Interlopers.net Forum - Half-Life 2 News & Tutorials

Hey all,

I have been trying to recreate my local park in scale (Its pretty small)
but the scale is way way off*

right now my workflow is just not working, right now im using
3ds max 2014 x64 with this kml parser script (http://www.klaasnienhuis.nl/2012/09/imp ... n-3ds-max/)
google earth
and wallworm model tools.

has anyone ever tried to do this before and were you sucessfull? because just when i think i have it worked out the scale of the model is completely off

Scale in Source is off. Player characters are about 1.6 meters in length.

You also have to account for the FOV, which is higher og lower based on your settings, compared to the real world. What I suggest you do is you find a scale that works for your map, then stick with it. You can do this by simply making a small section of the part, experimenting with different dimensions until you find one you like.

LordDz wrote:Scale in Source is off. Player characters are about 1.6 meters in length.

https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Dimensions

Map Grid / Imperial / Metric

1 = 0.75" = 19.05mm
2 = 1.5" = 38.10mm
4 = 3" = 76.20mm
8 = 6" = 152.40mm
16 = 1' = 304.80mm
32 = 2' = 609.60mm
64 = 4' = 1.22m (eye level)
72 = 4' 6" = 1.37m (player height)
128 = 8' = 2.44m
160 = 10' = 3.05m
256 = 16' = 4.88m
512 = 32' = 9.75m

Imperial has to be the worst system of measuring, its different in every place http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foot_%28length%29

you should consider working with default 3ds max units, they are the same as source units

Hey guys, thanks for replying!

I actually emailed the creator for the KML Parser script and he replied saying he is working on a small update that should improve scale support a bit.

So I just tried this all again this morning

100 meter line in google earth = 100 generic units in 3ds max = 100 units in hammer

Going by the dimensions of hammer that marnamai posted (Thanks for that by the way, I remember seeing it years ago)

1 hammer unit = 19.05mm
so 100m in hammer should = 5250 units

I guess there is a way to get units you want
first change default units in 3ds max to meters
then import stuff from google earth
then change units back into generic units in 3ds
now you should see proper dimensions

but then again, its only a theory, it worked with unity, no idea how it will work here

I started a fresh scene in 3ds and set the default to meters, it just imported it at 2.557m (100 generic units)
so no difference there.

I tried to calculate the percentage it should be scaled at, this is what i got.

100m / 19.05mm = 5249.34383 hammer units
5249.34383%

So when i scale it using Offset:World to 5249.34383%
it measures in at 5285.433 generic units which is 36.08917 units off.

Whenever i have to scale something to an apropriate size, i create a 32x32x72 cube in my 3d App and scale things using this. Sure, this is also just an aproximal approach, but so far i haven't had any major issues with the resulting props.

Scaling a whole landscape on the other hand is something i never had to do before, but if i had to decide between beeing 1:1 on scale and having something that looks and feels good, i'd aim for the second one.
Just because beeing mathematically correct isn't always the answer.

Yeah I can see what you are getting at Kraid, and to be honest 36 units is not a huge problem for me, im just being pedantic.

I will wait for the Author of the KML Parser to update it (he said he is looking to release an update in a week)

If that does not fix the issue then I can make the scale conversion I calculated work for me.

I will post back here when or if the script is updated for anyone interested.

For anyone interested the KML parser has been updated.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-NU ... tw7O_E/pub

Looks like it now handles measurements
And import/export of 3D models

Cool stuff ill try it tonight