Some Advice to Jim
 

Hi Jim,

I wish I was close by, I would be able to help you out. My only advice, is to make backups of all the things you are working on and format the drive. Install a fresh copy of the Operating system you prefer. About all those updates for windows, I have an easy solution that I use for emergencies. You know those America Online Disks you get in the mail for free and usually you just throw them away. They have on them all the upgrades you need that automatically install once you pop the cd in. I hope you didn't lose any important files already. Good luck Jim and let us know what is going on. I'm sure many of us can help with similar advice. -Kona

My offer still stands.

I'm up to the challenge as I just had to redo my computer and I didn't lose anything.

Frankly, I'd like to see Jim's PC rolled back to Windows 2000. Less B$.

Jim,

I'm sorry for the problems your having with your PC. If i could help i would do it, as i am a computer expert. But seeing that i live in the Netherland it might be a slight problem ;).
I hope you'll get it up and running again soon.

Feldon

Could you please put a link to the tank picture you mentioned, i can't seem to find it. Thanks.

It's been a long time since somebody wants to know when its's done. Is it? Nearly? Far away?

Any news Jim?

I just got LightWave 8, and have been busy trying to learn the new program. I also need to write a LightWave-to-DirectX object converter, since I've never been able to get a handle on how Prolific's works. This has become more and more necessary now that the fish have more movable parts, and will be absolutely vital when I start adding invertabrates.

Sounds like fun :rolleyes: But we all know you can and will do it .

There went $1,600, or did you get an upgrade option?

I upgraded for $500.

When I get home, I'll give you a link to something that might work. The lightwave file format is maddening in my opinion.

Jim --

how about just an update? How many fish have you completed, how far on the background, etc....

-THANKS!

Four fish were completed, but then I decided to re-do them, adding mouth and gill movement and making the fins a permanent part of the body. The model of the Freshwater Angel has all this done, but now I need a better way of getting it over to DirectX from LightWave while retaining point sets. Before, I always wrote down all the coordinates for the vertices by hand, and matched them up manually with their new locations in the .X objects. That system has become unworkable with the new complexity of the fish, and invertabrates were WAY out of the question.

ahhhhh!!misery.....
guess we'll have to wait a longer time from now...

:TU:

It may be two more years later.......

:( sounds sad, but also sounds like the freshwater tank will be eye candy :)

Easy. If MA amazed us, FA will surely rock!

Thanks for the info. Looks like we have some time Papa Smurf.

I assume none of the existing LW - DX converters do the job require?

I had a quick look around on google, but I'm no 3D modeller expert and I don't really know what to look for (apart from the obvious 'lightwave directx converter') lol

Came up with results like "DirectX Geometry Export Converter"

The beauty of the latest couple of LightWave versions is that you can grab a group of points and name them, like "topfin". The plug-in DX exporter throws away all these point-sets, so it is useless to me. I need the source code to a converter so that I can tailor-make the output to my specific requirements.

Oh I see what you mean... so u can associate sections to a particular name (similar to parts of an object in Poser or Bryce etc). Well I hope you can design what you need :)

No sections?. I suppose that the DX exporter throws away the points because the DX model definition doesn't support point grouping itself...(?).
Do you really need the vertex list to be grouped?. Couldn't you divide the fish model into more that one object? i.e.: head, body, tailor, fins. I suposse you need the groups for animation purposes (?).