Object blending

[pagan]

Hi
I am trying to apply the same highfield shader to an object wich is a little extension of a cave so that I can interact with it in 3ds.
I tought I would only have to apply the same shader to get the 3ds object extension to blend with the terragen terrain.
Instead what I get is only it's shadow.
At this point I guess that the camera is perfectly matching the 3ds object with the background but I don't want this, I want to see the edges of my extension object.

Any advice?
Thanks

[pagan]

Anyone has got the answer for this
Thanks

[rcallicotte]

I'm not sure what you want to do, so I didn't answer.  I'd say it sounds like you want to meld together an object with a heightfield...if this is what you want to do, I am unaware it can be done.

[pagan]

Sorry for the confusion, just wanted to use the same shader  of the orange terrain on the black objects(see picture) in terragen.


Thanks
N.

[Tangled-Universe]

Errr...or I'm really stupid and I really don't understand what you're trying to do or...it is very simple to solve:

You can copy/paste the orange shader into the internal node-network of your models and then connect it to the colour inputs of the default shaders (which are attached to the multi-shader, if there is any).

Martin

[cyphyr]

One possible issue may be if your using the displacement values from your initial (orange) terrain shader on your model of the cave entrances. Try disabling the displacements and only using the colour values to start with and then add very small displacements if needed.

Its better to model displacements (lumpy bits lol) in your initial modeling program rather than trying to use Terragens displacements or bump maps. It can be done but it can also be problematic.

Hope this helps

Richard

Ps another issue may be that its not got access to its .mat file if its an imported .obj

[pagan]

Yes my object is an obj...
Ok I did some progress (see picture)
In object I have ticked all the options:
-Double-sided surface
-visible to other rays
-use smooth normals
-cast shadows
-flip normals

Still having some problems with some of the faces but it must be the way I modelled my objects.
There are also lots of options when exporting an obj.
I guess it is all matter of try them all.

Are there any reference for exporting an obj from other applications?
(normals,  vertex, smoothig groups,flip yz axis etc...)

thanks for all the advice

[Tangled-Universe]

Nice models and fitting to the terrain.

I'm not familiar with setting up the .lwo exporter properly. Have tried it sometimes but with no success so far.
Could you please elaborate on this, how you did it?
Thanks in advance

Martin

[pagan]

I am not to familiar with lwo exporter too, all I have done is to export part of the terrain(pink in pict) and to model the caves on top(green in the pict). Go to sequence output assisgn lwo micro exporter and point your camera to the part of the terrain that you would like to export.
Hit render sequence with 1 for the all the 3 parameters.

Go to your application and import it.

I did my modelling and then I have re-imported only the caves objects without the original terrain. When you re-import them into terragen they should match perfectly.
I would like to keep this thread only for question when re-importing into terragen
for exporting with lwo exporter you can find more info here which are also useful if you have animated objects
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4619.msg48265#msg48265
Good luck with this method

[pagan]

Hi
I have just discovered that the faces of my caves models which are not displayed properly have their normals flipped. As a test I have modelled a simple sphere.
A quite strange thing happened when I imported the sphere into terragen.
If I check flip normals only the top part of the sphere gets rendered while unchecked only the bottom parts appears.
What am I doing wrong when exporting the obj from my app?
Thanks in advance

[Matt]

In 3DS there should be a way to view/visualize normals. You should be able to select the problematic faces and flip their normals, before you export to OBJ.

Matt