Aye BlinkHawk, my tone came off wrong. Wasn't correcting you :)
Big big update for me guys. Animations are now all correct. All of them. Apart from gimbal lock in some of them all animations import correctly. I've tested the bad models, Immortal, Thor, DarkTemplar, all of them are fixed. I've been waiting to get them perfect for so long. Finally :D
Not sure what's causing your error but keep in mind the exporter is still very beta. Geometry should export properly though with no big problems. I'll be doing a tutorial at some point to help explain the process for exporting an M3 correctly. Right now I have other commitments and can only spend intermittent time working on the importer/exporter.
As a rough guidelink your model should:
- be an editable mesh type
- have only one material assigned to it, multimaterials work too with each submaterial representing a submesh
- for the materials, 'Starcraft 2' should be used as the shader and 'Starcraft 2 Bitmap' should be used for maps.
If you're doing something wrong the exporter should throw an error but up until now I've had very limited user feedback with problems so I haven't been able to plug all the holes. Otherwise just wait till the tutorial gets posted to help clear things up for you.
Blizzard has always used 1000 FPS in their model files, from MDX's to M2's and now with M3's. You don't have to use 1000 FPS, you can import and export at different FPS's. The option is there.
I basically have the updated exporter and the object definitions, however I'm very close to getting the importer working properly with some of the buggier models. I found out the big problem, Blizzard is using mirrored bones that are negatively scaled. This creates big problems with animation and exporting, big big problems. They must be using the dodgy mirror bone tool in 3ds max to make mirror bones which uses negative scales for the mirroring. This is extremely bad for importing/exporting models accurately. Extremely bad. I'm trying to figure out a way to get them in and out properly but it's proving a nightmare. Whoever at blizzard is doing the rigging for these meshes deserves a slap in the face. Anyone with some technical know-how (looking at you darksuit!) who knows how to deal with negative scaling, some of their insights would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
Alot of the models are freaking out in 3ds max. The ultralisk and the immortal are two very good examples. I'm working on figuring out the problem with those. Some of the warped animations are just messed up in max. The ultralisk exported back to M3 animates fine in the GE previewer. I'll have a look at the Thor model too.
I've had a look at the DarkTemplar model. Very bizzare. There's a bone being placed waaaaaaay out in the middle of nowhere. I've triple checked the M3 binary data and the bone is actually meant to be there according to the M3 file. Thank you Blizzard for cleaning up your models ><. It's messing up max pretty good, zooming gets destroyed by that rogue bone. As for the leg bone being curled up, I'll have to look into that, not sure why it's happening exactly. Exporting that model back to M3 has unexpected effects, such as the leg bone being completely missing even if I'm exporting without animation info (i.e. just the bindpose). Something odd going on there which I'll have to look into.
If you have 010 Editor (a hex editor, can download a 30 day trial with a quick google), I have an up-to-date template for the M3 format. I'll upload it to the libm3 site. It puts the binary data into easy to read structures. I find it a much better system for parsing data.
M3 export v0.16b is a really small update that fixes the skinned bone issues. Use that with the other 1.2 plugin files. Just tested it with the Ultralisk and the Ghost models, they both export with correct animations. The ultralisk has really wacky animations in 3ds max but exports them correctly to M3. The ultralisk has massive import/export times (30 seconds for the export on my end). I'll have to figure out solutions for that.
I hear what you're saying. The problem is of course that the Ref_ objects are defined as bones in the M3 file. I could just treat them as point helpers instead of bones when you import but I don't know if that's the correct way to do things. Ultimately I want the M3 file to be imported as objectively as possible, without my arbitrary intervention. The Dummy01 bone definition in the ghost is interesting. It suggests that maybe when Blizzard are exporting their M3's they're using dummy boxes as part of their bone chains and those dummy boxes get converted into bones upon export. This would be pretty easy to code for in the exporter. The other problem is M3's have an entirely seperate attachment-style definition which specifies bones as their parent. This again could be done simply with a dummy box acting as an attachment then having a bone specified during export instead of requiring a bone AND a dummy helper in 3ds max.
