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[SAS~Loku]

I hope this one will be usefull for creators of 3D models for game,quick explanation what are NULLs for those who dont knew what they are:NULLs are used to keep smoothing between two separate meshes so model dont look ugly ie: wings,they are build from 2 separate parts but we cant see those parts as separate only as one object, NULLs are needed only for 3D model,game dont use them,thats why we need remove them from our exported model.

This tutorial explain how to build meshes with NULL parts,for main meshes D0,D1,D2,D3 ,LODs dont need them.
As example i use WingLIn,its complete left wing not cut in half,it has only one material applied Gloss1D0o (ID1).

Change number of materials via material editor to 2 or more if need(multimaterial mesh)and name it NULL or delete,whatever.


Select faces from the part  of mesh they will be NULL  material and change their ID to 2 or ID X of last material u set  with material editor.Its important .



Now we export our mesh with Fatduck exporter,we can see two materials Gloss1D0o and NULL(delete)

Now the funny part   removing  NULL part of mesh,idea is to delete all vertices,mapping coordinattes and faces for this material,sounds scarry, dont worry its easy using Notepad2 or any other  text editor wich show you numbers of lines in text, and with little help of windows calculator is even easier,its simple math to do.Just count number of lines they need to be deleted for each  group of numbers,ie: in this case its 65 lines for verts and mapping coordinates and 70 lines for faces.







[Materials]
Gloss1D0o
NULL      this can be removed

[FaceGroups]
257 245
0 0 192 0 175
1 192 65 175 70      we need to remove 65 verts,65 mapping coordinates and 70 faces  for the last material

after we do this we  can delete  from [FaceGroups] this  1 192 65 175 70  and correct   main vertices faces numbers  from  257 245  to  192  175 
and at the end we have something like this

[Materials]
Gloss1D0o

[FaceGroups]
192 175
0 0 192 0 175



For meshes with more than one material,mostly fuselage,tail,keel,wing with Ovelay materials do it same way,only when calculate new main verts/faces  numbers  use values from the last  material.Here is proof  it works in game ,same wings prevoiusly without NULLs and after i added them.

[max_thehitman]

Great tutorial.
Thanks Loku! 

[PA_Jeronimo]

Hi Loku, I've been trying to add Null Material in the mesh that I modified and i did not succeed. 

At first because I did not know assign materials through the 3ds, and now because I have very clear if I can assign multiple materials to one face.

If can assign multiple materials to one face ... how do that?

Or as add next?

Thanks in advance, Jero.

[C6_Claymore]

Any chance to have the pictures back ?

Thx to imageshack 

[Koty]

oooh, glad to have found this!

Thank you spirits of the IL-2 past... ^^;

took me a bit of thinking, but I think I know how it works now...

[SAS~Storebror]

--> https://www.sas1946.com/main/index.php/topic,357.msg2943.html
When you scroll down, you will see what the idea of NULL material is: It's the material for adjacent surfaces to define surface normals on "open" edges of a mesh, so that it smoothly connects to the open edges of adjacent meshes.

The latest BETA version of Maraz Exporter can deal with NULL materials on it's own.

Cheers!
Mike