modelling trouble - Developers

Hello everyone. Ok, so after months of trying to figure out how to make a model, I've gotten somewhat far in my quest for understanding how that all works. So I've got this custom model of mine I'd like to get to work as a player model in Gmod. I turned him into an smd, compiled...bla bla, but now I keep getting a "Model attempted to load one or more VMT's it couldn't find" error in HLMV whenever I try to load my model. Here is the materials path in the QC: $cdmaterials "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\thegoldpen\half-life 2\materials\leon" and this is what I have in one of my vmt's: "VertexLitGeneric" { "$basetexture" "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\thegoldpen\half-life 2\materials\leon\belt" } Maybe I'm overlooking something. Or maybe I'm just doing everything wrong. I'm using blender, BTW. Perhaps I did something wrong there when I textured it there and exported it to compile in studiocompiler? Thanks for your time.

Your $cdmaterials line has unnecessary info for the .qc file. I'll post an example of something it would be like from an old project of mine: $cdmaterials "[I][B]models\weapons\V_models\schmung_mp7\[/B][/I]" Notice how it doesn't have the random bits? Regardless of what game you are compiling it for (in this case, Half-Life 2), it already has the installation directory registered within the compiler for whatever game it is going to. All you need to do is specify the texture directory itself. In your case, it should be something like this: $cdmaterials "[B]leon\[/B]" As for your .VMT file, you have the same issue for the most part. Instead, you need something like this: "VertexLitGeneric" { "$basetexture" "[B]leon\belt[/B]" } That is what it should look like in the .VMT file. Just make the proper corrections, and it should work fine.

thank you so much for the reply. Let me try your advice and I'll see how it fairs then. [editline]8th October 2012[/editline] I still get the same error. It has to be the way I set everything up, or Blender is just making everything wonky.

Did you name the material in blender to the name of the texture? When exporting the smd the addon counts on that.

Yes, everything lines up as far as I know. Here is how I have it all set up: In the materials tab: [IMG]http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o724/buscetti/Untitled-2_zps85c0f67e.jpg[/IMG] In the texture tab: [IMG]http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o724/buscetti/a_zps7f894cd4.jpg[/IMG] This is how it's set up for all the materials/textures. (I.e in the materials tab, it's called belt.bmp, and in the textures tab, it's called belt) I honestly don't know if the smd export tool is not exporting my textures or what.

Are those material converted? Also why is the eyeball texture 900x800 pixels big? Also if you are unsure if the material names are being exported, open the smd in notepad or something and look for the material names. SMd is a plaintext file and it shows the mats. Also do you actually have the materials folder reference in the QC? $cdmaterials "leon"

What do you mean by converted? And yes, the bitmap files, vmt's, vtf's, tga's and whatever else are all in the same folder. I have the $cdmaterials as $cdmaterials "leon\" and I don't know why they're 900x800 pixels. Should I scale them down? If so, to what size? Sorry for all of these questions. I'd like to get all this figured out soon. As for the smd, when I put it in notepad, this is what a segment looks like: pants.bmp 0 1.301708 6.834186 20.609283 -0.101840 -0.751335 -0.651997 0.150931 0.891026 0 0 0.762207 6.554345 17.403812 0.002564 -0.951964 0.306101 0.149041 0.890394 0 0 3.035697 6.445840 17.333515 -0.212073 -0.963958 0.160497 0.150654 0.890092 0 pants.bmp 0 -1.511282 6.445839 17.333515 0.201544 -0.962127 0.183477 0.148532 0.892260 0 0 0.762207 6.554345 17.403812 0.002564 -0.951964 0.306101 0.149041 0.890394 0 0 1.301708 6.834186 20.609283 -0.101840 -0.751335 -0.651997 0.150931 0.891026 0 No idea what any of this means, but I can assume this is a good sign?

Yeah, those are the UV coordinates, that's all fine, but I think your issue is that those textures are 900x800. I tried changing one of my textures to that size and I received an error from VTex. I'm not really sure how you managed to get it to compile, but that's definitely not helping the problem if it's not the direct cause. What I think is happening is because that texture isn't the proper size, one of your VTFs didn't compile and you just didn't notice, which is why it's give you an error that there's one missing. Either way, your textures have to be a power of 2, like 512x512 or 1024x1024 as Wraithcat was saying.

I see, ok. Thanks for that info. I will try to re-size them and see if that helps. ---- Still no luck. I feel like something is corrupted, and I ought to start back from scratch. Ugh. ---- Ok guys, I managed to actually get the model to show up in hlmv, but still the texturing problem persists, and now I have this problem with the bones + some missing polygons (I have to laugh at it). Would this be due to a rigging issue? In blender, when I pose the model, everything seems fine. [IMG]http://i1340.photobucket.com/albums/o724/buscetti/Untitled_zps1ba5df15.jpg[/IMG] Things just keep getting worse, I'm sorry :(

I've heard the Blender SMD plugin has some problems with bones. You're using the default bone tool, right? Not some pre-made biped? I don't think the Blender SMD plugin supports inverse kinematics, but I've never used it personally.

Actually, I modified the male_02 model and saved it as what you see now (not overwriting the original male_02) so no, this wasn't made with the default bone tool. I also tried rigging in xsi, but got the same issue with an earlier version of this model. Would you recommend just texturing, rigging, and exporting in xsi (or any other freeware program) all at once? If blender is known to have problems, I don't want to continue using it if I'm only going to constantly run into these kinds of issues. Unless you guys know of any tutorials that will help with using blender to make a player model for garry's mod.

[QUOTE=Leon T Dawson;38014219]Actually, I modified the male_02 model and saved it as what you see now (not overwriting the original male_02) so no, this wasn't made with the default bone tool. [/QUOTE] That should be fine then. I think when you import the model that way it uses forward kinematics. [QUOTE=Leon T Dawson;38014219]Would you recommend just texturing, rigging, and exporting in xsi[/QUOTE] I would, I personally like XSI a lot better. On top of that, the SMD exporter for that one was officially supported by Valve. I'd definitely give that a try. [QUOTE=Leon T Dawson;38014219] I also tried rigging in xsi, but got the same issue with an earlier version of this model. [/QUOTE] When you tried that did you use XSI to make the SMDs too or did you export it back to Blender and then to an SMD?

Yeah, I'll definitely try XSI again. And if I get the same issues, it's probably just me doing something really wrong. [QUOTE]When you tried that did you use XSI to make the SMDs too or did you export it back to Blender and then to an SMD? [/QUOTE] When I used XSI, I imported the model from blender as an OBJ, then exported it as an smd in xsi. I remember having to import it back into blender to edit weightmaps though, but exported it as an smd again.

[QUOTE=Leon T Dawson;38018675] I remember having to import it back into blender to edit weightmaps though, but exported it as an smd again.[/QUOTE] Yeah, that's still relying on the Blender exporter in the end, so XSI is definitely worth another try. Make sure you don't include Blender in the process at all. Leave the weights really basic in XSI if you have to. Right now we're just trying to get this workin'.

Absolutely. If things like this happen in xsi, I'm sure you'll be seeing another post from me again, haha. Once this is all figured out though, I'm going to be super happy. Thanks for trying to help me out, I seriously do appreciate it!