When publishing a model, scene, or object to your 3DVia Shape account the following error message appears;

To fix this and publish your work to the network do the following;

Click the "X" top-right of the application to close it, this will bring up a dialogue box asking what you want to do. Of the options available click "Later" to save the file locally. Next time 3DVia Shape is started you'll be presented with a selection dialogue listing any scenes saved locally. Select the correct file to open it into Shape and then re-publish.

The error occurs usually as the result of a long work session, you've basically timed-out the connection to the Via network so in order to publish the file the app has to be closed, reopened and you log back in.

Yes and no.

There are a couple of aspects to consider for this;

1) can you load a normal map into gmax
2) can gmax use a normal map
3) can gmax export models with normal maps?

Looking at the first consideration - can gmax load/import a normal map - the answer to that is "yes", gmax will load a normal map because it's just an image; gmax doesn't know what that image is supposed to be for unless or until its been loaded in to and applied to one of the specific slots associated with a material applied to a model. In theory although not the same as, you could use the "Bump Map" slot for this.

For the second part of this problem, "can gmax use a normal map", the answer is a simple "no". The reason for this is just one of age and 'feature compatibility'. Gmax was written and released long before normal maps were even thought of never mind ever considered to be necessary for games and the 3D content creation tool pipeline, so it simple doesn't have the internal under-the-hood code in place to use normal maps as they are used today, that is, the addition of 'virtual detail' to model and obviously notwithstanding the fact that gmax doesn't have any internal rendering capabilities that could use normal maps either.

Having said that however, gmax can use 'virtual detail' but only in the form of "Bump Maps", gray-scale 'height' based images that provide 'depth' information from tones of gray between the extremes of black (depth) and white (height). Bump maps have a disadvantage in that they only work to provide 'depth' queues relative to the up/down "Z" axis. Normal maps on the other hand have 'inclination' or 'direction' on all axis because of the way the colours present are used.

For the final part of the puzzle, "can gmax export normal maps", the answer is yes but it depends on what you mean by "export". Can gmax export a model that has a normal map applied to a texture slot of a material? Yes, so long as the export script and the final 3D model format supports the inclusion of two or more of the texture slots available per material (most games require just a single 'texture' slot as multi-layer materials are provided via the use of game specific 'shaders'). On the other hand, if asking if gmax can export normal maps as self generated images, then the answer is no. As mentioned above, the application was released long before normal maps ever came in to use.

Ideally you aught to have access to the original files used for UDK production, that way you're simply exporting out original data to an XNA supported format. If not then you're going to need to find an import script for PSK/PSA (ASE or DAE) to import the UDK assets into a 3D application, which can then be exported back out to the appropriate XNA format.

Notwithstanding copyright and distribution issues of taking assets from one game and putting them into another - a big "no no" without asking permission fron the author; using one of the above formats should retain the mesh data associated with the model; using OBJ or 3DS for example often results in loss of UVW maps and material data.

Wolfenstein saves the *.cfg text file to;

- C:/AppData/Local/id software/WolfSP/base/wolf2.cfg (Windows Vista)
- C:/Documents and Settings/[user]/Local Settings/Application Data/id Software/WolfSP/base (Windows XP)

Also check...

- C:/Users/[user]/Documents/id software/WolfMP/ (Windows Vista)

Windows 7 locations may differ

Currently yes. Submitting an item to your shop doesn't automatically make it available as a personal item so you either have to purchase it or resubmit it as a "personal use" product. The opposite is also true, if on submitting a product for personal use you then want to subsequently put it on sale in the catalogue, it'll need to be resubmitted as such.