Some faces missing from mesh after exporting (3DS Max)

[mouzerball1000]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm having a pretty weird issue with exporting a custom mesh, a pair of horns (going to function the same as a hat) as a .nif. It looks fine in 3ds Max 2010, but when I export it as a .nif and open it in nifskope, there are some polygons of one specific mesh that are just gone.

 

http://i.imgur.com/UZAOfef.png

 

As you can see, the mesh looks fine in the viewport of 3ds max. The six parts (all having different materials, so they're separated) all have the pivots aligned to the Bip01 Head bone then the position set to 0, 0, 0.

 

I export them all using these settings:

http://i.imgur.com/iIFvRag.png

 

When I open it in NifSkope, this is what I see (applied the textures):

http://i.imgur.com/oN2RIQ5.png

 

I selected the top third of one of the horns to show that the faces aren't just flipped or something, they're actually gone. I suspect it has to do with the welding when it exports, but when I set the welding to anything under 0.0100 in the exporter, it just crashes. Increasing the welding causes more polygons to disappear. Both top portions of the horns have the same issues in the same places. Exporting only the top portion still has the same issue.

 

I feel as though it's not a hard fix, so if anyone could let me know what I'm doing wrong here, I'd appreciate it. I'm making this quick for a friend, and it's taking me way longer than I expected. I've tried a few different export settings, tried options in nifskope, nothing seems to be any improvement. Any ideas?

 

If anyone wants me to just send the model and textures and see if they can do anything with it or just take a look at it, I'm willing to let someone else give it a try if it proves to be an easier way to get this done.

[TrickyVein]

You're not exporting vertex colors, so it's not screwed up alpha that's rendering some faces as invisible.

 

Try converting the objects in the scene to editable meshes, not editable polys or any other kind of object.

 

Also, those models look like they have a s#*!-ton of triangles. Consider optimizing your meshes, especially if they're small objects like for headwear.

[mouzerball1000]

You're not exporting vertex colors, so it's not screwed up alpha that's rendering some faces as invisible.

 

Try converting the objects in the scene to editable meshes, not editable polys or any other kind of object.

 

Also, those models look like they have a s***-ton of triangles. Consider optimizing your meshes, especially if they're small objects like for headwear.

They already are editable meshes, but that was a good idea. I think you hit the nail on the head with the third comment there.

 

Yeah, it was a resource I found online (was for a 3D printer, hence the extreme attention to detail). I just used it for the sake of saving time. It wasn't going to be released or anything, so I just imported it, scaled and warped it to fit a little better, made some textures, etc. Yeah, I'm thinking it's just some limitation because it's insanely high-poly. I mean, I've got a pretty strong computer here and it takes a long time to even import and export it whereas any other model is usually instant. I'm just going to use something different instead that isn't insane like this.

 

For future reference, though, so I can at least fix this problem and learn for future projects: what can I do to simplify the model? The Optimize modifier ends up making some triangles just totally disappear instead of just making it less smooth.

[TrickyVein]

If you're working with quads, a useful technique is to select + remove edges along loops and rings. If the entire model is triangulated, then it becomes really cumbersome to optimize it manually, but the result is usually better than using the optimize modifier.