Can't Export from Terragen 2

Started by Cephei, March 15, 2009, 09:48:09 PM

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Cephei

After a Long run with Trial and Error, I have come very close to actually exporting my scene from TG2 into Lightwave.
But for some wierd reason it won't work.

I'm not sure what I do wrong, I have my scene... I apply "Heightfield export LWO 01" double click and hit export to file yet nothing exports. No terrain...

Any help would be Greatly appreciated.

~Ceph

rcallicotte

If you're doing it correctly, you'll choose a file name for your export and save it in a place where you can find it. 

Have you done a search to see how it's done?
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Cephei

Hey thanks for your reply!

I am quite sure I do it correctly.. 
I'll take a screen shot for you

http://img27.imageshack.us/my.php?image=clueless1.jpg

Mohawk20

Ah, there's your problem... The export should go after the terrain, but in this case it won't work, as the terrain should be a heightfield, and not a procedural. You should use an lwo export node to export the camera view to mesh. Dont have time to explain how that works exactly, but perhaps someone else can, or I'll do it when I come home...
Howgh!

rcallicotte

The heightfield or land-mass you want to export needs to go into the Lightwave Export node and then double-click the Lightwave Export node to save your file.  Then run it.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Tangled-Universe

May I add that you don't render at too high quality settings, because the density/detail of the mesh would become very very high and thus very very big.

I don't have much experience with this either, but I have read somewhere before that renders at 600x600px and detail 0.5 is sufficient in most cases.

Cephei

Hey all sorry for replying so late (College)
Thank you all for the great replies!

I haven't been working with TG2 for too long, so I am still quite a newbie (But ALWAYS willing to learn... since I'm a quick learner I guess I enjoy learning)
So forgive me, but I still havent a clue how to fix this .... hahaha :Is so ashamed.:

@Mohawk20, You say I should use an LWO export node to export the camera view to mesh... anybody know how I'd roughly go about doing that? This node talk is still quite new to me haha

neuspadrin

You need to reverse where the heightfield export goes.  Nodes work the same way as a flow chart, following the little arrows.  Basically your attempt was trying to export nothing because there was 0 input into the lwo exporter.  You need the lwo exporter to receive a heightfield that has been generated. 

Here's an example of what I think they wanted you to do:
Ive never done this and I don't have Lightwave to test it in really quick, but heres my shot.  It exported something, quite a few somethings in fact.

Cephei

Hey Neuspadrin! Thank you so much for the help!
And you were right! it worked, same way as yours did... 16 objects exported just like yours... but this time when I opened my scene in Lightwave I got quite the unexpected result...

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/9164/clueless2.jpg

Yep... My scene did look quite a bit more attractive than that... Assuming that's my scene.
Any ideas what possibly could have gone wrong?

neuspadrin

I started to think about Mohawk's comment about using the render camera to export etc.  Noticed there was a micro exporter for lwo, and under the renderers tab, under sequence/output tab at bottom (where you usually are on quality and change those settings like GI and AA etc)

this exporter seems to create a huge lwo object of the terrain from the render camera view, but doesn't do backfacing... so you get just the visible terrain from the render camera.  If you were going to shift the render camera maybe a top/down approach could work to get all the terrain you need.  I imported the lwo made into blender, and after moving it around (since its so huge) i noticed it did indeed make the file correctly.

So i think this is what Mohawk was talking about creating a mesh from the camera's view.

Heres a screen shot

Mohawk20

As I said, your terrain is procedural, as opposed to a heightfield. All you did now was export a new and flat heightfield.

What you have to do is this.
Right-click in the node network and from the menu select 'Create other' -> 'Lwo micro exporter'.
The new node (gray coloured) should have appeared somewhere near the mouse cursor.
Double-click it to change it's settings.
next to 'Filename' is a blank field and a 'save' icon. Click the icon. Browse to a folder you want to save the lwo file in, and name the file to your liking, but make sure you add .lwo at the end as that doesn't happen automatically.

Now go to the render tab of the main window. Select the renderer you want to use (eg. 'Full Render'), to change the settings.
In the lower left you have some tabs, go to the last tab called 'Sequence/Output'. If you purchased Deep+Animation you can render a sequence here, but you can also add a Micro exporter.
To do that, check the box of Micro exporter (and you can uncheck the box above that if it's checked).
Than click the '...' button on the other side of the blank field.
Go to 'Assign micro_handler' -> '"/Lwo micro exporter 01"' (the lwo exporter we just created).
Now that's done.

Last thing we need to do is place the camera in a spot that overviews the area you want to export.
The should be like the image you posted above, so that's good.
Now set the resolution to something square, like 512x512, and the render detail to 0.5.
(I once exported at full render size and detail, but the file was so large LightWave could not handle it...!)

If you have steep cliffs or overhangs, do multiple renders/exports of top and side views to capture all vertexes, as the micro exporter only creates vertexes that are visible in the render.
You can render again at higher settings with the Micro exporter box unchecked to create a top view image map if you want...


I hope you have all the information you need now.
Howgh!

Cephei

You Sir(s), Are genius...es (What's plural for genius?... Genei? Geniuses... I don't know.)
But thank you, it works perfectly, I shall show you the result once it's all in 3D Studio max...

Again, Thank you all for your wonderful help!! This forum is Really good and will be seeing a lot of me (Hopefully in time I'll be the one helping others.)

Thank you and you'll all hear from me shortly!

With Gratitude,
Ceph (Aka, Sekula... My real name)

Cephei

Gah sorry for the double post... But I notice that once exported, the model is cut into 6 sections.. Aswell as the abnormal amount of holes in the bsp (And yes... it is a birds eye view render that I used... which means everything was in clear sight in the render). Any ideas?

Oshyan

A couple of things here. First, if you want to export a non-camera dependent heightfield from a procedural (rather than heightfield) terrain, you can use the Shader input of a heightfield generate node to create a heightfield out of that procedural shader network input. Then just put the LWO exporter after the heightfield generate, first press Generate, then when done, press Export. If you really want a *camera dependent* LWO data export, then yes you should use the LWO Micro exporter.

As for why there are multiple files on export, the geometry is split up to avoid resolution limitations and save/load errors when LWO files get to too high a geometry level. This may be an outdated limitation as far as the current LWO format, I'm not sure, but there were issues in older format versions I believe, hence the files are split. The LWS scene file aligns them all together correctly. Alternatively you can reduce the geometry level being exported by reducing pixel resolution of the heightfield (or in the case of the LWO micro exporter, reduce render detail).

- Oshyan

Cephei

#14
Hmm Fair enough, the splits in the bsp arent much of a problem though... it's just the holes in the actual model that annoy me...

Ref:
http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/8099/53600449.jpg

As you can see... the entire object is Scattered with holes... I tried everything, exporting lower res, higher res, lower detail, higher detail... everything. and no help there are still holes all over it.