SC2Mapster

Sounds like you duplicated the marines actors, using your model to replace the marines. This can have some undesired effects, try duplicating the ghost instead and replacing the model with yours and testing, thats assuming you did this.

This is all speculation i can think of 5 or 6 things of the top of my head that can be causing an issue, from the program you used to make the model, exporting options to galaxy editor side of things. I would test what i said first and let us know your findings, and double check your naming convention.

No detail is to small when asking for help.

Ok not sure if this is correct place to post, but hours of searching and i never found an answer to this did read a few modelers having same problem. So before hours or days in my case are spent pulling out hair wanted to offer a small grasp of information i stumbled across.

This is not about getting custom decals applied in game through galaxy or applying them to custom models, This is about decals becoming distorted when you try to play with them in game after exporting from max, or mapping out your own decal placement on sc2 units through 3DS Max.

Things i will be using 3Ds max (this was done in Version 2010), galaxy editor(for testing), some sort of decal image, a grasp of mapping channels.

I'll assume you already have your textures, diffuse etc all mapped out how you want it and are try trying to figure out if the decal is worth that much effort or why it looks all Professional and new in max, but messed up in sc2.

1st Set up the second mapping channel, uv unwrap set to 2 (using the first as a base e.g. don't reset just switch to 2) select the faces you want as your decal placement and put to one side. The rest just select all faces, scale, resize to a tiny tiny square and placed in a corner. You don't actually move any polys just shrink them so they will not be effected by decal colours.

Take the Decal placement polys you put to one side and resize, shape to how you want. Make sure textures on mapping - Decal sc2 have been set in the textures so you can see how its placed. once thats done collapse and Export.

2nd Import the model back into max that you just exported. Reopen the uv unwrap, set to 2 and you can edit > reset UV now. You should see something completely messed up but within the box still. This is how sc2 would have read the decal placement.

3rd Do as you please now with what you have, Fix it to how you want the decal to be placed checking how it looks till you have it perfect for your needs.

4th Collapse the unwrap now and export again, load into galaxy editor and test the placement should be fixed and look like how it was meant to be seen.

Note: I never once opened "2" uv unwraps, or edited the 1st map this was already done previously.

This problem also occurs if you even look or view a sc2's units 2nd map and collapse it again reexport, the decal will be distorted in game.

The normal maps are done correctly > sc2 style.

How i export my models is (custom) 80, 3.0 , 2.0 unfogged, (beofre was using the same as sc2 marine 80, 1.0, 2.5) this gives off a nice metallic shine on my units that looks great, add in a normal map and it goes to hell. spec is turned on .

The editor advice i do constantly, its how i have been checking my models.

I will give your suggestions a go,

Also, whats supposed to show up in the black "Specular only" if specular is the white "Diffuse lighting only " because as you saw on a standard viking you got some shine, where i did not although unrelated i'm looking into all areas never know.

I'll test with each map and give screen shots.

Thanks, thats really helpful i didn't know that about the editor, kept having to go back and fourth between launching the game every time, very time consuming.

So after checking the various layers according to the editor and from what i can tell, mine has no spec?(picture attached) but yours does although im using the standard unit with only texture swap that happens in game on the difuse that can't be right.

exported the model does have a spec looked in the cut scene(previewer) and it has a spec texture so no idea why it wouldn't show up like yours. Didnt work on any other model ether, strange.

Maybe im over looking a setting. On my other models (custom) the problem is nether the diffuse or spec i have both working and look great its once i introduce the normal map that i get the white streaks or pixels.

Think of a 3d box, the corner its dark and you have a light around it. my problem would be the light is around the corner yet i have a spot of light coming from the corner where it should not be if that makes sense.

This all only appears in game and is hard to show in a screen shot here is another picture of the viking if you look at his top left gun you will see the white pixel type effect im talking about(might be hard to see) now when he walks he looks like tin foil or a christmas tree with white pixels and light hitting it and going on and off. Everything on this unit is standard sc2 a part from the diffuse so i'm confused right now are my diffuse maps incompatible with sc2 normal maps, i read all the tutorials and guides i could find an have things working great until i tried to do this.

I really am thankful for all this advice and feed back.

hmm looks like it might actually be worse =/, yea i noticed sc2 model where funny with what they wanted to use and can never make up what layer wants to be what, so many years in the making yet their ability to name files correctly sucks.

Ah thank for for the information on mip mapping thats very useiful, i read the original post for importing textures, i believe its somewhere at the top. In the post, when it came to exporting it mentioned mip mapping although tiny and i followed those instructions believing it was tried and tested.

I should update my models accordingly.

If anyone else has information regarding the way this problem occurs or can be solved let me know.

trying to correctly get this to work is at best frustrating :).