I'll think about those kind of features. Right now attachments and dummy boxes aren't my biggest priority. My top priorities are to get accurately imported models, especially animations, and to export animations equally accurate. Particles/Ribbons will be next on my hitlist once animations are exported properly.
Put sc2plugins.ms in your plugins directory so that it autoloads when max loads. Or you can just use 'run script' to load it before you import a model. A 'M3 - Sequences' utility should appear in the maxscript utilities menu for animation browsing. I'll be doing a tutorial at some point to make this all clearer however I'm midway through university exams so most of my spare time is devoted to study.
At the moment the ghost is exporting really messed up. It has something to do with the base frame going awry. I'll be fixing the problem in future updates. It's good to let me know about any models that have severe problems. They're a useful way to improve the plugins.
I can't stress enough, sc2plugins.ms must be running. It adds alot of vital functionality to the two scripts. You cannot create or edit animations properly without the plugin loaded as it contains a very handy animations UI, and the custom starcraft 2 shader and bitmaps I've designed will not be present without it loaded. It's absolutely essential for editing your models properly with the extra M3-specific properties I've integrated into the custom materials and animation UI. Once again, sc2plugins.ms should be loaded before you import or export. Placing it in your 3dsmax\Plugins directory will cause it to be loaded automatically upon launching 3dsmax. Importing/Exporting without it loaded is asking for trouble ><.
The bug you were getting is because sc2objects.ms wasn't loaded in 3ds max and it's necessary to grab animations, since it contains the animation UI. The problem at the moment is I've set the script to crash silently in the listener so you don't get an error box when it doesn't work, something I'll fix in the next update. So to be clear, extract the scripts BEFORE you boot up 3ds max, make sure sc2objects.ms is in the 3dsmax\plugins directory and everything should work fine. If you can't be bothered doing that, use 'Run Script' to load sc2objects.ms BEFORE you import/export as the sc2objects.ms is vitally important for both scripts to use custom materials and the animation UI. You'll know sc2objects.ms is loaded if 'M3 - Sequences' appears in the Utilities drop down menu.
Very strange that team colour is not working for your zealot. Check the materials you're using for your model. You should be using a 'Starcraft 2' shader and for each map layer a 'Starcraft 2 Bitmap'. In the map layers, you can make the texture alpha render as team colour with a checkbox. I'll demonstrate all this in the tutorial I eventually put up. You should be getting blades too, that is very strange. The only thing you don't get is hair and particle effects. The hair is actually a ribbon emitter and the glow on the blades are done through particle emitters, support for those should come in the future.
At the moment, IK chains are not properly supported. There is an option to use bones as IK chains in the M3 format (as seen in the colossus) but at the moment there's no support for it in the exporter. Only boring old FK chains at the moment. Animations are still very beta but will be improved in the future as I learn more about exporting animations. I'll look into the DarkTemplar.m3 glitching. At the moment I'm using euler controllers in 3ds max for importing animations and I want to make the switch to TCB controllers as they use proper quaternions and don't suffer from gimbal lock. I believe once I start using TCB controllers alot of the animation bugs will disappear.
The script at the moment only exports one 'editable_mesh' object in the scene. If it finds more than one editable mesh it'll crash. You can either hide or freeze any extra geometry before you try to export to prevent the error from happening. When you click export, you should have just a single editable mesh that has a skin modifer applied to it. Bones should be added to the skin modifier to rig the mesh.
Have not tested it for gmax at all. Most of the code I've used strives for backward compatibility, however gmax is really old and buggy. I doubt gmax supports the .dds format either as 3ds max 9 service pack 2 is the first 3ds max version to support .dds. Also, custom objects such as materials and bitmaps that I'm using to extend the capabilities of the importer/exporter were first introduced around 3ds max 5.1. I highly doubt I'll be able to make the script compatible with gmax but I can look into creating a modified version that'll work in gmax. I sense you'll lose alot of key features though.
I'll try to get a tutorial up for you guys on how to use the tools. As for the export not working, I've tested it in two different 3ds max versions (2010 and max 9) and they both are working fine. Are you making sure sc2objects.ms is in 3dsmax\Plugins directory? It might be erroring out. Open up the listener by pressing F11 in max, then run the exporter and check the listener contents for any errors. Show me the errors if there are any. Otherwise the model should be exporting guys, I'm testing it on a completely fresh Max 9 service pack 2 which is a much earlier version than 3ds max 2010 and I'm having zero problems with the export. I've imported a zealot and exported it straight out and all animations are fine...
