Wall Worm Forums

Version 3.867 released on 11-14-2018

   * Displacements: Fixed bug where deleting a displacement was leaving its displacement brush orphaned in the scene. Now deletes the displacement brush as well.

Great!

Displacements in WW are very tightly controlled Editable Poly objects that have a very specific structure and custom attribute tied to them. They can only be created directly inside 3ds Max with any kind of sanity. I know that you are hoping to generate and edit these in external apps but that is not going to be an easy quest for you. I know the ins-and-outs of the system like no one else on this planet and I wouldn't bother with even trying it because you are already working inside the world's premier 3D editor in Max anyway.

But to explain the very basic technical requirements:

• All Displacements and their Displacement Brush (not the actual brush) should always be and remain forever Editable Poly objects. Using other types of object types (editable mesh) will cause errors.
• Each Displacement is composed of 2-3 objects: 1) Displacement; 2) Displacement Brush; 3) Optional Actual Brush
• Each Displacement and Displacement Brush must always be identical in vertex count, vertex order and face count.
• The vertex order in the displacement must ALWAYS match the vertex order of a native Max Plain object that has either 4, 8 or 16 length/width segements that is converted to ediable poly
• UVs should never be relaxed; ALL UVS in a displacement must remain projected planar to the displacement as if it was flat (before sculpted); UV transformations (rotation, scale, offset) should only be edited uniformly across the entire displacement (like when using a UVW Xform modifier.
• Displacements will only export if they have the correct custom attributes applied to the displacement and the displacement brush
• Even if the displacements have custom attributes designating them as displacements, they must properly reference the displacement brush and store valid data relating to the displacement--likewise with the displacement brush
• If tied to an actual brush, the side it's tied to must always be 4-sided.

There may be even more that I'm not thinking of off the top of my head. All it takes is for anything to change (like vertex order, etc) and the displacement is broken. When exporting to FBX many of the values within the custom attribute and necessary parameters are lost because they are not retained in the FBX.

There isn't much more that I can add that will help at this moment other than I strongly urge you to just use 3ds Max to edit your displacements. Also, I see in your screen shot that you are using Max 2016. I strongly urge that you update to 2019.2 if that is a possibility. There are many speed enhancements that effect working with displacements (both creating and exporting).

UPD: For some reason, after exporting and importing the same scene in fbx - displacements are no longer so...

Version 3.866 released on 11-12-2018

   * VMF Exporter: Updated the default UV Precision to 6 places.
   
   * VMF Exporter: Updated the UV Precision spinner to have a minimum value 3.
   
   * SMD Exporter: Updated the Vertex Precision spinner to have a minimum value 3.


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Version 3.865 released on 11-11-2018

   * System: Updated WW initiation script to not load plugins for Max 2016 like BorderSpline unless SP2 or later is installed. Previously, WW assumed user had latest service pack and loaded plugins that were not yet supported for Max 2016 until after SP2.

Please remind me which version of Max you are using as the mirror tool changed in recent versions.

In newer versions the mirror tool has two methods: Mirror the Transform or mirror the geometry. You should only use mirror geometry. However, if you use the transform version, then you may need to do two things: 1) Reset Xform then use the Normal modifier on it to flip the normals.

To see why the transform method is causing incorrect results initially, do this before adding reset xform: Right Click the object and go to Object Properties and turn on Backface Cull. Now when you apply the reset xform to fix the transform from having a negative scale, you'll see that faces are the wrong way.

Note that if you use the Geometry method instead, newer versions of Max use a Mirror modifier. This will create invalid brush unless you either tag the object as a Concave Brush (in level design menu) or break it into multiple objects.

Hopefully this helps you.