I wanted to do a render like the pinball world in Myst Exile. So I built this basalt causway like in the game.

So I export as 3ds and import into Bryce and this is what I get. There seems to be two sets of meshes. the first imports to bryce scale but the second is huge. I've tried importing into wings, poser, uvmapper and it looks normal like the Rhino render in the first post. I've tried changing it in these. When I pull it back into Bryce as a 3ds it still comes in as two sets of meshes. My changes seem to change how the sets break apart but I still get the two scales for the meshes. My DXF import always crashes before it opens. Does anyone else have this problem or know a fix?

might have something to do with either the way you made the model in 3ds (like was it greebled?) or maybe some size thing with bryce 3ds imports that needs to split it in two. really weird though. i'd say the problem is in 3ds and not bryce. must be teh way you modelled it. in 3ds it's all one piece? drac

It's extruded from hexagonal lines. The blocks are individual meshes with 20 polys each. There are around 900 blocks in all. Some of the object edges probably overlap too.

This is odd. Ive never experienced this. Have you tried exporting it as an .obj?

Have you reset xForms in Max before exporting? With all of the objects selected go to the utilities/scripts tab and select reset xForms if available, if not go to 'more' and select from the pop up.

Here's the bryce obj import. You can see the smaller wireframe inside the bigger one.

loading either 3ds or obj in wings gives the same result?

Do you have any other app, that you can run the model through? Perhaps that would be a way to fix the mesh. Or why not simply build the terrain in Bryce with som six-sided columns? I know it sucks having to rebuild everything though, but its just a thought. :)

If you use the Bryce mesh popup how many meshes are listed? 2? or hundreds? The reason I mention this is that Bryce has a limit of (I think) 512 meshes per import. You said it works in Poser? As Rochr suggested, try exporting to .OBJ from that, which should give you one big object (although you'll need to resmooth with something like 43 degrees in Bryce). If it's importing with just 2 objects I'm clueless.

It imports into poser but I can't render or change materials. Just did a count and it's 1322 separate mesh objects. I'm going to try tweaking it a bit and then doing a union so I only have a half dozen mesh objects.

what happens if you delete the smaller mesh? just curious..

In Max, does it show as two or more separate meshes in the select by name drop down (hit the H key)? If so, attach them in the Modify panel, then set an x-form reset as Gog suggests, then export to Bryce and see what you get.

This isn't actually two meshes when it imports. It's actually a group of small meshes and a group of larger meshes. There seems to be about 500 objects in each. Because I didn't name them they have names like meshobj0001...meshobj34001. If I ungroup I can delete the small mesh If I can grab it. I can also grab the small and group then enlarge using the top view. The problem is even if it looks allright when I render I have the size slightly off and can see cracks between the two sets. Sorry this is a Rhino modeler, not max. Quick and dirty I exploded the mesh faces then grouped it as a single mesh. Everything came in where it was supposed to go. I need to spend some time and group things so I can texture like I want to. The problem seems to be this 512 mesh limit. The single mesh had every poly the original had. The only difference was turning it to one object with one name. I will try to plan for this in the future by grouping for the different materials I want to use.

Aye, you didn't specify your modeler at the beginning, but I knew where you were coming from... (grins, makes a funny Rhinoceros snarl) Bryce has internal limitations when dealing with naming objects. It's a major flaw, forma modeling standpoint, and has caused several of my greatest scenes to come crashing down around me... Looks like you got it all figured out, though!

I often find that an imported model has corrupt names when it comes into Byce....

hmm..that could mean something..there was a tutorial in the magazine that had Bryce 4 in it that had 1,000+ objects in it. Brought my system to it's knees..must be the same thing that's going on here.