Any bone suggestions for the import would be great. At the moment I have quite a few models doing bizzare things (Immortal.m3 is a great example) and I'm not quite sure how to fix it just yet. Another problem is I'm using the Euler_XYZ rotation controller for the bones which means they experience gimbal lock during some animations. I've attempted to use the TCB_Rotation controller instead but the animations then adopt strange interpolations which screws them up pretty good. Any input is appreciated.
Animation support is now live!
Animations should work perfectly well. I've exported M2's, which you can see here, and they animate entirely correctly. I've also exported MD5's from Doom3 (an Imp model) which required an adjustment of the FPS, but it also has correct animations. I'm sure there will still be problems though, animations have been difficult to get working properly. Make sure you make start frame and end frame animations for your bones you're going to animate, or else you'll get weird animations.
If anyone knows of an MDX/MDL (those are Warcraft3 models) importer that WORKS for a recent version of 3ds max, please let me know. I'd like to export some wc3 models into sc2 because there's been alot of demand for it, and because it'll be fun. Even though the quality of the models will be horrendous compared to the sc2 ones :D.
At some point when I'm not so busy I'd like to do up some tutorials on how to work the tools so people aren't so lost using them. I've done my best to make them as intuitive as possible. Cheers all and enjoy ^.^
As for all Blizzard's model formats, smoothing is done through vertex normals for M3's. 3ds max is a pain in the butt when it comes to vertex normals, a huge pain in the butt. You can only set them manually through an Edit_Normals modifier and by setting all the normals to explicit. However more complications arise as the Edit_Normals modifier can apply more than one normal per vertex but M3's only allow one normal per vertex *sigh*. I broke vertex normals being imported for the new version of the importer too so it no longer works. I'll be fixing that with the next update. If you use an old version of the importer and tick vertex normals you'll notice the mesh is smoothed properly as it is in-game. If you then export it however, you'll notice the smoothing is lost due to max stubbornly grabbing it's pre-calculated normals rather than using the custom ones I've forced it to use.
The next exporter version should allow you to export your own custom vertex normals, but I don't know how it'll handle smoothing groups, if at all. Right now I'm going to be using the edit_normals modifier to do all the vertex normal exporting. I think there's a way I can condense multiple normals into one vertex normal if multiple are assigned, otherwise I'll just have to use one and hope the end user only applies one normal per vertex. In short, something as simple as vertex normals is way more complicated than it needs to be since 3ds max has never had its vertex normal functions updated properly to support them :@.
The original one, I was using code based off the MD5 exporter to gather tri's into submeshes which was really slow for 3ds max to do. I found a much more efficient way to do it. As an example, exporting the Zealot mesh would take 25 seconds in the old version, now it takes approximately 5 seconds. I don't know how quickly it'll do 80k tri's, but it won't take forever that's for sure. I'll respond to your PM soon, I'm still pretty busy with things.
New update is up, exporter now supports bone exporting and attachments aswell but NOT animation support yet, however animation support won't be far off now that the bone infrastructure is there. I also fixed a major bottleneck in performance so the script should be executing much much faster now. Alpha mask support was added too.
For the bones I must explain how M3's do their bind pose and base pose, it's much like the MD5 format. You have your bind pose which is the mesh configuration where the bones and the mesh line up properly. There's a second pose which I've arbitrarily called a base pose. This pose is NOT the bind pose but can assigned the same pose if you'd like. It's the pose of the model that animations are kind of based off, the 'standard' pose of the model that it will assume if no animation data is present for particular bones. Kind of hard to explain. It's the base animation pose basically, so the model knows what to do when parts of it are not animated. I'll put up a tutorial at some stage when I get time so the exporter is more accessible to newbies :).
So far I've seen no evidence of opacity maps used in the game at all. Most transparency is done through 'Add' blend modes? Not sure really...the blend modes confuse me. Alpha maps should work now but it's only for black and white alpha maps, so it's either visible or not visible. I'll be looking more into how the dark templar cape works, as it has a degree of transparency. It's definitely the blend modes that cause it to happen...so it's possible to do through the exporter if you know how it works.
