3D Studio Max BAT Version 2 Released !!

[ak-ak-adak 0]

I'm having a problem getting a sharper more detailed rendering from 3D Max. If u notice the pics below, the building I'm test rendering is blur & not very detailed, and it has been rendered using 3D MAx's default render settings. I tried tinkering with the render settings but, after rendering, the building simply didn't appear in the Lot Editor.

Does anyone know how I could increase the quality/sharpness? Thanks.

[CycleDogg 130]

Sorry I've been away for so long.
I'll take a shot at answering some of the questions that seem to relate to the original bat for max scripts. (I haven't had time to look at the changes made to the program since then, and probably wouldn't understand them anyway).


Ak-ak-ak: If you are using 3dsmax version 5.0 or later, if you go to the render dialogue, find the anti-alias settings and change the anti-alias type to Catmull-Rom, it should render more sharply. There are quite a few other options besides Catmull-Rom that you might want to experiment with as well.


oppie: is that a nitelite shining on the building? (the reason I ask is it looks almost like 3dsmax's default lighting - which kicks in whenever there is no light in the scene). If you rotate the building, is the lighting equally bright in all four rotations?


Equinox: When you import the LODS into gmax, make sure the convert units box is unchecked. (In the picture, it looks like your LODS may too large to render.)


Jeorg: If nothing else works and you have to insert the .fsh files manually into the .sc4model file, it isn't difficult to do. It should take the same about of time (less than 2 minutes) whether it is 4 fsh files or 400 fsh files, (unless something has changed with the program and it is no longer saving all the fsh files to the Outputfiles directory?)

[ak-ak-adak 0]

CycleDogg,

Thank u for your reply.

The problem I've encountered when I experimented with the the anti-alias in the raytracer settings tools is that my model no longer appears in the lot editor after rendering. A complete blank. I checked to see if the fsh files had the model views & they did. This is a serious stumper for me @ the moment.

I'd appreciate if anyone using 3D Max could post their render settings. Thanks.

[xannepan 513]

I used bat4max succesfully this weekend! Great. The only thing I can't get to work is using the night-library even though in the export roll-out it says it has loaded the library. THe problem is that the night texture doesn't show during night.

I'm just wondering if anyone has experience with this. Any advice is welcome.

Second question; does bat4max allow to have alpha textures? And does this allow to make transparent lightcone props, like maxis lightcones?

Finally, I noticed that when I had 3dsmax6 installed under 'Program Files' it didn't work (probably the space in the path name?). When executing the BATCH I got an error (which you can't read btw since the command screen auto-closes). When 3dsmax was installed in c:\ or d:\ this is solved

-Xannepan

[ak-ak-adak 0]

I beleive I found the problem I have with my model not appearing in the lot editor.

 

Two of the four views bmp images in zoom 3 are 63 x 32 in size. They are supposed to be square, aren't they? If so, is this a bug? Here's a pic of 2 of the 4 bmp's:

 

 

I created a 64 x64 black box in PSP then pasted the bmp into it, making sure to align both tops of the defective 64 x 32 files & the created 64 x 64 box. That didn't work. I believe I need to tinker with the TGI & fsh files too. Any help/advice would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[frogface 352]

where can i find the deltree.exe ? or is it okay to use the one supplied by the program?

[CycleDogg 130]

xannepan: In order for the night library material to show up in the game at night, it must be a self-illuminated material, or have a self-illumination map assigned to it. (If using a self-illumination map, only the portion of the self-illumination map that is white, or nearly white, will show up in the game at night.)

As far as I know, materials with non-100% opacity should work for making lightcones. They wouldn't actually be able to light up other objects in the game, of course.


That's a good point about the Program Files directory. I bet you are right about the space in the path name causing problems.


ak-ak-adak: you've probably figured it out by now, but the pictures don't need to be square, so that's not the problem.

[ak-ak-adak 0]

CycleDogg,

Thanks for your reply.

The problem for me is, once I changed the anti-alias type to Catmull-Rom, or another type, my model would no longer show up in Lot Editor. So, I don't know what's happening with the model after rendering with the changed anti-alias settings, but it's just not happening for me. It's too bad. Because of the problem I've had with rendering in Max, I decided to shelve the models I've been working on.

[CycleDogg 130]

sorry to hear that, ak-ak-adak. I don't think the antialias setting by itself could be causing the problem. There must be some other factor involved. Looks like it is rendering OK, but something isn't working right when it puts together the .sc4model file. If you look at the .sc4model file in the reader or datgen, do the fsh files show up with the correct Group and Instance numbers?

[eddiem 2]

Hi.
I've tried 3dsmaxBAT recently and 1st time round the model shows up in LE no problem. If I then go back to modify it all that's in LE is a red,green and blue box (LOD size).Any ideas?
Cheers.
Eddie.
ps What is deltree.exe supposed to delete?

[CycleDogg 130]

Maybe somehow when you are modifying, you are affecting the type, group, or instance numbers of your FSH files. The red, green and blue stuff shows up when the TGIs of the FSH files don't match the references to them in the S3D files.
(I think deltree is supposed to delete temporary folders created during the render process.)

[Djohaal 121]

After I got everything in my 3dsbat up and running, I did a test pumpkin to see if it worked and here is what I got:

I checked the DIR files and all values matched the ones of the .sc4 model
Any idea on what may be happening?

EDIT:
After changing my PC's clock to november 1st, deleting the BAT for max folder, changing the model to NOT be underground, making an open mesh and some more stuff, it worked
The error, as raphael stated, seems to be random, changing the clock, re-scaling and changing playing around with the LODs seems to help

[tim_de_great 15]

Date: 9/10/2004 10:21:47 AM
Author: frogface
where can i find the deltree.exe ? or is it okay to use the one supplied by the program?

quote>

I was wondering about the same thing. I can't find one on my computer and I won't use the one supplied by you guys because I have a FAT32 hard-drive. I also can't find it on my windows XP CD (can you give me a directory it can be found in on the CD). Thanks

[RalphaelNinja 244]

use the one that is supplied tim_de_great. It was used succesfully on my xp/fat32.

