hi is there a way to export an animation to a single picture-file so i can load it into my game from left to right and preferable also change row when getting to the end of the specified width of the image. Thanks a lot. Erik

Not sure if I understand your question completely---but I think you want to save all the frames of an animation as a single image file? I am not sure if there is a better way, but you can always render the frames to images (an image for each frame), and use some photoshop type application to create one big image.

Quote: Original post by suliman
hi

is there a way to export an animation to a single picture-file so i can load it into my game from left to right and preferable also change row when getting to the end of the specified width of the image.

Thanks a lot.
Erik

i believ you're asking if 3ds max can render out all of the frames into a single .gif, right? well 3ds max can't do this, and neither should you want this either. unless your images are very low res the .gif will be quite big, so i would just stick with rendering it out as a .avi and from there turning it into a .mpg, .wmv, or .avi with the xvid or divx codecs.
however if you truly do want a gif, render all of your animation out as frames (individual images in order) into a blank now folder. then go into imageready (or similar program) and say "import folder as frames"... or somethign like that, and it will import all of your animations' frames in order, then simply save as a .gif.

I think he means, he wants to render an extrmely WIDE image, like an entire level in a side scroller.
Well yes, it can be done, but very high-resolution renders are often unstable to render... what is the width and height of the image you want to render?
Just change the render settings to your specs (like 3000x1024 or whatever it is), then turn on Safe Frame, and this should give you your viewport preview of what the camera will render. I suggest rendering at a low-resolution first to make sure the image looks good.

the meaning I got was he wants to create something like a sprite sheet that contains the animations of something 2d eg. a monster or character, of course I could be wrong..

I don't know how to achieve this other than compiling it in photoshop from rendered frames, but unless it is a LOT of frames then its not too big a chore to do, if you set up your grid and snap settings and also render to your desired resolution

Quote: Original post by Professor420
I think he means, he wants to render an extrmely WIDE image, like an entire level in a side scroller.

lol, i think you're right, the original question was oddly phrased.

hehe lots of theories.

yes a sprite sheet whas the right one. Say i have 20 types of units and each has 32 frames for walking only (most of them small though like 30*20 pixels). I can only load it from a image-file into my engine.

Is this unsupported by 3dsmax? Why? You can render each frame to a separate pic... Ive heard something called filmstrip rendering, but cant find it.

Doing it manually will take countless hours. So if its not possible, my best bet is that imageready thing.

Thanks for helping out
Erik

Quote: Original post by suliman
hehe lots of theories.

yes a sprite sheet whas the right one. Say i have 20 types of units and each has 32 frames for walking only (most of them small though like 30*20 pixels). I can only load it from a image-file into my engine.

Is this unsupported by 3dsmax? Why? You can render each frame to a separate pic... Ive heard something called filmstrip rendering, but cant find it.

Doing it manually will take countless hours. So if its not possible, my best bet is that imageready thing.

Thanks for helping out
Erik

well, my explanation with imageready, i don't think, is what you want since at the time i wrote that i misunderstood your question.
however i don't see why this would be very hard to do in photoshop.
simply render a given time frame, into .tga files with "precomputed alpha" into a new folder. press render... and you'll have all of your animated frames in seperate .tga image files. open up photoshop, calculate the correct width and if need be, height, and link them all together, change your res to what it will be normally, and save.
then you're done, if i understand what you're needing to do, i don't mess with 2d stuff at all so i only have a very vague idea what a "sprite sheet" is.

sprite sheet is simply a image-file with all the frames lined up so they can be loaded into an application that works in that mannner.

Everything done manually times 80 is a lot (especially when its non-developing work like pasting countless frames back and forth).

I find nothing in PS help about link/linking images, is it some kind of batch function? (and where is it). Could you point me in the right direction please?

I know 2d isnt very up-to-date but why not include such a simple feature in a huge program like 3dsMax...

Quote: Original post by suliman

Is this unsupported by 3dsmax? Why? You can render each frame to a separate pic... Ive heard something called filmstrip rendering, but cant find it.

If you happen to own or have access to Adobe After Effects or Premiere, you can import any movie file you've rendered from Max and re-export it out as a Filmstrip (.flm) file from AE. This will save your entire movie out as one, long image file. Also works great for animated textures.