Reimporting and Optimizing models with the new Brawlbox

[Eternal Yoshi]

What you need

Just the new Brawlbox (Brawlbox 0.71)here:
http://forums.kc-mm.com/Gallery/BrawlView.php?Number=35494

So yeah the new Brawlbox has a working tristripper. This means that there will no longer be any redundant facepoint additions and inflated file size and lag. There's another important feature that I don't want overlooked that will also reduce lag and file size. You see weights in most of our character rigs are way too specific which causes the node count and file size to go way up. Believe it or not, too many nodes can cause just as much lag as too many facpoints. Now there's another feature that makes tristripping stages easier, but let's cover characters first.

Let's take my Solidus model.



As you can see, despite the fact that the model has less than 20,000 facepoints in Max, it has 35,238 facepoints, which is way too much for a character.

Now if you have a .dae before you imported the character, import that using the new Brawlbox. If not, export using the newest Brawlbox and reimport using the new BB. Here's a pic of the settings I recommend.



Lemme explain why one by one.

- We want to force floats on all the 3 top options so that Metal Material maker does not Malfunction, as with previous versions.

- We need to make sure all objects have color nodes, even if the model doesn't depend on them. These settings make sure the color node doesn't affect the model in any way.

- The Material settings are open to interpretation. This depends on you. Keep the Remap Materials on true to avoid redundant Materials.

- Now leave the first 4 settings be if you're importing a character. The last one is weight precision. You see, Brawl rigs tend to not be that specific and never be anything more specific than the nearest 0.05. If we leave this any more specific, we end up with unecesarrily specific weights that waste space and up the node count, too many of which can lag the game. This value makes them optimal without sacrificing the rig. While you can go higher and further lower the node count, this can make the deformations and bending of the rig look bad.

- Now for the Tristripper option; leave them as is for good results. Modifying the cache size may slightly lower the final facepoint count, but it's not a guarantee. 30 is fine generally, though 52 is also recommended.



Note that the facepoint and node count are much lower than before without compromising the model's geometry or anything.

Now we can restore the Materials and Shaders using the new Brawlbox(This part takes much longer than advertised) or whatever method you have. If you're reimporting a model that was encoded and completed in a previous Brawlbox revision, you can export and replace the Shaders/Materials with the new Brawlbox.

For stages, there's a more efficient method.
Let's use my VR stage.

We can simply go to the mdl0 directly and open up the Object section. Then CTRL + P or Right Click > Optimize to bring this up.


Then press OK. Repeat for all the objects. Keep in mind that the facepoint count doesn't update until you save and close.


This optimizer doesn't affect node count. Stages don't really have a lot of node counts so they aren't really an issue.

If you have any further questions regarding this, ask here.

[Nezha B. Rose]

Nice! Thanks! Will do this for most of my stages.

[Nasca Corp]

Thanks!! usefull with the lag models, maybe now i can have double polygon and make a good outline without lag??? its possible with this? thks!!!

[Linnom]

I'm followed your instructions and the model look like this, what i did wrong?

Okay, i already fixed that problem, but the model appear too dark in game, there's a way to fix this lighting problem?

[Eternal Yoshi]

If your model is too dark in game check the settings of the color node. If it's not 128/128/128/255 then it will likely be darker than it should be. IF it's still too dark then raise it to something like 150/150/150/255.

[Linnom]

I tried this but is still dark, even in 255/255/255/255 still dark, i don't know what to do. 

[Nasca Corp]

I tried this but is still dark, even in 255/255/255/255 still dark, i don't know what to do. 

Dude check that the remap materials are on "true" and cull mode on "inside" and remap colors "true"

[Linnom]

The shader and material maybe is the problem, how is the best way to export and import them in BrawlBox?

[DoctorFlux(Mariodk)]

what should i do
if each time i Save a model in brawlbox 0.70/0.71 for make lower filesize
the model lose all of the bones (trying to do it with a Brawl mario model with afew edits imported from 3ds max to brawlbox)

[Eternal Yoshi]

That's very strange.... did you modify the boneset in any way in a Brawlbox revision?
If so, I recommend not doing that and making your boneset modifications in 3DS Max instead.

[DoctorFlux(Mariodk)]

That's very strange.... did you modify the boneset in any way in a Brawlbox revision?
If so, I recommend not doing that and making your boneset modifications in 3DS Max instead.

i did that
merged Cape bones/polygon(the Side-B article model on brawl mario psa) on mario model with a hammer
but the mario model was to 3ds max (via BB0.68) since i have to do UV edits and afew other things only possible in 3ds max and then imported back with BB 0.71

[Linnom]

I still don't know how to fix the shaders after the import, anyone know a good way to do this?

[Eternal Yoshi]

If exporting and replacing from the older model won't do, you need to go through the shaders and materials of the reimported asset and modify the settings yourself one parameter at a time to perfectly replicate the old shader.

[GotHunch]

I tried this, but it mostly seemed to ruin my textures:

Before

After

Can anyone tell me what happened and how I can fix it? I noticed Linnom had a similar problem and was able to fix it by himself, but I can't figure out how...

EDIT: Also, I can't get the import settings box that is shown in the first post to appear...

[Eternal Yoshi]

You DID edit the Shaders and Materials after reimporting right?
You didn't just reimport, save and quit right?
Cause this is what happens when you don't check the Materials and Shaders.

An alternate idea would be to export the Materials and Shaders from the old model and put them in the reimported one.