Tutorial on importing/exporting models with 3DS Max
Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:43 am
First get the obj2max and max2obj plugins from the files section of this site.
-RunningRiot
- 1. When exporting models from HMT, select "Yes" for exporting with zero surface area.
2. Select "Wavefront object (.obj)" in the inport dialouge of 3DS Max.
Inport as a single object, and select normals, texture and smoothing. Make sure that the vertex scale is 1.0(you can make it 100 to allow easier manipulation, but you must scale by .01 when you export).
3. Agree to any errors and edit away! Only move vertexes around, don't add or remove them.
4. Again, select "Wavefront object (.obj)" from the export dialouge. Save as a diffent model name than the imported model.
5.Desect all options except "Relative vertex numbers" and scale the model appropriatly to cancel out any scaling you did at the beginning(for easier editing in 3DS Max). Make sure there is 8 digit precision.
6. Open the modified model in a hex editor (don't worry, its easy). I used Hex Workshop(www.google.com), but I'm sure that any other hex editor with a "Find and Replace" command will work.
7. Replace every hex byte "0A" with "0D0A" and every "2020" with "20". This formats the vertex list correctly(if in you import as is, the dual spaces(the "2020" byte) will cause HMT to interpret the x coordinate to be "0" (since there is nothing between the 1st and 2nd space) and shift the x to the y coordinate and the y to the z coordinate, effectively rotating and flattening the model.)
8. Now, open both objs(original and modified) in a text editor(like notepad). Copy every line thats the format "v *.******** *.******** *.*******" in the modified obj to their corresponding lines in the original model. This simple workaround is taking the original, correctly formatted model and replacing only the vertex list with that of the modifid model. The indices, normals, texture maps and everything else stays the same.
9. Save and close the original(now modified) model
10. Open HMT and import the original(now modified) model
-RunningRiot