Need opinions from anyone who's modeled for EoC

I still haven't resolved the display problem with the X-Wing Fighter and I'm looking for some opinions. For those unfamiliar with the situation, here's the problem: At the highest Level Of Detail the wings refuse to display and even the hull seems slightly corrupted. Both the mid and lower Levels Of Detail display perfectly, even though they are made from the high LOD's! I've been over the files a dozen times and I can't find anything wrong with them. I've tried swapping the LODs back and forth with the same result; the high LOD doesn't display right. I've tried loading just the wings, and that didn't help either. But the medium LOD wings diplay just fine with the high LOD hull. Each set of LODs are parented directly to each LOD null.

The poly counts are as follows:
hull_hi - 142 polys
hull_med - 106 polys
hull_lo - 71 polys

and two sets each of:
wings_hi - 598 polys per set
wings_med - 448 polys per set
wings_lo - 298 polys per set

And here's some pics for comparison.

High LOD - you can also see the darkened areas along the top and top sides that shouldn't be dark.


Medium LOD - displays perfectly, even the hull.


Has anyone ever seen this problem before? I'm open to suggestions as to what the cause might be. I'd really like to hear from everyone who has ever modeled for EoC. Thanks.

*edit*
It's also highly unlikely to be a texture problem for two reasons; 1. All the LOD's use the same textures, and 2. Texture problems generally cause the parts to show up black, but they do show up.

*edit*
I don't know if this is significant or not, but I found one difference between the high LOD wings and all the other models. The high LOD wings have no 3 vertice polys at all, and all the other models have at least a few.

*edit*
The dark areas on the hull are just LW surface problems, I've already eliminated most of them. But the dark areas running down each side of the nose are confusing. Each one is a single polygon, part of the "side" surface. I can't understand why they're behaving like that. There's no weirdness going on between them and the adjacent polys. Anyone have any thoughts?

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A smoothing error might cause the shaded polys at the nose. Did you merge the points before converting?

As to the wings... Perhaps I'm just paranoid, but I never trust the converter's triangle stripping function. I always convert my entire model to three-point polys before running them through the converter. I encountered too many problems just like this if I didn't... shaded polys which shouldn't be shaded, textures not always appearing on all polys (but displaying on adjoining polys which share the same surface!), and strange lighting which gets baked into the textures somehow.

The conversion is sometimes flaky. Sometimes you can have errors, reconvert the same unaltered model, and come up with a perfect game model.


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Hi Shane. Yes, I always merge the points when I'm done. I'm considering deleting the poly (a single three pointer) and just building a new one. We'll see if it helps.

I don't think the converter is the problem with the wings. I never use the triangle stripping option and I've always had very consistent results with the converter (but I've read your posts about multiple conversions attaining multiple results). In case this was the problem I reconverted the models several times, with always the same results for both wing sets. That's why I don't think it's the converter. But tell me about this conversion to three point polys, how do you do it? And doesn't that increase the poly count tremendously? I know three point polys have the distinct advantage of never being non-planar, and I'd like the guarantee to display right that this provides (more or less).

Thanks for your thoughts.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
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What happens when you parent the body to the wings? (Wings are higher poly count then the body, maybe the game has some kind of priority problem at the highest LOD?)

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Now that's original thinking.

It shouldn't make any difference though, since all the parts are parented directly to their respective LOD nulls (not to each other). Since no one part is parented to any other part flux is free to select any part it wants as the highest priority (if that were the case). I have tried parenting the wings to the body, though. It didn't help. I also tried parenting each LOD set to a root null. No dice. But, as I don't have any better ideas myself, I'll give your idea a shot and let you know what happens. But as there are two wing sets, each of equal poly count, which one do you think should be the parent? And should the other wing set also be parented to the parent wing set? Thanks for the idea.

*edit*
I just remembered; I tried loading just the wings without the body, and they still didn't show. So it's unlikely to be a problem related to the wings relationship with the body. But I'm going to try it anyway.

mailto:second_chance@cox.net
The Ultimate Guide To Modding: I-War 2 - Edge Of Chaos (on hold during SW MP mod)
cartoons.sev.com.au/index.php?catid=4
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Actually I should stay outta this 'since I've never done a model and thus don't know what I'm talking about.

Shane posted a link once, to a forum where one of the PS guys occasionally shows a model. Maybe if you posted there he might answer?

I just noted: On little, very well animated ships (for example the police fighter, Hornet) there are nulls like: "AddNullObject LOD0_Handle"
I dunno if thats just a name that was arbitrarily assigned or it has a function as an explicit handle for the game to use.

Anyhow, if the idea above isn't so off track that it's worth trying: I would use the wing that has the uppermost position in the setup.lws as the primary object to parent things too. (I dunno what else that might effect though.)

something I've noted, in general, in some setup files that I don't understand: sometimes the root null is in a position thats further down (in the list) than the first null thats parented to it. (don't bother explaining this if it is irrelevant, it's just something to think about)

Edit: btw, what Graphic card are you using? please send me a copy of the x-wing and let me try:
a) is the effect the same in the multiplayer game
and b) the same with a different graphic card (I have 2 Nvidia chips and a ATI 9500 to compare)
/Edit




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