Having trouble Exporting

[I.Brattin]

I am running into the following error when trying to Export the age.

"raise RuntimeError, "Vertex count on this material is too high, consider breaking up your object into several materials..."

I imported this from 3DS Max into Blender via saving it as an obj file and importing it as such. It imports pretty good to tell the truth. I have to go and color everything but the mesh itself is imported.

Anyways since I imported it I am not sure how to go and break it up like it asks or otherwise lower the vertex count.

Any help would be appreciated.

Edit: I noticed which forum I put this in. Probably should have been in General Discussion. If a mod could move it, it would be appreciated.

[zib_redlektab]

Well if you want an easy fix, just select the mesh it's complaining about, go into edit mode (tab), select about half of the vertices (wireframe view and then use b to drag a box over half of the object), and separate them into another object (p). This makes it harder to texture and stuff (due to the fact that you now have 2 irregular objects as opposed to 1 big one), but to get the objects exported, it's a cheap and dirty method that works.

Another way is to select the object, and give it a 'decimate' modifier. This can be done from the object panel in the buttons window, under modifiers. Decimate lowers the poly count of an object, which makes it exportable (though not necessarily as good looking).

Hope this helps?

[I.Brattin]

Thanks for the help. I may have to give up. Neither option is working. Decimate doesn't work at all for some reason. I get the following error with it, "modifier is disabled or returning error, skipping apply"

I can't seem to split it up enough either. Either the Vertex Count is so freaking high that it will take more then 5 splits or I am doing something wrong. I started with one split doing exactly what you said, no luck. Then I tried 2, 3, 4 and then 5. It still says Vertex Count is too high.

Something else that gets me is this. I export it without doing Add-PyPRP-Create a New Book. It doesn't complain about Vertex Count. Its not till after I add the book that it starts complaining.

[zib_redlektab]

Well I would guess that if you haven't added a book, it isn't really exporting it correctly anyway, and once you add the book, the plugin needs to fit your model into a prp file...

I don't know why the modifier isn't working, but what is the poly count on your object? If it's really that big, you need to make it lower poly for it to run smoothly in Uru anyway.

[boblishman]

how many faces does the object have ? ( I think the plugin has a maximum of about 8k to 10k per object .. anything above and you get the error message)

Why don't you try reducing the poly count in Max ... and then exporting/importing ?

If your object is in question is NOT your terrain ... then the chances are that its poly count is unnecessarily high. There should be no "normal" single object(s) in you age with a polygon count over the plugin's limit.

If it is the terrain, then you will have to break it up into pieces (using the method described above).

TIP: If you do have to break it up into pieces, you might want to do the texturing BEFORE breaking it up ... (it will probably be easier) ... and if you need to alter/refine or change the texture at a later date ... you can JOIN the seperate objects, re-texture it as a single object ... and then split it back again into smaller (exportable) pieces once again ...

[I.Brattin]

Well I would guess that if you haven't added a book, it isn't really exporting it correctly anyway, and once you add the book, the plugin needs to fit your model into a prp file...

I don't know why the modifier isn't working, but what is the poly count on your object? If it's really that big, you need to make it lower poly for it to run smoothly in Uru anyway.

How do I check to see what the poly count is?

how many faces does the object have ? ( I think the plugin has a maximum of about 8k to 10k per object .. anything above and you get the error message)

Why don't you try reducing the poly count in Max ... and then exporting/importing ?

How do I check how many faces it has?

I've found in Max how to lower the poly count. Now I just have to find the magic number to make it work so that it will export in blender.

[boblishman]

you might want to re-read my previous post (as I edited it and added some extra information whilst you were posting your reply).

[boblishman]

How do I check how many faces it has?

in Blender, select the object, go into Edit mode and it tells you in to top info bar (next to where it says "www.blender.org: 248" .... Fa=faces/polys

EDIT: this show two numbers ... the number of select face and the total number of faces in the object ...so it's the second number you want

[I.Brattin]

Ve 65792
ed 157121
fa 91970

[boblishman]

I think Prp's limit is about 8000 faces per object. This may sound low, but that is a GOOD thing. You should get into the habit of making your objects as low poly as possible, and this "limit" acts as a timely reminder. It can be easy to "over-poly" your objects because you want them to be super smooth, or super detailed. The reality is, that most "detail" is done with texturing, NOT modelling, and that most objects are "smoothed" by Uru anyway, so all that smoothing is just unnecessary (I have simplified this, for arguments sake),

Basically, your biggest single object is likely to be your landscape, and, if your landscape is quite large (in releation to your avatar) then it will probably need to be make out of different sections. But dont be misled into thinking that the landscape's model needs to be very detailed .

... take a look at Sonavio - one of my Ages available on the ULM & Drizzle - that complete landacape is made up of just TWO objects ... each one is only 7, 500 faces each.
(You may be surprised when you finally get your landscape exported and into Uru just how large you can make each of those faces without it being too "jagged" in Uru. The real trick is in the texturing ... ). In any event, Uru would just not cope with objects with 10's of thousands of polygons PER object. To give you some idea about polygon usage, the WHOLE of Relto .... everything ... all those bits and pieces, trees, rocks, plants, islands, etc ... comes to a TOTAL polygon count of about 100,000 (IIRC).

(this means your one object has almost as many polygons as the whole of Relto)