Q. I've noticed that NWN MDL's are pre-smoothed when imported into max using scooters plug-ins. Does the game support smoothing ? I've tried experimenting but haven't noticed any difference in smoothed and non-smoothed models, although I'm not sure whether I'm missing something obvious -Martin E
A. To get smoothing you need to select faces and set smoothing groups. The engine does support smoothing and that's how you set it or unset it as the case may be depending on what your needs are. -Danmar
*Always weld your vertices first. You'll save yourself some agravation. -DoA
FAQ from Torlock
As some of you know, there is a smoothing mask in all the faces in ASCII model files. This is the 4th parameter in the "faces" definition. How it works is that for every vertex in a face, if two faces share that vertex and the ANDing of their smoothing masks yields a non-zero value, then the face will contribute to the vertex's normal.
The important think to note is that *IF* more than one bit is set in the smoothing mask for a given face, then that face can contribute to the vertex normals of multiple smoothing sets.
3DSMax: You can use the Smooth modifier to auto-smooth an object. Smooth parameters include options for Auto Smooth and Prevent Indirect Smoothing along with a Threshold value. The Parameters rollout also includes a set of 32 Smoothing Groups buttons labeled 1 through
32. These same Smoothing Groups are available as options for the Polygon and Element
subobjects.
--------------------
Danmar
Smoothing issue.
The sides and top are all in the same smoothing group and as a result the engine is trying to approximate a spherical surface flowing over the edge with shading. This causes them to be fairly obviously tiles.
Select the Object. Go into Face mode. Do a Select All to select all the faces.
Scroll down in the rollout until you find the Smoothing Groups section. Click the Clear All button.
You could also try an Auto Smooth with the default 45 degree angle.
As part of my tiletools (Most of which is meaningless for a non-studio max+mdlsuite user) there is a smoothing tool which lets you select any number of objects at once and do an auto smooth on them of a specific angle. Should be on my site somewhere.
This comes in _extremely_ handy for imported objects. Neither NWMax or MDLSuite honor smoothing groups so anything imported in those is set to a single smoothing group.
There are countless objects and tiles out there in haks that have the the telltale signs of this. They look a little 'puffy' or rounded over on the edges with no sharp demarcation lines. When you import an item into Max the import tools stick everything into the same smoothing group. If you look at many modified tiles released to the public in the toolset you'll see rounded looking corners that should be 90 degrees. This is because they were saved as a single smoothing group so the client tries to smoothly shade across every face.
For me its fairly simple, I apply/run the tool against every tile I import if there are any square edges on any object in the tile.
The easiest way to see the problem is to import any tile from the city interior or exterior that includes a wall of some kind. Export it without making any changes. Stick the export in your override and open the toolset and paint that tile down in an area. The walls will have a rounded over look to them at the edges where the engine is trying to smooth the shading normals over to approximate a curved surface.
THe reason you don't see the errors a significant number of times more often than you do now is the construction method of the tiles where the various edges that make up an angle are actually separate objects and thus aren't smoothed over.
You see it most in the city interior tiles on the walls+top which are a single object and any pillars/posts/supports in the tile itself.
The default angle works well for most things. Things that are supposed to be straight edged will be and things that are supposed to be smoothed over are.
Where you'll run into exceptions is, off the top of my head, a couple of the city exterior tiles have some facected stonework that the builder created as faceted, at least the original tiles are, that end up smoothed. Unless you import/export all of them the mix of smooth versus faceted looks out of place.
Thin flat items like sword/blade parts especially though desperatly need this done to them as they look tons better.
