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[KevinLongtime]

Hey Shawn, sorry if this is a somewhat laziness based question on my end; just started working full time and I have less time that I did before to play around with (I did try and install it in 3DSMax2013, but there doesn't seem to be an SMD exporter for 2013 yet), I was just wondering if the Wall worm Model Tools (or an SMD exporter) was stable or supported on Max 2013 before I begin trying everything possible to get it working. I'm on my laptop computer right now, which doesn't have all my old programs on it, but I'm really dying to import some of my new models into Source for the new Source Filmmaker to create some renders!

[wallworm]

Well yes WW works in 2013. And it has a built-in SMD exporter now. So it works right out of the box.

I'm still hoping Wunderboy will a release an update to his exporter sometime for 2013 as his exporter works faster than the WW one. But until then, you can still export with WW in 2013. Make sure to update to Product Update 2 for the Hull tools. There is a bug I've found in Product Update 3, however, that messes up DirectX Shaders... which affects the displacements in WW.

[KevinLongtime]

Ahh, very cool that the exporter is now built in and working on 2013 :) Thank you sir! Saves me a bit of trial and error knowing this ahead of time lol. It was probably announced or in the docs, but I've just been away from everything computer related for the most part for months (and hadnt done much things model related for even longer), so I've been a bit behind on everything lol.

[KevinLongtime]

Well, that's a bummer.

Looks like I'm back to square one with the normals smoothing issue from Maya to Max again like I was having before Wunderboy corrected it in his SMD exporter beta a long time ago for Max 2012. Looks like I need to get ahold of max2012 again.

I must say though, very nice updates since I have used it last! Feels like it got a huge polish in functionality

[wallworm]

Well send me an example model and I will see if there is anything I can do to add supoort into the WWMT SMD Exporter.

[KevinLongtime]

Alright, example scene sent! Thanks for taking the time to see if you can correct it:)

The example scene I included is straight from Maya to Max via the send function between both programs, which I finally got to work. No in-between exporting and importing to complicate things. After reading Wunderboy’s responses again, seems it might be the “alternative normals” route or something along those lines which might need attention because my smoothing is going away completely as he describes here:

”The SMD exporter does actually have a "Use alternate normals method" option which uses different code for exporting the smoothing. By default it looks for the auto-generated normals from the smoothing groups but if you've got explicit normals, these don't export and you get a faceted looking model. That's when you should try the alternate normals method. That looks for explicit normals and exports those instead.”
http://www.wallworm.net/index.php/topic,100.0.html

[wallworm]

So I put some thought into this hoping that I'd have support for it in the next release (that I may put out this weekend)... but it's actually a little more complex than I thought it would be. I sent an email to Wunderboy to see if he's got time to share some input on the calculation... but he has been hard to reach these days.

I will look at it again next week if I haven't heard from him.

[KevinLongtime]

Alright, thanks for trying Shawn.

Late reply due to my motherboard finally getting fixed on my laptop after 2 months of no computer lol.

[wallworm]

Well at least you're back! :)

I still haven't got the answer to this yet. If I had unlimited time and resources I'd probably have solved it by now. But the little time I seem to have lately has me adding little tidbits here and there that help me in the levels I'm working on. Since I don't use Maya or other apps... the dilemma never pops up for me.

Still... I'll get around to it at some point.

[KevinLongtime]

It's understandable, no worries. I'm in no rush as I am focusing on saving up for an apartment for the past few months. Once I get my own place I can then hook up my desktop and use the old version of Max installed on it for this. Once you figure it out or wunderboy replies, I can then use it on here (laptop) as a luxury.

[wallworm]

Kevin, please download WWMT 1.87 and see if you can now export models properly you've brought in from Maya. Test raw models. It should just work now...

[wallworm]

OK... so 1.87 did not solve this, nor 1.871. But the next version will work. However, I need to speed it up since it is currently very slow. I'll play with is for a bit this morning... I will have it out either today or this weekend.

[KevinLongtime]

Sounds great; looking forward to it!

[wallworm]

Sounds great; looking forward to it!

The explicit normal version is very slow. But I have found a way to make it fast... but have a couple other fixes... so expect the update either tonight or this weekend to make it run faster using that method.

[KevinLongtime]

Ahh, beautiful!:


Finally working, and working great! A bit slow yeah as you said, but I'm not too worried because I can at atleast get some correct edges exported out now. Once you workout the speed, should be amazing! Thank you sir :D