Wall Worm now has 3ds Max VMF Exporter

[shawnolson]

I added a VMF Exporter to Wall Worm recently. It was available for a while but didn't have accurate UVW coordinates for brush geometry. That problem is solved. You can now export your scenes directly from 3ds Max into Source (with models, displacements, lights, brush geometry, 2d sky, 3d sky). If you own Convexity (and can add Convexity point/brush entities) the exporter will also export those entities ... and I've made an entity I/O for those (this I/O interface is still under development and poorly documented, but you should be able to figure it out until I've documented it).

Here's the video sharing an overview:

[Rick_D]

more great stuff, shawn!

[shawnolson]

more great stuff, shawn!

Thanks Rick!

I have many ideas for new features... but at some point I need to stop and finish some of the projects I've been wanting to do (the whole reason for making these tools)... the problem is that I have the bad habit of constantly saying to myself, "It would be easier if I didn't always have to ... X, Y and Z..."

One new thing I'm pretty happy with is the Skybox tag function ... you can design your 3d skybox as part of your level as if it was always part of it--at full scale--and never have to move it off, etc. When you export, things tagged as Skybox objects are automatically rescaled and moved to the sky camera (which is at the location of the Sky Helper in Max).

[insta]

Cool stuff! But, when you show the 2d views in Hammer, it looks like all the brushwork is very split up/tesselated. It was hard to see though, is it like that?

[shawnolson]

Cool stuff! But, when you show the 2d views in Hammer, it looks like all the brushwork is very split up/tesselated. It was hard to see though, is it like that?

No. That may be the displacements or models you are seeing.

The exporter won't break up any geometry. It exports the objects exactly as you make them.

[Mr. Happy]

Fantastic as always

You say you aren't finishing projects, but dude, wall worm's IS a project

[shawnolson]

Fantastic as always

You say you aren't finishing projects, but dude, wall worm's IS a project

Thanks for the kind words James!

Yes, it is a project... and it does offer its own kind of satisfaction... but after a while I get a little burnt out on programming (it's what I do for a living [though not 3d programming] and honestly I have long ago lost the eagerness to be a codemonkey). But at least with Wall Worm, I am programming something that I want and use... so it offers an inherent reward missing from the normal things I do (you know... the awesome world of web form validation and obnoxious blinking banners, etc). Plus WW has given me the opportunity to meet and correspond with many creative and talented people... which is something I enjoy a lot.

[Nysuatro]

Keep up the good work If I was doing my project in the source engine I would definitely try this out.

[cincinnati]

were there some conflicts between older versions of max and/or source that prevented something like this before now?

there certainly seemed to be a peak in demand like 5 or 6 years ago.

i personally don't have many complaints about creating basic geometry in hammer, but this is cool, nonetheless.

[e-freak]

Can you publicly speak about how much contact you had with valve over this? I could imagine a game like dota 2 benefitting alot from a tool like this over the classical everything in hammer...

[shawnolson]

were there some conflicts between older versions of max and/or source that prevented something like this before now?

there certainly seemed to be a peak in demand like 5 or 6 years ago.

No, there is no reason that this wasn't done a long time ago. The VMF aspect has already been a part of Convexity for several years as it is. (Even though I overlapped some of Convexity's functionality by adding a VMF exporter into Wall Worm, I use Convexity and always want to promote it as an indispensible asset!)

I do not have any insider information, but this is my personal understanding about Source and Max. I know that Valve originally used 3ds Max. At some point Valve switched to XSI. I seem to remember some grumbling amongst Valve modelers at that time... but that may be a false memory. I was certainly grumbling as I have always felt that XSI is unintuitive (but, of course, I am always biased towards Max). I do remember reading some article years ago where Valve was touting all the reasons they were switching from 3ds Max to XSI... but the article came across as a little too poltical ... kind of like propaganda; my interpretation at the time was that this must have been done beause of some licensing issue--that Valve found a cheaper deal with XSI.

