3dsMax / UE4 Tools

Amatobahn · May 2014

Hey all,

Finally finished the complete toolset! I have put it up on Gumroad so I can push out updates through their platform, which is neat. You can view the tool on gumroad HERE.

GREG'S TOOLS v1.3.7

An aid for artists in 3dsMax by allowing the user to utilize the following functions:

☼ UE4 Scene Setup:

Set's 3dsMax System scale, units as well as default grid spacing to match UE4.

≡ Grid Spacing:

Toggles grid sizes matching those in UE4.

☺ Reference Spawn:

Creates a reference box to the height of a player based on Shooter Game in UE4 (6'8").

»║ UE4 Collision:

Renames meshes to the proper namespace for collision in and sets up proper parenting.

▲ Export:

Exports single meshes, or batches entire scenes to individual *.FBX using a simple export system.

odd_enough · May 2014

Well this should help speed things up a bit. Who ever said we can't have nice things?

Nice work, Greg!

Wesley · May 2014

Just curious, what does the export class do?

I had to export a bunch of stuff for Unreal 4 yesterday and quickly wrote :

thePath = "C:\PATH"
theSel = selection as array
for i = 1 to theSel.count do 
	(
		oriPos = theSel[i].pos
		theSel[i].pos = [0,0,0]
		select theSel[i]
		exportFile (thePath + "/" + theSel[i].name + ".fbx") #noPrompt selectedOnly:true
		theSel[i].pos = oriPos
	)

I think it then just used the last FBX export settings when doing this...

Swat3D · May 2014

Hey Amathoban,

I posted something similar recently at the UE4 forums, take a look, I hope you find it useful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAadp8UiheM

You can download it from here:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1047231/AdvancedFbxExport.zip

maicogirardi · May 2014

Great tools!! Helps a lot!!! Tks

MoP · May 2014

Amatobahn, nice of you to share this stuff.

However I would recommend a slight change to your FBX export script!
At the moment your script will delete any Turn_to_Poly modifier on top of the stack after running, not just the one which was added if they wanted to triangulate.

I suggest you use a local variable to store the result of the querybox choice.
Then, after the export, check if this was true or false and only delete that top modifier if it was true.

Otherwise you risk damaging a modifier stack that might have a valid Turn_to_Poly modifier in it that was doing something else outside of your script!

Another option that might be easier (especially if you go on to perform other operations on the mesh before export) is just to copy the object into a temporary local variable, do all the modifications on the copy and export the copy. Then once the export is done you can just delete the copy and the original object will be unmodified (with no need to mess around with its own modifier stack).

Cheers,
-MoP

Amatobahn · May 2014

responding from noob perspective!

@Wesley - From my understanding, instead of just hard coding in the ".fbx" the export class finds the specific export plugin, which then would allow me to have access to its settings if I wanted to make its changes on export. I think either way it works the same for this case.

MoP- I had never thought about that at all. I will look into altering the script later today to fix that issue, Thanks!

-Amatobahn

Phelioz · May 2014

So great Amatobahn was exactly looking for something like this some days ago. Speeding up small thing like this makes for a much smoother workflow. Don\t want to stress you but you said you will start working on a maya version. When do you think that will be ready? because that's what i really need

Amatobahn · May 2014

Updated scripts on my webserver for download.

FBX Export:
-Fixed issue where it could possibly damage a modifier stack outside of the script. (did multiple tests, have not run into issues yet)

UE4 Collision:
-Fixed runtime issue when there were no objects selected. (seems to work as intended now)

Wesley · May 2014

Amatobahn wrote: »

responding from noob perspective!

@Wesley - From my understanding, instead of just hard coding in the ".fbx" the export class finds the specific export plugin, which then would allow me to have access to its settings if I wanted to make its changes on export. I think either way it works the same for this case.

MoP- I had never thought about that at all. I will look into altering the script later today to fix that issue, Thanks!

-Amatobahn

Ah... neat!

Amatobahn · May 2014

-added new UE4 scene and Grid tool. Should be handy.

