Guild of Writers

A couple of question about the 3ds Plasma plugin:

first did anyone found the way to point to python files yet ? I've got some oneshot clickables working and i'd like to add some python into that but the plugin doesn't find the python files: I've created a "Python" folder in the folder that the plasma plugin uses and dumped .py .pyc and .pak files but it doesn't seem to pick any of it..


Also about Plasma Runtime lights, for some reason the addition of a plasma light render all renders black (with both Scanline and Mental Ray) the "normal" 3ds lights do not cause any problems so I was wondering if there was another setting elsewhere that could fix that.


any idea ?


Help would be greatly appreciated !

Agenotfound wrote:Also about Plasma Runtime lights, for some reason the addition of a plasma light render all renders black (with both Scanline and Mental Ray) the "normal" 3ds lights do not cause any problems so I was wondering if there was another setting elsewhere that could fix that.

I might be wrong (as I haven't tried it yet) but I wouldn't be surprised if those lights were NOT supposed to be rendered. The Plugin is meant to export Ages, not to give a preview in Max.
Also, Chogon mentionned that there was a 'SceneViewer' reference in some config file but it was an abandonned project. It probably means that there was indeed a 'preview' function in development at some point but it was canned because it was too much work. Which might explain why lights were not intended to render. (typical tool develpment cycle. ).

I haven't looked at PythonFileMods yet, but if someone does get them working, please post on the forums about it!

I've asked how to link python files to max in the MystOnline forums but got no response yet - Did anyone made any progress with that ?

also two other question that I hope someone can answer:

did anyone got sounds working ?

I correctly exported an age with sounds (i.e there is no error message about an incorrect sound file) but there is no sound in the age. An examination of the prp show that there is a plAudioInterface and a plWinAudible but no plWin32Static or Streaming Sound. I've attached the sounds to dummy object and I think set the thing properly (by the way the PyPrp tutorials still largely apply to age building with 3d Max which is nice).


About animations

I've got simple animations working but I've been trying to put markers in them so that I can break them in different stages (like the callback in avatar anims for instance). 3d Max 7 does not have yet the animation layers system yet and I've tried to put various tags in the anims to no effect.

And that bring the larger question of knowing what other plugins Cyan uses in conjunction to their version of Max because some of the thing they did are, I think, using functionalities that were not present in the version 7 of max ( Unwrap UVMaps for instance does not even allow you to export an image of the unwrapped object, I had to install The Texrporter plugin for that, I think the functionality became integrated in version 8 if I remember well..)


Help would be greatly appreciated !


And I know I ask a lot of questions but I will be happy to answer any about things I've got working myself.



PS: By the way is there anyone else building ages with Max ?

Yes, I'm digging into it right now, though my prime area of interest is mats and lighting. Haven't tried the sounds yet, apart from the footsteps

What functionalities do you think were used by Cyan that are not present in Max 7?

rustee wrote:What functionalities do you think were used by Cyan that are not present in Max 7?

Well I thought of that because of the Unwrap UV Map that couldn't export images but that was an open question I hardly know anyone using Max that doesn't use at least a dozen of small plugins that makes your life easier. Cyan must have been using some and I was wondering wich.

Also what I was wondering what people got working yet.

I am working on an age and got these working perfectly

Physics Sound Group
(ex)One Shot
Clickable
Region Sensor
NoShow
Responder
Animation
Animation Grouped
Page Info
Proxy Terrain
Terrain
Light Region
Soft Region
Force RT Light
Occlusion
Swivel
Seek Point
Starting Point

Got these ones working but not using them currently

Anim Event
(Ex) Ladder Component
Swim 2D
Simple (kickables)
Sprite

I started working on the water and got some things working using

Representation
Representation Group
Environement Map
Large Water

A Small problem left though, I've got moving waves but some problem with the Environment Map so my water is stuck in a transparent yellow color.

and I'm stuck with those ones

NonSpatial Sound
Random Sound
3d Sound
Pyhton File
Subworld
SubworldRegion

the sounds I explained why, the Pyhton also the subworld is complicated.
Basically you have a Subworld region that define the point of entry/exit and a subworld object. This object for some reason can only be a dummy object (using the "pick subworld" and pressing the "H" key (select from list) you can see that only dummies show up) the other things have to be attached somehow to this dummy (as we can see in Cyan files). The problem is that linking does not seem to work (it does with animation - a linked object will follow the animated parent) and in the end the exported file only contain a plSubworld Region and no plHKsubworld. I've also tried to attach a subworld to every object in that subworld but you can't attach it to an object already containing physics wich proves that it has to be attached only one object.
I've tried to do it with responder to (Avatar>enter subworld) but it didn't worked.