Ralphael

[NintendoMaster128 30]

Is BAT for 3Ds MAX 7 available?  I don't really want to have to go get another version...

[kd5rax 82]

I am sure this has already been asked but i cannot find it on the thread (it's 8 PAGES long).  Can anyone explain in detail how you activate the _night library.  The render thing says that no libraries are loaded even though i just merged them.  Is there anyother way to load a library, how do i get it to work?

[couchpotato 8]

NintendoMaster128, Bat4Max should work with version 7. CycleDogg has Max version 4.2 and his program works with all available versions of Max to date. Let us know if it works for you

[bourneid 13]

though I havnt tried it with night-windows and all..I did get it to exsport sevel differnt models, diffrent sizes with Max7

[+Guest]

Just thought I'd say that it works in 3dsmax 7. Still, the entire process is very tedious and whatnot. I wish I knew the dynamics of exporting so I could just make a 3dsmax plugin. I'd need the Max SDK for that, but coding it wouldn't be so hard I guess, since discreet has a repository of information about its SDK. Bah, oh well. I just can't stand gmax, but I would probably settle more for just modeling in 3dsmax and importing the mesh(es) into gmax to finish it off. Still, I want to give Max BAT a few more times just to see if it will go faster after I know all of the steps out of habit.

[Djohaal 121]

IDEA!!!!
Well, I don't know if anyone had this idea yet about the nitewindow bug, but what about selecting all the nite windows and merging them into a single mesh?
They would be counted as a single object, and *perhaps* skip the damned bug
Another idea (that I'm testing right now) is to use the night libraries to do the nitelites.

[swi21 0]

Hello guys!

I want to thank you for this realy cool tool you provide us! I am so happy to use BAT under 3ds max!

However, I have a question...

I experienced an ERROR CODE 22 and can't understand why, when rendering... I think it is after the end of the 4x zoom... Do you have any idea?

[Djohaal 121]

My only guess would be (again) the night lights bug (no more than 30 night windows and 7 lights) Try rendering with everytihng hidden/turned off. If it sitll persists, contact your reseller

actually it can be either the lights bug OR the classic error, search the forums for a thread about the error codes, it is somwhere I'm too lazy to search

[swi21 0]

I don't think it's the number of night windows.. must be something else, but it's true, i took off the 2 night windows i had and it's ok now.. that's quite bad news..........

[Djohaal 121]

try making the windows with night libraries, name the material neon (for instance, keep the NEO prefix) and then place the zoom 3 bitmap texture on the material's self illumination and diffuse, and voila, you have a night window texture

[tim_de_great 15]

I have been trying to make a sunken lot pool in the BAT for 3DS Max.  The only problem is that whenever I try to export it about 3/4 the way through I get an error.  Here is what it looks like.

 

 

I'm not sure why it always does this, but it only happened after I added the deck.  Perhaps the deck is to large, or could it be that I converted it (the deck) into an editable poly, or maybe my computer isn't just good enough?  Could anyone help, because this sure is annoying .  Thanks.

[couchpotato 8]

Well, I haven't seen this error. But based on your left view, it looks like the model might be too large. Four 1x1 lot tiles wide is a huge object. But then other huge buildings have rendered ok in Max.

converted it (the deck) into an editable poly This shouldn't have had an impact on your rendering. In fact, it's a good thing to convert your splines to mesh or poly before rendering.

[tim_de_great 15]

Actually couchpotato, my building isn't that big, rather I just changed the grid to appear at every 1 unit instead of 10.

[timo 15]

Hi

I'm thinking about using 3dsmax instead of gmax, but a few things remain unclear to me... So I checked this thread, wich looks full of info. But it's too long for me to read at the moment! I don't really have time to read 8 pages for now... So maybe someone can answer these simple questions (basically I just need 3 yes/no answers...) :

 

- Is the 3dsmax BAT plugin downloadable from this thread ? (I didn't find it yet)

- Can I open *.gmax files with 3dsmax ?

- Is rendering really faster with 3dsmax ?

 

Sorry if those have been answered before. If the answers are yes yes yes, I'll find time to read this thread further...

[Djohaal 121]

Timo:
no - it is on the modding files section
no - you need to convert them using a program, never poked with that though.
yes - 3dsmax render is surely faster

[CycleDogg 130]

Wow lots of activity here all of a sudden.[:0]
Code 22 means that it got through all of the zoom 5 renders OK, and 3 out of the 4 zoom 4 renders. I'm not having much luck coming up with reasons why it would hang up at the 4th zoom 4 render. You might try deleting everything in the gamepacks\BAT\Outputfiles directory before rendering and see if that helps.

It shouldn't have anything to do with number of nightwindows/nitelites. I just did a test export with 400 nightwindows and 100 nitelites and it worked fine.

kd5rax: you must first create and save a material library, with a name ending in either -night or _night (all lowercase). Then, before you render, you must load this material library. (Type M to get to the material editor, then Material->Get Material then, in the Material/Map Browser highlight the Browse from: Mtl Library radio button, then, below that, hit the File: Open button, then choose the material library (with a name ending in _night or -night) that you previously saved. The message on the rollout should immediately change to Night library will be used.)
The actual materials in the material library can be any name, but materials whose names begin with win doo gar or neo will be self-illuminated at night in the game (more or less), if the material has either a self-illumination map, or has a high self-illumination setting (100 for example, or 80 or 60). (White areas of the self-illumination map are the areas that will be lit)