I was wondering how one would export animation from an app such as max5 into a DirectX based real-time game engine. Which file formats are acceptable? What sorts of bones systems should be used? How to optimize rigs for real-time? I’d like to hear from both artists and programmers (even tho they are rare on these forums). Any outside references would be good too.
Exporting animation into a real-time engine...
mridgers
#2
It’s a specific to one engine, but it has plenty of information regarding the process involved in getting geometry and animation from Max to a game; http://udn.epicgames.com/
You might also want to look at some of the tutorials for Quake 3 on http://www.polycount.com as they explain the process for a different engine.
I hope this is at least a little help to you :).
-Martin.
Nutter
#3
Programmers perspective time (bet ya didn’t expect that!)… 
As mridgers implied, pretty much every game is different. The reason for this is that pretty much every game has its own unique needs; after all, the reason for the game using a custom format is so the model can be loaded as quickly as possible into the game’s data structures. For this reason, the same game on different platforms will often also use a different model format (for example a PC game’s models are generally different from the same game on a PS2).
Of course load times and platform aren’t the only reason that model formats are different between games, it’s pretty obvious that different games also have different requirements for the information taken from 3DS Max and layout of the models in the scene.
The unfortunate reality with this is that the 3DS Max SDK (how you have to create plugins and exporters for 3DS Max) is INCREDIBLY ugly and hard to use, and to add more troubles, the documentation is very, very poor. This means that considerable time has to be put into developing 3DS Max exporters for each and every game… a very wasteful, but necessary task.
If it’s a hobby game project, usually the easiest way to export models is to use a known, documented, “good” format that supports the features that you require, and then if necessary write a separate program to convert this format into the native format for the game you’re working on. It’s an extra step for artists that’ll take a few seconds every time you want to test a model in-game, but if you compare that time to the weeks that a programmer would have to spend to write a custom exporter, it’s easily worth it.
By the way, the programmers time isn’t the only reason writing a custom exporter from 3DS Max is bad, as I mentioned before, the 3DS Max SDK is hideous and us programmers DESPISE it and all those who make us touch it. 
-Nutter
GRMac13
#4
WOW, thanx guys. This is a huge help. Thanx for the advice. If I have any other questions it’s good to know we have a couple of programmers hanging around the forums.
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