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Gmax - Poly limit

A

Adraesh

Messages
73
Hi everyone !

I have a problem using gmax. In fact, i can't export my project to a mdl file because the number of polygon is bigger than 65k. It's a plane for fsx.

Someone have a idea ?

thx.
 
apply different materials to subparts so that each is less than 65k

It should then export
 
I have to ask this. Why are you just now discovering there's a problem? Haven't you been exporting test models as you build?

Fortunately, as noted above the fix is relatively easy to accomplish. Make a copy of your existing FSX Material, make any minor change to one of the parameters (such as specular level), then apply the new FSX Material to some of the objects in the scene that're overloaded with texture vertices.
 
Or have you hit the 65K vertex limit for one object in FSX? A model is usually made up of lots of objects, but 65K vertices is an absolute limit per object.
 
Adraesh said:
Hi everyone !

I have a problem using gmax. In fact, i can't export my project to a mdl file because the number of polygon is bigger than 65k. It's a plane for fsx.

Someone have a idea ?

thx.
Click to expand...

You'll get there man. With FSX, it is usually the 'too many parts attached to one single material' issue. Creating a Copy of that material, changing a small detail, making the name something like 'my_texture2' and then 'Apply' that to half of those objects that are applied to the other texture in huge numbers, and then try to export.
 
Also, I should note that the 65,000 POlygon limit no longer applies to the 'FSX' version of Gmax. Only the 65,000 poly limit with 'Material Apply' instances where too many parts have been applied with the same material which freaks out the compiler.

The older FS2004 65,000 Polygon limit is not in the new compiler.

But.... It does have a limit. Vitus and myself have found it. Grim... But its with models in the 400,000 polygon ranges...



Bill
 
lionheart said:
But its with models in the 400,000 polygon ranges...
Click to expand...

It's actually not a limit of the FS. If your model gets too complex, the Gmax Exporter runs out of memory, hence fails to export. I ran into this problem at about 220,000 polygons (2GB RAM), Bill had this problem at ~400,000 polys. If you have sufficient memory (and both windows and gmasx can handle it), there shouldn't be any problem.

Vitus
 
Vitus said:
It's actually not a limit of the FS. If your model gets too complex, the Gmax Exporter runs out of memory, hence fails to export. I ran into this problem at about 220,000 polygons (2GB RAM), Bill had this problem at ~400,000 polys. If you have sufficient memory (and both windows and gmasx can handle it), there shouldn't be any problem.

Vitus
Click to expand...

Cool! So this is where it will come in handy for me to have a Mac Pro Tower with 2 6-core Chips, dual GC's with 1 Gig of RAM each, and a 12 or 16 pack of high speed RAM. Then I can compile an 800,000 Poly model into FSX format.

:D :D :D
 
Errm no ... 32bit executable ... runs out of memory even on a "big rig" on a 64bit o/s.

Thankfully I make scenery .. so if I have that many polys I know I have done something seriously wrong.
 
But here's a thought, off the top of me head, so probably not worth a cent...

If as Vitus says it's a question of gmax RAM then ... what if after texture mapping you move all of your texture bitmaps away to a backup folder. Gmax will complain about missing textures but it will leave the names in the material slots, as far as I know. So that should free huge amounts of memory, right?

Another alternative - make your gmax map files (not the originals) jpg's rather than psd's or bmp's. In fact, reduce them to an absurd value such as 32 x 32. Then gmax won't even complain and still have the benefit of more memory. Of course in the sim folder you have your 2048 or 4096 sizes.
 
I think it's the plugin, rather than Gmax ... and I don;t think it cares how big your textures are (or whether they're present)
 
Since nothing but the "texture names" get's compiled anyway, the texture's absolute file sizes is irrelevant.

However, the point of having the textures loaded into RAM is a valid one, because they do take up a lot of memory!

The simple solution is to save your scene in wireframe mode, close Max/GMax, then restart the program, load your file, then export. Since no textures were loaded, less memory is consumed!

I've sometimes had to do precisely this in order to get a successful export of a model which was "heavy in textures..."
 
n4gix said:
However, the point of having the textures loaded into RAM is a valid one, because they do take up a lot of memory!
Click to expand...

I totally agree. I hadnt thought of that. ALL of my textures are in huge massive 2048 x 2048 PSD stacked layer files, TONS of them...


n4gix said:
The simple solution is to save your scene in wireframe mode, close Max/GMax, then restart the program, load your file, then export. Since no textures were loaded, less memory is consumed!

I've sometimes had to do precisely this in order to get a successful export of a model which was "heavy in textures..."
Click to expand...


I 'have' to do this or mine will 'always' crash, so this must be evidence that this is the right path of thinking in the consumption of RAM during an export...

Great thinking MJahn

Bill
 
MS Flight team would no doubt like to hear a wish for a 64-bit exporter (in addition to the likely 32-bit one)? :rolleyes:
 
hairyspin said:
Well. if they ain't gonna do us one after the product ships, we better let them know now! :duck:
Click to expand...

Amen to that! It would be cool to have a compiler for Gmax, Max, as well as Lightwave and Rhino 3D.

That team in Japan seem to know what they are doing concerning making compilers that adapt with other 3D design engines. Man, I wish I had saved that news article... arrgh.
 
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