Parts of my model are missing in-game [fixed]

[CaptainGoodstuff]

Hello,

My friend and I have been working on a TF2 weapon for several months (we've kind of lost count) and are nearing the final result. Unfortunately, as we were making LODs we ran into an unfortunate error. Parts of the weapon were not appearing in-game, even though they showed up just fine in blender. I noticed that everything that wasn't appearing in-game had been imported from a previous version of the model.

By "imported," I mean that I appended a portion of the highest poly model using append > mesh > "mesh name" in blender, then joined that portion of the model to the existing one in object mode by selecting both models and pressing "Ctrl J." I did this because after I had already made one LOD, I noticed some errors in the high poly model that needed to be fixed. In order to keep things consistent, when I changed something in the high poly model, I would append the high poly model and apply the changes to the low poly one.

For example, I changed the "grate" of the high poly model (seen here: http://i.imgur.com/zRzEG6W.jpg ), then appended it to the low poly file, deleting the low poly grate and joining the new grate to the old model. Everything that was joined this way (Ctrl + J) does not show up in-game. In blender, these imported polygons show up just fine. They are even assigned to the bones of the model. http://i.imgur.com/POU3JmQ.jpg

I need the entire mesh to show up in-game, otherwise I will be forced to redo the entire LOD (After having reduced it by about 2,000 polygons from the highest LOD). Any help would be greatly appreciated.

More examples of the issue-

Good: http://i.imgur.com/tH760gh.jpg
Bad: http://i.imgur.com/r9td70f.jpg

[PelvisParsley]

In edit mode, select the whole mesh and press Ctrl+N. I suspect that the normals might be unconsistent; this will normalize the model. Its worth a try.

[ShinobiFreedan]

Hello Avagantamo,

I am the modeller who is working with Captaingoodstuff on the gun (he posted this yesterday on my behalf.) First of all, thank you for replying. The normals are perfectly consistent in blender, however, I tried normalizing the model to see what would happen. Most of the mesh behaved as it should have (normals that were inverted appeared inverted in - game) however, the glitched parts appeared just the same. I tried flipping only the glitched portions as well, however, this ended up with the same result. As a last resort, I appended the entire model and skeleton into a new blender file and exported that as its own SMD. Goodstuff put it in - game, and we had the exact same errors.

The glitched portions in - game show no abnormalities in blender, and the entire model is treated as a single mesh. Does appending and then joining a mesh to another with ctrl + j do something that I wasn't aware of? As far as I can tell, appending imports a mesh, and ctrl + j joins one mesh to another. Unfortunately, everything that was joined in this manner appears invisible in - game, despite looking fine in blender.

Any other suggestions?

~Freedan

[PelvisParsley]

Originally posted by ShinobiFreedan:

Hello Avagantamo,

I am the modeller who is working with Captaingoodstuff on the gun (he posted this yesterday on my behalf.) First of all, thank you for replying. The normals are perfectly consistent in blender, however, I tried normalizing the model to see what would happen. Most of the mesh behaved as it should have (normals that were inverted appeared inverted in - game) however, the glitched parts appeared just the same. I tried flipping only the glitched portions as well, however, this ended up with the same result. As a last resort, I appended the entire model and skeleton into a new blender file and exported that as its own SMD. Goodstuff put it in - game, and we had the exact same errors.

The glitched portions in - game show no abnormalities in blender, and the entire model is treated as a single mesh. Does appending and then joining a mesh to another with ctrl + j do something that I wasn't aware of? As far as I can tell, appending imports a mesh, and ctrl + j joins one mesh to another. Unfortunately, everything that was joined in this manner appears invisible in - game, despite looking fine in blender.

Any other suggestions?

~Freedan

If there were modifiers applied then it might cause problems. Could you upload your .blend?

[CaptainGoodstuff]

Would you mind if I sent it to your email or through steam chat, just so I'm not putting our model file on a public forum ;)

[CaptainGoodstuff]

Scratch that, we figured it out. I opened the SMD in notepad++ and apparently it was using a different texture name for the parts of the model that we imported, so I just went "replace all" to change everything to the correct .bmp name. It's all good now, thanks for your help!