3ds max 2013 - 3ds export/import weirdness

I thought I would start to do something a bit more useful with this blog other than just posting work updates.

I am now going to start writting about other things, such as any problems I encounter during production or any other things that I feel may be useful to people in a similar situation.



Anyway here is the first.


It is probably not used that often anymore since FBX etc, but I recently had the need to export some basic models into 3ds format.

This is something I have done many times before without problem and this was also my first attempt at using 3ds max 2013 for anything other than playing around so I was definitely scratching my head for a bit!

As you may know Max 2013 has been completely changed to unicode which is no mean feat, it does however mean that there appears to be some pretty annoying issues that we are going to stumble upon that are going to take awhile to be solved by product updates etc.  I am on Product Update 5 so hopefully this may be fixed in 6 anyway.

If not and you need to use the 3ds export or import functions, keep reading.


It appears that the problems is due to some lines of code being left out of the new translated unicode versions of the 3ds export and 3ds import plugins.

More infomation here

http://blog.ab4d.com/post/2012/08/24/Solution-for-problematic-3ds-files-exported-from-3ds-Max-2013.aspx



To cut a long story short the plugins fail to save the correct texture paths and the import plugin generates some random looking chinese characters instead of loading your texture. 

I do not know if these characters mean anything (possibly missing bitmap I guess) if someone does know feel free to let me know.

This will also cause an issue if you are using different material id's or multi/sub object materials as they will get lost on export.

The fix is courtesy of spacefrog from the Area forums who has very nicely re-compiled the Max 2013 3D Studio (*.3ds) Import/Export modules.

You can see the original thread with a download link to the updated modules.

http://area.autodesk.com/forum/autodesk-3ds-max/autodesk-3ds-max--3ds-max-design-2013/max2013-3ds-importexport-modules-fixedrecompiled


***As with anything like this make sure you backup your data and original files before playing around with modified files but I have done this and it works great for me so thank you spacefrog***

St Michaels School

CGI Images for the proposed extension of St Michaels School in Bournemouth. Just one of the images soon to be added to my website portfolio section.

These images were produced for the schemes architects for a planning submission and to help local residents visualise the proposed changes.

Images were produced to very short deadlines with an evolving design process which required many last minute tweaks and changes to be incorporated into the final images.

Keep an eye out for this and other images coming soon.

Tiger Tank 1

I am now starting to add more animation to my website.

The first new animation is of a German WW2 Tiger 1 tank and can be found in the portfolio section here.

This is one of a series of animations I produced for video production company Wide Angle for their latest DVD The Tiger Files.

The DVD which was produced in liaison with the Tank Museum at Bovington in Dorset is an in depth look at the Tiger 1 and features the Tank Museum's Tiger 131, a fully restored working Tiger 1.

A smaller lower quality version of the animation can also be seen below.






To find out more about the Tiger Files DVD please visit Wide Angle's online shop here.

Or to find out more about the Tank Museum please visit their website here.

Much more coming soon, so please watch this space.

PT

Updated Portfolio

Ok, well it finally happened.

I have actually updated the portfolio section on my website. Right here.

Although it may not seem much different apart from the new content, there has also been quite a few changes behind the scenes especially to the gallery system which should hopefully make things easier to view.

The gallery system was also the major hurdle in me not updating my website very often. Now this has been fixed the updates should just flow away.

There is still going to be quite a few smaller changes happening to the site over the next few months as it hopefully evolves to be something much more enjoyable to view.

I will also be adding more animation in the coming months, so we will have some moving images as well as just the stills.

To stay up to date with updates please follow me on twitter here.

Until next time.

All the best,

Paul

On the Road

Hi all, it's been awhile!!!!

Well the look of this blog has changed again and it now also has a handy little mobile version for anyone who is on the road or just happens to be looking at this from their phone. This should help to save your precious data usage if relevant and keep your bills down!! Something that I can appreciate as I have recently been away on travels and came back to some pretty scary phone bills!!!

EUE (End User Event)

I started off my travels at the End User Event in Utrecht, Holland.

Anyone who is involved in the 3D / CG industry and has not heard or been to this should seriously check it out as it is a great laid back place to meet fellow minded people from the industry, talk shop and watch loads of great speakers. The EUE does also have another bonus which is that it all takes place inside a nice little pub called the Florin!! This adds to the informal nature of everything and makes it a truly good place to spend two days.

To find out more about the EUE (End User Event) head over to http://www.enduserevent.com

Road Tripping

After the EUE and a very busy year it was time to re-charge the batteries, so back to London and then off for a couple of weeks road-tripping across California and Nevada.

I have started to, and will be adding photos from the trip to my Flickr account here.

I am also going to be updating this more often and it will also include CG stuff as well in it's own Set.

As for my website after a few weeks relaxing and thinking it over I do now have a plan and this will soon be implemented as soon as possible so keep your eye out for that too.

To keep update with all of these and some other things that you may find interesting you may want to follow me on Twitter. If so you can do that here.

There will also be much more work added here shortly once I have got everything together so check back soon.

All the best,

PT

New Look / New Work

Here is another example of some of the work that will be added to my site portfolio at some point hopefully in the near future.

Sorry for the lack of updates I have been incredibly busy over the last year but hope to be able to update things a lot more often very soon.

Another reason that I have not made more progress with my website is that I am waiting to see how the whole Adobe Flash, Apple thing plays out. I did have some pretty major plans to evolve the site with Flash as it currently is, but I obviously do not want to do this if half the people wanting to view it will not be able to.

In the mean time I will probably use this blog as a way to showcase new work while I plan the action to take on my main site.

All the best,

PT

Portfolio Update (Stage1)

Ok so I have not written an entry for a long time now. Partly because I was fed up with saying that my portfolio would be updated soon and partly because it is far to easy to just write a few words on Twitter and be done with it.
Anyway we are still not completely there but we are on route, the first stage of my new portfolio is now online. I still need to add pages for each new item. I will start doing this once I have finalised the gallery system as I am aware of a few issues with current one.

I also hope to be able to add a blog post when I add each item allowing me to talk a little bit about each one and how it was produced.

Until then (hopefully not too long this time!!!)

All the best,

Paul



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