QUESTION After Some Help With My First Track

[Larry Tudor]

Hi,
I'm in the very early stages of my making my first track - Baypark raceway that is a track that used to exist near Tauranga, New Zealand from 1967 until it closed in 1995. It's got a simple layout (only 4 corners and is fairly flat) so I thought it would be a good one to start with. The track has now disappeared beneath residential development so to get the correct layout I've watched quite a few youtube videos and sourced an historical aerial image and the current property boundaries for the area from Land Information New Zealand. I then imported the boundaries into QGIS and geo-referenced the aerial image to the boundaries and drew the basic layout in QGIS.

I then exported this as an AutoCAD dxf from QGIS. As this had no elevation at all I imported it into some surveying software (I'm a Land Surveyor) and created a basic terrain mesh in the surveying software and exported it as a 3D dxf of the track linework and the mesh triangles.

The above all worked well and my next step was to import the dxf into Blender 2.82a. I've got very little 3D modelling experience and found Blender as confusing as hell. Anyhow the track and terrain meshes had some missing triangles and I patched these up (or thought I had) and added some really bad textures to the track and terrain. Both the track and terrain appeared to texture including the added triangles. By then I was rather fed up with Blender so switched to using 3DS Max 2018 that has a much more intuitive feel.

I imported an fbx from blender into 3DS Max and by following Luchian's beginners guide have managed to get a basic track driveable. However both the track and terrain have holes in the mesh that you fall into if you drive over them. Both the terrain and track mesh are textured in 3DS Max but when I import the fbx into KSEditor you can see the holes and in Assetto Corsa they're grey untextured areas. Links to a couple of videos below:

In KSEDitor

https://www.dropbox.com/s/vfypzlglg5jiw39/Baypark in KSEditor.mp4?dl=0

In Assetto Corsa

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ntwciivnzx5fee3/Baypark with Holes.mp4?dl=0

The textures are terrible but the track does work...

I'm still learning 3DS Max and I've been watching lots of videos to try and figure out how to patch the holes in the mesh but I haven't figured it out. It's probably really simple and I feel rather frustrated that I need to ask for help but I'm stuck! Firstly, in 3DS Max how do I see where the holes are as the objects all look textured, and secondly, how do I fix them?

If anyone can give me some pointers as to how to fix the mesh in 3DS Max I'd really appreciate it as then I can continue with the track. Thanks

Cheers
Larry

 

[Gunnar333]

some pointers :

• try to weld all the vertices
• try the "edit normals" modifier and reset them
  
• set display: "backface cull" to see if any polygons are flipped
• if nothing helps delete the wrong poligons and create new ones.
• run the following script (but save your work before - it's hard to undo).
  The script will "retriangulate" your object.
  http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/quadrifyall

 

[maruto]

learning 3D modeling and learning a new program such as blender and 3DSmax is quite a lot in itself...

I beilive your missing triangles are simply facing the wrong way so KSeditor will show only one face. try to move under the track and look above, you will see the missing triangle appear.

you have to join your mesh together and make sure the normals of those mesh face up.

also if you have some experience working with autodesk product like autocad, i suggest you to try Rhinoceros as a modeller instead of blender or 3Dsmax, you will feel at home.

 

[fughettaboutit]

to see normals in Blender go into edit mode (TAB)(those light-blue lines):

another way to show different directions of normals (both in edit and normal mode):

both and from below now

 

[Larry Tudor]

Thanks everyone for your help. The normals were indeed facing the wrong way. I flipped the normals on the "missing" triangles that I could see when set the shading to default with edged faces. Once that was done the holes disappeared from the fbx in KSEditor and from the track in Assetto Corsa. I'll stick with learning 3DS Max as I quite like the program.

Cheers
Larry