Thanks for reply, as you can tell im keeping an eye out for replys while i do some modeling :). i'll try mip mapping, but i read sc2 generates its own and using mip mapping can reduce the overall quality. I'll reply if it works wont take 5 minutes to check lol.

the white tiny squares ..

Ok just to let anyone know who is reading this i have read literally everything on diffuse maps on this forum, i can successfully do spec , normal , emissive and diffuse maps and have general working knowledge of what doe what.

On to the problem What happens generally is upon applying my diffuse maps(i have a few, switching textures by id) in the editor looks great fine no problems, once in the game, rendering (diffuse, spec, normal applied), its like i have tiny white lines/streaks that appear on the edge of the models surface when certain light hits it. After doing various testing i found that the problem is mostly cleared up by removing the sc2 normal map.

This was until i went to texture switch a normal sc2 unit with a diffuse i created (merely an overlay in photoshop of the orinigal units texture) so nothing special i done the texture switch and once again white lines, cracks appeared on the sc2 unit.

Am i doing diffuse maps incorrectly

i use photoshop cs 5.1 + dds plugin exporting size is 256 by 256

dds export options are:

DXT3 ARGB 8 Bpp | Explicit Alpha , no mip mapping (2d texture)

or

DXT5 ARGB 8 Bpp | Interpolated Alpha , no mip mapping (2d texture)

i have no alpha channel in my texture.

below is a picture i circled areas where the effect happens the same problem occurs, I'm not the only person who has viewed the models so i know its not my machine or graphics card. Settings in game are ultra to high, (spec map, has no problems with, or without it the issue still occurs).

if anyone has encountered this problem or knows how to address it i would be grateful, not asking for a tut or someone else to do my textures. trying to learn myself, but this is one thing i just can't seem to find a fix for.

This happens on all models i try to apply a new diffuse to.

Might be hard to see (and no its not the light tileset of the map, happens under all light sets)

I'd be very thankful to any one with knowledge to fixing or correcting this issue.

ok new problem for anyone that knows i have created a complete customizable type marine he exports and works fine in sc2 i done the uvw map as normal with only 1 channel mapping.

I then found out how to add decals, i needed to do a 2nd mapping channel after doing this trying to export i got:

Runtime error: Mesh map vertex index out of range <1 or > 481: 1021

clearly it was not happy :P.

So i cleared the entire UVW map not happy myself lol, but started from scratch i mapped both channels 1 and 2 fine. I unwrapped mapping channel1 and 2 and positioned it for correct decal placement and template of textures. Collapsing the modifiers test exported and got an error:

Runtime error: Mesh map vertex index out of range: < 1 or > 533: 550

im using 3ds max 2010 any helpful ideas suggestions things driving me crazy lol.

ok seemed to have fixed it used an older version of my model and played around now exports fine =/ can't figure out what it didn't like it before.

ah now that makes more sense, so basically its not exporting any textures really its just requesting where to find them when is exported simple :)

ok i sort of get that, but basically i have a custom made gun that i export, i have used various guides to determine how to add textures correctly as im not using an original sc2 texture it should be extracting to c:\program files\starcraft 2\assets\textures? or is being added to the base file for assets if so which one. very annoying tracking these down might just open up my map in mpq and create an assets texture folder :P but don't think it would render them correctly. Also looked through my entire computer there is no assets/textures folder being created. i have extracted all the starcraft 2 there in max's map folder for easy access on load. Even if i was to change the extractor layout to extract into extracts its still not giving me the base root folder to change or is this done via max it's self? cause it wont beable to auto save into the sc2 directly without permission(and it does not even ask or tell me there was problem =/) as i usually work on my d:\ for modeling and textures.

Sorry if you answered this, i know it may seem really simple to those that know already.

Quick noob question, great work on the importer, exporter first of all. Ok i can import and export models fine textures i set up correctly ,but for the life of my can't find the folders assets/textures where the textures are supposed to be exported to, i have 2 hard drives my C drive is the sc2 folder dir, but widows loads and boots from my D:\ there is also a second os on my c:\ for duel booting reasons making the C:\ always coughing up application requests to accept anything that happens are the textures trying to go onto my c:\? are they supposed to be exported to same folder i saved the m3 model to? or should they be on my desktop just where is "assests/textures" pointing to exactly couldn't find an option to clarify which drive or the full location. I'm kind stuck as to where the problem lays without knowing where they should be. also if i change "assests/textures" because i dont know the original destination it don't help :P. done a quick search but my hard drives are 1 tb and nearly full so tracking down these textures becomes a painful process still no luck hence posting.

I'm using 3Ds Max 2010, windows 7 32 bit, exporter reports everything was fine when exporting .

Sorry if this is wrong place to post trying to navigate round forums is difficult at best lot of clutter :P