LFS Editor/FAQ

Vehicle Mods
LFS Editor Vehicle Mod Features Vehicle Mod Submission Vehicle Mod Licenses
Vehicle Mods at LFS.net

This page contains answers to frequently asked questions about the LFS Editor and explanation of common errors you can encounter when working with the editor.

What is the maximum number of vertices and polygons for the car mesh?

The maximum number of vertices (points) and polygons (triangles) for the output car mesh is 65536. That is including the main body mesh and all subobjects if it has any.

The number of vertices you can create in the LFS editor is limited to 32768. However, you can make points reflected (mirrored) to get a higher number of output points.

Technical explanation

The LFS number of editor vertices is necessarily limited to 32768, because each vertex of a triangle can refer to either a point index (from 0 to 32767) and that may be reflected - in which case the top bit is set (e.g. triangle referring to point '32768' is referring to the reflected copy of point 0 and '32769' is really referring to the reflected copy of point 1. This is the maximum that can fit into a 16-bit integer and that is the way it is coded at the moment, without any prospect of increase in the near future.

Invalid texture X - Too small

There is a texture named X whose dimensions (width and height) are too small to be used in LFS. The minimum allowed dimensions are 16×16 pixels.

Invalid texture X - Not a square

There is a texture named X whose width and height are not equal to form a square. The width and height must be the same.

To fix that, use one of the following texture dimensions in pixels:

• 16×16
• 32×32
• 64×64
• 128×128
• 256×256
• 512×512
• 1024×1024

Invalid texture X - Not a power of two

There is a texture named X whose width and height are not powers of 2 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32 etc.).

To fix that, use one of the following texture dimensions in pixels:

• 16×16
• 32×32
• 64×64
• 128×128
• 256×256
• 512×512
• 1024×1024

Invalid texture X - Colour type RGBA but A is not required

There is a texture named X that contains an alpha channel (32-bit) but you are trying to load it as a non-alpha texture (24-bit).

You want a texture with transparency

• Save the PNG file as a 32-bit image (including the alpha channel)
• The file name must end with _ALP, for example TextureName_ALP.png
• In Modeller in cutout mode, the cutouts that use this texture page must have the material property "Alpha type" set to "Alpha".

You want a texture without transparency

• Save the PNG file as a 24-bit image (without the alpha channel)
• The file name must not end with _ALP, for example TextureName.png
• In Modeller in cutout mode, the cutouts that use this texture page must have the material property "Alpha type" set to "Solid".

NOTE: In the current public version of LFS, the alpha channel (just like the R, G, B channels, it is a number on each pixel from 0 to 255) is only used for transparency (actually 'opacity' - higher alpha means less transparent). In fact alpha channels can be used for various purposes, for example in the development version of LFS it can be used to specify the reflectivity of each point on a texture page.

ERROR in object X: N points with a bad normal

This usually means that some triangles, within a single smoothing group, meet at a point such that LFS does not know which direction that point should face. Most commonly, this can happen if a triangle is built in one direction, and another triangle is built on the same points, in the opposite direction. The point directions (known as 'normals' add up to zero, so LFS cannot decide where the normal should really point). Maybe the triangles were built this way by mistake, or maybe you intend to create a double-sided surface. If you do want a double sided surface, the triangles on one side should be in a different smoothing group from the triangles facing in the opposite direction and that will solve the problem.

The trouble is, you may not know exactly where the problem is when you see this message. It may also come up if you import a mesh (as an OBJ file) from some other 3D modelling softrware. Have a look around your model, for vertical red lines. LFS tries to display a red line where any of these bad normals are found. At the bottom of the red line you should find the offending vertex. The line is bright red where it is exposed, and a darker red where it is behind some surfaces of the model.

Mod looks shiny in the editor but matt in game

If you only have a single LOD (level of detail) the environment map is not shown because LFS thinks it is drawing the the physics LOD. That is because the collision mesh is defined by the lowest level of detail (LOD with the highest number).

To solve this, you can easily add an automatically created collision mesh (also known as physics LOD). How to do this is described in the Level of detail guide.

Total png texture area limit of 5 megapixels exceeded by X megapixels

The area of a texture is the number of pixels it contains (the with times the height). For example, a 1024 × 1024 texture has an area of 1048576 pixels, which is about 1.04 megapixels.

In order to stay within the 5 megapixel limit, try to place use as much area of the texture as possible and do not use big textures if not necessary.

To check the current total texture area, open Vehicle Editor, go to Textures and click calculate combined texture area.

Skin ID is not suitable for upload - you need a Skin ID from LFS.net

To be able to upload a mod, it must be assigned a unique Skin ID. The Skin ID is generated automatically for each mod. To get the Skin ID, go to the Vehicle mods page and click Submit a vehicle mod, which will lead you to the vehicle submission page. After you provide a unique name for the mod and the submission has been created, you will receive a unique Skin ID that you must enter in the LFS Vehicle Editor at the top left.

A subobject has a 'skin' texture page but no skins are listed in Colours

In Vehicle Editor, at the bottom right under default colours, select one of the default colours, then go to the Colours tab and select a skin in the Skin File Name section.