Need artists help !

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Mon Nov 15, 2004 5:39 pm

Hi,

I am currently working on the max exporter, trying to resolve all the issues with it.

I am looking at the animation export part right now and I seriously need some data to test. So, if one of the artists here can help me by posting a character model with a Biped (as I already have Bones+Skin models), it would be greatly appreciated.

It doesn't have to be pretty, no need for fancy textures to test animation

In advance, thanks a lot.

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Tue Nov 16, 2004 12:28 pm

Please help me by posting a model or try the exporter yourself if you don't want to (or can't) post one of your models

It can be found here :

http://bananialair.ifrance.com/bananial ... porter.zip

Please note that it is still a test version. There must be some issues left. That's why I need you.

@Sinbad : Don't worry! I'll submit a proper patch as soon as I think it is ready

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 5:34 pm

As I had no feedback on the version I posted, I assume it is good.
I realize you are too impressed to be able to talk

Anyway, I decided to submit my changes as a patch. Of course, that doesn't mean I don't want to improve it anymore, that just means that so far, i have corrected AFAIK all the issues I am aware of.

The patch has been submited and is waiting for someone to take care of it.

Hope it will help.

Post by **sinbad** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:12 pm

Thanks Banania, your efforts are appreciated (even though I can't test this!).

Can someone who owns 3DS please help test this. Come on - you guys are quick enough to complain when you find a problem, so pitch in when someone tries to help you out!

Paragon · Post by **Paragon** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:17 pm

Im doing tons of tests. Just haven't gotten time to write down results.

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:22 pm

Thank you Paragon.

I am waiting impatiently to have some feedback.

dennis · Post by **dennis** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 7:25 pm

sinbad wrote:Thanks Banania, your efforts are appreciated (even though I can't test this!).

Can someone who owns 3DS please help test this. Come on - you guys are quick enough to complain when you find a problem, so pitch in when someone tries to help you out!

That's telling them, sinbad!

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 8:11 pm

BTW,

I am working on a new interface for the exporter (hopefully clearer) while I am doing a code review to clean it up before trying a few enhancements.

You can see a screenshot here.

http://bananialair.ifrance.com/

Paragon · Post by **Paragon** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 8:31 pm

Great work!

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 10:06 pm

Great work!

I assume you are talking about the screenshot. So thanks a lot.

If you see something to modify, a functionnality that is missing, now is the good time.

semicolon · Post by **semicolon** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 10:08 pm

Hello Banania,

I am willing to help and also willing to keep helping until you succeed the full version of Orge exporter for 3DSMAX. I have a few models (that I can give away) with biped animation with me. Just need to know how do you want them and where I can send them to you.

By the way, my question is if this "3dsmaxOrgeExporter" is the same as the one we have downloaded before? If yes, is it the improved version? and do you have the list of improvement from the latest version? (I think that version was written by "Earthquakeproove", must apologize if I wrote the name wrong.)

Thank you very much for your support,

Semicolon

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Thu Nov 18, 2004 10:32 pm

semicolon wrote:I am willing to help and also willing to keep helping until you succeed the full version of Orge exporter for 3DSMAX. I have a few models (that I can give away) with biped animation with me. Just need to know how do you want them and where I can send them to you.

If you have some web space somewhere, just put it there and post the link.

If you don't, we will have to do that by email. You can send them to me on my hotmail address. The maximum size of a mail is 10 Mo up to a total of 250Mo. It should be more than enough.

bananupheNOSPAM@hotmail.com (without NOSPAM of course)

semicolon wrote:By the way, my question is if this "3dsmaxOrgeExporter" is the same as the one we have downloaded before? If yes, is it the improved version? and do you have the list of improvement from the latest version? (I think that version was written by "Earthquakeproove", must apologize if I wrote the name wrong.).

Yes, the exporter that can be downloaded here is based on the one by EarthQuakeProof. But it is an improved version that should fix a couple of issues.
In particular, it exports vertex normals correctly when using smoothing groups, it exports skeletons properly even when there are bones with no vertex assignments and it exports skeletons with bones linked to a biped (although i am not sure the animation is exported properly).
Of course, these features are precisely the ones I would like to test.

Jeff Leigh · Post by **Jeff Leigh** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 12:50 am

I'll be exporting some new animated character meshes within the next few weeks, so I'll be sure to give this a try and let you know how it goes. (This is optimistic, time slips by much faster than I would like... but I will let you know as soon as I get a chance.)

How did I miss this thread?

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 10:42 am

Good thing !

A chance Sinbad stopped by to draw everybody's attention... Sinbad, you are my hero !

