I have recently run in to a problem were we need our designers to create greyblocked levels and export them in to our game.
The issue is that we dont have enough max licenses to allow them to have access to the program without blocking out some of the artists.
We were using sketchup, but that just winds up getting pushed back to the artists to setup exporting and cleaning up any bad geometry.
I have heard a rumor that there is a “Lite” version of 3dsMax which is pretty much just modeling tools. Is there any stock in this rumour?
If that isnt an option are there any other cheaper options that will reduce the amount of setup time due to bad geometry or that would be relatively easy to create a exporter for?
I don’t think there’s a ‘lite’ version of MAX. There is the 30-day unregistered version, but that’s about it. If you’re using Sketchup primarily, it’s probably best for one person to develop standards and practices from within Sketchup to ensure clean geometry upon export (it CAN be done, I’ve seen it!).
You can also look into meshlab if you’re just trying to weld verts and do simple model cleanup: http://meshlab.sourceforge.net/
You can obtain a copy of GMax (Gmax - Wikipedia) from Turbosquid. Never used it myself and I’ve no idea what formats can be exported from it, but as it’s essentially the barebones of Max, then there’s a possibility you can incorporate it into your existng pipeline.
yeah i was just testing out blender, might be a little to complicated to get the designers up and running on that, im dling gmax right now, thanks for the links.
Do you guys know if there are any good tutorials for sketchup modeling? I have figured out how to generally make things, but would need to do some testing in order to figure out how clean models get made. On first thoughts i would think it would be like any other software package, but does anyone have advice on it specifically?
I don’t mean to promote anything but Silo might be an option for you. Very low-cost in comparison to max and very capable tools to block in a level or whatever. The interface is fairly straightforward so that should not be a problem either.
Your better sticking with sketchUp half the issue is actually getting designers to understand what it is they are making and how sketchUp actually works. If not you get messed up mesh data with nasty tri data everywhere. Which sounds like your problem.
There are many usefull tools in SketchUp to keep grouped data seperate clean and easy to work with although if you are using max its a problem as its selection tools are not as robust as Maya.(though I hate to say it)
You can get very reasonable geo out of it, then provide a minimal cleanup set of scripts in max/maya, with maya run batch exports etc.
We’ve had good success with this. The setup materials reduce, cleanUp, and export batch stuff only took a day or so to write in mel. Oh and use FBX not obj.
Silo is great, although like putting max in front of a designer.
Yeah, i think we may just stick with Sketchup and try to teach them how to build good geometry, from what i have been messing with seems like the same principles apply as the other 3d package, IE. stay away from Booleans.
I will have to look in to the cleanup scripts in MaxScript and see if i can get something that is somewhat friendly. Though this whole extra step was what i was trying to avoid by teaching them Max, an artist will still have to setup the scene for export, but at least most of that can be automated.
Silo is beautifully easy to model in, especially compared to Max or Maya, and it is incredible less expensive. I have to give a thumbs up to suggesting it as well. If your designers can’t figure out Silo (and the nevercenter website has decent tutorials up on their website now) then your designers have some pretty serious issues :D:
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