That's where you should find the utilities once you run the scripts. Instructions on how to get them running are present on the assets page where you download it and in the readme files that come with the files also. I might put pictures up on the assets page but I didn't think the instructions would be complicated to follow :S.
Do you mean using the alpha channel for opacity? There's an alpha mask map you can use, as seen in the Dark Templar's cape to define the edges. At the moment, the script doesn't activate it properly, but I've narrowed it down and it'll be implented in the next update so sit tight.
Referencing ingame textures should be fine. Keep your internal path as assets/textures/ and use the same filename for your maps as is used in the game archives. There should be no problem doing that at all.
As for animation support, I'm not sure when that'll be. M3's use a skinning system I'm not used to, the same one MD5's pretty much use. I'll be looking into it and seeing what I can do with it. Bones will be the next feature to be implemented, followed by animations, so stay tuned and I'll try and keep you guys updated on the progress.
I'm not sure about the warcraft3 tools Blizzard used, I could never get them working on my versions of 3ds max. I would like to see how they work so I could get some ideas. At the moment, the simplest way to code it is to go through the skin modifier so I'm going to do it through that. For the creation of animations, you'll be using the current animation UI but it'll be expanded so you can edit animation properties and add/delete animations. So you'll be defining the start frame and end frame of a particular animation, and any keyframes the bones run through during those periods defines that animation.
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@BlinkHawk: Go
Aye BlinkHawk, my tone came off wrong. Wasn't correcting you :)
Big big update for me guys. Animations are now all correct. All of them. Apart from gimbal lock in some of them all animations import correctly. I've tested the bad models, Immortal, Thor, DarkTemplar, all of them are fixed. I've been waiting to get them perfect for so long. Finally :D
@xcorbo: Go
I've updated the plugin so the extra animation settings should work properly now xcorbo.
M3 Plugins v1.3
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@XYZMuffin: Go
Not sure what's causing your error but keep in mind the exporter is still very beta. Geometry should export properly though with no big problems. I'll be doing a tutorial at some point to help explain the process for exporting an M3 correctly. Right now I have other commitments and can only spend intermittent time working on the importer/exporter.
As a rough guidelink your model should:
- be an editable mesh type
- have only one material assigned to it, multimaterials work too with each submaterial representing a submesh
- for the materials, 'Starcraft 2' should be used as the shader and 'Starcraft 2 Bitmap' should be used for maps.
If you're doing something wrong the exporter should throw an error but up until now I've had very limited user feedback with problems so I haven't been able to plug all the holes. Otherwise just wait till the tutorial gets posted to help clear things up for you.
0
@BlinkHawk: Go
Blizzard has always used 1000 FPS in their model files, from MDX's to M2's and now with M3's. You don't have to use 1000 FPS, you can import and export at different FPS's. The option is there.
@xcorbo: Go
I basically have the updated exporter and the object definitions, however I'm very close to getting the importer working properly with some of the buggier models. I found out the big problem, Blizzard is using mirrored bones that are negatively scaled. This creates big problems with animation and exporting, big big problems. They must be using the dodgy mirror bone tool in 3ds max to make mirror bones which uses negative scales for the mirroring. This is extremely bad for importing/exporting models accurately. Extremely bad. I'm trying to figure out a way to get them in and out properly but it's proving a nightmare. Whoever at blizzard is doing the rigging for these meshes deserves a slap in the face. Anyone with some technical know-how (looking at you darksuit!) who knows how to deal with negative scaling, some of their insights would be highly appreciated. Thanks.
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@xcorbo: Go
Ah xcorbo, my very bad, the animation info is not being updated correctly. It'll be fixed in a soon to be released update.
@IskatuMesk: Go
Alot of the models are freaking out in 3ds max. The ultralisk and the immortal are two very good examples. I'm working on figuring out the problem with those. Some of the warped animations are just messed up in max. The ultralisk exported back to M3 animates fine in the GE previewer. I'll have a look at the Thor model too.
