MAXLancer (import/export for 3ds Max)

[Treewyrm]

Can this be made to work with Autodesk Maya? if at all possible, though I'm not exactly sure myself to what extent i can get things done in Maya such as HP'ing, theres a lot I'd like to learn for this, but at the same time a lot im not sure im able to do, haven't had a chance to check, nor do i know how to.

It would need to be rewritten entirely to work with Maya (or any other program) and I have no such plans.

The toolkit assumes you're familiar with 3ds Max, so perhaps that's where to start. With that being said there is nothing stopping you from making a model elsewhere and then importing into Max to complete it (hardpoints, hitbox, etc) and export into Freelancer formats.

[Treewyrm]

Currently I'm planning to put next beta version this weekend, it will include installer and address some of the issues such as icons not working in 2016 version. This should make installation much easier.

Other than that working on deformable models to import complete characters (i.e. body, head and hands as one) and support exporting as well.

Quick errata to current documentation:
Scripts should be copied to %localappdata%\Autodesk\3dsMax\[3ds max version]\ENU\scripts
Macros should be copied to %localappdata%\Autodesk\3dsMax\[3ds max version]\ENU\usermacros

[Treewyrm]

Thought I'd post about a few things I've been working on.

While support for rigid models (ships, stations, starscapes, etc) is mostly complete, save for a few obscure features, my attention has been mostly focused on deformable models. .dfm files are characters in cutscenes. They might not be as important and practically have zero gameplay impact but I do consider having support for them important too, if anything to help Ichiru with .dfm support in Librelancer (and as a result there been great improvement in that area). Unlike rigid these models have a completely different structure and their animation is much more complicated, also this part of game data has always been somewhat neglected by Freelancer modding community as a whole to the point no tools ever existed to view these models, let alone do anything about them.




Right now I've got it far enough to be able to load complete character costumes, which are assembled from separate body, head and hands models. Animations can be imported and applied separately to each part. Granted not all animations are seemingly interpreted correctly - Juni and Trent facial animation data is slightly different compared to other characters, so they're glitchy for now.

Heavy animated gifs

[Prysin]

That's actually pretty neat. Might be helpful to make requests for custom SRP models.... if nothing else, just for vanity.

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[Treewyrm]

That's actually pretty neat. Might be helpful to make requests for custom SRP models.... if nothing else, just for vanity.

Making these kind of models is lot more difficult than making ships, stations and such. Even say ripping models from games like Mass Effect or KOTOR will still require fair amount of work to adapt and reskin to Freelancer skeletons to be able to use existing animations. But it's not impossible. But first I'll need to implement furry detector to prevent those from being exported.

[Lucas]

This may be a stupid question, but is it possible to sculpt new Character models and properly animate them for Freelancer with this?

[Treewyrm]

This may be a stupid question, but is it possible to sculpt new Character models and properly animate them for Freelancer with this?

A character consists of multiple pieces: head, body, left hand and right hand. Each are a separate model and costume.ini file specifies which parts put together make up what characters.

I'd say making body might be easier than head as body has fewer bones and so rigging body mesh to skeleton would be fairly doable.

It's technically possible to make new animations too, but of course making good quality animations is pretty difficult as well as being extremely tedious process. Most animations in Freelancer were made with motion capture. Unfortunately skeleton data contains no IK constraints so animator may need to make those too before making new animations.

DFMs can contain arbitrary skeletons so non-biped characters are doable, but that'll require making own animations too.

[Prysin]

That's actually pretty neat. Might be helpful to make requests for custom SRP models.... if nothing else, just for vanity.

Making these kind of models is lot more difficult than making ships, stations and such. Even say ripping models from games like Mass Effect or KOTOR will still require fair amount of work to adapt and reskin to Freelancer skeletons to be able to use existing animations. But it's not impossible. But first I'll need to implement furry detector to prevent those from being exported.

Hmm.... well, can we make a distinction between "western furries" and "japanese furries" ????

Cuz the former is degenerate, and the latter is mostly folklore/mythological creatures.

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[Enkidu]

Hmm.... well, can we make a distinction between "western furries" and "japanese furries" ????

Cuz the former is degenerate, and the latter is mostly folklore/mythological creatures.

This is completely offtopic for MAXlancer. Calling people 'Degenerates' is cringy and in bad faith.

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[Peach]

Hey, I'm using 3DS Max 2018 and I'm running into an error that has me kinda stumped.

I've followed the documented install instructions and placed the macros & scripts in the appropriate %localappdata% locations, (though I had to create "Dark" and "Light" folders in "UI_In\Icons" to get the icons to appear.) I'm trying to import the Starflier to test everything & it's throwing an error. Here's what I'm doing:

Import Rigid > Open cv_starflier.cmp > Import Model > Add Missing Resources > Open cv_ships.mat > "--Runtime error: Unsupported material type DcDt in: Equip_gen_Brn"

I've triple checked that all of the macros, scripts, and shader files are in their specified locations. The only thing that stands out as odd to me is that the external path for textures goes to an empty folder: "Documents\3dsMax\sceneassets\images\MAXLancer"

Any help or insight would be appreciated, thanks!

EDIT: Thankfully this was good ol' user-error. I assumed I was done installing when the manual started detailing Hardpoints & LoDs. I wanted an interactive example to dive into, so I skipped forward to the Import Model section without reading the Materials and Textures section and setting my default material properly.