Original Post
Hello all! I'm new here, and I'm not quite sure this is the right forum (I am so confused). Before I start let me tell you that I am rather experienced in Programming in general, and I've already got a good grasp of the MaxScript syntax. Anyways, to get to the point: I've made a robust Flash 3d Engine. It's fast enough, has basic shading and supports about a hundred vertices. Now I tried making a rudimentary modeler for it, but it's not very good, and it takes me hours to model a shitty-looking spaceship. My engine uses a special type of format I designed, that is ASCII-based: it's rudimentary, but it works well enough. I am a pretty good low-poly modeler for 3d studio max (I've had to make really low poly stuff in the past), so poly count won't be too much of a problem. What I want to do is a really basic exporter in MaxScript. Something really basic. I select an object, click a button and the script outputs (or writes to a file) the mesh data. As you might have guessed, I don't need all the extra textures, UV mapping and such. I just need all the vertices, and all the polygons. That's right, I'm not even asking for color. It would be too much and I can do it myself by editing the ASCII file. If you're wondering, here is a sample of a what-I-call "TrashEngine File". It's a basic cube.
points[
[-100,-100,100],
[-100,100,100],
[100,100,100],
[100,-100,100],
[-100,-100,-100],
[-100,100,-100],
[100,100,-100],
[100,-100,-100]
]
polys[
[1118481,true,false,0,3,2,1],
[1118481,true,false,4,5,6,7],
[1118481,true,false,1,2,6,5],
[1118481,true,false,0,4,7,3],
[1118481,true,false,0,1,5,4],
[1118481,true,true,7,6,2,3]
]
the points[] part doesn't need explaining. Simple x, y, z coordinates. Now for the polys part: -first number is the color in 16-bits -second value is "true" if backface culling should be used -third value is "true" if the normals are flipped -fourth and more: which vertices the poly are linked to Ok, you have everything. I just need a small hint on how I would get all the vertices and all the polygons from a mesh in 3ds max. I'm using version 7 if it matters. Thank you for your help, it is muchos appreciated!