3DS Max Normals in MCX are pointing to wrong direction

[Gianni]

Dear all,

I've been back here on the forum for ages, but the new Flight Simulator from Microsoft has motivated me again to create something new for MSFS. I do hope that you all are well. Anyway, it's amazing what you can forget in a few months. And that's why my problem can probably be solved with a few tweaks.

I am using 3ds Max 2019 and am currently building some landmarks in Austria. My training object is the basilica in Mariazell; it consists of two parts with two textures each with an ASOBO light for MSFS.In 3ds Max the textures are aligned correctly, but in ModelConverterX I see them on the wrong side (on the inside). I converted the object with the Babylon Exporter. Screenshots show the problem.

Unfortunately I can't find a solution (also in youtube I haven't found anything that would help me). Any hint is highly appreciated.

EDIT: the problem seems to be in the 3ds model. A newly designed cube as test object does show correctly in MCX after exporting.

 

[tgibson]

Did you happen to use the Mirror button along the top of the screen? If so, some polygons will be inverted. Instead use a Mirror modifier on the stack.

 

[Gianni]

Thank you Tom for your response! Yes, I did a lot of mirroring by using the mirroring command via the tools-menue. Is there any way to revert the mirroring or do I have to do the entire construction work again?

 

[tgibson]

Unfortunately the command does not create a trail in the modifier stack, so I don't know of a way to reverse it in one step (unless Mirror is the last thing you did). If you can remember what you did the first time, pressing the Mirror button again at those points should reverse it, then you can use the mirror modifier after that. If you can't remember what you did, the only way I know to fix it is in Max select the polygons that are wrong way around and Flip them. Then recompile and load back into MCX, to see if other polygons need the treatment. Trial and error... This will lead to an object that looks messed up in Max but OK in FS. Sometimes it's faster just to create the object again (or at least those parts that have problems).

 

[Anthony31]

It could be an issue with scaling. Apply any modifiers such as Mirror first as Tom recommends. If your x,y or z scale is negative then it will flip the normals. In Blender I use the Apply transforms to reset the scale and rotation on scenery objects. If the scale was negative this will flip the normals so a quick select all faces and flip normals and they are back to facing the right way and will appear in MCX correctly.

 

[Gianni]

It could be an issue with scaling. Apply any modifiers such as Mirror first as Tom recommends. If your x,y or z scale is negative then it will flip the normals. In Blender I use the Apply transforms to reset the scale and rotation on scenery objects. If the scale was negative this will flip the normals so a quick select all faces and flip normals and they are back to facing the right way and will appear in MCX correctly.

Thank you Anthony! I guess this does the trick - at least in in the most important issue. I checked whether the objects are showing negative scaling values - in fact the x/y/z values were negative (-104 each). I have no clue where this came from because I upscaled by roundabout 4% (I would have assumed a positive value in this case). However, after just having removed the "minus" the normals appear to show in the correct direction (both in 3ds Max and in MCX). The only shortfall is that after the correction of the scale-values the orientation of the entire object changed in a not expected way (may this is resulting from the position of the pivot).

Thank you again!

 

[KAI31]

You have a static object and after scaling or mirroring, you definitely need to reset the object settings. This can be done using Reset XForm. Having checked the position of the polygons on the normal in the correct position using Views = xView = FaceOrientation or another method, if they are incorrectly reflected, they must be turned out in any convenient way. Also, if in your scene the movement or rotation was performed in a mode different from the global one, then when the shape is reset, the local pivot will also be reset. It happens that an object gets stuck in space and time))) and it is impossible to reset the shape or correct the display of the normals, and in order to return the model, you need to try, up to converting to other 3D formats and importing back into MAX.

 

[Gianni]

Thank you both! Your hints helped to (I do hope finally) fix the issue. At least in MCX the faces are now shown correctly.