hi all

i'm new to this forum, I'm trying to quickly evaluate sandbox in order to get an idea of how the cryengine 1 works and what is possible and what not. I was about to create in indoor-area with building-blocks I created in 3dsmax7 but I can't seem to export meshes from max7 to the cgf format!!

the plugin seems to work in max7 (I get the utility + options etc), I select the object and press the export button after which the .cgf file is created. When I open this .cgf file in sandbox it is empty! I don't see any faces or geometry, just a bounding box and a pivot.

help would be greatly appreiciated!

edit: I just found out that it's got something to do with materials. When I create a new max primitive and export it straight away then it works. As soon as I apply a max-material on an object then the object won't export properly (all I get in sandbox is the bounding box)

Apply the CryTek Shader



And "Physicalise" it (it's a checkbox) & make the "Shader" TemplBumpDiffuse or something appropriate!

That should do the trick!

thanks hervig, that has helped a bunch! I wasn't aware that there is a crytek-shader in 3dsmax.

however, I still have some problems & questions. First of all, this shader "Temp1BumpDiffuse", how should I have known to pick that one and where do I find a list of all usable shaders?

Second, when I now import my mesh in sandbox then it has a standard "replace me" material / texture applied to it. I can change this texture to one of my own which works fine for that material. However my model is using a multi-sub material with 2 sub-materials (and hence 2 diffuse maps). I can create another sub-material in sandbox but the second sub-material is not appearing on the model! I can only get 1 of the sub-materials to show, but not both of them at once! How do I create a proper multi-sub material in sandbox?

And third: when I re-export my meshes into the proper folder, and then press "reload" in the objects-brush menu in sandbox... then the objects are NOT properly updated! The only way to succesfully reload the newly exported meshes seems to be by restarting sandbox?

(1) Mostly experience... but http://www.crymod.com/index.php?p=showtopic&toid=1662&fid=20&area=1 might help...

(2) MultiSubs don't work (sort of), neither do Blends etc...
So apply "standard" matls to the diff polys & let the exporter sort them out!
You can then select the combined texture from the object if you want!?!

(3) Reload the Geometry like this...

It really depends on what you want to do. There are shaders that use the alpha channel for different things, and also shaders that are "standalone", meaning they do not use the alpha channel at all.

For example, if you were making a reflex sight like mine, you'd probably want a shader that uses alpha-opacity. (In other words, it uses the alpha channel as an opacity map.) Check out the descriptions of the various shaders, they provide very useful information.

NOTE: The opacity slider also affects opacity, if you want to create a separate material for your transparency. This is the way I would recommend making polys transparent, because alpha-opacity almost always screws my models, but it's possible that it's because I'm not doing it right, or something.

CitizenGkar, I understand the concept of a shader and the different applications of the channels in an image :-) I was just curious how one should know the name of the shaders that are available in sandbox.

hervig: I'm confused, is it possible to have multiple materials on 1 single object in sandbox or not? I've deleted the multi-sub material in 3dsmax and just applied the 2 crytek-shader-materials (bricks & concrete) to the faces in the mesh. After exporting it's still not possible to see both textures on the mesh in sandbox...

Also, the "reload geometry" button and the "reload" button in objects -> brushes does not seem to work. The only way to refresh my meshes (after overwriting an old mesh with a new one) is by restarting sandbox.

Yup... add as many texture to a single object as you want (within sensible limits!)

Here's an anim gif to show it being done...



I always export editable polys, but meshes are the same!