That’s a very interesting idea. It should not be too hard to do I think, on the code side that is.
One problem I do see with it is that it would seriously increase the filesize. Right now the amount of frames is (in most cases) the horizontal rotation frames * the vertical rotation frames. With animation added, it becomes hFrames * vFrames * animation frames.
So let’s say you’ve got 30 hFrames, 10 vFrames and an animation of 100 frames, the total amount of frames would then be 30 * 10 * 100 = 30.000…
Hey, i hv tryed to do a test with it, but in the end i get this message, i downloaded the .net thing u linked, it says its version 1.1, will try to download a newer version, as i think that might be the problem.
I hv another question, is there anyproblem if the name of the file ends with a number? i noticed that u use numbers at the end of the file ( i guess is to hv some sort of control over it) so, if my model name is test3.max will that be a problem?
I can see the amount of frames as a problem, but if you hv the swf in a cd instead of the internet, wouldnt this solv the problem? I think it could be a great tool to show of animation cycles for game artists ( since in games most often u dont hv the control of the camera, and the cycles should work from all angles ), it could be an intersting way to send cd as demoreels.
Andre
Whoops, my bad. Thanks for pointing that out. I’ve updated the links to the .NET Framework, which should indeed be 2.0, and not 1.1
That should be no problem at all. The script does indeed use numbers to write the rendered frames to a temporary jpeg file. The filenames are made up of the scene file name (which in your case would be “test3”) plus a number, an underscore and another number. So a typical frame name would look like “test301_05.jpg”. Further references to these files are always made starting from the scene file name, so the test3 and the rest always stays seperated.
Even for cd’s it might be a serious amount of data. Imagine a static 3d viewer of 4mb, add an animation of 100 frames to that, and you’ve got 400mb of data. And it might kill the memory usage on the pc as well, although I’m not exactly sure how the memory streaming in flash works with a lot of frames.
But it’s something I will think about, there must be some way to make this without using 10K+ frames…
Thanks! I’d be very happy if it would indeed help people in a professional environment too.
Having made something fun is nice of course, but something nice ánd useful feels better
This is an incredible plugin. If this is truly your first script, I’d love to see what you’re working on for your second! Even in its current form, this allows art teams to bridge the gap with clients who demand very technical products be made using 3D technology. With this tool, it’s easy for the customer to approve the accuracy of a model, or the physics of a certain operation, using their internet browser. Great work!
i must say i’m not that thrilled by what i see, because i’ve seen flash 3d product presentations like that more than 7 years ago. the fact that its generated by maxscript is impressive but it doesn’t make the flash itself more appealing. its not real 3d, where the user is free to move the camera, zoom in and out. its just a number of still images driven by the mouse pointers x and/or y position or am i missing something?
Looks really handy but dosent seem to work with Max8 SP3, for me atleast. As soon as I create a camera it crashes max back to the desktop. I would tell you more on the error but dosent really say anything.
@ManuelM: That’s absolutely true.
I never claimed that it was something revolutionary though
The thing that makes it interesting for me personally, is that I can create a (fake) 3d representation of a 3d object with high rendering quality.
Real 3d in flash (or shockwave, or any other format that you can spread easily on the web) is great of course, but it has some serious limitations when it comes to quality. You’re very limited when it comes to polycount and texturing. And advanced lighting is right out as well. That is something that you don’t have to bother about with this solution.
The only real limitation with this is the frame count and the resulting file size.
Now mouse position driven interaction is indeed nothing new, nor is rendering some camera rotations in a 3d package. But I think that the combination of both these ‘old’ techniques is what makes is interesting.
@DeadlyFreeze: That doesn’t sound too good. I’ll see if I can run some tests on max8 and get it fixed.
Here you go
– Error occurred during fileIn in <File:C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\scripts\startup\Scripts\f3dvExporter\f3dvExporter.ms>
>> MAXScript FileIn Exception: – Runtime error: fileIn: can’t open file – “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\scripts\f3dvExporter\scripts\UI.ms” <<
Looks really interesting! Giving it a try now…
just for giggles I placed everything in the scripts start up folder and here is what I got in the MAXScript Listener
– Error occurred during fileIn in <File:C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\scripts\startup\Scripts\f3dvExporter\f3dvExporter.ms>
>> MAXScript Auto-load Script Error – C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\scripts\startup\Scripts\f3dvExporter\f3dvExporter.ms Exception: – Runtime error: fileIn: can’t open file – “C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\scripts\f3dvExporter\scripts\UI.ms” <<
– Error occurred during fileIn in <File:C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\scripts\startup\Scripts\f3dvExporter\scripts\UI.ms>
>> MAXScript Auto-load Script Error – C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9\scripts\startup\Scripts\f3dvExporter\scripts\UI.ms Exception: – Unknown property: “resourceDir” in #Struct:f3dv_vars(
f3dvDir:<data>,
scriptsDir:<data>,
oldRWidth:<data>,
defaultsIniFile:<data>,
fullRotation:<data>,
frameFile:<data>,
totalTime:<data>,
oldViewportType:<data>,
oldActiveCam:<data>,
oldPriorityState:<data>,
oldRHeight:<data>,
oldViewportLayout:<data>,
origCamPos:<data>,
renderAborted:<data>,
frameTime:<data>,
currentFrame:<data>,
hFrameStart:<data>,
sceneIniFile:<data>,
sceneIniLoaded:<data>,
oldSafeFrames:<data>,
resourceDir:<data>,
vFrameStart:<data>) <<
and this error window
thanks again for this great plug in, ive tried it on max 8 and it works a treat! very handy for portfolios.