Black overlay/no texture after edit

[Simsimillian]

Hey all,

I wanted to quickly chop off part of a wall (the French wall in CAW), which works fine in milkshape (just cut it off), and would not need me to re-UV-map (as the texture applies fine, again, in milkshape) and I would like it to line up properly with the big version. As far as I know, that would just get me some UV-overflow, which I can live with.
Only in the game, this makes the top part of the wall (which is a box, as opposed to a simple plane which doesn't seem to have this problem) go all BLACK - no texture.

I was just wondering what could cause this, as before when I tried to make a smaller dam (spillway), I gave up because even after UV-mapping it properly, it had a weird black overlay.

Could this be:

a) a texture problem? something about alpha? but I didn't touch the textures, only the model
b) something about shadows? I tried both editing the MLOD's and leaving them alone... didn't help...
c) a UV problem after all?

I just figured I'd ask if someone could point me in the right direction, because I'm completely unsure where to begin troubleshooting at this point :/

[Inge Jones]

I can't grasp what it is you're trying to modify here? You mean a wall as in a fence/halfwall object, or a wallpaper? You can't chop bits off a proper wall (as in a house wall) as they have a set height. I know you said The French Wall but I don't have my game installed right now and can't quite remember what that is.

[simsample]

It's the retaining wall, that appears in France on the riverside, Inge. It's just a regular object, but it doesn't have a back face (so it appears invisible from one side).

[Inge Jones]

So, you reduced the size of the mesh, and in the game it is showing the object smaller as you expect, but with a strange black area at the top?

[Simsimillian]

Hey, no the mesh is perfect, it's just the texture that turns black.

There are 2 groups in the mesh:
1. is a simple plane that doesn't have texture problems, as you can see in the pic above
2. is the top rim of the wall which is box mapped, and turns black

All I did was remove some of the faces on the far left and the far right of the wall/mesh, thereby making it shorter.
Since I didn't UV-map anything, and I didn't change the shape of the object, only cut part of it off, the texture should show the same as before, only it doesn't...

[Inge Jones]

What do you mean "cut part of it off"? Deleted some faces or moved the vertices to make the existing faces smaller?

[orangemittens]

Hey, no the mesh is perfect, it's just the texture that turns black.

There are 2 groups in the mesh:
1. is a simple plane that doesn't have texture problems, as you can see in the pic above
2. is the top rim of the wall which is box mapped, and turns black

All I did was remove some of the faces on the far left and the far right of the wall/mesh, thereby making it shorter.
Since I didn't UV-map anything, and I didn't change the shape of the object, only cut part of it off, the texture should show the same as before, only it doesn't...What is the catalog name of the object? If it's like several of the WA build type items are this is most likely a UV problem that's built into the object itself.

[Simsimillian]

@ Inge: deleted the vertices/faces that make up the part that I cut off ;-)

@ orangemittens: fence-riverside-rail

[orangemittens]

@ Inge: deleted the vertices/faces that make up the part that I cut off ;-)

@ orangemittens: fence-riverside-railNot sure if you've solved your problem yet. I can't find an object with that name in s3oc's catalog listing...no surprises there if it's a CAW item only since I've never even opened that tool.

If you have not yet solved the problem, have you tried just putting the object through a round-trip?...that is, cloned it, exported the lods, opened them in your editor, saved them there without changing the mesh, reimported the saved lods to the .package, and then tried them in-game?

EA has several objects, the WA bridge, the medicine cabinet, the spirals on their notebook for example, that are mapped differently than other objects are. The difference in the mapping is sufficient to cause them to not survive a round trip through the tools with the texture applied to the mesh correctly anymore. A decent amount of mapping is required to utilize the actual mesh of an object like these...even if all you're doing is making a slight change to it. Again, while this may not be your issue it seems as if it could be. A round trip through the tools would give you this information before you go to further headache.

If you're still looking to solve the issue after that could you post a clone of the item that you haven't modified at all so people who don't use CAW can look at it?

[Simsimillian]

That was very helpful orangemittens: as it appears, this is indeed the case, as the same problem manifested itself after this 'round trip'!

So the problem is not me, it is the object. The interesting thing is that the texture applies itself perfectly in MS3d still. I guess I can not rely on MS3d to check my UV-mapping...

PS: it is indeed a CAW object; I thought you meant to say the CAW catalogue


edit: OK, I give up. I can not make this UV map any better than it already looks in lithunwrap: it is already perfect. CAW just refuses to get that. All I did was fix the overflow of the large flat plane (group 00) and now that texture is all squished so I should have left that alone as well... added the original object should anyone else want to give it a try... I'm thinking it might be easier to create my own object than to try and modify one of EA's!

[orangemittens]

That was very helpful orangemittens: as it appears, this is indeed the case, as the same problem manifested itself after this 'round trip'!

So the problem is not me, it is the object. The interesting thing is that the texture applies itself perfectly in MS3d still. I guess I can not rely on MS3d to check my UV-mapping...

PS: it is indeed a CAW object; I thought you meant to say the CAW catalogue


edit: OK, I give up. I can not make this UV map any better than it already looks in lithunwrap: it is already perfect. CAW just refuses to get that. All I did was fix the overflow of the large flat plane (group 00) and now that texture is all squished so I should have left that alone as well... added the original object should anyone else want to give it a try... I'm thinking it might be easier to create my own object than to try and modify one of EA's!If you open this object up in MS you can apply the overlay image to it and then open the Texture Coordinator Editor to see the problem. MS can be counted on to show you issues like this but you have to look at the actual mapping on some objects to see it. MS is gonna take the parts hanging over the edge of the image and wrap them over to the other side of it to display it on the mesh. With a repeating pattern like this object's images have you won't notice any problem in the view screen of MS...you'll only see it in the TCE.

Anyway, a good deal of the object is not mapped on the image part of the screen and is hanging off in UV-scale overflow territory. Once you get UV scale overflow the map will be shifted on the imgs and then you'll end up with parts of it showing on your object that aren't intended to show.

Given that this object is a simple plane my bet is you're right about it being easier to just mesh your own rather than fight EA's UV scales. Even if it were a more challenging mesh to create I'd still say that. ;)