Mesh Problem in Blender

[ub3rman123]

I've made a very large architectural (Made for an interior) piece, but it's got a problem. When I export it to a .nif it looks fine in NifSkope, but when I view it in the CS or in-game it disappears when the camera gets close to it.

Possible causes:

Normals: The meshes normals weren't properly flipped, but even after doing it it has this problem.

Version: I started work on this model on Blender 2.58, without a .nif exporter installed. I then saved it as a .blend file and took it to a computer that's got 2.49b and I've been working on it there since.

I'm not sure what causes this problem exactly, but I need to solve it soon before I can continue any work on the model.

Here's the latest version of the model, cut down to a single section of it that still shows the problem.

http://www.mediafire.com/?nzc011ck3wsq1fk

Much appreciated if you can help!

Edited June 30, 2011 by ub3rman123

[donnato]

Well, I had a look and your normals are all good as you said. I hit Remove Doubles and it took out about 280 something duplicate verts but kinda changed the look of the mesh so I undid. Only thing I found was that in vertex select mode...in edit mode with nothing selected I it the Select button and ticked the Non-Manifold in the pop up menu...pretty much everything lit up and 414 of 414 verts and 420 of 558 edges shwed as being selected...not sure what this means for you Eru but this is all I found. Maybe a start,eh?

[donnato]

Oopsy...found another small issue...the object center needs to be...er...recentered actually in the object. When you export the object will appear to be way off to one side. In object mode with the object selected, click the "Object" button and hover over Transform till the popup menu...er...pops up and select "Center New"...Unfortunately I cannot check this out in game snce I`m at work and don`t have my disc with me.

[ub3rman123]

Sorry, I linked to the wrong file. The one that's linked now is the newer version.

[donnato]

Ok well this one has much less doubles and the only nonmanifold verts are around the open doorways...12...until I removed one double then...8. However all your normals are facing outwards only. I figure that from the inside this would be transparent...actually...nonexistant kinda. This sounds different from wht you describe though,no?

[Meo]

Ok, from what Im seeing, Im gonna presume its an octagonal room with double ramps leading to the next floor.

1. Always model to the correct size to begin with. See here, the door marker is 128 units tall, it represents the approximate size of PCs and NPCs. Try make the doorway 192 units tall or we wont be able to go through.

2. The model is entirely vertex shaded/painted black... not good. A light gray, is all you need with a darker shade for the ceiling and top of the wall.

As to why it disappear when you get close, when i imported it in 3dsmax, it was inside out. In the CS and ingame, the engine only renders one side, the side that is meant to be seen, unless you specify in the nif to behave otherwise and show both sides, but thats another story.

Anyway, heres my revised version, still needs to be scaled to your preferences.

Meo

http://www.mediafire.com/?haog08jfma848mj

[ub3rman123]

It's solved and working now! Thanks everyone!

[donnato]

What did you do to fix it Uber?

[ub3rman123]

Vince told me in a PM conversation.. To copy-paste that..

NifSKope:

1> Right click on the NiTriStrips block, then Mesh > Face Normals.

2> Right click on the NiTriStrips block, then Mesh > Smooth Normals (use the default 60 degrees).

3> Right click on the NiTriStrips block, then Mesh > Update Tangent Space.

After these steps, the surface of the mesh should look significantly brighter and more uniform.

So, back in Blender, select the faces and Flip Normals. Also, move the object so that it's roughly centered on the origin. In Object mode, click transform > Center New. Press Ctrl-A to reset the scales and export again. When you export it, make sure Scale Correction in the Nif Export dialog is set to 10.0. Once you get it in NifSkope, make sure the scale is positive and repeat the steps 1> through 3> above.