Given that XSI has apparantly been abandoned by Valve, my interpretation is reinforced--as I doubt Valve would have switched so quickly to yet another software (Maya) had XSI actually been a better solution. Exactly why Valve went with Maya than back to Max is a mystery to me... except that (as I understand it) Valve hired some people from the Hollywood arena who happened to prefer Maya.

Again, this is not official information... just my own interpretation of the 3D history of Valve.

All along, Valve could have been releasing plugins to develop in Max. That they have chosen to release exporters for XSI, Sketchup and Maya but not Max is a mystery to me given the number of people who use Max could potentially match all three other packages combined. I get the feeling someone must have gotten snubbed personally in some meeting... or maybe there are people at Valve who are against Max because it doesn't run natively on Mac... either of which are poor reasons to ignore the very large segment of 3D users who use and prefer 3ds Max.

Can you publicly speak about how much contact you had with valve over this? I could imagine a game like dota 2 benefitting alot from a tool like this over the classical everything in hammer...

Interesting question. I've never had any official contact from Valve. I've sent a few emails to them over the last couple of years asking questions in regards to their technology and my tools... but I've never gotten any kind of response.

[Mr. Happy]

sorry if this is too old for a bump, the proxies video reminded me to reply to this

I also like talking/corresponding with people that share my interests I can understand the desire not to program anymore after getting burnt out, hopefully the inherent reward of working on wallworms will refresh your programming spirit: alot of people use it, alot of people want to see it continue to improve, and obviously your programming is expanding what you can map and model. I'm curious what projects you are developing this for? Do you have a wip map thread I'm not seeing somewhere?

-----------------------

It always seemed like the Softimage partnership was marketing/business. Any mention of it was usually in ad form...I think that was the same time as the ATI partnership. I learned Softimage because when I started it was the only one with a free version and until recently all versions of Max I tried, trial or otherwise, were simply broken for me. To me certain things in it are unintuitive But has some very nice things...have more time to dedicate to Max now, getting used to it and liking it.

I wonder if there are no 3DsMax exporters because Wunderboy's and CannonFodders do the trick? The idea that someone got snubbed personally... I hope that's not the case, seems sort of passive aggressive since its the audience, not Autodesk, that is affected by the decision. The Source XSI exporter though, is really really awful. According to the Source code it was made by Softimage and Valve never maintained it. It's also closed source, everything relevant is locked in a DLL :-/ I haven't tried the Maya one, but the Sketchup exporter isn't that great either. It doesn't work with 8, only works with solids, cloned solids instance edits to the clone source on export, empty vmf's if you start in plan view, other issues that might have been my fault. It also only works with Portal 2 Hammer, but that's ok. People have been aching for a better pipeline for a long time. People will be using WallWorms for a long time.

It would be neat if you had a vmf importer as well, then you could make your csg in hammer or microbrush, and bring that into max on a seperate layer for meshing. I think it would be nice to have Max recognize and go back and forth. Maybe even keep the csg and the meshes in seperate, instanced, vmfs. But I'm not quite good enough with Max yet to really try and build a map and all assets from scratch with it so I dunno.

[shawnolson]

I also like talking/corresponding with people that share my interests I can understand the desire not to program anymore after getting burnt out, hopefully the inherent reward of working on wallworms will refresh your programming spirit: alot of people use it, alot of people want to see it continue to improve, and obviously your programming is expanding what you can map and model. I'm curious what projects you are developing this for? Do you have a wip map thread I'm not seeing somewhere?

James, thanks for the comment. Yes, in the last year WW has repeatedly helped me keep interested in programming. The real problem is that I'm inherently a creative person... and I've been building the tools to be more creative... but sometimes I feel like I'm becoming a slave to building the tools rather than keeping my eye on the goal I started from--designing things Another problem is that as soon as I start working on something, I always stop and build some little tool because I always say "this should be easier"... and while it does make it easier... in the end I keep stalling!

