Wings 3D Development Forum - Exporting dae flips model!

Hi all! Hope everyone had a great holiday, and Happy New years to all!

I've been learning, bit by bit, Wings3D, but I have come across one issue I can't find the answer for.

When I export a model (as .dae) , for example a house, the floor plan is flipped in the opposite direction the original model is in.

To try to make it more clear, here is my step by step of what I do. I create the model in Sketchup first. I export that model as an .obj. I import that .obj into Wings. I fix up whatever I need to do, like textures (uv mapping). Then I save that model as a wings file. Then I export it as a .dae (collada) for import into my game engine.

So far, the things I have done that with have been successful, or so I thought. Since the other models were pretty much the same on both sides, I couldn't tell that the meshes were being flipped until I did this with a house I made.

The entire floor plan was flipped in my game editor, from what I made it in Sketchup, and was shown the same in Wings after importing it. (it was shown as it should be. Stairs on the left side...yada yada)

After export from Wings, the stairs were on the right side (as was the entire plan flipped.)

I know I kind of repeated myself here, but I'm trying to be as clear as possible in case there are technical terms (instead of "flipping" for this stuff that I don't know yet! lol

Anyone know why this happens and what I can do to keep my model from flipping?

Thanks for any advice or help! Smile

Mary

Mary,
Whenever I see a question about .dae files I find myself trying to find a free viewer for them. This time I finally succeeded... Smile

I exported a sphere with a couple of faces extruded into it and exported that as .dae. Viewing the .dae file with AssimpView AssimpView website The exported file looks the same as it is in Wings3D. Maybe there is a problem with how the files are imported into the game engine???

You could use object mode > Flip to flip the model to be flipped wrong so that when you import the .dae file into your game engine they get flipped again to be the right orientation. Maybe not the best solution but maybe it will work???

oort

Hi oort!

Thanks for the reply! Smile

I d/led that AssimpView, and took a look at the house in it. It was correct. So, I also viewed the .dae from Sketchup as well, and that was correct too.

So, now I am baffled. When I export from Sketchup and put that .dae file into my game editor, the model shows up correct. The export from Wings, mirrors. So, I'm trying to figure out how it can be the editor causing this if it doesn't happen with SU .dae's, but does with Wings. I'll have to contact the game owner about this part and see what he can figure out, if anything. There may be gremlins in my PC! lol

Thanks for the flip instructions, because that was going to be my next adventure to learn, and do it that way, if I couldn't figure the problem out. Do I need to highlight the entire mesh when I do the flipping? Or, maybe you can just link me to where the instructions are to do it?

This is so baffling! I am laughing though, because if someone can break something, it'll be me! lol It's just my luck that when I find something that makes my life easier in modelling, I find something that puts a thorn in my slipper!

I'm excited to be learning Wings too. It makes my models so much lighter!
I'll explain one day! Wink

Thanks again! Smile

Mary,
There seems to be an issue with how Wings3D exports the normals for .dae files. Here is a thread about that... dae normals wrong. Maybe that is the source of the flipping??? If it is, hopefully that can be fixed.

Yes, to flip the object select the entire object in object mode and flip it about either the x, y, or z axis, depending on how it is getting flipped.

Maybe another solution would be to export from Wings3D as .obj and then use AssimpView to convert the .obj to .dae???

oort

Wow, thanks again oort! You're a lifesaver! Smile

Edit to add: Just to reiterate, the Wings .dae file looked correct in that viewer!

Update: I tried flipping the mesh in Wings, but it broke it. I tried all 3 directions. So I just flipped it in Sketchup, re-exported it as obj, brought it in Wings, exported it as .dae and it went into the game editor the wrong correct way! Biggrin

Thanks for all the help oort. I'm sure I'll be back with more questions! lol