3DS Max Half-Life SMD Exporter v1.0

June 2003

About| Installation| Usage| License| Credits| Links

Important Notes

This is an unofficial utility and is not supported in any way by Valve Software. Please do not contact them with any questions about this script.

This exporter will not work with gmax.

About This Script

This is a 3DS Max 4.2 or later MAXScript utility for exporting Half-Life SMD files. Currently, Max bones and the skin modifier are used for exporting animation: future versions may include support for Character Studio.

I've been reliably informed that this exporter works better with the skin modifier and my SMD Importer script than the Valve SMD exporter plugin. This exporter should be a handy tool for those without Character Studio or who wish to re-export imported models.

Installation

To install, just drop SMDExporter.mzp into your 3DS Max scripts\startup folder (eg. c:\3dsmax\scripts\startup), run Max (if it's not running already), go to the "MAXScript" menu, and select "Run Script...". Choose SMDExporter.mzp which you just placed in your Max scripts\startup folder, and click OK. Select the utility command panel (the one with the hammer icon), click on the "MAXScript" button and the MAXScript utility rollout will appear. In it you'll see a little drop down list box entitled "Utilities". Open it up, and you should find "SMD Exporter" listed there. Click on "SMD Exporter" and the interface should appear somewhere below or above the MAXScript rollout. Note that you might have to scroll the utility panel down to find the interface. You're ready to go!

As you placed the script in your 3DS Max scripts\startup folder, it will automatically be installed each time you run 3DS Max. If you don't like this, just put it into your scripts folder instead and run it manually as described above each time you need it.

To uninstall, just delete SMDImporter.mzp from wherever you put it.

Using the Importer

Using the exporter should be fairly self-explanatory. Pick your model using the "Pick Model" button, and then either select "Reference Pose" to export a single static reference pose or select "Animation Sequence" and set the "First Frame" and "Last Frame" spinners to the animation range. Just hit "Export SMD...", choose a filename and you're done.

License
Copyright (c) 2003 Chris Cookson

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any
person obtaining a copy of this software and associated
documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without limitation the rights
to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to
whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR
ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

In brief, this MIT-style license means that you can copy/sell/publish this script as much as you like but always include the above copyright notice in your distribution.

Credits

Written by Chris Cookson.

People I'd like to thank:

Links

Copyright (C) 2003 Chris Cookson