Fence is driving me crazy, lol :)

[mustluvcatz]

I've done fences before, I've textured plenty of objects. This fence is driving me nuts:

http://i53.tinypic.com/24o5bir.jpg

See the (very roughly thanks to my lack of skills) circled area? Up close the fence looks fine. Farther away, and not at all angles, there are little dots/spots that look like gaps. There are no gaps at all in my mesh. Each plank is separate- but they are all the exact same thickness.

Is this a texture thing or my definitely-not-the-best video card? I've reworked the texture a million times and those little dots won't go away. So I'm thinking video card. I'd like to be sure before I upload it anywhere. FYI, if I can't work it out I do have a fence that's just one box and the planks are textured on. But I like this one better.

One other thing: Does anyone know why the gate (no pic, sorry) would look darker on one side in the sun? I've never seen that happen before.

[HugeLunatic]

It could be your graphics card. Just to check though, you are using build dxt right? And if using dxt1 have you tried dxt3?

If you want to upload I can check in my game to see what it looks like.

Regarding the gate, I have seen this in some gates but I don't think all. What does the gate you cloned from look like in game? Is it also darker?

[mustluvcatz]

Yep, build dtx using dtx3. I don't right-click to update all though, I just commit and save. I'm pretty sure I cloned the white picket gate. I don't remember that being darker on one side. Could the fact that my gate is taller have anything to do with it? I tried using a taller gate but I couldn't get the joints right. The gate works fine though, so I can live with the darkness if everyone else can. Er..never mind the hinge showing through on one side of the fence. I've got to remember to fix that.

The fence and the gate are in the .rar. Can't have one without the other :) There is a short garden-edging fence- but I didn't put it in there. It has the same issue as the tall fence but it's less obvious.

[HugeLunatic]

Ok looking at this in game I also get the little specs, but only on the side away from the sun. Looking at it in MS, I also see those same little specks on the mesh. I'm guessing it's a mesh issue, but I fail to see why. I didn't see any gaps, you have each "post" overlapping/underlapping the other so there shouldn't be any spaces.

As for the gate, all EAxis fences were doing the same as yours. Ok, base game fences were. There are a couple from Seasons/BV that were not. The difference between those (I think) is they are bigger, front/back wise. I didn't see anything in the fences regarding lighting, but I didn't check if fence lighting is controlled in the text files (like lights).

[BloomsBase]

Its probably because the vertices of both panels are not inline on the mesh.
Bringing them inline might fix it but if you want to be 100%sure i would use a diffrent setup on the panels.

I updated one of the meshes, i would mesh em like this to avoid problems.

[mustluvcatz]

Thanks for looking at it HL. :)

Thanks to you too, BloomsBase. SimPE won't open the package though. What I get is "user defined" and there's nothing there. Or is it not something I should open that way?

[BloomsBase]

its the mesh(gmdc)
Either import it in your package or have alook at it in Milkshape.
Unpack it first ofcourse :)

[mustluvcatz]

Ahhhh, okies. I should've guessed that.

So, it's awesome- no little dots. Can you tell me how you do that? I really don't understand what you mean by bringing the vertices inline. Please and thank you. :)

Edit: Yay! I know what you mean and how to do it now. :) I've been playing around in Milkshape..no little dots at all now. Thankies!
Another edit: While the dots aren't there in Milkshape, they're still there in game.

another edit: Since I haven't figured out how to get rid of the little dots, I'm giving up on this. Thanks for the help given. :)