The plugin is designed for 3DS Max 2015 or later. To download it, go to the Github project (https://github.com/BabylonJS/Exporters/tree/master/3ds%20Max).
In this folder, you can find the source code of the exporter if you want to update it, and a zip file Max2Babylon-XX.zip (where XX is the exporter version, currently 0.20.0). Click on the zip file, and click on the Download button.
By default, Windows blocks all .dll files coming from the web, so we have to unblock them first. Select the zip file, and with a right click select Properties, select Unblock, and then OK.
Then, extract the content of the zip file on your computer, and open the directory corresponding to your 3DS Max version. Finally, make sure 3ds Max is not running, and move all .dll files into the installation directory of 3DS Max (in C:/Programs/Autodesk/3ds Max 2015/bin/assemblies
). The next time you will start 3ds Max, the plugin will be automatically launched, and a new tab should appear:
Congratulations! You did it!
Scene
Cameras
Lights
Meshes
Materials
Textures
Hierarchies are exported
(*): Through custom UI
If you right-click on your scene, you will have a menu Babylon -> Babylon Properties: All the available blend modes are listed below:
The scene properties allow you to do these things:
rotation
parameter. Instead, you will have to use the rotationQuaternion
parameter.With a right click on a mesh, select the menu Babylon -> Babylon Properties to open the window Object Properties:
With this window, you can set the following properties:
If you create a standard light and right click on it, select the menu Babylon -> Babylon Properties to display this window:
The options Do not export, and animations are exactly the same as the Object properties window.
In this window, you can choose the kind of camera you want to create in Babylon.js. You can also:
When your scene is ready to be exported, click on the Babylon tab on the top menu, and click on Babylon File Exporter to display the exporter window.
This window is composed of 3 panels:
The Export button should be used to create the Babylon file representing your scene. The Export & Run button will also create the Babylon file, but will also launch your default browser and run the newly made Babylon file. This button is very useful if you just want to test the render of your scene in Babylon.js.
As babylon.js script is retrieved directly from the official website directly, you should have internet access in order to correctly use Export & Run.
The log panel indicates in real time which mesh has been exported, which material, and if there are any problems with these objects.
If you want to test your scene right away by using the button Export & Run, your scene should have a camera created. Otherwise, the log panel will display the warning “No camera defined” and a default one would be created at runtime but won't be exported in .babylon file.
If you have more than one camera, the first one will be set as activeCamera in Babylon.
If you don’t have any lights in your scene, the exporter will add a hemispheric light by default. The log panel will display the warning “No light defined – A default hemispheric light was added for your convenience”.
The object position will be defined with your object pivot position. In the image below, the pivot position is not at the center of the box: updating the object position in Babylon.js will update this pivot position, and not the box position.
Using a negative scale will reverse the normal of your objects. These objects will appear correctly in 3DSMax, but incorrectly in a Babylon.js application.
Using mirror tool affecting Transform will make mirrored object appear correctly in 3DSMax, but incorrectly in a Babylon.js application. Consider using mirror tool affecting Geometry instead.
If mirror by Transform is what you need (or what you got), you can fix this issue doing the following after mirroring:
Be aware animations for this object will likely be incorrect after that.
Cameras, lights and meshes have custom properties (Right-click and select "Babylon properties" menu) to automatically launch animations at startup.
Animations are exported by sampling keyframes which can generate a lot of data. To reduce file size, you can opt to use linear interpolation instead of bezier or TCB.
Also, if animations are not exported correctly, you may want to disable animation optimization by using the Babylon properties menu on the scene (Right-click on the scene and select "Babylon properties" menu).
To ensure that bones are correctly exported, you have to use the Skin modifier. Skin should be positioned at origin. More info here
Babylon engine fully supports the following image formats: jpg, bmp, png, gif, tga. You are adviced to use those formats for your textures when exporting to Babylon.
Note that the exporter also supports textures with tif and dds formats. But, those textures will be automatically converted to png by the exporter to ensure compatibility with the Babylon engine.
About dds format, Babylon engine partially supports this format depending on compression. To avoid any issue with this format, the exporter automatically converts it to png as stated previously. As an exception, the dds format is allowed for the environmnent texture and will not be automatically converted.
The handling of physical materials is mimic from glTF format. Detailed explanations here
Babylon supports PNG, DDS and TGA formats for texture transparency. You can choose to include the transparency directly in your diffuse texture, or create an opacity map. Here are the options to check if you want to have transparency on your diffuse texture:
Now that you know all about the exporter features, it’s time to use it!
First, create the model you will be using in the Key class. I choose to create a simple key (you might recognize a little inspiration from the Zelda games). As you can see, the key has 3 key frames creating a floating animation. Its material has no diffuse color (set to black), but a self-illumination color (corresponding to the emissive color in Babylon.js).
The only thing left to do is to export this key as a Babylon file, and we’re done with 3DS Max. As the animation is going from frame 0 to frame 80, the Babylon properties for this object have to be updated. And we’re done!