Richard, about a morph targets exporter script

Alex,

I don’t think you will be able to do this. Your solution is creative, but the frame positioning is done before the deformation occurs so you won’t see the deformation in your DirectX exports. This is a requirement. The frames must be positioned before the objects are deformed.

I still think NOF is your best bet. There is a demonstration plug-in available for reading the file format. I am not certain though if it can be translated into a script since it works with binary files. I am not certain whether scripting can do this. Also, there is a DirectX export script available.

Richard

Alex,

The DirectX format doesn’t support this. I doubt that 3DS does either. Unless you want to save each andquot;morphandquot; to a different file.

Even if they did support this, there is no way to do this via scripting/plug-ins since you can’t actually andquot;animateandquot; an object from a script/plug-in.

If you really want to do this, I would recommend exporting to Neutral Object Format and then translating the Neutral Object Format file to the desired format. There is a sample andquot;loaderandquot; for NOF provided with the latest release. It is quite a simple format and very easy to read.

I hope this helps,

Richard

Alex,

I’ve tested your script on the updated 3DC. The ExportDirectX method now has options for andquot;exportanimationandquot; and andquot;silentandquot;.

Writing an equivalent 3ds version doesn’t appear to be practical. Sorry.

Richard

Alex,

I see now that it does export a particular file name. So I don’t need to add that.

The dialog box indicates that names created were non-standard for DirectX. I can add a andquot;silentandquot; mode for it, and remove the export of animation information.

Richard

Alex,

I think what you will see is the previous andquot;timeandquot;. The frame script is applied before the current andquot;timeandquot;’ transformation. But maybe this is OK. As long as you get your animation. Just make sure to have one null key-frame at the end to make sure you get the whole animation.

What I can do for you is modify the ExportDirectX function so that you can specify a filename. I don’t know yet about animation.

Richard