turbofan:

Good that you have a solution.

Just interested though... have you tried the "OBJ Merge Points" option? I don't know if that would do it.
https://docs.lightwave3d.com/lw2020/appendices/common/common-modeler/obj-options

I'd be interested to see how lightwave exports a simple object like this attached image, two triangles, sharing an edge, at a different angle, in the same smoothing group.

Flame:

Thanks for the link. To try and find that page I searched for the word "blender" but nothing comes up. Is the wiki search broken?

I'd never thought that merge points option since I always merge points and cleanup things for realtime use.
So I tried and haha, it works. Groups are preserved in lfse.

I use Lightwave since 1994, build things for realtime since 2002, and still learn new things...

here is a link to that pair of triangles u want to check (with the merge points option ON)
https://pastebin.com/GeuZAqnm

thanx

Good to hear that is solved. Maybe we could put a tip for lightwave users on the LFS wiki page that Flame linked to. Maybe it would be helpful if you could provide a screenshot of the OBJ options dialog like in that link I posted?

Not many lightwave users around but here it is

These settings will allow import obj files directly from LW to LFSE and preserve smoothing groups.
As u wrote smoothing groups are not used in lfse import, I unchecked that option.

Quote from Scawen :

Thanks for the link. To try and find that page I searched for the word "blender" but nothing comes up. Is the wiki search broken?

Yes, the wiki search is useless at this point because it only searches against page titles. It's better to use google for that I emailed Victor about this issue last year but I don't know if he had time to have a look yet.

maybe not so easy to implement but still would be great as very few mods take advantage of vertex shading
the process of assigning shading to those vertices is also time consuming

we could then have some way to compute a basic ambient occlusion and bake it into those vertices automatically

Could it be possible to have overlay option that is now in page tab to be in cutouts tab? What i mean is when making skin mapping you have to place cutouts sort of blindly then switch to page tab and check if placement is correct and nothing is overlapping with overlay button. Sort of time consuming with more complex shapes.

Quote from Drifteris :

...

One day I saw the default skins of LFS cars and I found how to make the perfect skin mappings in 1:1 proportion.
Make screenshots of all sides 2D in LFSE. Place them in PS. Export as skin. Make the cutouts. Do the mappings precisely.
Attachments below:

Quote from ivo_drifta :

One day I saw the default skins of LFS cars and I found how to make the perfect skin mappings in 1:1 proportion.
Make screenshots of all sides 2D in LFSE. Place them in PS. Export as skin. Make the cutouts. Do the mappings precisely.

Yea but for cars it's kinda easy to make it blind already. It only requires few cutouts placed similarly to default LFS cars and you done. While motorbikes/formulas/other weirdly shaped cars are more difficult to map while also trying to use as much space as possible (my Chimera mod skin map as example below). I can make 1:1 proportion skin by calculating cutout size and mapping size ratios though.

Using your method i would probably spend similar amount of time cutting out every piece and aligning/scaling it in Gimp. Because even if i did the template outside LFSE i would still have to scale and make sure it aligns in page tab because its invisible in cutouts.

Quote from Drifteris :

Could it be possible to have overlay option that is now in page tab to be in cutouts tab?

I'll have a look at this, hopefully it may be easy to do.

Quote from Drifteris :

I can make 1:1 proportion skin by calculating cutout size and mapping size ratios though.

I wonder if, to avoid the need to use a calculator and switch between two screens, there should be two new buttons, beside the W: and H: buttons in the mapping editor.

These buttons would call a function to set the width or height of the selected mapping so that the aspect ratio of the mapping matches that of its assigned cutout.

I have done the overlay option, REDO functions and the square mapping function in editor test patch D31.

Modeller improvements:

Map / cutout / page selections are preserved when possible
Undo and redo deal correctly with map / cutout / page modes
Cutout mode works more like map mode and avoids button overlap
Overlay function from page mode is now available in cutout mode
Square buttons in map mode match mapping aspect ratio to cutout

https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/102626

Editor crashes if you select cutout with no texture while overlay is ON, or you select cutout with no texture and then enable overlay.

Thank you, fixed in D32.

Not sure if this has been suggested before but I think it would be great if the LFS Editor had an option to sit in the drivers seat in order to determine what the look and feel of the drivers position is without having to export and then enter LFS and test there. This would help with rear view and side view mirror position and drivers seat height.

You can do that in the vehicle editor since Editor Test Patch D28.

