3ds max | anim8or | Texture co-ords

[Fatal-Error]

Hi all, I'm new to the forums, (probably don't need me to point that out). I've been playing orbiter for quite a while, put some add ons into it... and now I'm trying to add a new ship to it.

I modelled it using anim8or (quite proficient at that program) and went to add my texture co-ordinates to it through 3ds Max 7 (learning that one)... Everything goes well and the ship shows up textured fine in Orbiter 2006 (havent patched it yet :sorry

But the problem is... there's too much ambient lighting. I don't know if this is being caused by anim8or or if its (and I'm suspecting so) 3ds Max... Sadly I've set all the ambient values I can find to 0... but now... the textures are just black in the game... like... space black (wich would be cool if I was building a stealth ship of some sort)

If you want I could post some screenshots... but that will have to wait a few days...

I did a quick search and I haven't seen where anyone mentions 3ds Max and Orbiter in the same paragraph... so... any help would be appreciated. I know everyone likes to use ... UV wrapper... but I cant stand that program and would much preferr to use 3ds to get my textures...

At the risk of losing some of my credibility, it's for a BattleStar Galactica type sci Fi ship... right now my model sits around 47k polies... (runs fine on my machine... don't know about others though)

It's also been configured using Vinka's Spacecraft3, if that matters.

Thanks in advance, and I apologize for the long winded post...

 

[ar81]

Download Mesh Wizard from www.orbithangar.com
The manual has information on AN8, OBJ and MSH mesh formats.
You may find out the answers to the ambient light issue there.

 

[jedidia]

well, let's see...

If your ship is not in sunlight, it will be black. That's just the way it is. When in sunlight, specular highlight and glossines are the two major material parameters you'll need.

I not much shaders are supported by Orbiter anyways, so if I pimp my model with some special shaders in Max, probability is high that it will look completely different in orbiter. This allready shows in the sensitivity of the specular lighting. If you adjust it that it gives you some nice highlights in the Max renderer, you'll probably get blinded when your Model suddenly shines in all the glory of Gods throne when you load it into orbiter... :lol:

It takes a bit of fiddling around there, but I never actualy used Ambient light levels...