3DS Max 9/2008/2009 SMD Importer - Alpha release.Thu, November 13th, 2008 @ 17:36
Ta-da! So here it is after far to many months of faffing around trying to find time to work on it.
This is an “alpha” release meaning I can’t be 100% sure it’s bug free and it doesn’t contain all the features I’d hope to add to a final version. Most noticeably it doesn’t re-create smoothing groups (it uses vertex normals instead) and currently doesn’t support animation imports. That said, it’s got a couple of nice extra features I added.
I’ve also made a small update to the SMD exporter plug-in to enable it to export vertex normals correctly. This is important if your just importing/exporting from Max without editing.
As usual I welcome feedback and bug reports but remember I can’t fix a bug without a good description and the file that was causing the problem. I have to be able to replicate the problem to solve it.
Thanks to all for your patience and apologies it took so long. Sadly real life and my innate crapness at mathematics is to blame for the delay.
Edit: Oops, put a wrong file in the archive. Fixed it now.
- 3DS Max SMD Importer version 0.1a
- 3DS Max SMD Exporter version 1.4
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SMD Importer - getting closer to release!Mon, October 20th, 2008 @ 22:57
It seems as winter draws nearer my freetime gets less and less so a lot of my projects have been pushed onto the back-burner for now. Work and family comes first, sleeping second and Ham and Jam third as I just want to see it done.
Luckily this weekend was quiet so I took some time to do some more work on the 3DS Max SMD Importer plug-in and got the vertex weighting code fleshed out so now the meshes is actually linked to the bones. Now that step is done, the importer actually becomes useful and I can think about making an initial release at least as an alpha version for testing.
Up until now the code has mostly been mostly prototyping so I’ve spent the weekend refining it and adding in error handling as I’m sure in the real world there will be the odd screwed up SMD file it’ll have to deal with. I need to put a nice options dialog and a few other bits and pieces as well before it’s really usable.
So here’s a recap of what you can/can’t do with the importer right now.
It imports the SMD as a single continuous mesh so you don’t need to weld anything back together (like with the MaxScript importer). It doesn’t yet re-build smoothing groups but you can fix this yourself by just adding an Edit Poly modifier on top and using AutoSmooth or do it manually. Materials and UV’s are imported and assigned to a Multi/Sub material type.
Bones are imported and posed in the reference pose but it doesn’t yet handle importing animations. That shouldn’t be hard to do, I just haven’t got around to it yet. Vertex weights are imported and the mesh attached to the skeleton via a Skin modifier.
There still a long way to go and I’ve a lot of useful idea’s for features for the importer but for now, I’ll just be happy to get something out the door people can use :D
Feel free to ask any questions.
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3DS Max SMD Exporter plug-in 1.3Wed, September 17th, 2008 @ 16:39
Thanks to users who provided good feedback and sample Max files to debug from I’ve managed to nail a couple of annoying bugs in my 3DS Max SMD exporter plugin.
The first bug was incorrect error warnings about a mesh not having Sub/Muli-Object material when using a non-English version of 3DS Max. Thanks to Cherubim Entia for reporting that bug and testing the fix. The second bug was the exporter crashing when a rig contained a lot of mirrored parent bone/objects reported by “ifO” over at Mapcore who provided me with a good description and a Max file to debug from. The fix for this bug should also fix the crash when exporting an animation backwards.
Thanks again to those of you who have reported bugs and sorry I haven’t been able to jump on the problem as quickly as I liked. Hope the updated plug-in fixes most of the current issues.
- 3DS Max SMD exporter version 1.3
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In the summertimeTue, August 26th, 2008 @ 23:42
Blimey. Has it really been two months since I last posted something?
This summer has gone by really quickly and I’ve been extremely busy hence the lack of activity. I got to take a short holiday and went back to England for two weeks for my little sisters wedding. Apart from that I’ve been working like a maniac as we’ve got a product launch due for September at work which means a lot of overtime and late nights getting everything finished. :(
As I’m officially and “old fart” I’m afraid that after a hard day at the office I usually fall asleep as soon as I get home which means even less freetime. That said, what freetime I do have is currently spent on some writing projects and Ham and Jam. We’re going from Alpha to Beta soon and starting an aggressive testing programme so that’s going to keep my busy.
I’ve been getting a lot of e-mail asking about the SMD Exporter and Importer plug-ins so I figured I’d make a post here to answer some of the most common questions that people are asking.
For the exporter, I’ve been getting some good feedback from people on a couple of bugs but unfortunately haven’t had chance to address them all yet. The two most common are problems with material types in Max installed in languages other than English and crashes with mirrored bones. The language issue is solved and will be in the next update. The mirrored bones is a more complex problem and may take some time to fix.
I’ve said before and I’ll say again, don’t mirror bones in Max!. The most common mistake people is making is using the Tools->Mirror command in Max. This is the wrong way to do it and simply reverses the axis which is why your getting export problems. If you’re going to mirror bones, use Animation->Bone Tools turn on Bone Edit Mode and use the Mirror button. That will mirror them but keep the axis in the right orientation. For dummies you’ll have to mirror them manually but that doesn’t take too much work.
As for the SMD Importer, again I haven’t had much time to work on it but it’s certainly a lot further ahead that it’s been in a long time. Currently it’ll import meshes, UV, textures and bones although at the moment I haven’t set-up the skin modifier or looked into animation.
I’ll try and post some more updates soon, but in the meantime please be patient! :)
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3DS Max VTF Importer UpdateMon, June 23rd, 2008 @ 14:30
I’ve made an update to the 3DS Max VTF Importer plug-in to add support for Max 2009. While I was at it I took the opportunity to re-write some bits of the code and stick some optimisations in. Not much but every little helps.
If you’re installing this new version please make sure you delete the old plug-in file from your Max plug-ins folder before you install the new one. It’s especially important for 64-bit Max users.
- 3DS Max VTF Importer version 1.4
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