How to Model New 3D Units

[SirRethcir]

Strange. I'm not sure what's causing your problem. You get no error when you export?

That's right, no export error.

Have you had any problems exporting/importing before or is this the first time?

Hm, I think I had the same error message when doing things such as add bones...

Does the new CAS work in game?

Yes, no problem. But I would really love to export it again.

error mesage:
MAXScript Rollout Handler Exception
--No "+" function for undefined

highlighted line in progressStart ("Setting up Mesh...")
.
geomSet.geomChunks[k].newObj.pos +=bChunk.pbones ...
.


Have you tried it yourself?
Give one vertex to another bone, export and then import?

[hoggy]

No I must admit I haven't. I tend to save the scene as a standard max file on my own directories while I work on the model. Then you can open the max file, edit and re-export any time.

[miak]

So when you make a guy like a hoplite if you make the spear longer will the range be longer?

[SirRethcir]

Thanks for your replies, hoogy and zedar!
New questions awaiting you. (in 'General')

So when you make a guy like a hoplite if you make the spear longer will the range be longer?

I don't think so. ;)
But wait for an expert answering!

[Alexanderofmacedon]

Thanks Hogg. I can't wait to get started!

[Dromikaites]

When trying to export to .CAS format I get the message:
"Problem occured while reading the weights for vertex 336 in mesh body. Make sure each each vertex has exactly 1 bone weight"

In the skin weight table that vertex is linked to only one bone, as it can be seen it the screenshot:

[img=https://img251.imageshack.us/img251/4519/3ds7ei.gif]

Any ideas?

Thank you very much!

[Dromikaites]

When trying to export to .CAS format I get the message:
"Problem occured while reading the weights for vertex 336 in mesh body. Make sure each each vertex has exactly 1 bone weight"

In the skin weight table that vertex is linked to only one bone, as it can be seen it the screenshot:

[url=]

Any ideas?

Thank you very much!

[hoggy]

hmm, not sure. try weighting that vertex again with 'rigid' checked.

[Dromikaites]

hmm, not sure. try weighting that vertex again with 'rigid' checked.

Naah, it doesn't seem to work. The vertex is weighted with 'rigid' option on but still no change.

Would you take a look at the .max file?

[wlesmana]

The warning message is often wrong. Check the entire vertex weight list for weights that are not 1 or empty/0.

[zedar]

When i got that error, i weighted all vertices again, but made sure that example bone_abs had all vertices selected. It worked after that.

[Dromikaites]

Unfortunately there's something I'm probably missing...Inspite the fact every vertex is weighted to one and only one bone with the "rigid" option and the value 1.0 that error is still preventing me to export the model to .cas

I checked the bones and vertexes one by one in the "Skin weight table". Is any other place I can check the status of the vertexes and bones?

[hoggy]

Hi Dromikaites, I'll PM you my email and take a look at it

[Dromikaites]

Thank you very much Hoggy!

[Dromikaites]

Unfortunately there's something I'm probably missing...Inspite the fact every vertex is weighted to one and only one bone with the "rigid" option and the value 1.0 that error is still preventing me to export the model to .cas

I checked the bones and vertexes one by one in the "Skin weight table". Is any other place I can check the status of the vertexes and bones?

Well, it turned out that not every vertex was weighted to one and only bone. Actually there were 2 vertexes not linked to any bone. But they were not those reported by the .CAS exporter. Since I was looking in the weight table for vertexes connected to two or more bones, I missed those.

The key learning points are:

1) Don't take ad-literam the .CAS exporter error messages (This doesn't mean in any way I'm not grateful to Vercingetorix for his wonderful tool - no modding of the models would be possible without it)
2) Take a very good look at the weight table.

Thank you all who tried to help me and I'm sorry I've wasted your time with my stupid lack of attention to detail.

[Lews Therin Telamon]

I have a question. When making models, what dimensions should be used? or do the models automatically resize temselves?

[hoggy]

best bet is to import an RTW unit model and adopt the file's scale. Use this as your guide for all other scaling.

[Luciano B]

BASIC TUTORIAL FOR UV MAPPING?

...sorry for boring you so much with such kind of questions...

I need a very simple and basic instructions to make the new UV maps related to modified models... by now I'm able to change weapons, shields and add little features like plumes, feathers, etc., following the very useful tutorials that I found in this discussion ...my problem is that I don't know how to make the new uv maps with enlarged room for the larger shield and for the new items that I added to the model...
...can you help me, please?

[rocky4]

EDIT: NM, I'll just get it somewhere else...

[caspian]

I figured out what I was doing wrong...

[Suraknar]

Oki One question about Weapons if I may.

When Loading a Pikeman and when loading a Hoplite, they both have a spear of Same legth...

Yet in Game the Pikes are longer than the spears Hoplites use...

What makes the difference? I verifyed descr_models, (I assumed that there would be a distinction between Pikeman and spearman and some scaling of the same spear model is hapening somewhere)..but they both have same Skelleton animations...

Any clues anyone can give in that regard?

[wlesmana]

Units that has "phalanx" formation in EDU.txt get assigned special pikes. These pikes are taken from a different model entirely (in data/models i think) and they follow their own set of animations.

[Suraknar]

Ahhh! Thank you very much!

So Units without the Phalanx would perform as regular spearmen...with the weapon as per the unit's .CAS model.

Units with Phalanx and Pike, will use the "weapon_hoplite_pike.cas" in models folder...which also has its own animation...(opening that model and comparing, we see clearly that it is a Pike, longer spear)...is his correct?

But, what hapens if a Unit does not use a Pike, but has Phalanx capability...will it use its default Spear as per the Unit's .CAS model?

And if that is the case, then, what accounts for the special animation?

Or, is there yet a third Weapon model somewhere for regular phalanx spears?

Because, there is still one factor unnacounted here, what makes the Phalanx Spear Shorter than the Phalanx Pike (now that we know the Pikes are their own Models with own animation)?

[Suraknar]

Well,

Upon Further testing, I am now realising that Both Phalanx Pike and Phalanx Spear use the same weapon_hoplite_pike.cas.

It still does not answer why Phalanx Pikes are longer than Phalanx Spears...

Except, if we take under consideration the atribute "long_pike" in EDU...so this must be hardcoded somewhere and that attribute makes the same Model Longer in the case of a Pike.

Thank you for the help wlesmana

[Sundjata Keita]

Yes, you should be able to see that from the pike being longer in game than it was on the actual model.

[jullii caesar]

Is it possible to do this in gmax.

[Sundjata Keita]

Possible to do but not to get into the game unfortunately because g-max lacks the exporting features of 3ds max.

[Robertbobby91]

i keep getting a "-- runtime error: feature not available: "fopen write mode"" when ever i export CAS files but nothing wrong when i import can u please tell me what the hell this is

[Atilius]

It looks like you're getting an error message from a standard C runtime library which is unusual, and perhaps indicates less-than-sterling coding in the application you're using. The fopen function is a very low-level routine that C programs use to open files. The message is telling you that for some reason it can't write to (or perhaps create) a file. That's why you can import but not export.

This usually indicates one of the following: the file is read-only, your disk isn't writeable, or you're out of disk space.

[Furious Mental]

Whenever I try to give a unit a thrown weapon like a javelin or a plumbatum, they have it in their hand in the game, but they never let go of it, even when they do the throwing animation. As such, it looks a bit silly. Has anyone else had this sort of problem before? Sorry if this is a dumb noob question, but I couldn't find any existing posts on it.

Oh wait, it looks like units have always done that and I just never noticed. It's some issue with the stupid 1.2 patch. Turns out I am a dumb noob!