I'm not aggressively trying to get everything working, just trying stuff as I build my age...
I would also be very happy to answer any question about what I have working here....

Anyone got some other things working ?

Seems like there's only two of us

You have the occlusion working? All i got is invisible geometry.
What is the purpose of Seek Point?

I can add to your "tested" list a few lines:

Particle System
Wind Effect
Billboard

though I just use them with the default settings.
I also tried to use Light Map, but either there's something seriously wrong with it or (likely) I cannot figure how to use it properly. Dustin reported issues on this one too.

Oh and regarding the Max7 unwrapper - Cyan may have used the texture baking procedure, so they didn't need the unwrapper to save pics.

rustee wrote:Seems like there's only two of us

Well seeing how difficult it is to find a copy of Max 7 I am not surprised ! Maybe we should do some advertisement on how easy age building is with Max

rustee wrote:You have the occlusion working? All i got is invisible geometry.

well that's the point it's meant to reduce the load on the CPU/GPU by not showing what is on the other side. Basically you create a vertical plane between two areas and (if you check the "two sided" option) you won't see what is on the other side (from both sides).

a view from far away


a view just behind the occulder plane



a view after the occulder plane

rustee wrote:What is the purpose of Seek Point?

If I'm not mistaken it's used for one shot anims as the point the avatar tries to reach before playing the anim.(but it can probably work without it too)

rustee wrote:I can add to your "tested" list a few lines:

Particle System
Wind Effect
Billboard

You are quite brave after seeing the particle system thing I said "well maybe later"
what are the billboard for ? facing things ? there is no option to set in them

rustee wrote:though I just use them with the default settings.
I also tried to use Light Map, but either there's something seriously wrong with it or (likely) I cannot figure how to use it properly. Dustin reported issues on this one too.

I think I will try that soon. and I don't know if you noticed but upon export you sometime have a message about an unknown object type "constructor". I told Dustin about it and about some other conversion errors too but I think now that the object appear when you have not set something properly - it's like the plugin put some kind of dummy in here for things that are not completely wired wich is interesting because we can spot some problems this way.

Hi AgeNotFound,

Iam really impressed to see that you get things started working in Max sofar.
Can you explain me how to make a object clickable let's say: a button to open a door?
It will helped me a lot.

Wodan944

Well that's pretty simple and you can still look at the PyPrp tutorials they still largely apply.

You will need three things:

a button object
a region to detect the clickable ( a box object for instance)
a dummy for the one shot

You can look at the Pyprp anims tutorials to see how to place your objects
(one note tough the distances described in the tutorial and in the blend file do not work that well in Max. For instance I find that the height of 4 feet works better for a "Door button" than the described 3.8 blend units)

Attach to the button object a Detector>Clickable check "of Y clickable Axis" in Required region pick the object that is your region


the "one shot option" means it will only be clickable once make sure the "enabled" is checked. The bounding shape- do as you wish but as the clickable regions are mostly cubic I recommend the "box" option.
the Bounce avatar means that the clickable will have a collider (but it will only encompass the object itself so not enough if it is on a door)
A note on axis. Make sure you edit your button in "local" mode, when facing your object the Y axis should be facing you the X Axis should be on your right and the Z axis vertical -same thing for the dummy. This is important because otherwise the avatar may face the wrong direction when playing the anim

Attach a Type>Seek Point to the button object -not sure this one is absolutely necessary

Animate your button object.

I find that a 20 frames anim (in NTSC 30 frames per second) is quite good -10 frames to push 10 frames to get back in the original position.

Attach a Misc>Animation to your button object. (do not check anything in here)

Attach to your dummy object a Avatar>OneShot

Enter your anim name (ex: DoorButtonTouch) and check "use smart seek". Seek time is the time the avatar will try to face the object before wrapping in front of it.

Attach a Logic>Responder to your Button object

in detector add >your clickable

in State add>One shot
the component should be the one shot you made
the node: you will only have one object

in State add Animation>Anim Play
in Command parameter add the animation for your button
in object you have only one choice
Check the "wait for previous command" and select the OnShot
select the "marker" instead of "finish" and add the name of the callback of your anim (ex:"DoorBUttonTouch") that way your button will animate when the avie presses the button not when he is finished with the one shot.

and TADAAAA ! your button is clickable, animated and your avatar will press it with the one shot anim !



This is of course a very simple OnShot - responder only process but you can add other actions/reactions in the responder and this will be much more interesting when we figure out how to put python in there. But we need Chogon to help us with that...