[HP] · May 2014

Perfect timing, thanks so much for this!

Amatobahn · May 2014

You're welcome my man!

Amatobahn · May 2014

-Added UE4 Reference Spawner.

gsokol · May 2014

Dude this is super helpful. Awesome!

WarrenM · May 2014

This looks great but I wanted to make a quick note.

This isn't really necessary, strictly speaking:

wOTVSDZwa2QwwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==

Those could all be named UCX_BoxTest and it would work just fine. The sequential numbering postfix thing is, I think, a holdover from earlier UE versions.

Amatobahn · May 2014

WarrenM wrote: »

Those could all be named UCX_BoxTest and it would work just fine. The sequential numbering postfix thing is, I think, a holdover from earlier UE versions.

Hm. I did not know that. I had assumed that the suffix was carried over. :X

The documentation has it showing separate numerical values, would it just be safe to keep it as is then?

WarrenM · May 2014

I never use the numerical post fixes but it works either way. Whatever you want to do is fine. Just passing along information.

Amatobahn · May 2014

I appreciate it Warren! Thanks!

Amatobahn · May 2014

+ Made FBX to UE4 script with Rollout UI

- Updated UE4 Collision with option to include/exclude Suffix (either way works)

If anyone has any other script ideas, let me know.

Abdullah · May 2014

Amatobahn wrote: »

+ Made FBX to UE4 script with Rollout UI

- Updated UE4 Collision with option to include/exclude Suffix (either way works)

If anyone has any other script ideas, let me know.

i cant really thank you enough for these great scripts. they are very helpful to me. I really appreciate your work man.

I dont know if this is possible with the current FBX exporter, but sometimes you want to select all your meshes and export them all individually with on click. That would be really great.

Popeye9 · May 2014

Thatnks for the scripts these will help save time

Amatobahn · May 2014

Abdullah wrote: »

i cant really thank you enough for these great scripts. they are very helpful to me. I really appreciate your work man.

I dont know if this is possible with the current FBX exporter, but sometimes you want to select all your meshes and export them all individually with on click. That would be really great.

I plan on adding a lot more to the FBX exporter. Right now I wanted to just get the basic working.

Amatobahn · May 2014

-added Greg's Tools v1.0,0

Amatobahn · May 2014

-fixed bug referencing wrong file path. Be sure to update again if you downloaded prior to 5/14/2014 9:00p EST

Amatobahn · May 2014

Phelioz wrote: »

So great Amatobahn was exactly looking for something like this some days ago. Speeding up small thing like this makes for a much smoother workflow. Don\t want to stress you but you said you will start working on a maya version. When do you think that will be ready? because that's what i really need

I will slowly be working on it. I'm teaching myself MEL as I go, so it may take a tad longer.

the-blue-turtle · May 2014

Hey man I saw your post on twitter asking for user feedback.

i must say you did an excellent job coming up with these scripts! The tools themselves are awesome and immensely useful for automating certain processes. I've installed each of them in Max 2014 and they work fine. I did run into some trouble with the collision plugin though. I'll try to recreate the error and post some screenshots of the error message later today so that you can diagnose. It's probably nothing you did just me messing stuff up

Amatobahn · May 2014

So there is an issue right now with the FBX export when the objects are grouped. I'll be away from the computer for the weekend but I will fix the issue first chance I can get. In the meantime if you are grouping on export you will have to save the FBX manually.

Amatobahn · May 2014

-Updated issue with scene setup where the units.SystemType would not change to centimeters if it was on another unit of measure.

-Removed FBX for simple box and created a Reference box via MaxScript.

!Still have a bug with FBX export not being able to export grouped objects (hopefully will have a solution soon).

supaclueless · May 2014

Nice job on the plugin! Just wondering though, do you have any plans to add an option that allows each object inside the viewport to be the exported fbx name (similar to keens) when exporting a group? (it saves alot of time rather than manually naming each file in the export menu)

Amatobahn · May 2014

supaclueless wrote: »

Nice job on the plugin! Just wondering though, do you have any plans to add an option that allows each object inside the viewport to be the exported fbx name (similar to keens) when exporting a group? (it saves alot of time rather than manually naming each file in the export menu)

I will definitely look into doing that. I'm going to be revisiting the FBX exporter portion of the script soon. =]

supaclueless · May 2014

Nice! Looking forward to it

wirrexx · May 2014

thank you!

