3dsMax Exporter - Does Not Export Group Names

[sybixsus]

I've tried both Skin and Physique exporters ( although I'm guessing they're both functionally identical when exporting a mesh, but I thought I should try both just in case ) and neither one of them exports names for groups.

So when I come to parse my mesh, I have no way of knowing which group is which.

[sybixsus]

Since no one has commented to deny this and since I've tested and retested, I've added this to the bugtracker.

[beyonder]

I had this problem too... 
 
I just made a button and a text box. The button cycles thru the groups turning each one red and displaying the group number in the textbox. I just write those down and then I know.

(variable GroupTrack is global of course)

Code:

Private Sub Command3_Click()

b1 = MatFactory.GetMaterialByName("red")
b2 = MatFactory.GetMaterialByName("normal")
s1 = Character1.GetGroupCount
Character1.SetMaterial b1, GroupTrack
If GroupTrack > 0 Then Character1.SetMaterial b2, GroupTrack - 1
GroupTrack = GroupTrack + 1
Text1.Text = GroupTrack - 1
If GroupTrack = s1 Then GroupTrack = 0

End Sub

[sybixsus]

Thanks for the confirmation. I do a similar thing at the moment, but my goal is for the game to be moddable, and for players to be able to bring in new content if they wish. This is only possible if I can retrieve things automatically, so hopefully this bug can be fixed before too long.

[SylvainTV]

It's not really a bug, more an annoying thing that's missing in exporter.

The problem comes from how the exporter works.

The engine groups are based on materials. Each material/texture combo has a group. But each different object that is exported from MAX has also a group.

I think you want "Mesh Object names" to be in group name. This can be added to exporters but the problem is that the same Mesh group name could be affected to several mesh objects because they have more than one texture/material.

It's maybe ok for you though ?

[sybixsus]

I don't use multiple materials per object or anything fancy. I essentially just create a blank material for each object I want to be exported separately ( as a TV group ) and export like that. I don't mind if the TV group is named after the 3dsMax material or the 3dsMax mesh, just so long as there is a name of some kind for me to distinguish between groups. I apply all materials and textures in-game, so all that comes later.

[TroM]

any news on that one ?

[SylvainTV]

Nope, the problem is that the exporters are based on .X file exporter that doesn't support really material names, it only supports object names but when you load the TVM, you don't get one group per object but one group per material.

I can't see this happening unless i rewrite the plugins directly to support TVM and TVA.

[sybixsus]

Any change on this or are we still assuming we'll never get it?

[jviper]

do it by index 

[sybixsus]

I do do it by index. It's still pretty inconvenient, not to mention time-consuming, to have to manually enter four indices for every single entity, which is what is required at the moment. There are a lot of entities. Doing it by name would mean I can maintain a naming convention when modelling and have the editors pickup the group names, and therefore, get the indices automagically.

I haven't yet discerned a pattern to how the exporter picks which parts of the model become which of the groups, or else I could use that to force the groups to always be the same, thus only having to enter them once.