I am presently in the process of creating a flight simulator using 3D Studio Max r3. We are exporting the .max files as .3DS files and using the Conv3ds conversion utility that comes with DirectX to convert the .3DS files to .x files for the game engine. All of the .bmp''s are RGB. We have used one large bmp for the overall land which is 30x30 miles and tiled higher resolution bmp''s in the center of the land in 1x1 mile squares making up a 14x14mile are for higher ground detail. The scenes look fine in StudioMax, but when exported and converted to .x files for game engine, sometimes the large ground map will show up on some of the objects in the scenes. It doesn''t wrap around the object, it applies itself to each face of the objects. Seems to do this randomly. One day they are fine the next day they are not. And it''s not always the same scene or same objects. If anyone can help with this, it would be much appreciated. If you need more info. or have questions let me know Thanks, Robert

Hmmm, since no one has replied here, I give it a shot.

I haven''t worked with .x files before, but if I had to make a guess, I would say that the problem is becuase of the limits of texture sizes with certain cards. (i.e. 3Dfx cards can only have textures of 256x256) The converter may be attempting to break up the large file manually, or it could just be your video card.

You may try breaking up the large texture yourself in 3DS or you could try writing your own saving utility in MAXScript.

Like I said, I am just guessing here. Hope these ideas help.

the objects being on top of each other could be due to the z-buffer order

I am also working on Robert's project and here is some additional information that may be necessary.

We are developing specifically for a Diamond Viper 770 and our ground maps are 512x512 and the rest are 256x256 or smaller.

I hope this helps.

Thanks in advance,

Joe

Edited by - coose on 1/18/00 8:35:55 AM