3D Studio Max BAT Version 2 Released !!

[CycleDogg 130]

The primary color thing, as shown in budman01's pic, is probably an incorrect TGI.  If the TGI's of the new .fsh files don't match the TGI's of original .fsh files in the .Sc4Model file, you will get those primary color squares.  The TGI's could be incorrect if a wrong number was entered into either the Group ID box or the Model ID box in 3dsmax.  Also, if you rerender the LODs in gmax, you will have to do a rerender in 3dsmax using the new Group and Model ID numbers.  If you simply try to insert the .fsh files from the previous render, the TGI's will be incorrect, the Lot Editor (or Rush Hour) won't be able to find the .fsh files it thinks belong with the model, and will stick out it's primary color tongue at you instead.  Also, if the .fsh files were moved to a different directory without their corresponding .TGI files prior to being inserted into the .Sc4Model, they will end up with incorrect TGI's and you will get the dreaded primary colors.

 

By the sounds of it, the new ilive command line thing should help eliminate most of these errors.  (Thanks ilive and Ralphael.)

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date: 6/24/2004 7:41:19 PM
Author: RalphaelNinja

Just an update, for those who have been following this 3dsMax BAT thread, ilive has provided us with a batch program (DatCmd) that allows us to delete and reinsert fsh files from an SC4Model file from a command line. This means that for repetive work, setting up a batch file will reduce the time even further.

There will be a future update to the 3dsMax Bat scripts to include the following:

- immediate availability of the bat render on startup rather then clicking on runscript. The random window picker/rename works very nicely with 3dsMax on startup.

- executing of the fsh building batch within the scripts, combined with ilive's DatCmd to have a one step render, or separate buttons for each step.

- an advance rollout to allow independant rendering of sides, thus you can save some time by rendering only the front (if that is all that has changed) or have four completely different views of the same building.

- preview button, possibly even all 4 sides in 4 different window

In addition, I have also found programs that allows me to export from gMax and import into 3dsMax (materials are lost). These tools will probably be included in the next release of 3dsMax Bat.

quote>

Update: the rollouts are now immediately accessible on 3ds startup. Adding checking for 3ds max version so that we can have one script instead of two.

I notice that there may be 104 3ds Max user out there (or perhaps only 50 since we had to download the scripts twice  ). Although I am cleaning up the scripts as above mainly for my own personal usage, how many are there out there that will be interested? As well as how many wish to be a part of the 3ds BATT Squad team? Of course the requirements are that you must be 3ds savy and you are or have built models that are available on the STEX. Post below on who is using 3ds as well as who would like to be on the 3ds BATT Squad team? (some merit must be provened though )

Cycledogg you mentioned another participant, I would like to honor you and the other with a deserving label.

Ralphael

[GrampaAl 76]

I would like to nominate CouchPotato who has 3dsMax ver 6.0 (or possibly 5.0) and has provided many props for us to use on our lots.

I have uploaded at least 4 entire paks of props that she has created for use by the fellow lot makers here at ST.

I feel she is a real asset to our community as well.

Nominated by: GrampaAl

[mikeyb66 30]

Where is the new update availalbe from Ralphael? The one on the mods page is still the last version. Hope I didn't rwead wrong and that it isn't actually released yet, maybe it's just the anticapation playing with my brain.

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Just seeing who is still interested....

I'm still working on the scripts and your interest will help its development further. Cycledogg added a lot of features and they all have to be isolated into functions; so it will take a bit of time and perhaps longer if no one else is interested since my interest has been wavering too

GrampaAl, thanks for the nomination, but I'm not looking for just members that just needs recognition of which Couchpotatoe deserves. I am looking for volunteers and if Couchpotatoe is willing to get down and dirty with 3dsMax, such as seeking techniques on how best to utilize the tools that we have, she is more then welcome to join the few. A 3ds Batt team would be nice for simtropolis as it can raise the quality of models with a team that is willing to share their techniques; raytracing, Lighting, bump mapping, reflection, refractions, scripting etc.

So far we got two.....

Ralphael

[ak-ak-adak 0]

RalphaelNinja & co,

With your 3D Max BAT, I may revive my Houston Toyota Arena project cause it's encouraging to know, from what I've read, that rendering time is improved dramatically with your BAT! I've also been working on a Wendy's Restaurant building/lot also.

