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Dark GDK / 3dsmax, exporters and animation

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Unkelben
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Location: Montréal, Canada
Posted: 26th Jan 2005 03:27
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You'll all agree with me that creating 3d content and integrating it in the game is a pretty crucial aspect of game development, and this is what DarkSDK is all about...

For 3d studio Max, I have found 3 exporters : Panda, Q3D and Polytrans. I have never been able to correctly export boned animation with Panda and although it's pretty expensive, Polytrans didn't either give me satisfying results. The Quest3d exporter, though, is free, light and works perfectly! That's good news for all of us. (you can find it here : http://www.quest3d.com/index.php?id=102)

The only problem I have with it is that it incredibly inflates the number of animation keyframes, from 100 in max, I get 16 159 in DarkBasic and other X file viewers. Of course, that's makes a quite big file and it plays very slow in DarkSDK.

Anyone knows anything about that or about any other exporters? Or about an exporter to the native dbo file which would support everything DarkSDK supports?

Jonathan
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Cellbloc Studios
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Joined: 15th Mar 2004
Location: Atlanta, GA
Posted: 26th Jan 2005 04:00 Edited at: 26th Jan 2005 04:01
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Right Hemispehere's Deep Exploration.

Hands down the BEST conversion program for the price. Polytrans is nice, but pricy.

You can even write a plugin for exporting to DBO (which is what I am working on next month)

-This...is my boomstick!
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zao420
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Posted: 26th Jan 2005 07:35
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@Cellbloc Studios

that would be cool to have an export plugin for 3dsmax for the dbo format, what version of 3ds msx are you making it for??

http://cavesoft.no-ip.com
WIP Version of my site. Usally it is offline.
http://dev-cavesoft.no-ip.com
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Cellbloc Studios
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Posted: 26th Jan 2005 08:03
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5.1, 6 & 7 of Max

-This...is my boomstick!
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zao420
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Posted: 26th Jan 2005 10:55
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no 4.2 oh well, 5.1 may work for hopfully

http://cavesoft.no-ip.com
WIP Version of my site. Usally it is offline.
http://dev-cavesoft.no-ip.com
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Unkelben
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Location: Montréal, Canada
Posted: 27th Jan 2005 01:59
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I've read on the Dark Basic Pro forum that Deep Exploration did not convert/export the animation info. Can you confirm/infirm that? I need full bone-deformation support.

Jonathan
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Cellbloc Studios
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Posted: 27th Jan 2005 02:04 Edited at: 27th Jan 2005 02:42
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I am using it fine. There is a patch (update) that you are refering to, but the problem has been resolved since October.

It does have an issue where it seem to me that it needs a frame length of MOD 10. Meaning, you cannot have 61 frames, but you can have 70. If I have 61 frames, I just copy the keys from 61 to 70 and export.

This could be with how I using my dummy objects though. Not a show stopper.

-This...is my boomstick!
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Unkelben
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Posted: 5th Feb 2005 02:03
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About the Right Hemisphere exporter...

Cellblock : You were right, Right Hemisphere is pretty good. It outputs the anim correctly. I only find a few problems :

- the texture coordinates seem a little less precise than others. But that's no big deal unless your UVs are really tight.
- The second thing is that the exporter is not directly integrated in Max and thus you need to browse with it and export things outside, which is a bit of a hassle.
- Finally, if you don't export in ascii format (slower to load in DarkSDK), DarkSDK doesn't find the bones/limbs in the X-file

Finally, for un-animated stuff, I'd suggest sticking to the Quest3d exporter which is really simple and effective. For those who need stronger animation support, Right Hemisphere's Deep Exploration would be the way to go.

In the end, though, the true solution would be an exporter solely for DarkBasic / DarkSDK which would support all supported features and be consistent with the engine's functions.

Good game-developing to you all!

Jonathan
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Charles Doty
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Posted: 19th Feb 2005 13:38
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Anyone tried this exporter?

http://www.tiburongx.com/new_release.htm
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Unkelben
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Posted: 20th Feb 2005 01:42
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I just did...

When I export a scene with my skinned animated character, it produces a file which makes the directx mesh viewer crash, as well as deep exploration.

When I try to export only the selected character, it crashes 3d studio max.

I guess it needs a little fine tuning!

Jonathan
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Cellbloc Studios
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Posted: 21st Feb 2005 22:55
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I found a trick with the DirectX mesh viewer. If you double click on the file and it is associated with the DirectX file, it will say "Corrupt" or something like that.

Now, if you open it from the menu, sometimes it works fine. I have no faith in the Directx viewer.

-This...is my boomstick!
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