Model not working in-game

I've began working with 3ds Max, swapped a Gaul Swordsmans shield for a Naked Fanatics shield, works fine in-game. Then, took a Roman Hastati in Max. Deleted both weapons and shield. Then, loaded a British Warband, and deleted the weapon and body, leaving the shield. Then, loaded a British Swordsman, deleted the shield and body, leaving the sword. So, I have a unit with a sword, hastati body, and a oval warband shield. I export this model, and add in to descr_model_battle as the new Chosen Swordsmen model, the same model for all the graphics settings, replacing the old Chosen Swordsmen models. I haven't made a skin in Photoshop yet, just left the old texture. Anyway, when loading a battle containing this new Chosen Swordsman unit, it crashed, and I got an error message saying:

There were 10 un-destroyed logged items:

still existing VERTEX_BUFFER ....bla bla

There were ten things listed in this still exsiting VERTEX_BUFFER bit. Then just below it, another bit listed I think four lines similar to the one below:

add end line option break_vertex buffer=999 to break in the 999th section

Anyone know what I've done wrong.:help:

Ok. Im not compeltely certain because you didnt give all the details but my guess is that you didnt delete the scene roots.

Every RTW model must have ONE scene root and it can only have one scene root. It sounds to me that although you deleted the meshes that you didnt want, you forgot to delete the new scene roots that were also imported with every new model. So check back and make sure there is only one scene root and also make sure that there is only one set of bones. Delete any extra scene roots and bones and then make sure that all the bones are attached correctly to the other bones and scene root and then make sure that all the meshes are reattached appropriatly to their corresponding bones.

Are scene roots that little skeleton when you delete the mesh?

Also, new problem - when I go to save I'm told shield must have skin modifier at top of stack or if static have a bone as its parent.

???

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but I'm new to modelling.

Ok how i do this is, save a scene with your sword, reset and open the model you want to change, deleate the original sword, go to file scroll down to merge, in the pop up box select the sword and ok, in the next pop up select use scene material, your new sword should be in place now, but the texture is most likely screwed, so with the sword selected go to the top of the screen modifiers/uv co-ordinates/uv unwrap.

tutorial here should be enough to get you though that bit.
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=49570

I'm sure theres a weapon swap tutorial here somewhere.

Your other problem is simple to solve, at the top of the screen you select graph editors/new schematic view, you should be able to see your new weapon node, screen right of your model tree just move it and connect it to the right hand node.

Weapons and shields don't need a skin modifier because they are attached to the hand bones.

Good luck.:2thumbsup:

Scene Roots are used by RTW as the parent bone. The .CAS importer/exporter gives the coordinates of every single bone and vertex in relation to the scene root.

You will find the Scene Root (for the most part) at the coordinates 0,0,0.

Everything in the scene must be either directly attached to the scene root or attached to something else that is attached to the scene root.

The error youre getting is the result of your shield mesh not being attached to the scene root or to a bone. In your case, the shield needs to be attached to the bone "left_hand" (or its called something similar to that).

So select your shield mesh. Click the 'attach' button from the toolbar at the top of the screen (it looks like two blocks linked with a chain). Now in the same toolbar click the 'select by list' button (it looks like a mouse pointer with a list). That should bring up a window with a couple of options as well as a list of all of your bones and meshes and anythign else thats in the scene. Find the right bone (left_hand in this case) and click it and then click the 'select' button. Now your shield should be attached to the left_hand bone. To make sure you can go back into the 'select by list' window and look at the hierarchy. Your shield mesh should be directly below and tabbed slightly to the right of the left hand bone.

In this same way make sure that all of your static meshes are attached to the correct bones. Note the word 'correct' because you wouldnt want to attach your sword or helmet to the left hand bone. Itd look rather odd in game.

Notice also that I said static mesh. You only want to attach your meshes that will not bend in this way. Your body meshes and your cape meshes which will be animated should not be attached to anything. They are attached by a different process called 'skinning' which is essentially the same thing except you go through the mesh and attach individual vertices to the bones instead of attaching the entire mesh to a bone. But note that this is an entirely different process that has nothing to do with the directions i gave above.

Rather than a 'select by list' I could only find a 'select by name' button. This still gave a list of bones etc, but I couldn't see a 'select' button to attach the bone to the mesh. I clicked on the shield and double-clicked on the left hand bone from the list, but I get the same error message when I load the battle.

Give me a screenshot of your 'select by name' window with the checkbox checked that says to show the hierarchies.

Having loaded my model (Barbarian Mercenary with Fanatics shield replacing old one), here's each step I took to attach the shield to the left-hand bone:

[img=https://img447.imageshack.us/img447/8205/max19fn.th.jpg]
[img=https://img511.imageshack.us/img511/2702/max25tq.th.jpg]
[img=https://img319.imageshack.us/img319/5936/max31hl.th.jpg]
[img=https://img412.imageshack.us/img412/7697/max40yt.th.jpg]

This is where I get stuck, I can't see a select or hierarchy button or anything. Sorry for being so slow, your help is really appreciated.:embarassed:

Sorry thats my fault. I got the button names mixed up.

Its not the 'select' button its the 'link' button. Also when I said 'display hierarchy' i meant 'display subtree'.

Sorry. Just a mixup in terminology on my part.

Now once you have the shield linked youll also want to link the primary weapon to 'bone_Rhand' in the same way. Thats it then. It should export just fine.

The only thing youll need to do then is make a new texture for your unit.

Thanks for the help again shifty! I'll try that tomorrow.:2thumbsup:

BTW, if you're still here, give MA forums a check, some interesting discussion you've raised over the Moors there...