@Omnimmotus: Go
I've had a look at the DarkTemplar model. Very bizzare. There's a bone being placed waaaaaaay out in the middle of nowhere. I've triple checked the M3 binary data and the bone is actually meant to be there according to the M3 file. Thank you Blizzard for cleaning up your models ><. It's messing up max pretty good, zooming gets destroyed by that rogue bone. As for the leg bone being curled up, I'll have to look into that, not sure why it's happening exactly. Exporting that model back to M3 has unexpected effects, such as the leg bone being completely missing even if I'm exporting without animation info (i.e. just the bindpose). Something odd going on there which I'll have to look into.
@darksuit: Go
If you have 010 Editor (a hex editor, can download a 30 day trial with a quick google), I have an up-to-date template for the M3 format. I'll upload it to the libm3 site. It puts the binary data into easy to read structures. I find it a much better system for parsing data.
0
M3 export v0.16b is a really small update that fixes the skinned bone issues. Use that with the other 1.2 plugin files. Just tested it with the Ultralisk and the Ghost models, they both export with correct animations. The ultralisk has really wacky animations in 3ds max but exports them correctly to M3. The ultralisk has massive import/export times (30 seconds for the export on my end). I'll have to figure out solutions for that.
@darksuit: Go
I hear what you're saying. The problem is of course that the Ref_ objects are defined as bones in the M3 file. I could just treat them as point helpers instead of bones when you import but I don't know if that's the correct way to do things. Ultimately I want the M3 file to be imported as objectively as possible, without my arbitrary intervention. The Dummy01 bone definition in the ghost is interesting. It suggests that maybe when Blizzard are exporting their M3's they're using dummy boxes as part of their bone chains and those dummy boxes get converted into bones upon export. This would be pretty easy to code for in the exporter. The other problem is M3's have an entirely seperate attachment-style definition which specifies bones as their parent. This again could be done simply with a dummy box acting as an attachment then having a bone specified during export instead of requiring a bone AND a dummy helper in 3ds max.
I'll think about those kind of features. Right now attachments and dummy boxes aren't my biggest priority. My top priorities are to get accurately imported models, especially animations, and to export animations equally accurate. Particles/Ribbons will be next on my hitlist once animations are exported properly.
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@xcorbo: Go
Put sc2plugins.ms in your plugins directory so that it autoloads when max loads. Or you can just use 'run script' to load it before you import a model. A 'M3 - Sequences' utility should appear in the maxscript utilities menu for animation browsing. I'll be doing a tutorial at some point to make this all clearer however I'm midway through university exams so most of my spare time is devoted to study.
At the moment the ghost is exporting really messed up. It has something to do with the base frame going awry. I'll be fixing the problem in future updates. It's good to let me know about any models that have severe problems. They're a useful way to improve the plugins.
I can't stress enough, sc2plugins.ms must be running. It adds alot of vital functionality to the two scripts. You cannot create or edit animations properly without the plugin loaded as it contains a very handy animations UI, and the custom starcraft 2 shader and bitmaps I've designed will not be present without it loaded. It's absolutely essential for editing your models properly with the extra M3-specific properties I've integrated into the custom materials and animation UI. Once again, sc2plugins.ms should be loaded before you import or export. Placing it in your 3dsmax\Plugins directory will cause it to be loaded automatically upon launching 3dsmax. Importing/Exporting without it loaded is asking for trouble ><.
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@Omnimmotus: Go
The bug you were getting is because sc2objects.ms wasn't loaded in 3ds max and it's necessary to grab animations, since it contains the animation UI. The problem at the moment is I've set the script to crash silently in the listener so you don't get an error box when it doesn't work, something I'll fix in the next update. So to be clear, extract the scripts BEFORE you boot up 3ds max, make sure sc2objects.ms is in the 3dsmax\plugins directory and everything should work fine. If you can't be bothered doing that, use 'Run Script' to load sc2objects.ms BEFORE you import/export as the sc2objects.ms is vitally important for both scripts to use custom materials and the animation UI. You'll know sc2objects.ms is loaded if 'M3 - Sequences' appears in the Utilities drop down menu.
