material editor with hlslfx, cgfx

[carlosmorcerf]

hello,

I (c++ programmer) and a friend (artist 3d with 3dsmax) have been analyzing some tools and engines to study.

I thought the XNA is well done (in terms of game engine), it works fine with export 3DSMAX, working with shaders is quiet and fast, but the graphics engine misses cameras, nodes, SceneManager, lights and other things in Ogre is much easier to work and that helps a lot the work of artist and programmer.

But in working with Ogre material ta with a great degree of difficulty and is taking to try other engines (graphics and game) to study. I saw a lot of talk Ofusion for 3DSMAX, but seems to be discontinued, I did not find versions for max 2010, max 2009, after I heard about the Ogremax, install, work, like a lot, even did a little integration with NXOgre (this is very good and constant development work) but when you export something realistically saw that ogremax serving it going, it can not export the shaders in 3dsmax, does not accept CgFX (nvidia), not material found on reflection, etc.. . the artist does not understand programming to create the materials at hand and much less specific shaders to create the ogremax accepted (cg).

Well after this paper what I'm wondering is if there is any good in the 3dsmax exporter or if there are any Material or Material Editor Creator that works with the nvidia shader or others who find the net in which the artist does not have to understand the language programming or HLSL, CG, FX, etc. .. he downloaded from the nvidia, load the material editor and work with the mesh created in 3dsmax and create the. material. There's this? or any plugin that converts directly from 3dsmax?

I understand that the Ogre developers do not bother to create these tools that other engines (below) exist and that attract artists and smaller teams. I need help because I really liked the program and Ogre to render and addons created by members of the community are perfect! How do I resolve this difficulty? Remember that we are only 2, a C + + programmer and a 3dsmax 3D artist.

hug to all and excuse me in English translated by google translator.

[madmarx]

Personnaly I wrote my shaders + some maxscripts to configure ogremax. The artist does not have to go inside the ogremax material to setup the shaders, and just have a few parameters visible (kind of shader, maps, some colors and some values depending on the shader).
I also wrote a system that display Ogre with both directx and opengl simultaneously in my app to check if there is anything wrong between both.
So this is doable by a programmer alone with some knowledge of 3dsmax and shaders.

Concerning ofusion this is extremely surprising because it was known as a solid solution.
I am pretty sure user Evak uses it with another shader program and he seemed to say on this forum that was ok to work with.

[carlosmorcerf]

and that you provide your system?

[madmarx]

Sorry, I do not provide it.

[carlosmorcerf]

I'll try to think of something here because I did not want to leave ogre3d for xna through this ordeal.

[madmarx]

Someone from nvidia was working on a cgfx => ogre exporter (fxcomposer exporter). But I am not sure it went to the end.

Concerning tools for 'artist that does know how to code shader' I have no real other idea. I think there was a shader editor for ogre, and some material editors, but I can't remember the best of them.

With ogermax, you can see your material in the 3dsmax viewport and edit them in real time, which is already great stuff.
So you just need the code of the shader to insert in the ogremax material :

Try to find a shader editor for hlsl, glsl, or cg, because other langages can not be integrated easily (those which integrates rtt like hlslfx, cgfx etc...).
Then the artist creates its shader with the tool (or you write the shader yourself, or you copy paste from the wiki or the showcase forum), then you make the link with ogremax and then it's should be not too bad.

So you can build a 3DSMAX library of ogremaxmaterials that use shaders, and then the artist only has to do a copy and update the values he wants inside the material library.

[carlosmorcerf]

great. I will tell the artist to do this. you just happen to know any site that has several HLSL or CG to download?

[spacegaier]

Someone from nvidia was working on a cgfx => ogre exporter (fxcomposer exporter). But I am not sure it went to the end.

Sure? I only know that sinbad once said this: http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 60#p305560

[madmarx]

http://www.ogre3d.org/forums/viewtopic. ... 6&start=25
Yes, last time he was requesting help for writing ".material ".

[Evak]

Ofusion isn't discontinued, last update was a couple of weeks ago. The authors haven't updated the demo version but the pro commercial version is updated every month or so. It does support creating Ogre HLSL shaders with materials, for me it has been a godsend though not always perfect results.

It's quite expensive but I guess the price must be ok since over 600 licenses have been sold, and several commercial devs use it. I asked several times for a updated CE version but the only response has been, maybe if they find time, and v2.0 has been promised for some time. Still it's a good product and I don't regret buying it.