Trying to figure out what’s causing the orientation to look different in game to the toolset for a model:
Toolset:
Ingame:
Worth noting the pivot for the seat seems the same on all models regardless of rotation:
cleanmodels-ee did clean up some things but it has no complaints on a rerun.
[Model link removed since it got fixed!]
Any ideas?
Maybe look at a standard chair model in notepad, and see what’s different. At first glance, I think you have an extension that came with the model in the name, .base, which could be messing things up:
node trimesh toud_chair01.base
I name my actual model a simple thing, like “chairz”, and create an empty and name that the ‘name’ of the asset, like “my_chair”. Then select that empty, and use the Aurora utilities to set up a Placeable, and the .mdl will be appended to the empty when it’s made into the aurorabase. I think. Been a while.
Also, unless it’s changed, there was a 16 character limit on names, so be watchful of too-long naming of stuff.
Edit: Of course, this could have nothing to do with the sitting orientation. 
Can’t hurt to fix that, I keep forgetting the 16 char limit.
That got us halfway: the sit pivot now works. However, it still appears inverted in the editor, so i suppose it’s a second, stranger problem.
[edit:] Which is to say they still appear inverted in the editor.
They do place correctly and work in game so it mostly seems cosmetic, but its strange and I’d like to fix it if possible.
Mmm, an interesting problem. What I can see is that the model is rotated by 180 degree (why?), the head node is missing and the sitting position obviously completely wrong.
Will have a look on this later.
Two different issues here - sitting direction and placeable facing.
Regarding sitting direction
If all else fails it can be fixed by sitting on an invisible object instead.
The apparent facing of the placeable itself is another matter entirely. To be honest, I’ve never seen that vary between toolset and game. Did you try Clean Models?
I have this type of problem when I don’t do “apply” on blender after making any kind of transformation (orientation, position, scale, etc.). It’ll be ok on aurora, but not ingame
Correct, without a pwk, the sitting character will always face east. This can be easiely fixed by having the chair facing east too.
I removed the orientation clause, rotated all verts by 270 degree and the problem with the wrong orientation ingame was gone.
However, the real problem is, that the sitting PC is facing always into the direction of the green arrow, which is pointing to the side in this case. The facing is not given by the walkmesh. And any rotation of the model let’s the green arrow rotate with it. I don’t know how to fix that … yet, but the easiest solution would be to exchange the values of the x and y axis :-D.
However, there are some caveats on this model:
on the rear are some faces missing (this doesn’t look too bad actually):
And at the marked spots are some details which I don’t like:
Especially: what are these rectangles jutting out?
@ May: I would rather like to work on a model which is not “mended” by clean models. And I would like to have a texture (might be a single texture at max 512x512)
I think the rectangles are artifacts of the import, the original source model is an unreal engine asset. They do not appear in Unreal engine. I updated the original post with the full export, I don’t know that the texture could cause problems but maybe. Its a PBR texture fwiw so maybe?
The sitting position was corrected by making sure that all the nodes were within 16 characters, that’s my bad.
The weird orientation issue persists.
I have updated the original zip so that it has the full export, including mtr/texture and pwk.
oh, oh …
However I solved it on the previous model.
The good thing is, that I now know, how to handle a meddlesome green arrows …
Any more puzzles?
Ah my bad, I mistyped. No “c” in hak, https://www.toud.pw/hak/toud_chair01.zip
Fine, will fix it this afternoon or tomorrow.
The holes on the backrest are 3d and the rear side has missing faces. The jutting rectangles are on a transparent part of the texture. The lower end of the backrest isn’t fixed to the frame. What’s the use of a mtr-file, if there is only one texture?
It should also have a normal map but for some reason it doesnt export with it.
[edit]: I think it’s because the diffuse texture got atlassed but the normalmap texture didn’t. I can fix that myself though.
The transparent tabs are interesting to me because if there’s nothing there why have them? I’m assuming they’re some sort of artifact from importing it from UE4. Maybe they’re needed for some sort of VFX or shader that’s applied in UE4. I’d probably try and see if removing them fixes it.
Ok, here’s the fixed chair. Fixed the position/sitting issue, not much else. A chair which in meant to sit on, should only have one use node in front of it.
The problem with the upper part of the backrest is still there. There are two planes, both directed to the front. On the first glance, it seems that the holes have an inner rim, but this isn’t true. You see just the second plane, which has a slightly different texture, causing an optical fraud. Seemingly there are missing surfaces on the back of the struts too. A lot of work to fix that …
Obviously, the outcropping rectangles can be removed without any loss, but they are not visible anyway.
troud_chair.7z (199.5 KB)
Many thanks!
You see just the second plane, which has a slightly different texture, causing an optical fraud.
I actually like how it looks but I think that’s what’s resulting in the back having no faces. I actually kind of agree that I don’t mind the look of the back, I might take out that inset entirely. But it’s good enough for now. I’ll do further cleanup myself when I can.
Okay, trying to remove that transparent area has me pulling my hair infrustration.
It looks okay in blender:
(block is just the pwk)
But doesn’t in the editor:
I should note the background of unused areas in the atlas is black, there is no white…
And it crashes in the game.
From the appearance, I’d assume the UVmap is getting mangled but I tried the different neverblender options to no change.
Any thoughts?
It was mentioned earlier by someone, and may not have anything to do with this, but it’s a good idea to Apply All transforms before exporting and at strategic points in your Blending activity.
CTRL+A, Apply All.
Worth doing to see if it helps.
Yeap! It’s part of my routine now. In this case all transforms are applied and the model itself appears just fine as it should, mesh/geometry wise. But the texture, a little ah, not so.
