lightwave import error

Started by Thejazzshadow, January 05, 2009, 06:56:55 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Thejazzshadow

I have a problem. When I try to import a lightwave object, an error pops up saying that it can't locate file.

Tangled-Universe

What do you mean? Importing a lightwave object into Terragen or importing an Terragen-generated .lwo file from TG's exporter into Lightwave?

Martin

Thejazzshadow

I mean importing a lightwave object into terragen

cyphyr

Try convertying to obj via poseray (google it, its free) should do the trick
Richard
www.richardfraservfx.com
https://www.facebook.com/RichardFraserVFX/
/|\

Ryzen 9 5950X OC@4Ghz, 64Gb (TG4 benchmark 4:13)

rcallicotte

cyphy is correct.  PoseRay does the trick, usually.
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?

Thejazzshadow

Thanks! One more problem though? I exported the object from PoseRay but when I tried to open it in terragen 2, 2 warnings came up saying it could not open mtllib. Do you know how to fix this problem?

Tangled-Universe

Maybe you forgot to export the mtlib along with the model. In the obj-output tab of poseray you can select this option.
If this isn't the case, then just manually load the textures into the shaders of the multishaders. Isn't that much work.

Martin

Thejazzshadow

#7
Thanks! That was the problem. One more question though. If the object has more than sixteen shaders, how do I go about doing that?

Mohawk20

In Poseray you have a groups tab.
There are all the groups, but sometimes the groups are different from the materials (like in Poser figures).
You can use the Rearrange option to have the model dived in groups by material (Materials -> Groups).

Then you can disable groups by clicking on the icon in front of the group/material name.
Leave 16 materials enabled, and disable the rest, and export as '[object name]-01' or something like that. Then do the same for the next 16 groups and call them '[object name]-02', and so on. That way you have more objects, but smaller in size. If you load those in Terragen and have their origins at the same coordinates, the object should look as one whole.

You might need to run all the small objects through Poseray again (just load and save again with the same filename), because sometimes the other materials are still listed in the mtl file the first time round. Second time that extra info is not available, and doesn't get taken along.

It might take some time, but it has worked for me pretty well in this project:
http://www.terragen.org/gallery/displayimage.php?pos=-5184
http://www.terragen.org/index.php?topic=4293.0
http://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=3751.0
Howgh!


Thejazzshadow

I did everything you all said and the objects look great. Too great! For some reason, the objects look better in terragen 2 than in lightwave. Does anyone who uses lightwave and tg2 know why this may be? Am I forgeting to do something in lightwave? I may be missing a step in rendering lightwave sequences but I'm not sure.

Mohawk20

Terragen has GI, which gives it realistic lighting.
I don't know about Lightwave, but in 3dsMax I haven't found easy settings to achieve the same realism quickly.
Howgh!

Tangled-Universe

Quote from: Mohawk20 on January 13, 2009, 05:35:51 PM
In Poseray you have a groups tab.
There are all the groups, but...etc. etc.

I didn't know how to do this. Thanks!

scott8933

Terragen render looks better, but how do the render times compare? LightWave picked up the main guys behind Electric Image a few years ago, and their renderer is worlds better for it - very nice stuff from LW's built-in engine if you are using the newest version with the fancy Camera settings.

Not knocking Terragen of course - just best to compare apples to apples - sure an 8 hour render will probably look better than the 8-minute one...


Quote from: THejazzshadow on January 18, 2009, 11:46:22 PM
I did everything you all said and the objects look great. Too great! For some reason, the objects look better in terragen 2 than in lightwave. Does anyone who uses lightwave and tg2 know why this may be? Am I forgeting to do something in lightwave? I may be missing a step in rendering lightwave sequences but I'm not sure.

rcallicotte

I have wondered if one of the final things Matt and Jo will do will include rendering optimizations, before final release.


Quote from: scott8933 on January 20, 2009, 02:51:50 PM
Terragen render looks better, but how do the render times compare?
So this is Disney World.  Can we live here?