It's too bad your 3D Max BAT doesn't work in 3D Studio Viz, which is an offshoot of 3D Max. Nevertheless, you & many others here @ Simtropolis have dramatically improved Simcity 4 in almost every aspect, & I thank you all for that!

So, please don't waver from your pansionate quest for continued game improvements & modifications.

[frogface 352]

how about a rendering service for those of us who dont have 3ds max?

this could be an addition to the bsc project? for those projects that get admitted they could be rerended in 3ds to take advantage of the extra features. just an idea

[SUICO 129]

WOW This is why Simtropolis is so good!!! I will get a copy of the 3ds studio 6 NOT vis today to learn a bit and maybe make better batts now. Hope this works fine for me. That's why I love Simtropolis!!! 

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date: 6/21/2004 11:58:15 PM
Author:

It's great to hear that it's working in 6!

Speaking of those who have contributed to this . . . I should probably mention (and probably should have mentioned sooner) that Couchpotato has been an important inspiration and contributor to this project. Without her, there would be no 3dsmax bat.

quote>

Couchpotatoe, it seems that you have been nominated twice, so you are definitely a volunteer now .

Frogface, do check with Vlakhaas and Couchpotatoe as re-rendering in 3dsmax would definitely raise the quality of our bat lots tremendously and as a service the most likely team to offer it would be our Batt Squad Certification team. The only downfall at this time is that the meager utility that I have found to export from gMax to 3dsMax requires that we reapply the materials and lights.

rubik3, al-al-adak, SUICO, it may be possible that the latest scripts may work with Viz since I removed the utility startup definition. Keep your eyes peeled for the next release so that we can solicit your viz testing.

Ralphael

[rubik3 116]

http://www.viz2000.com/html/link/viz-linkanmt.html

 

It's a site about Viz but most of the info is related to Max as well.

 

rubik3, al-al-adak, SUICO, it may be possible that the latest scripts may work with Viz since I removed the utility startup definition. Keep your eyes peeled for the next release so that we can solicit your viz testing.

 

Well I just got my hands on Max 6 so I'm now able to use the current version of the BAT.  But if you'd like i'll keep testing it with Viz.

[ak-ak-adak 0]

RalphaelNinja,
That's great! Looking forward to your next release!!

rubik3,
Looking forward to seeing your 3D Max &/or Viz models, notably the Twin Towers! I'll try & test with Viz also.

[SUICO 129]

Hey, I have the 3ds studio max 6.0 now. I am impressed , it looks almost the same as gmax. Of course, almost of you already knew that, but I didn

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date: 6/26/2004 5:16:46 PM
Author:

Hey, I have the 3ds studio max 6.0 now. I am impressed , it looks almost the same as gmax. Of course, almost of you already knew that, but I didn´t. I imagine it can do much more things than gmaxbut I ll still need to learn a lot before I release something on it. Cycledog and Ralphael, thanks for this research and implementation effort.

I have a couple of questions after installing it. Why we do have to export the lods with gmax to take the group and instance? Can´t we use the ilive instance generator? I hope this process can be made easier because there is a lot of experts on 3ds studio who might be interested in making bats for simcity if you experts on this project are able to simplify the export processfromthe model to the simcity format model. Again I have to say congratulations!

quote>

Much more thanks to cycledogg, gourou and couchpotato then I. They had the foresight and hindsight to accomplish this.

As to the LODs, the final piece of the puzzle is left to either ilive or Darkmatter to generate the required S3D files that provides the poly shell and relate all the fsh files together. It may be as simple as saving the LODS as a 3ds file and asking another standalone ilive program to generate the S3D files.

Ralphael

[rubik3 116]

Well I have another challenge for you guys...and it shouldn't be that tough.  It's mostly a productivity issue but it would be a massive time saver for me.  In both versions of the bat (Gmax and Max) the renderer doesn't check the status of a nitelite before including it in the scene (i.e. it won't use it's on/off status and it will render it on no matter what).  It would be nice if we could set a nitelite off and actually have it not render in the preview.  I haven't worked with maxscript before but it shouldn't be much harder than adding another if/then statement after the initial nitelite statement in the building mill script.

