[Mini Tutorial] Exporting a model from 3ds Max ingame TODO: Animation/Texturing

Hello everyone, just wanted to make a quick mini tut about how to get a model straight from 3ds max into the game. I'll add info about textures and animations once I get that stuff working.

1. ?? (Size your model in 3ds max)
*I was told that the ingame model size is supposed to reflect it's size in 3ds max, but this does not seem to be the case. I did this process with a 14.0 unit length model and a 1.4 unit length (as measured by the tape measure in 3ds max) model but both models were exactly the same size ingame. If anyone knows how to change the ingame model size, please do add your info here.

2. Merge objects into a single piece of geometry. (I personally converted to editable polys and used the "attach" tool to attach everything together)

3. *SELECT YOUR ENTIRE UNIT* (i'm not sure why, but somehow not selecting everything causes crashing.... O_O) Go to the utilities tab and click "new script" - copy this script in:

FbxExporterSetParam "Animation" false
FbxExporterSetParam "BakeAnimation" false
FbxExporterSetParam "SmoothingGroups" true
FbxExporterSetParam "TangentSpaceExport" true
FbxExporterSetParam "UpAxis" "Z"
exportFile ("Output.fbx") #noPrompt selectedOnly:true using:FBXEXP

At the end, after FBXEXP it shows a "?" mark, just delete that mark. I'm not sure why, at least in my tests, it added it.

**This script is what uber uses to export correctly to FBX without breaking stuff.

4. In your 3ds max export folder you should have an "Output.fbx" file now. Bring it over to wherever you have papatran.exe located

5. Run papatran.exe using this format:

papatran.exe --texture-mode strip -o {filename.papa} {Output.fbx}

Substitute filename.papa with whatever you want to call the output papa file.

6. This .papa file should now work. For now, if you just want to see the model ingame, go ahead and shadow a vanilla unit's papa file (however, please remember to remove any mentions of bones and animations in the unit's json file, they will make the game crash. Not sure how bones and such should be handled just yet, will be added here later after I get further). When building ingame, you should see the unit's model replaced with your own.

Yay.

Next steps:
- Ensuring the bone structure is ready to add tool/weapon bones in the unit's Json file (I do not know how to do this just yet)
- Correctly merging all of the unit's textures into one .png (not sure how this should be done yet) and then converting it correctly to the diffuse/etc.. that PA needs.
- Converting your 3ds max animations into something PA can use (and merging them into an animTree???? not sure if this is neccessary)

This same thing happens in blender if the resizing isn't "applied", so here's the instructions for blender, see if you can translate to 3ds max. Basically, resizing, translating & rotating simply set a value, rather than modifying the model itself - PA doesn't use this value, so you have to apply the value onto the model.

Images seem to be broken..

*Edit: Also.. this makes zero sense to me. I don't understand how PA can "know" the size of a model if it doesn't use the units that are measured in 3ds max. Doesn't make any sense to me.

Are they still broken? I did an edit.

You want to go to
Customise -> Units setup -> System unit setup


I been trying to figure this out as well. Currently I am still hitting the same wall as before (bones aligning to the right).

Liquius how are you seeing bones ingame? Is your model deforming ingame somehow? As far as I can see, when I export to PA there seems to be no visual problems with my model...

*Edit: Changing the system units is now causing the game to crash when trying to build the unit O_O

@raevn in dev console your images are not showing up because of a "access forbidden" error

Should be fixed now.

Yep they show now.

I run papadump or load the papa up in blender first to check if everything works.

I can get the model to show up fine in game, however issues start appearing when the unit aims or an animation plays. No matter what I have tried, I have never been able to get around the issue of every bone aligning to the right.

I have no idea what I did but now the model that was previously working is just crashing the game. Client log says "crash" and that's pretty much it lol. Man this is going to be such a headache to get working..

@liquius did the export scripts from bgolus not help with the animations?

Can you zip & attach the .papa file?

I haven't tried with the animation script. Seeing as the model script didn't change anything, I suspect the core problem will stay the same.

@raevn it crashes when I neglect to select the geometry when exporting. It's going through fine now.

@liquius how exactly were you able to change the scale on models in 3ds max? Do you need to change the units/inch or such? I can't see anything in the system units dialog that hints about changing the actual size of a model in it's file.

You need to change model size in 3ds Max, there is no code snippet for it (Not even internally!) But you must not change your bone sizes, only geometry.

I'm unclear how to change geometry sizes while not affecting the animations I have used my bones to create...

You could do it after the fact using Cola's rescale tool: https://forums.uberent.com/threads/rel-rescalepa-converter-to-create-smaller-units.64462/

That would be great.. if it didn't crash replays on the server

This really seems like a bad idea considering i'm barely getting these custom models in the game without crashing everything as is.