As for WIPs... well I have a few levels I've been working on. The main one was a remake of an old CS 1.6 map I did years ago (long before I ever knew about modeling, optimization, etc). It was a popular map in the circles I haunt... so it's been important to me to really do something cool for it. There are a couple really old screen shots (in Max) of what I was building in a newsletter talking about using Convexity and Max.

In fact, I had just finished the world geometry and level design (at that point) but suddenly stopped on it when I started building the models. The tedium of exporting/compiling models at that point is why I threw my arms in the air and started on Wall Worm.

But really, I've learned so much about Source since I started that redesign, I think I may simply scrap it and start from scratch.

Also, here is a brief article on the making of the only Source map I've finished. The level has a ton of problems from many points of view... and is certainly nothing to write home about. I built that (another remake of an older map of mine) as a learning process for getting used to Source. I learned a lot but it was before I knew much about displacements, good modeling techniques, etc. But that article does talk a little on what I learned and some of the things that eventually led me to start building Wall Worm.

I wonder if there are no 3DsMax exporters because Wunderboy's and CannonFodders do the trick? The idea that someone got snubbed personally... I hope that's not the case, seems sort of passive aggressive since its the audience, not Autodesk, that is affected by the decision. The Source XSI exporter though, is really really awful. According to the Source code it was made by Softimage and Valve never maintained it. It's also closed source, everything relevant is locked in a DLL :-/ I haven't tried the Maya one, but the Sketchup exporter isn't that great either. It doesn't work with 8, only works with solids, cloned solids instance edits to the clone source on export, empty vmf's if you start in plan view, other issues that might have been my fault. It also only works with Portal 2 Hammer, but that's ok. People have been aching for a better pipeline for a long time. People will be using WallWorms for a long time.

That is possible that they did nothing because there have been options in place. I still think it's a little odd since Max has such a large user base. Also, as of right now, there are no Max exporters for some of the newer formats (such as DMX). Luckily the compilers still all work with SMD... but what if they suddenly stop supporting that format? Also... what if some new feature is added to the DMX format like vertex color / vertex alpha, etc. Then no current exporters will work for it in Max and it will be up to people like Wunderboy, Cannonfodder and myself to take the time to implement. I personally think that Valve should simply provide some of this. But that's just my opinion.

It would be neat if you had a vmf importer as well, then you could make your csg in hammer or microbrush, and bring that into max on a seperate layer for meshing. I think it would be nice to have Max recognize and go back and forth. Maybe even keep the csg and the meshes in seperate, instanced, vmfs. But I'm not quite good enough with Max yet to really try and build a map and all assets from scratch with it so I dunno.

It's been a common request. It's also one I will probably not do anytime soon. The thing is I have very little incentive for that. I can probably redesign anything I've done in Hammer inside Max with a fraction of time... and I don't have enough old maps I'd want to do that with.

If enough people donate and ask for that, I'd be more apt to do it. But that is unlikely.

If I do implement it, I already see a lot of problems. First, getting the UVW info from brush geometry will be really difficult. Going from Max to Source was beyond my math skills and took a lot of help from some of my smarter friends. I'd expect it to be just as challenging to do the reverse. And I can only feed my friends with so much beer before they start feeling used!

I didn't say I won't... but it's certainly not on the immediate TODO list.

PS. Incidentally, I just loaded a new update to WW today.

[Mr. Happy]

In fact, I had just finished the world geometry and level design (at that point) but suddenly stopped on it when I started building the models. The tedium of exporting/compiling models at that point is why I threw my arms in the air and started on Wall Worm.

But really, I've learned so much about Source since I started that redesign, I think I may simply scrap it and start from scratch.

Throwing maps away and throwing the arms in the air is something I know all too well lol. But I dunno, if it's a decent map there's really no reason not to finish it off and release it asap and then make something else new from scratch. Then you've got two maps in nearly the same amount of time. I used to be a big believer in not releasing anything until it was perfect, in incorporating every new thing I learned into the map I was currently working on and continuously expanding the original vision or scrapping for new ideas. I've released almost nothing.

