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Tutorial on importing/exporting models with 3DS Max

Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 6:43 am
by RunningRiot
First get the obj2max and max2obj plugins from the files section of this site.
  1. 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
There you, 10 easy steps to use 3DS Max to edit your models! Have fun!

-RunningRiot

Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 7:38 am
by Wraith
Nice job, RR! How long did it take to figure it out after I left? lol.

Posted: Wed Apr 14, 2004 9:14 am
by RunningRiot
Not long. Probably about 10 minutes. I just extracted my injected model, saw a long column of zeros, and instantly saw the problem.

This could have been done easily a long time ago, but now, thanks to HMT 3.5(three chears for Monoxide_C :) ) we can import them.

-RunningRiot

Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 3:50 pm
by FUZZ
wow that is very smart of u. I have had probs injectin with 3ds for a long time. a mod should sticky this because you discovered something no one knew. I give u props. u have definateley made modeling injection easier for me

Posted: Thu Apr 15, 2004 7:03 pm
by G0DF47H3R
Thanks for posting this. I just got 3DS Max 5 and now have some direction. Thanks again.

YAY, someone made a tut on my tools post! YAY

Posted: Fri Apr 16, 2004 3:05 pm
by d3f
i figured someone would come along and make a tut for it.

d3f

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 7:47 am
by BossGordon
ok Man i have a huge prob lol well i did all you said and now all i get is some really huge models whats up with that?

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 9:06 am
by Ironahand08
does this work for gmax too??

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 10:49 am
by Dan The Man
It should, their made by the same company and are similar. though gmax opens different files.

Posted: Sat Apr 24, 2004 3:08 pm
by Wraith
BossGordon wrote:ok Man i have a huge prob lol well i did all you said and now all i get is some really huge models whats up with that?
You must've done something wrong...

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 1:22 pm
by CrispySpartan
Damn, RunningRiot, I had no idea :)
(well, a little idea...)

Any progress on arbitray models yet?
Although that is is way too much to hope for...

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 2:53 pm
by {IAS}Bunkerking
theres only one for ver. 4

Posted: Mon Apr 26, 2004 4:12 pm
by MC117
this is awesome man! thanks !!!

Posted: Thu Apr 29, 2004 5:37 pm
by RunningRiot
Well.. I've had High School standardized exit tests this week (TAKS tests... pain in the ass but easy as hell), so I haven't really got a chance to work on anything else but sleeping and homework... but I'm gonna investigate it... sometime later.(Next week I have State Theatre, Science, and Computer App competition, plus a few AP tests... so probably not next week either).

But I will work on importing brand new models(not edited existing models) soon.

-RunningRiot

Posted: Fri May 28, 2004 11:52 am
by Seki Ryuu
ok...im having some problems

when i imported the model, it said that there was an error rendering in HMT

i think i screwed up either on the hex or the text editor part

1) in hex workshop theres "20 20"....well, if u replace that with "20", its still "20 20"....so that doesnt make any sense

2) in the original model in notepad, its neatly set up:


v 0.00009494 -0.00000000 0.00080890
v 0.00045563 -0.00003436 0.00062427
v 0.00009495 -0.00004676 0.00080889
v 0.00011214 0.00000000 0.00086308
v 0.00011214

but in the modeled one, the stuff is just randomly placed in it.....

Posted: Thu Jun 03, 2004 8:26 am
by Seki Ryuu
uhh....sry for the double post but

(Edited by Admin) abusive language