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[Planets]

I've been trying to import this thing http://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/crawler into Outerra but I've ran into a frustrating problem - mainly I do my best to decimate the model and still get it to look proper (damn thing is 140k vertices) but I've only been able to decimate and sacrifice some quality as low as 60 or even 50,00 vertices, and I thought that would be enough but when I try to import in Outerra it gives me that error message, even though I can import the fbx in Blender and it will show it has less than 65,000 vertices.

Faces are also low, tris I can only get down to 110-90,000 but those shouldn't be the issue right? It's just vertices that I'm having trouble with. I'm still a noob at Blender/modelling in general so maybe I'm not doing something right but I've decimated the model as best as I could to below the apparent threshold but it still won't let me import it 

Any help?

[necro]

Somehow i could split the model in several parts. OT can handle importing objects which are containing sub meshes. But dont ask me, how you have to set the export settings right. I just know, that this is possible

[PytonPago]

The only thing i can see doing trouble are the tracks themselves - other stuff has a too simple mesh in a ton of meshes. I would suggest to take the tracks and split them to single track-strips.

Just edit the track-strips and click "P", "selection" option ... and go one by one ...



(See the numbers in right top corner, right behind the version number ? First is the selected vert count, the second the overall mesh vert count. Those 11k should be good enough if ya split this that way.)

This way they should have low enough verts for import. If not, try to split them in half too, but I dont think that will be necessary.

[cameni]

I've only been able to decimate and sacrifice some quality as low as 60 or even 50,00 vertices, and I thought that would be enough but when I try to import in Outerra it gives me that error message, even though I can import the fbx in Blender and it will show it has less than 65,000 vertices.

That's because some of those vertices have multiple normals, and in game engines they must be duplicated as there's 1:1 correspondence between positions and normals. I wish editors could show this "true" vertex count.

[Planets]

I would suggest to take the tracks and split them to single track-strips.

I selected the tracks and did limited dissolve on them as well as decimate which brought the verts count down a fair bit to 88k, though I'm not sure I understand what you mean, do you mean I should leave just the 4 outwards tracks and delete the inner 4? When I do what you suggested it brought the verts count down significantly but then I realized that's just because it was separating the mesh lol, or did you mean to separate the tracks and then import the chassis and tracks separately?

That's because some of those vertices have multiple normals, and in game engines they must be duplicated as there's 1:1 correspondence between positions and normals. I wish editors could show this "true" vertex count.

Ah, so that's the underlying reason, I wasn't aware of that at all, but that's good to know now for the future. If I can't get it to import despite everything I'll just take the easy way out and delete substantial portions of the mesh where I can, mainly the inner tracks and assembly and maybe that brute force method will get the true vertices count down enough to import.

I also tried to find a different model but all the others had even higher detail and way higher vertices count and even cost money, so nevermind that.

[PytonPago]

I dont think you should need to decimate the model as it is ... just select the tracks as in my picture and press "P", then choose "selection" from the roll-out menu that appears. This is actually creating another mesh, where the selected vertices will be moved to and the base-mesh will be not having them anymore. (do it to all those track-stripes -- front left inner, front left outer ... etc.)  - You see, the limit is actually not on the model itself, but just on single meshes, of witch you can have hundreds, so if you split a model into several meshes of few vertices this way, the importer will handle it.   Off course, sometimes decimating or manually joining some vertices into one is a good choice, but as i say, i dont thing you need to do that if ya do the "splitting" into several meshes for this particular model.



 .. yes i forgot ... you probably see just one thing at import too !    The thing is, importer needs some mesh-dependency. Something that says it witch mesh is coupled to some other. Overall its called a "mesh-tree". You can create it by "parenting" meshes together. In order to spawn the entire model (and not just pieces of it later in OT after importing), you need to parent all the parts to some single mesh (lets call it a base mesh), witch it would best if its called the way you want the model be named. This way you find the model fast in the importer and spawn windows in OT and it will spawn all of the meshes at once.

 Also, in the little sub-window top-right in blender (where the camerra and light bulb is), you can see the mesh-tree and see, what is parented to what. Its good to have that window stretched up to better see whats in there ... 

P.S.: im not sure if my blender imported the model badly, but it seems to lack the for the track needed wheels.

[Planets]

Aha Thanks! I finally understand now. I was foolishly trying to import a single mesh entire model when I should have broken it into separate meshes! It makes so much more sense now, all that pointless trial and error when the solution itself turned out to be far easier and simpler than I thought.

I somehow completely forgot about that aspect of modelling but it all clicked in when I read your post.

Furthermore I found out a way to separate the meshes in a much more organized and faster way by pressing L in edit mode to select linked pieces, so I just had to hover the cursor above each track while pressing L and make a new mesh out of each strip, and then each track assembly as well giving me 16 separate meshes under one parent that easily imported into Outerra with no problems 

P.S.: im not sure if my blender imported the model badly, but it seems to lack the for the track needed wheels.

Yes indeed the model comes without wheels, I think I could make some simple rudimentary wheels to attach and connect those floating pieces in between the two tracks as well and upload the modified version in case anyone else wants it. Should be a good 3d modelling exercise as well.

Also if you'll notice each track-strip has a single track piece in the back that's out of alignment, I tried to fix that but no matter what I do I can't simply get the piece to bend a couple degrees towards the strip, I can have it rotate and translate and flip around in every single way except as to just simply bend towards the track...


Actually looking at pictures of other models and the real thing, it doesn't appear to have any outward wheels, it almost looks like a track within a track.

[PytonPago]

You could rotate the object in the plane of view aether at a "median point" (witch is simply like the center of gravity taken from the vertices selected) or "active selection" (witch is the last selected vertice). Best to get to the side-view, rotate it and align to the proper position. But also, you can rotate an object on a plane axe, just click "R" to rotate the thing and then "Z", "X" or "Y" according to witch plane you want it to rotate on whyle not being on any view you need.

As for the wheels - here is a nice leading wheel close-up :



Also the carrying construction is missing as i look better on the pics. Would be interesting to add it there whyte a model of the space-shuttle too. ... and the cabin ! But im not sure, if there is any photo of the cabin interior.

[Planets]

Ah thank you, that did the trick, R and Y and I was able to move and rotate it to a suitable position.

And yeah the whole model is very bare-bones. I found a better looking one with more detail and proper construction here http://www.3dcadbrowser.com/download.aspx?3dmodel=40370

But of course you had to register and then when you register you don't have enough "download cred" to download the model blah blah. So it seems all we can work with is just the NASA model 

[PytonPago]

Well .. making yourself seems to be always the most fitting way - doe modifying the NASA file can end well ...