A new button to show the view from driver's eye position

https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/102626

Quote from Scawen :

You can do that in the vehicle editor since Editor Test Patch D28.

A new button to show the view from driver's eye position

https://www.lfs.net/forum/thread/102626

Oh cool, I haven't been using the test patches so didn't see this. Are you nearing an official update for Editor yet?

Seriously, please use the test patches.

We are getting near to the official version. The test patches need testing.

EDIT: I think anyone who is interested in making mods should read through the list of editor changes and hopefully try them out.

It's not really about whether you break off or not.

The rule is:

- as always, the live dashboard texture (s_clock etc) can be on subobjects.
- the new dashboard background texture must be specified on main object. EDIT: but does appear on live texture in the subobject

But thanks for your report, I see this might be confusing and maybe the editor needs to help with this in some way.

Quote from Scawen :

Seriously, please use the test patches.

We are getting near to the official version. The test patches need testing.

EDIT: I think anyone who is interested in making mods should read through the list of editor changes and hopefully try them out.

Thanks Scawen, I have been nervous about using the test patches due to the fact that they aren't official updates and might result in crashes or corrupting mods. My time to do any testing that is worth while is also limited so didn't think I am of much use to your development work

Thanks for the reply. I get what you are saying and that's what I would think for something like a browser, etc. I don't want to be on the beta channel and want to wait for the stable version.

But actually in our case, the official version of the editor is quite old now and was pushed out before it was ready (in a way). The test patches have so many fixes they are a lot more stable and safe than the official one now.

Another issue is you might miss a lot of the improvements. Maybe when you have some time you could try to read through them all.

A cautious approach I would find more valid, is perhaps to wait a day or two after a patch is released. If bugs aren't reported by then, it's probably safe as there are enough people checking the new features. I'm very fast to fix any crashes or issues, which there have been occasionally. For example I don't put out a patch and go to bed. I prefer to put them out in the afternoon so they get a good test on the day. If I do one in the evening, I'll be back checking in case anyone found an issue.

The only significant inconvenience left in the modeller, (in a year and a half, I still couldn't get used to it) This is the inconveniently working center of camera rotation, it constantly randomly moves every time you move the camera. Every time you have to adjust the camera in a convenient way every time it flies somewhere, this is inconvenient. Since we often work in a big camera proximity to mesh, I would like to have a function to assign the center of rotation to a selected triangle, like we now have with the origin, object and eye buttons, and that when you rotate and move the camera the center of rotation would not move randomly. In blender, there is a dot button on the numpad for this. This working perfectly. Center of rotation works predictably and conveniently when camera moves. I would like something like this.

The camera rotates around the point the mouse starts at when you press two buttons, or hold the middle button. Do you know about that? It's not random. I'm talking about the modeller. The vehicle editor doesn't have a ray check on the vehicle.

Again, in the modeller, point the mouse at the exact point you want to rotate around. Press two mouse buttons or middle button, then move mouse. The rotation should be around that exact point. I haven't experienced a rotation point constantly randomly moving around.

Quote from Scawen :

The camera rotates around the point the mouse starts at when you press two buttons, or hold the middle button. Do you know about that? It's not random. I'm talking about the modeller. The vehicle editor doesn't have a ray check on the vehicle.

Again, in the modeller, point the mouse at the exact point you want to rotate around. Press two mouse buttons or middle button, then move mouse. The rotation should be around that exact point. I haven't experienced a rotation point constantly randomly moving around.

Oh, I never thought of it that way. I thought that it happens randomly, maybe cuz I had years of experience in blender, and I could not even think that it can work like that, for me it was not intuitive.

Now I have tried to rotate the mouse around the click area, and now I understand that it can be convenient. But still if there will be time it would be nice to have a button just for the modeller to move the camera to the selected triangle.

But really it is not so important, now majority of players is waiting for an update with graphics and physics in LFS, I would prefer that all efforts would go to on that update. Although it's up to you what to do in the first place.
You, unlike some other developers, continue to support the game for decades and listen to the players about the next updates. Thank you for that

Modeler Suggestion :

-Lathe & extrude should have their generated tris automatically assigned to first active layer


minor MODELER bug :

- when hiding unselected points then exiting back to Editor then going back to Modeler, all points are now shown (wasn't like this in last patches, forgot if it's the same for tris)

Sliders to skew a group of points in 2D view


Thanks.