Model not looking good after exporting in game

[aksingha]

I have made this model in 3ds max and after putting it in game, the loco is not looking good. There seems to be some shadows(weird). on the face and the side of the train. Also the body looks brighter than normal. Do u guys put any kind of light in 3ds max or any other extra features before exporting it into the game. I am really confused.

[mrennie]

I have made this model in 3ds max and after putting it in game, the loco is not looking good. There seems to be some shadows(weird). on the face and the side of the train. Also the body looks brighter than normal. Do u guys put any kind of light in 3ds max or any other extra features before exporting it into the game. I am really confused.

Hi,

Regardless of which modelling software you use, there are some things that are common problems:

1. The colours that you see in the game are always much brighter than what you see in the original texture files, so you have to darken the texture files a lot. I usually add a brightness/contrast or a hue/saturation/darkness layer (or both!) in the Photoshop file and start off by lowering them by about 50%. Then I see how it looks in-game and adjust those layers, testing repeatedly, until it looks right (and with the in-game brightness at around 39). To get a good white colour in the game, the colour in the photoshop file should look more like a medium cream colour.

2. Those shadows you mention look like they might be caused by bad creasing in the model. That in turn can be caused by badly joined polygons (it's hard to explain, but I often see people making meshes that are just wrong - I'd have to make a tutorial on it). You should try selecting the faces in the area where you see that shadow and smooth it all using the crease operation (or whatever it's called in 3DSMax).

3. If the model appears too shiny, it's most likely to be caused by the alpha channel in the textures being too white.

[aksingha]

Thanks mrennie, I will do all as suggested and let u know the results