Steps to making objects for BF2

[Psyrus]

Originally Posted by ToonS

So, does the latest version not work, or is it a lot of stuffing around to get it to work with BF2?

The export tools (getting it from MAX to BF2) don't work for versions after 3ds max 9.

If you're well versed in scripting for max, maybe you/someone could write an updated version for the latest max

[Rhino]

Ye, the export tools for BF2 do not work with any later version of max than 9, so even if you yourself are not exporting the object, the object still needs to be made with max9 as max9 can not open .max scenes saved with later versions of max, and you need to go though a massive back porting process which screws up the model and requires a serious amount of fixing, with most likley a lot of the bugs being missed, as the export has to work with 3DsMax9....

All in all, your best off just working with Max9 if you plan for your object to be used in BF2, and later versions of max can open .max scenes from older versions so its not a problem in trerms of future proofing. If you don't work with Max9 the likleyhood is your model will never see the light of day since no one is going to do the work to backport it, trust me I've seen it happen many a time.

Originally Posted by Psyrus

If you're well versed in scripting for max, maybe you/someone could write an updated version for the latest max

That is a massive amount of work. I know only one person who is capable of doing this but the sheer amount of work simply isn't worth it (I've talked it over with him a few times). But if someone has the time and knows max scripts etc, go for it

[Doc.Pock]

Didnt this "one person" already write a lightmapping tool for max 2010? Maybe the entire exporter could be slowly written together by multiple people? Or maybe its possible to just modofy the existing one to work with newer max versions?

[Rhino]

Originally Posted by [USF]Doc.Pock

Didnt this "one person" already write a lightmapping tool for max 2010? Maybe the entire exporter could be slowly written together by multiple people? Or maybe its possible to just modofy the existing one to work with newer max versions?

the POE2 v0.30a tools do somewhat work when lightmapping in 2010, although there are a few bugs and you need to do the importing process of statics in 3DsMax9. Although yes, I did get him to fix up a few of the annoying bugs that I was having to work manually around (mainly that it saved all the rendered lightmaps in the same light group, no matter which one you set it to do) but that was a really quick fix of an already somewhat working script. Recoding the exporting and importing scripts however is a massive, massive task.

[Doc.Pock]

What about modifying? I dont know nothing about maxscript thou, so dunno if its an entirely diffrent language in max9 than in 2010, or what neither how the export tools even work, so tell me if my words are just shite here.

[Rhino]

I'm talking about modifiying them to work with Max2010

The same basic language is the same but a lot has changed that makes many scripts incompatible with different versions. The biggest change in the scripts happened in 3DsMax 2008, right after Max9.

[Psyko]

Originally Posted by Psyrus

The export tools (getting it from MAX to BF2) don't work for versions after 3ds max 9.

If you're well versed in scripting for max, maybe you/someone could write an updated version for the latest max

nope. The source code isn't released, that's why the tools were never improved.

[Psyrus]

Originally Posted by Psyko

nope. The source code isn't released, that's why the tools were never improved.

To write an updated version of BF2 tools, you wouldn't necessarily have to use the current code - you could start afresh and it would still fit the aforementioned description. But fair enough.