Post by **sinbad** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 2:43 pm

Nah, you're the hero Banania for taking this on - do you have any idea how long I've been asking someone to take on maintenance of the 3DS exporter? I had a smattering of offers but nothing concrete until you came along, so the fact that you're already stuck in and fixing things is awesome. Thanks!

About your proposed improvements, they look great (especially the animation splitter). There are a few of other options in the OgreXmlConverter you might want to expose, if you get the time:

1. LOD generation (-l <LODlevels> -d <loddist> -p <lodpercent>)
2. Turn off edge list generation, for meshes that are not to support stencil shadows (-e); this makes the .mesh a bit smaller as well as automatically turning off stencil shadows for this mesh
3. Generate tangent space vectors (for normal mapping) (-t)

Cheers
Steve

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 3:55 pm

sinbad wrote:Nah, you're the hero Banania for taking this on - do you have any idea how long I've been asking someone to take on maintenance of the 3DS exporter? I had a smattering of offers but nothing concrete until you came along, so the fact that you're already stuck in and fixing things is awesome. Thanks!

Always good to hear !

But I am also doing this for myself, you know ...

sinbad wrote: There are a few of other options in the OgreXmlConverter you might want to expose, if you get the time:

1. LOD generation (-l <LODlevels> -d <loddist> -p <lodpercent>)
2. Turn off edge list generation, for meshes that are not to support stencil shadows (-e); this makes the .mesh a bit smaller as well as automatically turning off stencil shadows for this mesh
3. Generate tangent space vectors (for normal mapping) (-t)

Good ideas ! I had not thought about that at all since it is not directly related to the exporter. It won't be too hard since it is just a matter of adding a few more checkboxes on the window and a few more arguments to the command line. It goes on my TODO list.

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 6:55 pm

Chaster · Post by **Chaster** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 8:19 pm

Coool......

Post by **sinbad** » Fri Nov 19, 2004 11:56 pm

Hehe, 4-hour turnaround, not bad Bananias

psyclonist · Post by **psyclonist** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 2:57 am

Banania: Quite a few people seem to be working in parallel on the 3dsmax related export tools, especially the scripts. Maybe we can merge the results?

-psy

semicolon · Post by **semicolon** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 3:30 pm

Hi Banania,

Please give me a few days to try the exporter and I will send you the model exported with animation I made. However if you want me to test some specific features, You are more than welcome to request it.

Thank you very much for your support to 3DSMAX user.

Semicolon

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 3:35 pm

psyclonist wrote:Maybe we can merge the results?

I agree. And I guess you are mostly referring to the Octopus Exporter.

As I said in another thread, I will probably not do too much about material export since there are already so much improvements that have already been done.
I will probably call the octopus material export function if the script is installed and keep the old export functions as a fallback. If you look closely at the first screenshot I posted, you'll notice I did integrate the Octopus Mesh Modifier.

You talk about merging results. That's a beginning. I am of course open to the discussion to take that effort further ahead.

Although, we must keep in mind that our goal are slightly different. The octopus exporter is a scene exporter (which of course needs a mesh export part) while I am concentrating on the mesh and skeleton export part only.

But I am sure we can find a way to collaborate.

Since the version I posted in this thread (which has since been submited to the patch system), I have improved the exporter, mostly by rewriting the interface and doing a whole code review (which was needed). The multiple UV sets should work although I have only tested it on my best friend : the cube primitive.
I can't post that new version right now because I don't have it at the moment but that's the first thing I do monday morning.

Until then, if you have ideas or plan for a collaboration, I'll be happy to read them.

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 3:38 pm

semicolon wrote:Please give me a few days to try the exporter and I will send you the model exported with animation I made. However if you want me to test some specific features, You are more than welcome to request it.

Thank you very much for your support to 3DSMAX user.

You have all the time you want. As long as I know that peole are actually trying to use it, I know I don't work for nothing.

RyanN · Post by **RyanN** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 11:43 pm

after playing with the octopus exporter i can say this one seems to be on the right track, the ablity to do as much as possible in 3dsmax, applying texture effects, animation, shaders, physics etc. would be a good direction to head.

Im trying yours now and will get back to you a little later

Banania · Post by **Banania** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:47 am

RyanN wrote:applying texture effects, animation, shaders, physics etc. would be a good direction to head.

As I said before, I am not trying to make a scene exporter but only a geometry exporter. While I agree that texture effects and physics properties export are great features and are certainly needed, they are scene properties, not mesh properties.

If you need them, the octopus exporter will definitely be the way to go (as I don't intend to support that kind of features since they do a great job). If you (like me) just need to export a bunch of isolated objects without any scene organisation, maybe you'll want something a little simpler. That's your call....

@psyclonist : I uploaded my new version as I promised. Please remember it is highly untested....
http://bananialair.ifrance.com/bananial ... xport2.zip