3dsmax import/export alpha version

[wallasaurus]

so if anyone has problems it's good if they can post the file and give me explanation of steps etc. so I can debug it.

Glad to hear you got it working leki.

Do you have a link to diarmuid's post anywhere?

[Neikun]

It was discussed on Skype, so not really.

Is there any way to import an ogre with separate mesh for hammer and monster, and export it just the same?

[Diarmuid]

Hi wallasaurus!

Sorry, I should have posted here insted of in our LotNR skype chat, but I wasn't sure how much time you had for debugging your exporter. By the way, thank you so much, even in an imperfect state it's awesome work.

I should have posted along any problem I encounter, I will from now on, but I managed to rebuild most of the models with different methods, and after 3-4 different modeling approaches, I usually managed to find one which worked fine. It's just a bit time consuming, but I slowly learn what the exporter likes or not.

From what I remember (I'm in Max 2013):
- If I use Edit Mesh and chamfer an edge, I tend to lose faces randomly. I've tried applying unify normals or flipping the lost face normal, but no luck. I ended up creating a box with more faces and strech vertices around, or create a shape and extrude, but sometimes I just need to tweak one edge.

- I got some "undentified" errors a few times in the script on trying to export some models, but can't figure remember the exact wording. If it happens again, I'll send you the model file.

- On many occasions, the models exported shaded weirdly in Grimrock, they were very very dark, not reflecting light corrctly. Passing the model through the GMT and using "recalculate normals" fixed the problems, but this tends to lose smoothing groups. (Unless it's smoothing groups that the Grimorck Engine doesn't support?)

Anyway, will keep working, and post if anything comes up. I'm currently building a castle wallset for our project, here's a shot of the latest state:

SpoilerShow

[wallasaurus]

I'll check it in 2013 now.. I'm on 2011 mostly so there could be issues I didn't yet encounter. Any example files would be great!

As for importing separate models, I'll look into it - if the separate models are not in the data structure it will get trickier, but we can see how it goes.

[Neikun]

Well the ogre model has the ogre hammer in it. It animates it and everything. But every time I export it or import it, the hammer and the ogre become one thing.

Well, I just lose all my nodes, really.

[wallasaurus]

importing works ok in 2013 so far.

I fixed a bug with the mesh segments, so the material IDs are properly applied now on import. This means for meshes like the ogre which has hammer also in the mesh, the 2 parts will get different IDs applied when it is rebuilt in 3ds max. It means you can use multi-sub material to apply both texture sets to the different parts.

Also I added a small utility script to cleanup imported models, it just welds all verts after skinning with a small tolerance, and sets the surface to have soft edges.

I could add another small function to take an imported model and break it into the different components by material, so that you could split the ogre and hammer into 2 meshes easily, if this would be useful?

In the grimrock model format, the ogre is one mesh node with two mesh segments inside it. The slight problem is that this could be in use on a character where one material was used for clothing, and another for the head or armour, and in this case splitting it on import might not be desirable, this is why I suggest having the option to chop it up after importing, as you choose. Let me know your thoughts.

Also, it sounds as though you go back and forth - if you were to bring all the stuff into 3dsmax, split it up as you choose (this can be done manually from the raw imoprted grimrock model data in the last version of the script) and always work from 3dsmax->grimrock, you would not lose nodes and your max scene is going to be the resource file from which all the data is exported. Maybe I am missing something of your workflow, so feel free to explain more so I can understand better the issue.

Gonna check exporting tomorrow. busy weekend this weekend!

[Neikun]

I am most definitely a novice at 3dsmax, so I could be doing things wrong.

My workflow was
Import Ogre -> Remove faces from hammer and restitch it -> Export, and load in the GMT for review.

Optional chopping sounds like a good idea to me.

[wallasaurus]

ok I found a bug with exporting the material IDs (specifically if there was an ID not used, it will throw an error)

In ths case I had ogre and hammer as separate meshes, ogre is all id1, hammer is all id2, and the hammer threw an error as it tried to export the id1 faces, of which there were none. Silly mistake on my art, but the material id/mesh segment stuff I did in a rush quite recently and have not thoroughly tested.

Thanks for your bug reports, otherwise I might not have noticed! I will upload a new version today.

Also on my todo list is to look at the speed if I can improve it. Some of the 3dsmax access to object data is slow and I think I can make a boost by caching more data.

[wallasaurus]

new version is up - optimising will come next.

Please let me know more bugs if/as you find them.

[Neikun]

Thanks 'Saurus!
I'm going to check it out now, you should throw a link in the main post.