Very strange that team colour is not working for your zealot. Check the materials you're using for your model. You should be using a 'Starcraft 2' shader and for each map layer a 'Starcraft 2 Bitmap'. In the map layers, you can make the texture alpha render as team colour with a checkbox. I'll demonstrate all this in the tutorial I eventually put up. You should be getting blades too, that is very strange. The only thing you don't get is hair and particle effects. The hair is actually a ribbon emitter and the glow on the blades are done through particle emitters, support for those should come in the future.
At the moment, IK chains are not properly supported. There is an option to use bones as IK chains in the M3 format (as seen in the colossus) but at the moment there's no support for it in the exporter. Only boring old FK chains at the moment. Animations are still very beta but will be improved in the future as I learn more about exporting animations. I'll look into the DarkTemplar.m3 glitching. At the moment I'm using euler controllers in 3ds max for importing animations and I want to make the switch to TCB controllers as they use proper quaternions and don't suffer from gimbal lock. I believe once I start using TCB controllers alot of the animation bugs will disappear.
@tigerija: Go
The script at the moment only exports one 'editable_mesh' object in the scene. If it finds more than one editable mesh it'll crash. You can either hide or freeze any extra geometry before you try to export to prevent the error from happening. When you click export, you should have just a single editable mesh that has a skin modifer applied to it. Bones should be added to the skin modifier to rig the mesh.
@JackRCDF: Go
Have not tested it for gmax at all. Most of the code I've used strives for backward compatibility, however gmax is really old and buggy. I doubt gmax supports the .dds format either as 3ds max 9 service pack 2 is the first 3ds max version to support .dds. Also, custom objects such as materials and bitmaps that I'm using to extend the capabilities of the importer/exporter were first introduced around 3ds max 5.1. I highly doubt I'll be able to make the script compatible with gmax but I can look into creating a modified version that'll work in gmax. I sense you'll lose alot of key features though.
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I'll try to get a tutorial up for you guys on how to use the tools. As for the export not working, I've tested it in two different 3ds max versions (2010 and max 9) and they both are working fine. Are you making sure sc2objects.ms is in 3dsmax\Plugins directory? It might be erroring out. Open up the listener by pressing F11 in max, then run the exporter and check the listener contents for any errors. Show me the errors if there are any. Otherwise the model should be exporting guys, I'm testing it on a completely fresh Max 9 service pack 2 which is a much earlier version than 3ds max 2010 and I'm having zero problems with the export. I've imported a zealot and exported it straight out and all animations are fine...
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@darksuit: Go
Any bone suggestions for the import would be great. At the moment I have quite a few models doing bizzare things (Immortal.m3 is a great example) and I'm not quite sure how to fix it just yet. Another problem is I'm using the Euler_XYZ rotation controller for the bones which means they experience gimbal lock during some animations. I've attempted to use the TCB_Rotation controller instead but the animations then adopt strange interpolations which screws them up pretty good. Any input is appreciated.
Animation support is now live!
Animations should work perfectly well. I've exported M2's, which you can see here, and they animate entirely correctly. I've also exported MD5's from Doom3 (an Imp model) which required an adjustment of the FPS, but it also has correct animations. I'm sure there will still be problems though, animations have been difficult to get working properly. Make sure you make start frame and end frame animations for your bones you're going to animate, or else you'll get weird animations.
If anyone knows of an MDX/MDL (those are Warcraft3 models) importer that WORKS for a recent version of 3ds max, please let me know. I'd like to export some wc3 models into sc2 because there's been alot of demand for it, and because it'll be fun. Even though the quality of the models will be horrendous compared to the sc2 ones :D.
At some point when I'm not so busy I'd like to do up some tutorials on how to work the tools so people aren't so lost using them. I've done my best to make them as intuitive as possible. Cheers all and enjoy ^.^
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Just wanted to show off the new animation support I'm setting up for the next update of the M3 exporter.