Amatobahn · Jun 2014

+ Added feedback link
+ Added credits link

- redraws viewport when objects are referenced in and grid is changed (don't have to click within anymore).

---

I'm still plugging away on the FBX fixes/features. I won't drop it until its finished and working.

BertR · Jun 2014

Thanks man, will come in handy!

Nemecys · Jun 2014

Mmmm Yes... Thank you Gregory

melviso · Jul 2014

Thanks so much for creating this.U have no idea how valuable this script is.Thanks for sharing.

Snight · Jul 2014

This is fantastic! Thanks Greg!

PogoP · Sep 2014

Hey Greg! This tool is fantastic, I use it all the time for UE4.

One thing, whenever you export something as an obj (for baking or whatever), and then come back to the tool to export a mesh, it doesn't export because the exporter is still set to Obj. It'd be good if it forces to export as Obj regardless, to fix it at the moment you have to manually export an FBX then the exporter starts working again.

Amatobahn · Oct 2014

@pogo I will have to take a look at that. May be a quick fix.

I released the initial tools for Maya users here. [Finally]
The FBX export is still being worked on, but the rest works as expected.

Amatobahn · Nov 2014

-Fixed FBX Export.

Now you can have all the fun without the fuss of my broken code!

Ootrick · Jan 2015

Thanks so much!

skyline5gtr · Jan 2015

freaking awesome thanks

Amatobahn · Feb 2015

Updated the toolset today:

-Fixed FBX exporter not exporting when previous max export was a different filetype other than .FBX

-Brought back triangulation on export
-Brought back move to origin on export

If there are any other features you would like to see, let me know.

Amatobahn · Feb 2015

-updated an issue with the exporter being borked.

+Added functionality to export multiple objects into a SINGLE file. No longer do you have to export one object at a time. (This is nice so that you no longer have to manually export Mesh with collision, can all be done with the tool).

I will be working on A batch exporter in time, for now the update should come in handy.

Demonith · Feb 2015

is this working with 3d max 2014

PogoP · Feb 2015

Hey amatobahn,

Just want to say thanks for fixing that isssue! Gonna be downloading and using this tonight

Thanks dude!

Cody · Mar 2015

Hey Amatonahn -

Been using this and it is great! Thank you so much for making it available.

Couple issues I have happening, is that the pivot point rotates 90 degrees when imported into UE4. So a wall that is upright in max, is flat on the ground in UE4.

If an asset's pivot is above 0 on grid, it screws up the pivot when imported [makes the asset float when it should be flat on ground]

and the last thing is, if you are exporting an asset, asn saving over one you previously exported, it adds another .fbx and makes it a different file, like so :

asset001.fbx
asset001.fbx.fbx

Amatobahn · Mar 2015

That's odd. I've not encountered the pivot issue. Make sure your initial FBX settings are correct and exporting with the correct axis up.

The exporter does not automatically bring the pivot to origin. I can add that functionality later on if needed. I would say a good rule of thumb is to manually place at origin and check if your pivot is in its correct spot.

File exporting: I will address this. I will update this as soon as I can get to it.

PogoP · Mar 2015

Hey again dude.

Downloaded the latest version and I think it's lost some handy functionality. It no longer seems to move objects to the origin which was a really useful feature! Also, when you go to overwrite an existing FBX file, it names the exported FBX something like 'mesh_name.fbx.FBX'.

Just a couple of things I've noticed!

Edit - Oh.. I just noticed Cody mentioned the exact same things

Amatobahn · Mar 2015

Hey all. I'll be taking a look at the script today during lunch. I'll make the fixes and try and update the scripts tonight once I get home. I'll let you all know when that update goes live. Thanks for the feedback!

3dsMax / UE4 Tools

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