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NoolPreview for 3D Studio Max / TGEA

Name:	Ray Noolness Gebhardt
Date Posted:	Nov 05, 2006
Rating:	4.5 out of 5
Public:	YES
Comments:	YES
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Blog post

I haven't posted a blog for quite a while, so I thought I would write one up. I have been working on a new tool for 3D Studio Max that allows you to create shadergen textures for TGEA, and preview them quickly. The first component of the tool is a custom 3D Studio Max material plug-in that exposes every single parameter that shadergen provides. This includes all 4 stages and all the texture animation features.

In addition there is a button in the material user interface that will update the viewport preview of the material. The preview only supports a few parameters of the shadergen materials, but it's better than nothing.

I also created a custom mod of TGEA that allows you to preview your model and material. By pressing a single button your model and materials will be exported and loaded into a minimal mission in TGEA. This allows you to see what your model and material look like in engine very easily.

I am thinking about making an enhanced version of this material tool and selling it, so let me know what you think.

If you want to try out the early alpha of this tool you can download it below. It requires some changes to the DTS exporter so here are links to updated versions of the exporter for 3D Studio Max.

For 3D Studio Max 9 32-bit download:
Download Now

For 3D Studio Max 9 64-bit download:
Download Now

For 3D Studio Max 6/7/8 download:
Download Now

And finally here is a link to the NoolPreview alpha:
Download Now

To use it just copy the files into your 3d Studio Max script folder.

Recent Blog Posts

List:	08/30/07 - Free Music Pack! 08/10/07 - Nool Music Pack 1 Released! 07/31/07 - New Website in a Blog Format 07/15/07 - GID 22 - BeatBlock 06/26/07 - Free Music / New Website 11/23/06 - Happy Thanksgiving 11/05/06 - NoolPreview for 3D Studio Max / TGEA 06/27/06 - How many people have shader based video cards?

Submit your own resources!

Matthew Spindle Harris (Nov 05, 2006 at 23:22 GMT)

A teapot!

Chris \"C2\" Byars (Nov 05, 2006 at 23:27 GMT)

Good idea, do it.

bank (Nov 05, 2006 at 23:31 GMT)

agree with Chris!

Jeff Loveless (Nov 06, 2006 at 00:42 GMT)

It's a pretty cool tool! What price are you thinking? I'm curious how many people around here use Max instead of Milkshape...

Peter Kojesta (Nov 06, 2006 at 01:40 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

You're doing great work for this community, I hope everyone realizes that.

Tom Bentz (Nov 06, 2006 at 02:46 GMT)

If it was like Showtool Pro but with shader support I'd buy it...

J.C. Smith (Nov 06, 2006 at 03:01 GMT) Resource Rating: 3

Looks good, I'd buy it.

Eric Elwell (Nov 06, 2006 at 03:12 GMT)

Jeff, I don't think milkshape would factor into potential paying customers. I don't want to hijack this thread, I just want to make the point that this could potentially be a great tool for serious development teams. That's more a matter of wether or not the Engine gains favor with that demigraphic.

Ray, this is looking very useful, if you were willing to put more time and TLC into this, I'd buy it.

Jeff Loveless (Nov 06, 2006 at 05:35 GMT)

The demographic I was questioning was more the ratio of people that have access to the $620 3d app to people that opted for the $100 game engine, but heck I'd consider buying it too

Thomas "Man of Ice" Lund (Nov 06, 2006 at 06:56 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Ah yes!!!! Super

Mincetro (Nov 06, 2006 at 07:46 GMT)

I'd definitely buy this if the price was reasonable!

Ben -Djaggernaut- Chavigner (Nov 06, 2006 at 08:32 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Woo! damn good!! :)

Anton Bursch (Nov 06, 2006 at 09:35 GMT)

Awesome!!

Sven Myhre (Nov 06, 2006 at 10:00 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Fantastic! I would definitely purchase such a product!

Russell Fincher (Nov 06, 2006 at 13:52 GMT)

Excellent. I would buy this in a heartbeat.

Adam deGrandis (Nov 06, 2006 at 13:54 GMT)

This is freaking awesome. Definitely keep us posted.

Justin Kovac (Nov 06, 2006 at 15:15 GMT)

Ray you are the man! While I haven't gotten the preview to work (I'm sure I need to just mess with it some more), the rest seems stellar! This is a killer app dude, shnaz it up, iron out the bugs, and consider it bought (well, by me at least!).

Also, if you plan on setting up a mailing list for this anytime in the future please let me know.

AcidFaucet (Nov 06, 2006 at 15:23 GMT)

It's sweet, if not the most valuable asset for TGEA. Definitely worth money.

Ray Noolness Gebhardt (Nov 06, 2006 at 16:22 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

The preview only works if you have a DTS object setup and ready to export. I want to add a feature where it just uses a default object for quick material previews, but I haven't gotten to that yet.