<embed width="600" height="361" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullscreen="true" allowNetworking="all" wmode="transparent" src="http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid6.photobucket.com/albums/y234/NiNtoxicated/sc2mod/Worgen03.flv">
Cheers :D
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@IskatuMesk: Go
As for all Blizzard's model formats, smoothing is done through vertex normals for M3's. 3ds max is a pain in the butt when it comes to vertex normals, a huge pain in the butt. You can only set them manually through an Edit_Normals modifier and by setting all the normals to explicit. However more complications arise as the Edit_Normals modifier can apply more than one normal per vertex but M3's only allow one normal per vertex *sigh*. I broke vertex normals being imported for the new version of the importer too so it no longer works. I'll be fixing that with the next update. If you use an old version of the importer and tick vertex normals you'll notice the mesh is smoothed properly as it is in-game. If you then export it however, you'll notice the smoothing is lost due to max stubbornly grabbing it's pre-calculated normals rather than using the custom ones I've forced it to use.
The next exporter version should allow you to export your own custom vertex normals, but I don't know how it'll handle smoothing groups, if at all. Right now I'm going to be using the edit_normals modifier to do all the vertex normal exporting. I think there's a way I can condense multiple normals into one vertex normal if multiple are assigned, otherwise I'll just have to use one and hope the end user only applies one normal per vertex. In short, something as simple as vertex normals is way more complicated than it needs to be since 3ds max has never had its vertex normal functions updated properly to support them :@.
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@IskatuMesk: Go
Try the updated exporter: M3 Plugins v1.1
The original one, I was using code based off the MD5 exporter to gather tri's into submeshes which was really slow for 3ds max to do. I found a much more efficient way to do it. As an example, exporting the Zealot mesh would take 25 seconds in the old version, now it takes approximately 5 seconds. I don't know how quickly it'll do 80k tri's, but it won't take forever that's for sure. I'll respond to your PM soon, I'm still pretty busy with things.
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New update is up, exporter now supports bone exporting and attachments aswell but NOT animation support yet, however animation support won't be far off now that the bone infrastructure is there. I also fixed a major bottleneck in performance so the script should be executing much much faster now. Alpha mask support was added too.
For the bones I must explain how M3's do their bind pose and base pose, it's much like the MD5 format. You have your bind pose which is the mesh configuration where the bones and the mesh line up properly. There's a second pose which I've arbitrarily called a base pose. This pose is NOT the bind pose but can assigned the same pose if you'd like. It's the pose of the model that animations are kind of based off, the 'standard' pose of the model that it will assume if no animation data is present for particular bones. Kind of hard to explain. It's the base animation pose basically, so the model knows what to do when parts of it are not animated. I'll put up a tutorial at some stage when I get time so the exporter is more accessible to newbies :).
@xXm0RpH3usXx: Go
So far I've seen no evidence of opacity maps used in the game at all. Most transparency is done through 'Add' blend modes? Not sure really...the blend modes confuse me. Alpha maps should work now but it's only for black and white alpha maps, so it's either visible or not visible. I'll be looking more into how the dark templar cape works, as it has a degree of transparency. It's definitely the blend modes that cause it to happen...so it's possible to do through the exporter if you know how it works.
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@kozm0naut: Go
That's where you should find the utilities once you run the scripts. Instructions on how to get them running are present on the assets page where you download it and in the readme files that come with the files also. I might put pictures up on the assets page but I didn't think the instructions would be complicated to follow :S.
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@Cyb3rD3lux3: Go
Do you mean using the alpha channel for opacity? There's an alpha mask map you can use, as seen in the Dark Templar's cape to define the edges. At the moment, the script doesn't activate it properly, but I've narrowed it down and it'll be implented in the next update so sit tight.
@Samoner: Go
Referencing ingame textures should be fine. Keep your internal path as assets/textures/ and use the same filename for your maps as is used in the game archives. There should be no problem doing that at all.
As for animation support, I'm not sure when that'll be. M3's use a skinning system I'm not used to, the same one MD5's pretty much use. I'll be looking into it and seeing what I can do with it. Bones will be the next feature to be implemented, followed by animations, so stay tuned and I'll try and keep you guys updated on the progress.
@ltitans: Go
I'm not sure about the warcraft3 tools Blizzard used, I could never get them working on my versions of 3ds max. I would like to see how they work so I could get some ideas. At the moment, the simplest way to code it is to go through the skin modifier so I'm going to do it through that. For the creation of animations, you'll be using the current animation UI but it'll be expanded so you can edit animation properties and add/delete animations. So you'll be defining the start frame and end frame of a particular animation, and any keyframes the bones run through during those periods defines that animation.