I've got a weird problem here. Last week I came across the Star Trek Meshes site at http://www.trekmeshes.ch/ and picked up a few nice models, which I thought I could easily convert from LW to a P4-compatible format with *AccuTrans 3D*. Hah... (I have an old version of *3D Exploration* as well, but it can't handle LW6 files -- which most of these models were.) The attached pics show my problem. The one above is the original LW format of a great little Star Trek model — the *Daedalus*-class USS Essex (which I'm sure everyone recognised... ) loaded into *AccuTrans*. next...

Here's the model converted into .obj format, loaded into *3D Exploration*. next...

And the model converted into .3ds format, loaded into *3D Exploration*. (Incidentally, does anyone know why these two come out oriented at 90° from each other? I'm not sure if it's actually a problem, but it's weird.) next...

And here's the problem. When I import either of the converted files into Poser 4 it comes in totally black. I've tried to alter the material colours, but nothing changes and they seem to be already set correctly. Does anyone know what's happening here? Is it a Poser 4 problem, or am I using the wrong settings in *Accutrans* to convert? Maybe it's because the original models are LW v6? As far as I can tell, I'm not making any actual changes, just a straightforward conversion. (Nearly forgot, I'm using Poser 4 in Windows 98.) This isn't the only weirdness with LW conversions (of course...) but it is the most puzzling. Help please, anyone?

Have you tried just taking the LWO into Poser and exporting as OBJ? Or is that impossible with Poser 4.0? Seems to work fairly well in Propack.

Nope, that's why I had to do the rain dance with AccuTrans — Poser 4 doesn't know what to do with a LW model.

"Black on import" usually means you have to run it thru UVMapper first.

yeah looks like the normals have been inverted. UVMapper should be able to fix that with a click :o)

Small problem — I'm fairly sure I have absolutely no idea how to use UVMapper. I tried "inverting normals", I think, and all I got was a slightly larger .obj file with no surface detailing. How exactly should I go about this?

check your materials setting in mapper, you may have to reassign them.

I tried something similar with accutrans with the same effect, uvmapper couldnt fix it. It seems to be a problem with accutrans, it doesnt convert wavefront objects properly.

You should download the 3ds version from the site, that should work ok.

Er... no, it doesn't work OK. I ended up with no objects visible or selectable, and all the program menus were greyed out. Works great if I first convert the .3ds to .obj though, apart from the usual scale problem — I think the first time I tried it that Daedalus-class starship actually imported at the proper scale to match the Poser people... Ah well, it's mostly all right now. (Hey, that Star Trek Meshes site's great — I just found a Workbee model!)

Just when I thought I was getting the hang of this... One of the Trek models I found recently at the SciFi3D site at http://scifi3d.theforce.net/ is an almost excellent USS Constitution — I say "almost" because all the texture links in the .3ds model file HAVE BEEN CASE SMASHED TO DOS 8.3 FILENAMES. Is there any practical way of fixing this? All the texture files are there with the right names, I'm just not always sure which of them is referred to in any particular link.