Panda3D Manual: Converting from 3D Studio Max
<<prev | top | next>> |
NOTE: In Panda3D version 1.5.3, the max exporter was overhauled. Versions prior to that were unstable. The Max exporter understands only bone-based animation. In other words, all animation must be done by moving bones around. If you move anything else, the Max exporter may not notice! Character studio bipeds work too --- they are indeed collections of bones. Meshes must be connected to the bones using either the `skin` or `physique` modifiers. Any other way of attaching the mesh to the bones will not work. In particular, simply linking the mesh to the bone using the link tool will not work correctly. Do not use the link tool to connect your meshes to your bones. Use the physique or skin modifiers. If all you want to do is drag a mesh around, then use the following method. Create a single bone - it will look like a small diamond. Put it in the middle of the mesh. Skin the mesh, and connect it to the one bone. Now you can drag the one bone around and the mesh will follow. In Max, it is a little difficult to create a single bone, because the bone creation tool usually creates two. After clicking to create a bone, look in the object list, and you'll see "Bone01", "Bone02", which proves that there are indeed two. The easiest thing to do is to create the pair of bones, and then delete the second one by pressing the "delete" button. ## Using the Exporter Before installing any plugins, you must install the visual studio runtime system. To do so, execute vcredist_x86-sp1.exe as administrator. Then, to install the plugin, look in the panda3d "plugins" directory. There, you will find the plugins, such as `maxegg5.dlo`, `maxegg6.dlo`, and `maxegg7.dlo`. These are for 3D Studio Max versions 5, 6, and 7 respectively. Copy the correct file from the Panda3D plugins directory into the 3D Studio Max plugins directory, then, restart 3D Studio Max. The exporter is somewhat unconventional in its design. Max has a menu item "File/Export". Panda's egg format does not show up in this menu. Instead, Panda's exporter is a helper object. This enables the exporter to save your export settings from one session to the next. To export a scene, your first step is to create the necessary helper object. Go to the creation panel, select "helper objects," choose "exporters," and then click on the button to create a Panda3D export helper: Drop an egg exporter into the scene: Switch to the modify panel. You will now be able to see the configuration settings that are stored in the export helper. The exporter can generate several egg files from a single scene. The exporter therefore contains a list of egg files to generate. To export this particular scene (the one with the blocky humanoid and the biped skeleton), we will create an egg containing the model and one containing the animation. Click the "add..." button on the exporter's modify panel. You will be prompted: I have filled in the file name, and I have selected the mesh I want to export. When I click "OK," an egg file will be added to the list of eggs to generate. I then click the "add..." button again, and add another egg to the list: This time, I'm generating an animation egg. I have listed the bones to export, and the range of animation frames. Once I click OK, the modify panel for the egg exporter looks like this: When I click the "export now" button, the two egg files are generated, and I am asked whether or not I would like to pview them. When you save your MAX file, the export helper will also be saved. The next time you load it up, it will still remember which meshes go in which egg files. ## Materials The different map types in the 3dsmax Standard material equal Panda ones followingly: Diffuse Slot = Color Bump Slot = Normal Self-Illumination Slot = Glow Specular Color Slot = Gloss Opacity Slot = Modulate ## Known Issues Currently, you have to use the option 'Export Entire Scene' when having animated models, otherwise the character hierarchy might not be exported correctly. Also, in version 1.5.3, the 'both' option was broken. Instead, you had to export animations separately with the 'model' and 'anim' options. However, this has been fixed in 1.5.4. Versions prior to 1.5.3 were unstable and it's not recommended to use them.
<<prev | top | next>> |