Home Downloads 3DSMax Files Neverwinter Export Scripts Online Documentation Export Scripts - Part 5

Export Scripts - Part 5

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Advanced Features

Now we will go into a little bit more depth.

Advanced Modeling:

1. Pivot Points

   Similar to the scale issue, Max handles the movement of the pivot point strangely. When you move the pivot point in the hierarchy panel, max simply stores the offset to the geometry, so the model will still export as if the pivot was never moved. We have to make sure that the origin of the object is the same as the pivot point location; otherwise there will discrepancies between the max view and the in-game model. Again, the solution is to reset the X-forms in the tools panel. For objects that have already been animated, resetting the X-forms really screws things up, so I would advise sorting out and locking the positions of the pivot points before animation starts.

   Also, the BioWare Aurora Engine rounds the position of static objects to the nearest cm, so to avoid seams it's best to make sure that your pivot points in Max are square on cm values. This is only really necessary for static mesh, characters and other general things will work fine. If you see seams, this will most likely be the problem.

2. Dangly Mesh

   Dangly mesh is a very simple physics system for the vertices of an object. They can be affected by:

   1. part movement relative to the world (they have an inertia)
   2. wind dynamics, either from global wind settings or from wind events like explosions.

   Dangly mesh was used in our game for objects like hair and cloth.

   We use vertex colours (at the bottom of the edit/editable mesh roll-out) as a value of the tensile strength of a vertex's position. The colour is normalized between 0 and 1, 0 being black and white being 1. If a vertex has a colour of white, then it will not move when subjected to the forces listed above… if it is black, it will have the full distortion value that it will be subjected to. The amount that a vertex will be moved is defined per object in the AuraPoly modifier. Midway through the modifier you will see a "Dangly Mesh" check box. When checked, it will give you access to all the functions below it. The default settings for Period, Tightness and Displacement will allow you to export the model and see the effect of Dangly Mesh in the model viewer and game. You will most likely want to play with these settings in order for it to work the way you want it to.

   If you have a group of vertices selected when you assign the AuraPoly modifier, Max will show you the movement ranges of those verts with circles in the viewport.

3. Real-time Shadows

   Our real-time shadows are especially nice to watch in the game, but sometimes they can be a little painful to make work the way you want them to.

   The first rule of these shadows is that they HATE non-manifold edges. If a single edge has more than two faces built on it, then the in-game shadows will "tear" (you will know a "tear" when you see one). It's best to make sure you do not model this way, as it will just cause you much anguish (unless you can write a maxscript that finds them and solves them for you!). STLCheck is a useful modifier to have around to check for problems too.

   The second rule is quite fussy. It's our experience that the problems associated with this rule normally only occur with "larger sized" objects, bigger than 0.5m³ in my estimation, so normally on the landscape pieces. For me to explain the second rule, it's best to explain how the shadows are made. This is how the programmers get the shadow to the screen. First they try to fill the volume of a whole object using the pivot point of that object as a connecting position. With this shape, they then trace these polygons at a tangent away from the light (called shadow volumes). Wherever these polygons touch another object, they re-draw the shape… only at the plane of the camera. They then draw the final shape from all these volumes as a ‘darken' over the entire scene (called screen buffering). Anyway, for all this to happen correctly, the pivot point of the object has to be in the correct place… in general, all triangles have to be facing AWAY from the pivot point. With some objects this will prove a very difficult job… and they will either have to be split into a couple of pieces, or remodeled so that they work in a more desirable way. It's not pretty to work with, but when all the dust settles, it makes a huge difference to the look of the game.

   NB: if you're having other problems, check the height of your object as there is a "ShadowDepth" value in the game that cuts off all projected shadows below this point.

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