I'm trying to convert a Dwemer tileset that is meant as an interior set into an exterior set. This means that you can't see most meshes from both sides. I need to know, in either nifskope or max, what the names for the operators taht do the folloing are:

1) Something that let's me select a polygon and make it visible from both sides. Or at least some sort of reflection tool.

2) An operator that lets me select edges and then fill between them with a plane or a shape. For example, if I had a door way and I wanted to fill it in with a plane I would select the left and right sides of the doorway and then the program would fill the space automatically.

Thanks.

1, There are material properties in max (choose 2 sided) you can change to make the mesh show same texture on the other side of it's normals. You also have to go into the options on the mesh and tick off one of the things there that hides those polys.
Alternatively in more recent variations of max you have a SHELL modifier (I think there are shell modifider plugins you can download on the internet for max 4-5) what it does is basically modeling the rest of the walls for you, some texture changes on topsides might be needed to make it perfect but it's very handy.

2,Well, while there is no direct such thing in Max, you can choose appropriate viewport and go into splines and draw lines around the doorway, and then you connect the lines and then convert to edit poly, this will turn everything internal to those lines into one N-gon(polygon with potentially unlimited faces).

Hope that helps.

The particular NIF property for a 2-sided mesh is the Stencil property, but it really only gives a decent effect on flat planes.

One of many terms for "fill between these two edges" is "loft".

Thanks, it did a little. Could you please tell me what a spline is and where it is in Max 4?




Thank you this helped aswell. I have a fair bit done now buuut as you can see from the pic the transparency only works for the background. Can you see how it seems like there is only one wire mesh side when the two sides of the set piece are in line?


http://yfrog.com/4ocapture29032010233651j

Do either of you guys know how to fix this?

I cannot recall now whether Max4 has latest fancy tools like bridge/cap/connect/etc., but why not to use simple vertex snap with "create polygon" or another plane object?

MW, TESCS, SceneImmerse, NifScope, Max (even with TES shader) render the same nif differently: test your nice model in the game ? NifScope definitely does not render overlapping alphas correctly.

Thanks, Alphax but it didn't work in the CS either . I noticed there were a bunch of flags and properties on the Stencil node. Perhaps a certain combination of these would work. And thanks for the "create polygon" solution - I found it. It should work nicely now if I can get the transparency issue sorted.

It's how the alpha's overlap that cause the one wiremesh not to be visible when looking at it through the other.
Right click on the NiAlphaProperty and try out these settings: http://i647.photobucket.com/albums/uu195/mark507_album/stuff/Untitled-2.png
I suggest tweaking the 'Alpha Test Threshold' value to whatever looks best.

Using settings similar to these is a well known method of stopping alphas from overlapping wierdly, but it doesn't seem to work well with alphas which use alpha gradients, however for what you want this shouldn't matter.

I suggest learning Blender if you have the time, and don't have access to a later version of 3ds max, as max 4 and 5 are only really good for particles, and if you're not interested in these, Blender with it's newer functions, easier methods, and vast array of tutorials should serve you better.

Why not just make your own tile set?

AH thanks very much. That fixed the alpha problem fine. It works in Nifskope, the CS and in game. Cheers :thumbsup:




No time .

Blender has a tool that can fill in gaps. It lets you select vertices, lines, faces, etc., and with the press of a button it makes a flat plane between them. Along with plenty of other handy features.