Hi,
I am trying to export vertex normals in ASE format, but it seems that 3dmax is not exporting the normals’ directions properly.
For example
I have a triangle with vertex normals {0,0,1},{0,0,1} and {0,0,1}
I change the direction of the normals using “Edit Normals” modifier to some other values.
But when I export the normals in ASE format,the directions are still {0,0,1},{0,0,1} and {0,0,1}.
Please do let me know if I need to something more before exporting vertex normals.
if you are using:
getNormal $ i
Then you will get the incorrect values – the normal that returns is always based on the face connectivity and smoothing groups.
Use the method supplied by the Edit Normals modifier’s interface instead:
$.modifiers["Edit Normals"].getNormal i
That should return the proper normal of the specified vertex.
Thank you ZeBoxx2 for your quick reply…
I did the following steps:
- Stored the normals in an array (read from edit normals modifier)
- Collapsed the mesh to Editable mesh
- Set the normals from array
Now it works
But is this the only way. Are there any smarter way to export the normals.
Thank you ZeBoxx2.
perhaps if exporting to a different format; I suspect the ASE exporter itself – which I think was included even with 3ds Max R1 – simply does not support the fancy normals (if you check the maxscript documentation, you’ll see that support was added on over several releases).
The ASE exporter source code does come with the 3ds Max SDK – somebody could conceivably re-write it.
You could also export the normals yourself with MaxScript; although merging that into the remainder of an ASE file might be more trouble than it’s worth