Hi, a little bit confused, 3DS max, tools.

[redstar_dan]

Hi all,

 

I have just purchased the Indie version from steam of Leadwerks, and not sure if I should had purchased the pre-order of 3.1 instead.

 

I am very knowledgeable in 3ds max, I use it for architectural work and have worked in the games industry in the past as a 3d artist. Im hoping this will make my life a lot easier with Leadwerks.

 

I have no idea how to use Leadwerks, but that is to be expected at this point as I need to look at many tutorials.

That said, I watched one video, that talks about a tool called;

'Leadwerks tools 2.1 for 3ds max'.

it states that you can find the tool in the download section of Werkspace from leadwerks.com

 

I cant for the life of me find the 'download' section in Werkspace. Do I need to somehow link the indie version of leadwerks to my account on here?

Should I had spent the money on 3.1 instead?

 

I am a bit confused and lost right now.

Hope someone can point me in the right direction.

[redstar_dan]

So I managed to find the download link via some searching on here, but once i got to the link, it states I dont have permission.

 

How do I gain permissions to download?

[Rastar]

Very likely that was a pretty old video you found... There are no Leadwerks plugins for 3DS max and no 3DS plugins for Leadwerks. There is however a converter for fbx files, so you can export your models in that format from 3DS Max can then just drag and drop them in to the project folder. Leadwerks will detect those new files (and also when you update them) and automatically to its own internal format (which has the extension *.mdl).

 

EDIT: You stil have the status "Member", to download you need to be a "Developer". Maybe you used a different e-mail in the forums than for purchasing on Steam? You might contact Josh and ask him to üpgrade" you.

[Kavex]

Their wouldn't be any tools like this for 3.1 at this point (Steam version is 3.1 without c++)

 

As far as I know you can just export .fbx from 3ds max and import it right into leadwerks if you are looking to import a model

[redstar_dan]

Ok, excellent, thanks!

 

So with 3ds max, I tend to use Vray as a render engine, and I use Vray materials for my scenes. Can I by any chance use materials like that when exporting?

Do I need to apply, more specific materials to be compatible when i export?

If so, would it be something like tif, bmp, type formats?

 

Also with scale, I normally work in Millimetres in 3ds max when creating geometry. When I export out, do I need to change scales? How do I make sure my geometry is the right scale to a human person, or the height of the game character in the editior.

 

Sorry for these basic questions.

[Rastar]

You can't directly import materials from other programs, at least not that I'm aware of. You can, however, easily import the textures, most of the standard formats (like jpg, png, tif) will work. Again, you can just drag and drop them in to a suitable folder in your Leadwerks project. Leadwerks will make an educated guess using the texture's name if this is a diffuse, normal or specular map.

 

So, the easiest way to create a material for your model is:

1. create a folder for the material and drag you textures there.
    
   
2. The textures should have a base name and contain "diffuse", "normal" or "specular", e.g. "stone_diffuse.png", "stone_normal.png", "stone_specular.png" (some other names should work as well, e.g. diff, norm, dot3, spec etc.
    
   
3. Right-click a texture and select "Generate material".
    
   
4. Choose a shader that suits your needs.
   

You can assign the textures to models in the model explorer (double-click the model to open it) by, again, just dragging the material onto the corresponding surfaces of the model.

[redstar_dan]

your a star, thanks