I want to use 3ds Max or Maya with or without Prefab to create a pipeline for models with animation. There doesn’t seem to be much documentation for this. I’ve worked through the 3ds Max Workflow Tutorial. Got the App working in Flash Builder but I haven’t been successful exporting from 3ds Max.

There seems to be a lack of information on how to use Away3D with external models which to me is needed to do any serious development.

Any other documentation, tutorials, videos, etc on exporting and importing including animations would be very helpful. Maybe I just haven’t found it yet.

I worked through the entire Away3D 3.6 Essentials book including the chapter on importing but it wasn’t complete as to exporting. If there are preferred workflows using Away3D I’d like to know what they are. How does Prefab fit in.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the software and have a great respect for the developers and supporters of the product. I just want to go on using models of my own creation.  Thanks for any info.

Hullo,

I’m not too familiar with Maya, but have been using 3ds Max with Away3d for a little while now.  The easiest method I’ve found is using the official Away3d plugin for Max, which allows you to export models and animations as Awd files, the Away3ds native format. You can download the plugin from here, and it comes with some instructions on how to use it.

If you need to export any animations that require translation however (moving from one point to another) then there are some extra steps you need to take which aren’t included in the instructions. I’ll quote them here from their original source:

Here is how you can achive the effect you want:

add 2 dummy-object to the scene. place both at (0.0.0)

name one dummy “master”, one dummy “new-root”

make the “new-root” child of the “master”.

position you old root-bone, so the biped’s feet are at (0,0,0)

make old root-bone child of the “new-root”

copy the AWD-Skeleton-modifier from old root-bone to “new-root”

make sure the the skinned mesh is in Skin-pose-mode.

set the skinned mesh to (0,0,0). it will look like the skinning is wrong, but as soon as you move the playbar back and forth, 3dsmax should update the bind-pose, and the skinning should appear correct again.

make the skinned mesh child of the “master”.

whenever i say (0,0,0), i mean set all properties to default position (pos, rot, scale) in local-space (parent-space).

Once you have included this 2 extra-objects, you will be able to control the mesh position exactly as you suggested.
The extra “master” dummy could be removed on loading (listen for the asset-completle-events).
It is only needed to make sure, that root-bone (new-root) pos/rot/scale is the same as for the mesh.

I know that sounds like lot of steps, but actually its quite fast, once you understand the setup/system

I hope that helps.

Yan

Sincere Thanks Yan,

I’ll check out AWD on GitHub.

What 3ds Max version are you using?

What role, if any, does Prefab3D play for you?

No worries, JTView.  Currently, I’m using 3DS Max 2014, though their are different AWD plugins for different versions.

As for Prefeb3d, I never use it. I’m exporting simple assets which I’m importing straight into my code. I do sometimes use Away Builder, however, but more for just checking things.

Yan