I like the dynamic mapping idea of de_tension, in fact that's really really cool. Funny thing I just had a discussion with someone else about trying to do the same thing in TF2. Were there any gameplay problems? Did players get confused? I don't know if you ever played TFC but there was a map called darkness that did something similar.

[...] I personally think that Valve should simply provide some of this. But that's just my opinion.

Absolutely of course they should but it's been so long...maybe, MAYBE they will. Ideally they would just ripoff all of UDK's best ideas lol. It seems like they focus on what is barebones necessary, the most bang for the buck so to speak, and stop there. In the short term, if your only compiling a few models and your used to it, it's not so bad and the extra effort put into a nice shiny gui / pipeline have hugely diminishing returns, but when you scale that across the entire modding community and all of their internal modeling the returns are incredible. Anything they can release helps so long as it's fully functional, like the Hat compiler or Portal 2 puzzle creator, great stuff! At this point though it might be best if everything was revamped all at once for fully editing integration.

I can probably redesign anything I've done in Hammer inside Max with a fraction of time... and I don't have enough old maps I'd want to do that with.

Convexity looks really nice for what it does although the entity dialogs look TBH worse than Hammer. BUT I have not tried it. There's something about spending a LOT of money for a plugin that does what I already do easily in Hammer that bothers me especially when Microbrush exists and UDK is calling my name lol. BUT I will get it one of these days.

If enough people donate and ask for that, I'd be more apt to do it. But that is unlikely.[...]

If I do implement it, I already see a lot of problems. First, getting the UVW info from brush geometry will be really difficult. Going from Max to Source was beyond my math skills and took a lot of help from some of my smarter friends.[...]

You heard him guys, support awesome! Even if Source is outdated. But if you don't get alot of donations maybe I can convince you to do it anyway.

That's understandable, it is really complicated isn't it. Just trying to go from planesides to faces is complicated although I would think that going from faces to planesides would be easier, can the triangle defining the plane simply use the coordinates of three vertices from the face?

If I can't convince you to support vmf importing, maybe I can convince you to create a sort of project manager to store multiple game configurations for WWMT. You've said you are only mapping for CS:S, and that you are focusing on things you need, but I think that would be really useful and has to be simpler to program than the other features. People are going to be using Wall Worm's for as long as it work's with the current versions of Max unless something better comes along, which is unlikely.

[shawnolson]

I got your donation today James. Thank you very much. Also, I realized I mispelled your name in an earlier post. Sorry about that. Almost as bad as a cover story I did for a newspaper where the principle subject's name was misspelled. My editor didn't even tell me about the error... I found out when I saw the same essential story redone by another reporter a couple weeks later... :\ Needless to say, I always double checked after that. But I'm still sloppy in forums sometimes.

Regarding the dynamic mapping, it did confuse some players. But overall, people seemed to get it after a couple rounds. I will probably continue to use that method in most projects I do... but I think that I will make it more obvious to the players with more obvious visual cues. In tension, some of the signs changed... but I think the cues need to be stronger. Possibly adding some audio cues might also help.

I am going to release a small CS map in the next month and after it is out for a couple weeks I will probably release the original Max file so that users of Wall Worm can use it to learn some of the methods I employ with Wall Worm and Max. It will include the entity work for the dynamic switches. Other things I want people to learn is the 3D Skybox function ... which is a huge time saver. I will probably not include the 2D sky files, though, since it is done in Vue and I'm sure that most users don't have that or the version of it that works inside Max.

In terms of the settings presets for multiple games, it actually has been on my list since I am working on CS, Hidden and Firearms at the moment... and going back and forth is a little tedious. So you can probably expect that soon. I'm also building an automatic asset packing with bspzip in the VMF exporter. That function is done but I am still testing it. I'll look into the global presets next week.