Planets don't look correct in 3dsmax

[brekehan]

When I import a planet.bod into 3ds max, it looks like a half circle, but the texture doesn't show up. It looks as though the UVs are screwed.

I am using DBOX 1.10, so the old UV problem should be correct.

This only happens with planets. Everything else looks correct so far.

Is there something special about planet.bod files?

Far away it looks like this:

ftp://christopherpisz.is-a-geek.com/pub ... ure_01.jpg


Closer it changes to this:

ftp://christopherpisz.is-a-geek.com/pub ... ure_02.jpg

[shadow-nova]

well that to mee looks like bad shader? or missing one. i havent taken a look at x3's files and plug-ins but ive used 3dsmax for a few years now and that to me seems like shader not working way its supposed to.

[brekehan]

well that to mee looks like bad shader? or missing one. i havent taken a look at x3's files and plug-ins but ive used 3dsmax for a few years now and that to me seems like shader not working way its supposed to.

DBOX just uses blinn, standard material, for the submaterial
Using blinn, submaterial, on other objects works fine.

Has anyone else looked at planets lately with DBOX 1.10?

[doubleshadow]

I've noticed that some of the planes only import as half spheres, dunno why. Maybe that's how they are stored in the file.

Some of the planes have 2 layers - atmosphere and the planet itself, maybe you just need to turn off the atmosphere/clouds body to see the planet.

The planets suck anyway... This is what I call good textures: http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html

[brekehan]

I've noticed that some of the planes only import as half spheres, dunno why. Maybe that's how they are stored in the file.

Some of the planes have 2 layers - atmosphere and the planet itself, maybe you just need to turn off the atmosphere/clouds body to see the planet.

The planets suck anyway... This is what I call good textures: http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html

I figured maybe it was a problem with layers, but it doesn't appear that there are multiple objects... I expected two spheres one larger than the other.

Maybe they are using something else.

I am brand new to max so I don't know what to look for.

As far as your link to planet textures, those are great, but I really want to use some planets that are more unfamiliar.

I'd draw my own, but no spherical mapping tool in photoshop has worked for me so far.

[hawkbs]

If you open the material editor you will see that the planets have multi-sub objects textures. Look at each texture and then open its X3 Properties and you will see that the textures are animated, which would explain why they look as they do when you zoom in. There are also multiple layers of the planet that have been combined into one object so that you get the atmosphere effect. Each one is just slightly smaller or larger than the others.

[brekehan]

If you open the material editor you will see that the planets have multi-sub objects textures. Look at each texture and then open its X3 Properties and you will see that the textures are animated, which would explain why they look as they do when you zoom in.

animated should effect things in x3 not in max. I was expecting to just see a plain old texture sitting there. Not moving clouds.

I'll have to examine the sperate textures and properites close.

There are also multiple layers of the planet that have been combined into one object so that you get the atmosphere effect. Each one is just slightly smaller or larger than the others.

How can I go about seperating them?
I want to deal with each one individually

[hawkbs]

Click the modify tab then click select by Element. Click the object then scroll down on the right hand side under the modify tab till you find Detach. Click it. Name it then hide it. Repeat for all.

Oh if you need some tutorials heres a good one for planets http://revver.com/video/493360/create-p ... al-1-of-3/

The animating of any object or texture needs to be done in Max.
Start going through all the 3DS Max Tutorials also you will find them very handy. BTW if you start doing animation click the video link in my signature. Bear in mind when watching this. The video is 3 minutes long. It took me several months to do each scene individually and then took over 170 hours to render out on a render farm of 5 PC's. Thats one solid week 24/7 of rendering. I wont go into how long rigging the Cylon took or the flak or the missile trail.

[brekehan]

Click the modify tab then click select by Element. Click the object then scroll down on the right hand side under the modify tab till you find Detach. Click it. Name it then hide it. Repeat for all.

Oh if you need some tutorials heres a good one for planets http://revver.com/video/493360/create-p ... al-1-of-3/

The animating of any object or texture needs to be done in Max.
Start going through all the 3DS Max Tutorials also you will find them very handy. BTW if you start doing animation click the video link in my signature. Bear in mind when watching this. The video is 3 minutes long. It took me several months to do each scene individually and then took over 350 hours to render out on a render farm of 5 PC's. Thats one solid week 24/7 of rendering. I wont go into how long rigging the Cylon took or the flak or the missile trail.

Excellant tutorial.
Now if I could do something with photoshop to take a rectanglar image and alter it for sphere mapping, I could have my own alien planets.

Watched the video you made too. Very nice. Some of those scenes are pretty detailed. Very good job.

[hawkbs]

You really need to learn UV Mapping so check this tutorial.
http://www.waylon-art.com/uvw_tutorial/uvwtut_01.html

This tutorial was done for Max 7 though and there have been a few more features added since then but the principles are all the same.

[enenra]

@Topic

planets only being half spheres or even less is perfectly normal. All objects classified as planets face in the game always the player so it's not noticeable that there is only half a sphere or less (orbit planets). Besides, it uses way less polies.

This doesn't work with planets who have special, real textures, however, like the planets in the sol system. That's why those are real spheres.

[brekehan]

I've noticed that some of the planes only import as half spheres, dunno why. Maybe that's how they are stored in the file.

Some of the planes have 2 layers - atmosphere and the planet itself, maybe you just need to turn off the atmosphere/clouds body to see the planet.

The planets suck anyway... This is what I call good textures: http://planetpixelemporium.com/planets.html

I've disassembled them layer by layer.
The UV mapping is just not correct. For instance when applied the UVW modifier and clicking edit, on an orbit level planet, The entire mesh is way way off in the NE direction in the UV editor and is in no way shape or form matched up with the texture.

The planets you linked are spiffy, but I'd like some non-sol system planets.

[brekehan]

Look at each texture and then open its X3 Properties and you will see that the textures are animated, which would explain why they look as they do when you zoom in.

Yea, I realize that, however, the texture should still look OK, it should just be still. It should look like 1 frame of the animation, so it doesn't explain why it looks like that.

I'd also like to know how exactly these textures are being animated. How might they be using these parameters?

start u 0.0
start v 0.0
end u -1.0
end v 0.0
duration 800
rotation 0.0
origin u
origin v

Am I to belive they are off-setting each texture coordinate as they come into the shader in thier engine by a value interpolated between u=0.0 and u=-1.0 for a duration of 800 seconds?

Doing an animation in Max does me zero good. I need to know how thier engine is animating these textures, so I can make mine do the same.

[brekehan]

I also do not see how the continent dds file is used. There is a terrain image file for the terrain. Obviously continent modifies it somehow. Looking at the continent image file, it doesn't look like a bump map, because it is not greyscale, I don't think it is a displacement map, because I tired using it as one with bad results. I don't think it is a parrelax map either. It has an alpha channel...

How is continent diffuse used along with terrain diffuse?