Universal Forum Archive

yeah, i got one of the "undersea buildings" from TUWR and when i put it in the model convertor its dark grey. every texture i apply to it comes out very very dark. how do i use the model convertor to make the model white (like the other models) so that when i apply the texture it comes out true to color?

Depends exactly what the problem is. You might be able to fix it just using the model converter...

It sounds to me most like a normals problem. Each face on a 3d model has a "normal", which is the direction in which it reflects light. Usually this is perpendicular to the face itself, and it should be pointing outwards (so if you drew the normals as lines, coming out from every face on the model, the whole thing would look like a big spiny hedgehog sorta thing).

So the first thing to try is the "reverse normals" function in the model converter's tools menu. That'll fix the problem if all the normals are backwards and pointing into, rather that out of the model.

If that doesn't do anything, reverse the normals again (so they're back as they were). Then try inverting the faces (again in the tools menu)... that'll fix it if the normals are correct but the actual faces are pointing inwards.

If that doesn't work it's going to be more complicated to sort out... because, most likely, the faces don't have any normals information at all. You can sort of fudge this in the model converter using the vertex lighting stuff (which doesn't work yet, but still) - again, in the tools menu... choose "pre-light", apply the daylight thing, and it'll probably do something awful to the lighting; but then choose "reset vertex colours" and it should show all faces as bright white. Still incorrect as far as normals go but at least you'll have a shiny texture.

If the normals information is definitely broken or missing the only way to fix it is in a modelling programme.

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Quick update... I just tried all of the above with one of zar's undersea models. They don't have any normals data at all. The only thing that'll work is the pre-lighting/resetting thing described above, which looks almost as bad as having them all dark...

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