2009.3 3ds max exporter - bump maps missing

[jon]

Exporting with the 2009.3 .DAE exporter from max 2009 Design-64, I'm not seeing any bump map information being written to the .DAE file.

Steps to reproduce:

-Reset 3ds max 2009 Design-64
-Create a box
-Assign the box a Standard material
-Assign any bitmap to the bump channel of the box's material
-export to Collada
-open the Collada file in a text editor, and note that 1) a text search for 'bump' comes up empty, and 2) That there is nothing in the .DAE that looks like an external file reference. This occurs regardless of the 'embed media' setting in the exporter.

This is a big enough problem that I imagine people would be screaming about it if it was a bug, so I'm probably doing something wrong.

max file and collada file attached.

14212_rf9rYHdvoA3LPbIRc4n4.zip

[trevor.adams]

Hi Jon,

Thanks for bringing this to our attention with such clear steps.

Our FBX 2009.3 Importers and Exporters, when exporting to the COLLADA (DAE) file format, use the .dae reader/writer to read and write files. When exporting to FBX, you have support for 9 of 12 channels (Refraction, Displacement and Filter Color are not currently supported channels). When exporting to DAE, there is a different level of support, as it's using different technology to create the file. DAE exports 6 of the 12 channels (Refraction, Displacement, Filter Color, Glossiness, Specular Level and Bump channels are not currently supported). An alternative in this case would be to use FBX ... but I assume you're using DAE for a specific purpose. Can you shed some light on that?

This is not a defect but rather something that hasn't yet been supported by our COLLADA writers. If you try our 2006.11.2 plug-ins, you arrive at the same result (6 of 12 channels supported). Also important to mention is that versions 2009.0 (plug-ins shipping with 3ds Max 2009) and 2009.1 do not export any maps to COLLADA. This was a regression fixed in our released 2009.3 plug-ins.

I have logged a request to implement support for Bump map channels from 3ds Max to DAE. You aren't doing anything wrong in your export process, in other words ... this is simply a current limitation of the COLLADA exporter.

Can you give me more info about your pipeline?

Thanks,

Trevor Adams - Autodesk FBX QA

[jon]

Thanks for the response.

My pipeline is using 3ds max for modeling, UV mapping, rigging, and animation of game assets which are exported via Collada to the C4 game engine ( http://www.terathon.com/c4engine/index.php ). Collada is the only import format supported. Reading between the lines of your response, would simply renaming the .FBX files to a .DAE extension work?

[trevor.adams]

Unfortunately that wouldn't work, as they are indeed separate formats, written differently. Using our SDK, it's always possible to create FBX plug-ins for products like C4, but of course that's extra development work (you might want to request this from Terathon to include in a later version of their game engine). Alternatively, you do have access to the COLLADA reader/writer using our 2009.3 release of the FBX Software Development Kit ("FBX Extensions SDK 2009.3"), allowing you to modify how DAE files are written when exporting from 3ds Max, but again, that would require quite a bit of development work. Unfortunately, I do not have a quick workaround solution for you in your pipeline, in other words, to get Bump maps to export to COLLADA.

I have requested however that the request I submitted be considered for an upcoming release 2009; that's the best I can do at the moment.

[Anonymous]

Add the displacement to the TO DO list for the next version, please. Parallax mapping is mandatory lately and we need to export normal and heightmap for every material.

Thanks