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Modeling heirarchy layout for exporting DTS files from 3DS Max

Name:	Teresa Karr
Date Posted:	Jun 06, 2006
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I've had a hard time finding an exact diagram of how things should be laid out, so I took some screen shots of what worked for me. The following screenshots are from Max, since the Maya one is a lot more intuitive.

A note from Chemeleon: "Bounds box should surround the entire model, if it doesnt, you get a console error, and the model may disappear ingame when you dont want it to, as it'll only render when bounds box is visisble from your pov"

More notes: Collision boxes should be convex, even though they might work in the game as concave. It can cause the game to slow down.

Simple model

Complex model with many collision meshes
In order to keep your collision meshes convex, you can create up to 9 boxes (this much is known), which are not correlated in any way with the naming convention for your collision meshes. See below:

Pardon the long image...

Recent Blog Posts

List:	10/03/06 - TSE GUI Port (new tutorial.base) 06/10/06 - Adding animations to an object 06/06/06 - Modeling heirarchy layout for exporting DTS files from 3DS Max

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BigPapa (Jun 06, 2006 at 03:52 GMT)

Nicely done layout Teresa but I believe Collision-1 should be the parent of Col-1. Did it work in the engine?

Teresa Karr (Jun 06, 2006 at 03:59 GMT)

Hmm, yeah, it worked fine for me
Edited on Jun 06, 2006 04:00 GMT

Jesse (Midhir) Liles (Jun 06, 2006 at 06:16 GMT)

That's a pretty accurate depiction of the only way I've gotten that to work, myself =)

Erik Madison (Jun 06, 2006 at 09:46 GMT)

You are no longer bound to 9 collision meshes either, you can have as many as it takes to get the job done. Less is still better though.

Surge (Jun 06, 2006 at 11:50 GMT)

Try Gamelevelbuilder 3.0 for max, it works super fast and no need to worry about all that setup your going through.
Im not sure why none else commented on this but shouldnt you be exporting a diff not a dts?

Diffs are for buildings/structures large objects a player may go in or out of.

Dts is used for players, weapons, ammo, vehicles, and thats where your collision meshes need to be worked out.

As for the diagram, just by searching the old documentation on shape exporting Chapter 8. and you would
have found all that out with no need to experiment.

-Surge

Teresa Karr (Jun 06, 2006 at 19:46 GMT)

The documentation I've seen has very few pictures. I wanted to show people who are visually oriented what the layout is via more screenshots.

Other references can be found at http://tdn.garagegames.com/wiki/TorqueGameEngine

Surge (Jun 06, 2006 at 20:29 GMT)

This link shows the proper way to export objects, it shows the hiearchey and everything as well
as example files for you to use.

http://www.garagegames.com/docs/tge/general/ch08s03.php

I Promise Im not trying to ruin your blog, and I wont try to be repetetive, but you are showing a DTS export right?
But for buildings and such you are suppose to be using DIF. Its just confusing to me.

I export my object as a .map from 3dsmax then bring into QuArk and export as DIF. I personally dont set any of
the hiearchey up or collisions up at all. My buildings are super huge, with many levels to them Im talking 8 to
10 screens in length or more.

Ill stop here. But now Im really wondering why your thinking DTS for buildings?

-Surge

Teresa Karr (Jun 06, 2006 at 21:22 GMT)

I didn't know about DIF until today. Thanks to everyone for pointing it out to me :)

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