Making 3D Game Production Faster
Using Scripting in 3D Studio Max#
Augustine John
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
1
Augustine John
Sr. Technical Artist, Indiagames Ltd.#
He has been in the graphics industry for 11 years – before
joining Indiagames 4 years ago.
He started his 3D career doing modelling and rigging, and has
lead the 3D character art team. He has been instrumental in
streamlining the production pipeline – developing 3D Studio
Max scripts and plug-ins for the artists.
Currently as a Senior Technical Artist, he contributes his
experience to Indiagames proprietary ICE 3D# platform.
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
2
Agenda
• Short Introduction to Maxscript
• Maxscript in action
– Modeling
– Animation
– Exporting
– Level Design
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
3
What is Maxscript?
•Maxscript is the built-in scripting
language for 3Ds Max
•Allows to control 3Ds Max
•Allows to customize and extend 3Ds max
user interfaces
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
4
Maxscript in Action
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
5
Modeling & Texturing
•Texture Finder
– Assigns the latest texture from the specified
folder and its sub-folders
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
6
Modeling & Texturing
•Adjust UV
– Transforms the UV as specified
256 x 256 texture
Resized to 128 x 128
* Texture from Project Asoka
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
7
Modeling & Texturing
•Change Texture Format
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
8
Animation
•Problem faced
– Change in Bone Count or Hierarchy
– Change in Character’s Proportion
– Change in Character’s Overall Dimensions
– Animator’s file may be initial rough model
•So, animator has to
– Save all the animations one-by-one
– Load these animation files into the final model
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
9
Animation
• Batch Save and Load Animations
Batch save ‘bip files’ from max
files
Batch load ‘bip files’ on finalized
model
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
10
Exporting
• Process for our earlier MascotCapsule v3 rendering
engine in our game development pipeline
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
All animations 1st frame be positioned at x = 0 & y = 0
Insert a new 1st frame common for all animations
Export this max file to fbx format (This process is to save data)
Import the fbx file
Change the fps as required for the target phone
Adjust the ‘main key poses’ – which may be lost in fps reduction
Collapse the trajectory to 1 key per frame
Place BAC axis in (0,0,0) to take care of y-z axis and origin.
At last, export the file to bac and tra
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
11
Exporting
• Approx. export time per
animation manually =
4 minutes
(Ignoring the potential human errors)
• Impractical to export manually
• Approx. export time per
animation using script =
8 seconds
(Plus gives detailed report with
errors and warnings)
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
12
Level Design
•Level Editor (Predator)
Level Editor used for the mobile game “3D Predator: Bad Blood”
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
13
Uses of Maxscript
•Automate repetitive tasks
– For e.g.. Batch save & load animations
•Simplify the workflow
– For e.g.. Save and load biped animations script
•Export assets for game programmers
– For e.g.. Level editor, Camera exporter
•Eliminates the human error
•‘Time’ factor – faster job completion
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
14
How to learn Maxscript?
•Maxscript documentation
•Study others’ scripts from sites like
www.scriptspot.com
•Search / ask questions in online forums
•DVD video tutorials
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
15
Questions & Answers
Thank You!
NAGFO Game Developer Webinar Series
Copyright© 2009 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved. #Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
16