Using Flyby's Script with GMax for Voxels
by bullethead
Now I recently had a talk with Flyby and he said his script didn't work
with colours which basically makes it useless when you want to convert
a 3d model to voxel format. I did some experimenting and decided to make
a tutorial on my findings. If you post this on any site please give credit
where it is due, to me.
Materials needed:
1) Gmax or Renegade GMax expansion
Renx
2) Flybys Voxelizer script
3) XCC Mixer
4) Voxel Editor
5) Microsoft Word
First make your 3d model in Gmax or Renx.
Make sure its of good size, not to small and not too big.
Then click on run script. Open Flybys voxelizer script.
You will want to click the 'Pick Object Button' then click what you
are wanting to voxelize.
After that is done it gives you the coridinates and the poly count on
the model.
Next click Voxelize. It takes awhile sometimes so hang in there.
After it's done, click on the Gmax button. It will say renderer is not
available and to copy and paste from the maxscript listener(F11).
So click F11 and it will bring up the txt file you need. Now you will
notice that there are 5 numbers in each row, and after the numbers it says
undefined. Here is an example from a model I have been working on:
Ex.1
0,1,9,1,1,undefined
0,1,9,2,1,undefined
0,1,9,3,1,undefined
0,1,9,4,1,undefined
0,1,10,1,1,undefined
0,1,10,2,1,undefined
0,1,10,3,1,undefined
0,1,10,4,1,undefined
0,1,11,1,1,undefined
0,1,11,2,1,undefined
0,1,11,3,1,undefined
0,1,11,4,1,undefined
0,1,11,5,1,undefined
0,1,12,1,1,undefined
0,1,12,2,1,undefined
0,1,12,3,1,undefined
0,1,12,4,1,undefined
0,1,12,5,1,undefined
0,1,12,6,1,undefined
0,1,13,2,1,undefined
0,1,13,3,1,undefined
0,1,13,4,1,undefined
0,1,13,5,1,undefined
0,1,13,6,1,undefined
0,1,14,2,1,undefined
0,1,14,3,1,undefined
0,1,14,4,1,undefined
0,1,14,5,1,undefined
0,1,14,6,1,undefined
0,1,14,7,1,undefined
0,1,15,2,1,undefined
0,1,15,3,1,undefined
0,1,15,4,1,undefined
0,1,15,5,1,undefined
0,1,15,6,1,undefined
0,1,15,7,1,undefined
Etc......
That is where the problem is. The undefined should be a number representing
the number from the unittem.pal. Like if you put 50 the you would get a
dark grey colour on a section of the model. But since it says undefined,
when you convert the txt to vxl it will only show a blue screen.
So here is what we do to fix that. Go to Microsoft word and open it.
then click open file->then name of what you saved your txt too. Once that
is opened click on Edit->Find->Replace. In the Find What box type undefined
But not with the underline I jsut underlined it so you could see it better.
Then in the replace with box type in any number from 0 to 255 or from 16
to 191 cause some of the colours will be pink in game even though they
aren't pink in the voxel editor.
Now once you have entered the number you want click on 'REPLACE ALL'.
After it is done replacing the undefined with your number enterd click
save. And it should look like this:
Ex.2
0,1,9,1,1,xx
0,1,9,2,1,xx
0,1,9,3,1,xx
0,1,9,4,1,xx
xx being what ever you entered.
Ok we're almost there.
Now put your saved txt file in the RA2 directory if it isnit already.
Open up XCC Mixer then the RA2 directory. Do the same in the middle panel.
Click on your txt file and right click on it. then click on copy as vxl
and there you have it. You will see your vxl in one colour only but at
least you will see it finally.
For finishing touches you're going to want to open it in the voxel editor
and colour it the way you want.
I hope this has helped others that have the same problem that I did.
Updates will be done to this to make it a little more clear if it isn't
already. I'll leave you by saying have fun.