 

[budman01 2]

Date: 6/26/2004 6:51:47 PM
Author:RalphaelNinja

I notice that there may be 104 3ds Max user out there (or perhaps only 50 since we had to download the scripts twice ). Although I am cleaning up the scripts as above mainly for my own personal usage, how many are there out there that will be interested?

quote>

Sorry, I cheked back to late. I'm a little bit busy! I think my qualification for a Squad is not enough. But since I'm using and get better and better with 3ds, I'm very interested in having this script. I tried the others and all of them work fine with me, and I'm in use of them.

I've little problems with the renders (they are not 'edged' enough), but I'm sure, I'll find something to do against this!

So please keep up working with this script. Here in Germany it's needed!

[budman01 2]

Date: 6/26/2004 12:46:30 PM
Author:RalphaelNinja
The only downfall at this time is that the meager utility that I have found to export from gMax to 3dsMax requires that we reapply the materials and lights.

Ralphael

quote>

Have you seen this Tool or Tutorial? I think, it exports from gmax to 3ds with textures.

Look here

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date:6/29/2004 3:37:58 PM
Author:budman01

Have you seen this Tool or Tutorial? I think, it exports from gmax to 3ds with textures.

Look here

quote>

I saw the explorer version and I didn't like the fact that it was a demo tool and not the full version.

To All,

Version 2.0 of BATforMax is out and available in the modd section. Updates to it includes:

- automated one step process to render and update the SC4Model file. (thanks to ilive's new DatCmd program).
- BATforMax is now immediately available as a rollout on the command panels.
- included simtropolis Tools V1.04
- included MD3 gMax export and MD3 3dsMax import programs; allowing you to export from gMax and import into 3dsMax.
- SC4Model name saved with your scene in the file properties.
- fixed listing of NightWindows so that all materials in the night window directory are listed (previously only 3 were listed)
- independant rendering directories allowing you to work with multiple models

It will be appreciated, if everyone test this version out and report their success or failure back in this thread. I will be eager to hear whether the latest version works with Viz.

There are still a few more items on the wishlist which are do-able but is just a matter of time...
1. preview (one or multiple sides)
2. low,med res rendering
3. multiple batch QUE processing (this is now feasible with independant directories for rendering)
4. single side rendering

Your participation on this thread will ensure the future development

Ralphael

[Caliban 2]

Update sounds great

I'll give it a whirl in Max6.

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date:7/1/2004 8:59:46 AM
Author:Caliban

Update sounds great

I'll give it a whirl in Max6.

quote>

How is it whirling in 6? anyone tried it in Viz yet?

[Ryanr 15]

It's working pretty well here with 6. I've only had two problems. One model keeps failing to export with error 6, but I think that's my fault and not the scripts. Also the delete output files doesn't seem to be working. It runs deltree, but it doesn't delete anything. Also the deltree version you included in the download does work with xp ntfs. FYI: XP include a deltree like command, rmdir /s or rd /s.

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date:7/1/2004 4:47:19 PM
Author:Ryanr

It's working pretty well here with 6. I've only had two problems. One model keeps failing to export with error 6, but I think that's my fault and not the scripts. Also the delete output files doesn't seem to be working. It runs deltree, but it doesn't delete anything. Also the deltree version you included in the download does work with xp ntfs. FYI: XP include a deltree like command, rmdir /s or rd /s.

quote>

thanks....

Originally, deltree was suppose to delete the whole outputfile directory, however with inidividual scene sub-directories (added in only within the last day or so), you need the model name, files generated in the outputfiles\modelname before you will see only the modelname sub-directory removed. I'll check it again tonight to make sure it is working as stated...

I was wondering what happened to deltree in xp  The last time I used deltree was in 1946

Ralphael

[jestarr 3,410]

Date: 7/1/2004 4:47:19 PM
Author:
It's working pretty well here with 6. I've only had two problems. One model keeps failing to export with error 6, but I think that's my fault and not the scripts. Also the delete output files doesn't seem to be working. It runs deltree, but it doesn't delete anything. Also the deltree version you included in the download does work with xp ntfs. FYI: XP include a deltree like command, rmdir /s or rd /s.

quote>

As I understand it, rmdir or rd, can only be run from a command prompt.
To use it with this program, I'd think you'd have to run it from a .bat
file (or for XP NTFS a .cmd file). Perhaps putting it in the script to
replace deltree.exe?