Ray Noolness Gebhardt (Nov 06, 2006 at 16:45 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

@Justin: Actually come to think about it, your issue could be due to not using the recompiled exporters in this Blog. I had to make some minor changes so that the DTS exporter would handle my new maxscript material plugin.

Florian (Nov 06, 2006 at 18:51 GMT)

does this plugin also generates a materials.cs script?
if it does, AWESOME :D
if it doens't, still AWESOME XD

Ray Noolness Gebhardt (Nov 06, 2006 at 19:12 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Yes it will generate materials.cs files and also preview them.

Kory James (Nov 06, 2006 at 23:58 GMT)

Can the noolpreview show all of the maps

Procedural generation of shaders that support:
-Bumpmapping and Normalmapping
-Detail maps
-Specular
-Cubemapping
-Glow
-Refraction
-Reflection
-Texture UV animation

and can you us other software to export the maps and what if you only have 3d max 6 does the export still work?

thank you and i think this is going to be a great software for TGEA.

Ray Noolness Gebhardt (Nov 07, 2006 at 00:04 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

NoolPreview exposes every single parameter of TGEA's procedural shader generation. It will only show a few materials in the the actual viewport of 3D Studio Max, and the viewport preview isn't very accurate. The actual "DTS Preview" button will let you preview any shadergen shader combination possible. You just need to have a DTS mesh already setup for export for the preview to work (since it previews your mesh, in addition to the material itself).

Ray Noolness Gebhardt (Nov 07, 2006 at 00:12 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Actually let me correct what I stated. Any shadergen feature that is supported by the DTS format can be previewed with the preview tool. Anything that only works with the DIF format will not be displayed, but it will still be written to the material file.

Tom Bentz (Nov 07, 2006 at 07:12 GMT)

Oh wait... I guess I misread what this was.... that is pretty awesome!

Steven Chiu (Nov 07, 2006 at 16:03 GMT)

I think GG should adopt this for the final release of TGEA!

Adam deGrandis (Nov 07, 2006 at 16:46 GMT)

I know I already posted about this, but I have to say again. Nool. This is unstoppable. Very cool. :)

Vashner (Nov 07, 2006 at 20:50 GMT)

Awesome man.. awesome.

Brian Ramage (Nov 07, 2006 at 23:52 GMT)

Very nice Ray, I'd love to see this finished up and running smooth.

James Brad Barnette (Apr 04, 2007 at 03:19 GMT)

Any chance you could port this to maya?

JoZ (Nov 05, 2007 at 20:35 GMT)

Just installed but... I cannot find the General DTS Objects in the helper list... And I cannot figure out why :(

Someone has any idea?

TnX
JoZ

Ok, ok ... I simply did some mistake installing more than a plugin... such a stupid ! Ehehehhe
Edited on Nov 05, 2007 21:35 GMT

JungHyuck Yang (Jan 15, 2008 at 08:34 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Installed and succefully preview a model but no textures on there.

1) Is that need any extra step to see textures or does it support multi materails? Any clue?

2) And the exported dts file crashes on latest TGEA 1.0.3 when it loads. Any ideas?

3) Any plan to release latest version of this?

Thank you.
Edited on Jan 15, 2008 08:34 GMT

JungHyuck Yang (Jan 16, 2008 at 12:42 GMT) Resource Rating: 5

Hello,

1) It might be due to that it runs on Vista. I guess Vista protect to write any folders under program files.
(3dsmax is located c:\programe file on my side)

2) I found the reason. Ignore it.

Thank you.

Joke Doomen (Jun 19, 2008 at 12:46 GMT)

JoZ (or others that could help me),

i have the same problem that you had:

>>I cannot find the General DTS Objects in the helper list... And I cannot figure out why :(

how did you actualy solve it?

thanks in advance

Russell Fincher (Jun 19, 2008 at 15:01 GMT)

@Joke: JoZ satates in his post that his solution was to only have one exporter plugin installed. By the way, is this where you are looking?:

Create tab > Helpers > General DTS Objects

Sometimes people make the mistake of looking for this in the Create menu instead of the Create tab.
Edited on Jun 19, 2008 15:06 GMT

Joke Doomen (Jun 20, 2008 at 08:53 GMT)

Hi Russell,

first of all thanks for your reply!

the problem is that the "General DTS Objects" is not listed from the Create tab...
Maybe it has to to with the way i installed the plugin:
I copied the 3 folders (plugins, scripts and UI) from the downloaded zip file to C:\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 9
Then i start Max.
After that i do what is described in readme.txt:

>----------------------------------------------------
> Loading the plugin into 3d Studio Max 7:
>----------------------------------------------------
>
>With Max open click on the menu "Customize" and
>select "Customize User Interface". Then click on the
>Toolbars Tab and change the category to "Torque".
>
>You can now drag the Torque DTS Utility icon from
>the window onto any open toolbar in your work area.

Now i can open the DTS Exporter Utility, this looks fine.

The General DTS object however is not found in the max->create->helpers tab......

do you have any idea/suggestion?

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