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Exporting stuff out of Maya

by Jeremy Ferguson · in Torque 3D Professional · 09/25/2011 (4:06 pm) · 4 replies

Hello, I've been doing some searching and came up with no results on this subject.
I'm using a Student copy of Maya 2011 & I'm trying to export models to work with Torque 3D.
How would I be able to export to DTS? I've found a couple of things but they've been for older versions.
Any help?
Thanks.
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Associate Ross Pawley
#1
09/26/2011 (12:41 pm)
Hi Jeremy,

If you go to http://www.opencollada.org you can download a copy of the OpenCOLLADA exporter. Install it and when you go to the export menu, you should have the option to export as OpenCOLLADA (.DAE). Export your .dae and stick it somewhere in the art/shapes folder, or a subfolder of your choosing. Once you're in the engine, you can view your model by going to Library -> Shapes (something like that, I don't have the engine on hand to check it) and drilling down to the correct folder and selecting your .dae file. You should then be able to see that your model is working right in the engine.

To make your model work with a game object, you'll need to make/copy a datablock of whatever type and change the shapeFile parameter to point to your .dae (or the .dts it will make after it loads it once).

Torque 3D Owner Jeremy Ferguson
#2
09/27/2011 (12:48 am)
Hi Ross,

Thank you for your quick response.
This works for importing objects,
but I would like to make a player model, with animations and such.
All my searches come up with, is old stuff which I assume is outdated.

Any idea on how I would map the animations out and whatnot?

Thanks.

Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#3
09/27/2011 (5:57 am)
You prepare the model and animations in the same manner as used for DTS export as far as I know - I will ask the art guys if they can shed some light.

To my knowledge the engine is tied to the skeletal structure having a certain naming convention and some additional nodes for eyepoint, mountpoints etc. If your character is rigged correctly for DTS, all you should have to do is export it in COLLADA format and the engine importer should pick it up.

The solder that ships with 1.1 Final is a COLLADA model, for example, so you could try importing it into Maya and looking at the way they set it up.

Torque Owner Richard Ranft
Roostertail Games
#4
09/27/2011 (9:14 am)
Ok, got with Matt and he says that you really only need to have the bounds volume and your game-specific nodes in place (col, mount, etc). He also said that the old setup works fine, but the newer method is more streamlined. The general COLLADA overview is available here.

So, it comes to which way you're more comfortable with I guess.

Hope that helps.