jestarr

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date:7/1/2004 7:59:11 PM
Author:jestarr

Date: 7/1/2004 4:47:19 PM
Author:
It's working pretty well here with 6. I've only had two problems. One model keeps failing to export with error 6, but I think that's my fault and not the scripts. Also the delete output files doesn't seem to be working. It runs deltree, but it doesn't delete anything. Also the deltree version you included in the download does work with xp ntfs. FYI: XP include a deltree like command, rmdir /s or rd /s.

quote>

As I understand it, rmdir or rd, can only be run from a command prompt.
To use it with this program, I'd think you'd have to run it from a .bat
file (or for XP NTFS a .cmd file). Perhaps putting it in the script to
replace deltree.exe?

jestarr

quote>

Yes, you are correct that it will need a .bat file to run rmdir, since the command is a part of XP CMD rather then a standalone program. Hopefully since deltree.exe does work with XP NTFS, it should work with MAX 6 since the other parts of the dos shell script is working; if not, we can put a conditional for Max 6.

I just re-tested the logic for deleting the working fsh file directory and it does work as stated for Max 4.2/5.1. The model filename must be specified as well as the modelname subdirectory with fsh files must exist in Outputfiles before the script for deltree will work (safety checks ).

Ralphael

[couchpotato 8]

I had that error 6 briefly.  Make sure when you import your LODs into GMax that 'convert units' is NOT checked. 

[Ryanr 15]

Clear Output files does work as expected now. I didn't realize that the .fsh files need to be in there. When I was testing it before I had not created the made the fsh files.

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date:7/2/2004 8:43:06 PM
Author:Ryanr

Clear Output files does work as expected now. I didn't realize that the .fsh files need to be in there. When I was testing it before I had not created the made the fsh files.

quote>

nods to that one... the logic was checking for the exitence of the files within the directory. No files therefore no directory  

Anyways, I would like to encourage those who are using BatforMax to post their results, pictures, success, failures, Oddities, Newdities .

Anything to either encourage cycledogg, myself or others to continue to add or correct the scripts.

Ralphael

[ak-ak-adak 0]

Ralphael/cycledogg et al.,

I've had recent computer problems, so I was unable to test. I'm also considering building a new computer with an industrial strength graphics card specific for cad. I will begin testing as soon as possible.

?: Are u guys going to develop your BatforMax/(possiblyViz) even further as to include most, if not all gmaxBAT utility functions?

[RalphaelNinja 244]

 

Date:7/3/2004 10:32:11 AM
Author:ak-ak-adak

Ralphael/cycledogg et al.,

I've had recent computer problems, so I was unable to test. I'm also considering building a new computer with an industrial strength graphics card specific for cad. I will begin testing as soon as possible.

?: Are u guys going to develop your BatforMax/(possiblyViz) even further as to    include most, if not all gmaxBAT utility functions?

quote>

Waiting for someone with Viz to try it out? I've removed the MAXScript startup so there may be a possibility that it will work with Viz since it is a 3dsmax based.

The only other gMax function that needs creating is a preview renderer and a S3D generator (which I have asked ilive to check into). Once these are completed, we could potentially have a standalone 3dsmax BAT

Ralphael

[Ryanr 15]

Ok, I'm having problems agian, I must be the problem child . When I try and render a building it keeps giving me export errors. The strange thing is the error number changes if I remove of add an object to the scene. Ussually it is some where in betweer 24 and 34. Also when I render just a box for a test it works.

[RalphaelNinja 244]

Date:7/3/2004 2:24:23 PM
Author:Ryanr

Ok, I'm having problems agian, I must be the problem child . When I try and render a building it keeps giving me export errors. The strange thing is the error number changes if I remove of add an object to the scene. Ussually it is some where in betweer 24 and 34. Also when I render just a box for a test it works.

quote>

Remember that this package really hangs together with strings and mirrors  so keeping the model simple is the first step. Watch out for multimaterials by simplifying them. Using a backup copy, try removing all materials to see if you are having any problems with the objects themselves (most likely not but it is always good to check). Add or subtract materials, objects, lights, nightlight, until you find the problem object and determine what is unique with it, which will give us a good idea what we can or can not do. Cycledogg may have more to add.

Post your problem object or resolution when you find it

Ralphael