Chaos Corona Forum
Chaos Corona for 3ds Max => [Max] I need help! => Topic started by: aaouviz on 2023-06-07, 10:48:04
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I keyframed multiple objects to be animated.
I want to export those pieces as a single animated proxy, but I can't do it (but obviously I can if it's multiple proxies).
Now I'm stuck... I've gone to the effort of animating them, but ideally I'd like to use it in my scene as a proxy but can't unless I re-do all the animation as an animated edit poly within the single poly first, then export the animated proxy from there.
What are my options? What am I missing?
Thanks for any tips!
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You can easily File > Save Selected these objects (meshes, proxies, anything) and save as a separate 3ds Max file.
Then you can Xref it in the other one.
Do you actually need them to be proxies specifically? XRef will give you great versatility of object and visibility manipulation, keep the layers, reduce file size, plus you can always open it and do additional changes if necessary.
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Thanks,
I did think of this.
I know I can test this myself, but I'm super pressed for time right now, so I'll ask you;
The reason I want it as a proxy is because I want to then path animate it. Is this somehow possible with that workflow you described?
Thanks.
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Of course.
With XRef you have a fully compatible 3ds Max file and you can do anything with it.
Proxy will just limit it to some degree.
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I never had much luck with xrefs - every time i would move xref'ed objects, it would work for some time, but then i open the scene next time and find those objects fly away to some arbitrary positions. Either i don't understand how xref's work, or they are not very reliable by nature. Anyway, if you want to merge multiple animated objects into one, i would suggest to try skin wrap and then record point cache file. You can even make proxy from that point cached object. The only downside i can think of, is that if you will want to edit animation, you will need to record new point cache file, but usually that's quick and easy operation.
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Actually there's might be catch to my suggested method - i never tested it myself, but i think that point cache will only works on deformational animation. If your animation is transformational, then probably you will need to stick with xrefs. Scratch that, i didn't realize, that skin wrap will take care of converting all transformational animation to deformational, so point cache should not have any issues with that.
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Xrefs depend on scene scale, you should make sure that the origin, the parent object for XRef manipulation, scale of both scenes are correct.
The only "unreliability" I had with XRefs was the masking, layering and some other not quite important stuff.
For trimming some part of the scene and having it placed in another scene, while keeping all modification options as a pure 3ds max file, XRef is the best.
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99,9% of my scenes are made, saved, or converted to the same system units and 99,9% of my objects has their transforms reset, so i'm pretty sure, that's not the scale issue, but as i said, i'm not an expert with xrefs, so it's quite possible that i'm doing something wrong.
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99,9% of my scenes are made, saved, or converted to the same system units and 99,9% of my objects has their transforms reset, so i'm pretty sure, that's not the scale issue, but as i said, i'm not an expert with xrefs, so it's quite possible that i'm doing something wrong.
That's strange, as at least with Max 2022, with animated 3rd party models (Speedtree Cinema IVs with point cache), populate data, animated vegetation and other stuff saved and xref-ed into one master scene did not give major issue. The only issue I remember was a vertex paint mask scale, which has something to do with scene units, the other minor one was animated parameters of Populate date (people being hidden/invisible by animation) would reset sometimes, but that is most probably because of populate data, it's not quite stable.
I think the issue on your side could have been the linking/parenting of the helper/object, which controls the XRef. Yes, controlling it can be tricky, but works as expected.
If you have a problematic case, I will be happy to have a look and help if I can.
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Now that you've mentioned, i think indeed the issue was with parented objects. It's also worth mentioning that all my experience with xrefs was with Max 2016 and older versions, so that's quite possible that Autodesk has fixed a bug or two over the years.
If you have a problematic case, I will be happy to have a look and help if I can.
Thank you for your kind offer to help, but i gave up on xrefs long time ago, i found that they do not suit my workflow that much.