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v0.6.8 Issues

v0.6.8 Issues

Postby Shando » 17 Sep 2013, 00:53

OK, what I have come across so far is:

1) When I change a Material assigned to a Mesh, it seems to save any changes to the new Material under the previously assigned Material. BTW my Materials & Meshes are named like this: biosphere_b, biosphere_g etc. to denote the different factions.
2) The "Diffuse Tint" field does not display the correct RGB values (seems to retain the last ones that I entered)
3) There doesn't seem to be any way to disable the "Diffuse Tint" colour (maybe this is by design, but I can't set the Alpha in this, so it appears to stuff up my Texture with Alpha)
4) I get occasional crashes when I change the Mesh and/or Material (seems to be random)
5) Opening my own Preset Library causes a crash (nothing in log file)
6) Can't save more than one Preset. For example, it looked like I had successfully saved a Preset, but when I check the Library it's not there.

I'll keep going, and update if I find anything else.

regards

Shando
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Re: v0.6.8 Issues

Postby SolarPortal » 17 Sep 2013, 11:19

ok, strange things are happening lol :P
i will help you through these issues :D

1) When I change a Material assigned to a Mesh, it seems to save any changes to the new Material under the previously assigned Material. BTW my Materials & Meshes are named like this: biosphere_b, biosphere_g etc. to denote the different factions.

I have tried to reproduce this problem and cant make it overwrite the previous material. What i did notice was; that the material editor did not update to the new material when the material is assigned to the sceneEntity.

Have you got a workflow i can copy to make this happen?.

2) The "Diffuse Tint" field does not display the correct RGB values (seems to retain the last ones that I entered)

Once again, in tests this seems to be functioning as we expect.
The diffuse tint is meant to stay the colour you select for that material so you can easily change the tint to a new colour that may need to be lighter or darker from the current selected colour, instead of choosing the colour again from white,then having to find the correct shade lol.

3) There doesn't seem to be any way to disable the "Diffuse Tint" colour (maybe this is by design, but I can't set the Alpha in this, so it appears to stuff up my Texture with Alpha)

You can't disable the tint, but if you want an alpha texture, then simply change the "Base Material" shader used in the material editor by changing the drop down from "Base_Multilight_V1" to "Base_Multilight_V1_AlphaSmooth" or "Base_Multilight_V1_AlphaReject".
Then store the alpha channel in the diffuse textures alpha channel slot to use alpha on an image. Storing the alpha in the diffuse is a faster method than storing the alpha as its own texture.

4) I get occasional crashes when I change the Mesh and/or Material (seems to be random)

strange, these should be caught now. Are you sure these aren't your meshes or materials?
If not, it would be great to know what does cause this to happen and then we can fix it.

5) Opening my own Preset Library causes a crash (nothing in log file)

Is this being opened from the preset manager or from the entity presets panel located by default in the bottom left of the main window.
Also, check the preset library XML file to check if there are errors inside the file.

6) Can't save more than one Preset. For example, it looked like I had successfully saved a Preset, but when I check the Library it's not there.

Did you press the save library button. All actions inside the preset library need saved afterwards.
If this isn't the case then can you give us a little more info on your procedure.

Just a quick thought, we could make the library auto save after adding/deleting/renaming a preset.

It would be great if we could resolve all these issues. :D

NEW:
Edit: I have just added in the fix for the material editor to update when the material on the sceneEntity is changed.
Edit: When importing or deleting a preset from the library, it will automatically be saved.
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Re: v0.6.8 Issues

Postby Shando » 17 Sep 2013, 13:14

Hi SolarPortal,

Thanks for the reply.

I haven't got time to test them all now, but I have checked 1) again. Basically, it seems to be only updating the first Material:

1) Load a Dummy Mesh.
2) Assign a Mesh and it's corresponding Material (e.g. blue faction xxx_b)
3) Tweak Material.
4) Save Material.
5) Save Mesh as a Preset.
6) Load another Dummy Mesh.
7) Assign a Mesh and it's corresponding Material (e.g. green faction xxx_g) NB: the only differences between the Factions are two Textures used to colour specific parts of the Mesh.
8) Tweak Material.
9) Save Material.

Now, when I check the folder where the Materials are, it is only the BLUE Material that is being updated:

http://sdrv.ms/16gwyXh

Also, the Model in Skyline seems to be a mixture of the two Materials:

http://sdrv.ms/16gwLd1

Hope this helps??

Regards

Shando

PS: all Meshes and Materials have been created with the following pipeline:

a) Turbosquid convert .max to .obj
b) I create relevant Materials in Carrara 6 Pro
c) I generate Ogre XML Mesh and Material using Ultimate Unwrap 3D Pro
d) I convert Ogre XML Mesh to normal Mesh using OgreXMLConverter in Skyline
e) I check Models in both Torchlight Mesh Viewer and Nimet
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Re: v0.6.8 Issues

Postby SolarPortal » 17 Sep 2013, 14:49

ok, thanks for the info shando :D

i have run through a couple of tests and did find an error in code to do with the Diffuse tints and brightness control when using a basic material.
Hopefully i have fixed this now.

I have sent you a pm :D

Just a quick question, are your meshes and materials unique names(one material name throughout all resources instead of one material name in each .material file), as skyline will pick up the first resource it finds of the material name, which is why it might look like the model is referencing an incorrect material, or saving back to the wrong location. As the tests i ran all saved back to the correct materials.
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Re: v0.6.8 Issues

Postby Shando » 17 Sep 2013, 21:50

Just a quick question, are your meshes and materials unique names(one material name throughout all resources instead of one material name in each .material file), as skyline will pick up the first resource it finds of the material name, which is why it might look like the model is referencing an incorrect material, or saving back to the wrong location. As the tests i ran all saved back to the correct materials.


That's the problem then :oops: since all I did was change the Texture, not the Material name inside the Material file. I'm on my way to work now, but will give it a try later tonight.

Thanks

Shando
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Re: v0.6.8 Issues

Postby Shando » 20 Sep 2013, 03:46

OK, so didn't manage to test yesterday :( but I've had a good play around today :)

Looks like I have managed to iron out my issues. Basically, I have manually rewritten all of the .material and .mesh.xml files ( thank goodness for Notepad++ and it's search/replace in all files 8-) ). Now I can change model & mesh and it works perfectly, including saving the changes to the basic and/or advanced materials to the correct file.

I have also managed to save a Preset into my own Preset Library, and reload it once I've shut down and restarted Skyline :D

Regards

Shando

PS: What version of Ogre are we using?? as I get a MeshSerializer error when trying to view my Models in TLMeshViewer. I'm also hoping that I can get QtMeshEditor ( http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=76016&p=495616 ) up and running as this looks ideal for messing around with mesh(es) and material(s).
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Re: v0.6.8 Issues

Postby SolarPortal » 20 Sep 2013, 11:32

its great that things are moving in the right direction again. :D

we are using Ogre3D 1.8, but are looking at some point in the future to upgrade to ogre3d 1.9+
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