Plan for David "Fulcrum" Wyand

Joe Maruschak released in his .plan a PowerUp shape from ThinkTanks for people to take a look at and learn from (but not for redistribution). I mentioned that while I did not own 3DS Max or Maya (the two included sources), I was able to dissect the shape within Torque ShowTool Pro and learn how he put it together. Joe, being the great guy he is, offered to send me a FBX of the PowerUp so I could rebuild it within LightWave.

Here it is!


The LightWave 8.2 scene and objects may be downloaded here. Please remember that the same restrictions apply: this is only for learning purposes and you may not redistribute these files or include them in your game.

We can rebuild him. We have the technology.
Now, how did I go about this conversion process? Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as importing the FBX file, creating the LightWave objects and scene, and then exporting. Torque ShowTool Pro helped out immensely.

When I build these types of scenes for public consumption, I like to have them as LightWave friendly as possible. The LightWave DTS exporter doesn't require a lot of the structure that the other exporters do, so there's no reason to have them as part of the final LightWave scene (the FBX file includes the entire structure from 3DS Max). Also, the objects from the FBX file are always rotated 90 degrees about the LightWave y-axis and then are rotated back within the scene. This isn't something that you would naturally do in LightWave, so I go through and rotate all of the objects manually within Modeler to their correct orientation.

Also, sometimes an imported FBX file comes into LightWave really tiny. This has to do with how the FBX file was created, and this happened with the PowerUp. So I go through each object and scale them in Modeler to the correct size. Sure, you could scale everything in Layout, but this isn't how someone would normally build out an object in LightWave you'd build it to scale in the first place.

So where does Torque ShowTool Pro come in? When rebuilding the scene, it allows me to see all of the node's positions and rotations, as well as check the object's dimensions to make sure I've scaled them up correctly. And using the orthographic views, I make sure that I've performed the correct rotation on the objects so that they match the original DTS file.

The selected node's world position and rotation

The PowerUp's body selected and its bounding box dimensions display to make sure it is the correct size

Top-down view of the PowerUp to make sure it has been correctly rotated along LightWave's y-axis (Torque's z-axis)

Something else that Torque ShowTool Pro helped with was the flashing billboard that makes up the glow of the top light. FBX files don't appear to include visibility animation information. During the ambient animation sequence of the PowerUp, there is a transparent billboard object that fades in and out giving a nice flash for the light. Using TST Pro I was able to scrub through the animation sequence and determine when the object became fully visible and when it faded out. I then duplicated this in the LightWave scene using an object dissolve envelope.


If only he had TST Pro Dept.
While I was working with Joe's original PowerUp DTS in Torque ShowTool Pro, I noticed a couple of issues that I'm know Joe would have caught if only he had TST Pro while he worked on ThinkTanks. I'll present them here as an example of how to find these things using TST Pro as I'm sure Joe won't mind because he's a cool guy and wants us all to learn. :o)

The first issue is with the PowerUp's activate sequence. With this animation sequence selected in the Sequence Info window, I scrolled through the list of affected nodes to make sure I had them set up correctly within LightWave. At the bottom of this list is a node named [node 10 err].

The [node 10 err] node highlighted in the Sequence Info window.

If you were to look at the Nodes popup for the original PowerUp DTS, you'll notice that there are only nine nodes. This tenth node is being referred to by the animation sequence but was not actually exported from the 3DS Max scene. This is a case of extra, unneeded information being exported into the DTS file and taking up space (and possibly a little extra processing time during the sequence's playback).

The second issue has to do with the billboard flash object. With the ambient sequence selected and the timeline scrubbed to show the flash billboard object, you'll notice that as you rotate the PowerUp in the view that it becomes dark as the light moves away. If you were to open the Materials window and select the "healthflash" texture you'll notice that it isn't self illuminating. A simple change in 3DS Max and a re-export would correct this.

The flash billboard is dark when the light isn't shining on it because it doesn't have the 'Self Illuminated' flag set

Those are a couple of examples of how Torque ShowTool Pro can help you troubleshoot issues with your DTS files without having to actually load them into your game.

TST Pro in print
Much to my amazement, Craig Fortune posted here that Develop Magazine had printed a blurb on TST Pro:


This is very cool. I've never had a product listed in a magazine before. I later found out that Jay has a number of contacts and managed to get this into the mag. And this is why you want to publish with GarageGames! :o)

- LightWave Dave