually easily fixed, although we have to know exactly which game you're compiling the models for. Is it Garry's Mod, CS:GO, CS:S, TF2, ...?

You can sign me in!  8)

Hey,

This is normal, since all the static props of Source are .MDL files, and Max nor Wall Worm currently support native MDL import. HOWEVER, Shawn revealed like just a few days ago that Wall Worm would be getting this ability in the future, meaning that you could simply import an mdl straight into Max. It would still take some time for this to get implemented (and possibly some donations to speed it up), so I wouldn't count on having this feature anytime soon.

What you should do, or at least what is still the current workmethod, is that you convert all MDL's of CS:GO to .smd's (through Crowbar), and then import each one of them seperatly. Unfortunatly, this takes a long time to do, but it's the only way. If you have WW Pro, materials for the models should import when your paths are set-up correctly.

Quote from: func_Mathias on May 19, 2016, 12:44:31 PM
I think you are right with it not teloporting in an instant, seems to be interpolating and some times visible for a frame.
What you should probably do is to have an extra frame for them to move only down to the same level as the bottom of the escalator, then horizontal to the place they appear from.
Think of it as a triangle shape where what you have animated already is the slope.

Exactly. The pods in the citadel of Half-Life 2 are animated exactly this way. If you look at the ones that are always teleporting from point A to B endlessly in the model viewer, you can see them teleporting behind immediatly.

The steps should probably go to a bone that is in a rectangle form under the escalator instead of going directly to the bottom bone of the escalator steps.