Add gLTF support, export and import

[klaasnienhuis]

gLTF is quickly gaining momentum, many online and offline engines support this interchange format. Autodesk itself is supporter of the gLTF standard. Let's add native gLTF import and export support to 3dsMax!

[mhj.notenboom]

Yes that is troublesome. Also for 3D printing everybody uses 3MF. Also not
supported but other companies do.

[klaasnienhuis]

gltf import/export seems to be planned for max 2023: https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxgzGi8qq4HrQ9klqQx74QvxFmElNM_h1O

[Anonymous]

@klaasnienhuis ok but i would like an exporter for 2022/2021 too! some studios work with 2019... It's unbeliveble that a small exporter is a "feature" in 2023! 

[halilsevimhs]

import and export gltf is what we need now.

[somawheels]

I need it too. There is actually a gltf import plugin available. but its costs $7.99/month, which is kinda alot for a file importer.

[teamSP26J]

Still no import?

[Fokuspunkt_3D]

We need to export an animated mesh to PowerPoint. Microsoft dropped FBX format, so we are forced into GLTF. However, Max can not export GLTF animations.

I have tried way too hard and am still struggling. Dont matter which converter I use (Babylon.js, Verge3D, FBX2GLTF, gltf-converter, gltf-editor.com, to name a few), I either do not get the animation ported or the materials get destroyed in the progress.

I really do not want to discuss 3rd party possibilities anymore.

This is something that should be integrated into such an expensive product. At least after 4 years of paying customers begging you...

I am now trying to export an FBX to Blender, then export as GLTF from there... thats tedious, though, I need to   make all materials again and to be honest, I like Max's (oldschool) material editor a lot more... Plus, its bad for your business if users get accusomted to a different program.

I dont understand, why is it just hapazardly thrown into max, no import, no animation, just the bare minimum? This is no rant, just a simple question. Why is Autodesk not integrating such small but important thing? Do you evaluate this as trivial, do you not have enough staff or funding? Are there license costs involved that you do not want to pay? It eludes my mind why this is not properly integrated...

[echadwick-artist]

I have been using this 3rd party glTF importer/exporter for Max, it works well so far. Supports materials, animation, extensions, supports translation to/from multiple material systems. They've even added custom attributes for additional extenstions not currently inside the glTF Material. Plus the developer has been very supportive with suggestions for improvements. 
https://nu1963u.wixsite.com/custom3dsmax/gltfpluginfor3dsmax

I agree it would be best to have 1st-party import/export, but this one works well for us...

[Tvortsa]

15 years ago, autodesk developers were replaced by robots, they have some brains and programming skills, but no heart, so they can’t hear your suffering, my friend.

You can export the GLTF animation with the free exporter Babylongs, that's what I do.

But it seems that the developers of Babylon.js were also replaced by robots, and Japanese ones, so the logic of exporting animation there is inaccessible to an ordinary earthling.

But I’ll give you a hint: you need to right-click on your 3ds viewport and select Babylon Animation Group

Then you need to create this animation group or several by specifying a frame range for each

Then add scene objects to these animation groups by clicking the buttons as shown in the screenshots

And then in your 3Dmax scene there will be babylon animations, which are then exported along with GLTF

[echadwick-artist]

Thanks for this! Check the Max2Babylon help file here for more info:

https://doc.babylonjs.com/features/featuresDeepDive/Exporters/3DSMax_to_glTF#how-to-export-3d-model-...

It's a great exporter but it doesn't support most of the material extensions: Transmission, Volume, Clearcoat, Sheen, Iridescence, Anisotropy, etc.

If you don't mind a bit of text editing, you can manually add extensions after export. I wrote up a tutorial here: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF-Tutorials/blob/main/AddingMaterialExtensions/README.md

[Fokuspunkt_3D]

@echadwick-artist Thanks for your hands on testimony. I had looked into that exporter before, but I really only need to export 4 models. I know, I know, 99 bucks isnt the world, still, I do not know if I ever have to update those models. Probably exactly when the license expired... So yeah, in a pinch I'll give it a go!

@Tvortsa Thanks for the lengthy explanation. With Babylon.js, however, the animations are fine, but the materials are ugly. I compared the materials between exporting a still glb from Max's internal exporter with an animated model exported with Babylon.js. All materials look decent with the first. When exporting with Babylon, however, the materials are all over the place...

I tried Max's standard, gltf and PBR materials. Which one works best for you?

[Tvortsa]

@Fokuspunkt_3D 

I generally don’t believe in adequate export of materials from 3DS Max to the web; I configure the materials in the engine, since each web engine has its own solutions for materials, calculated shaders, etc.

[echadwick-artist]

@Tvortsa

glTF is designed specifically to allow creatives to write once and render it everywhere, that's the beauty of this format.

The glTF specification is carefully designed to make it easy for tool and renderer developers to implement its features consistently. So, once you make glTF materials you can be confident they will render almost anywhere. 

It's not perfect, there are various material extensions which aren't supported in some renderers. Cesium for example doesn't yet support KHR_materials_transmission. But for the most part, things work as expected. 

I've posted a bunch of examples here FWIW (https://ericchadwick.com/gltf/index.html) to demonstrate glTF materials features. These are all from the glTF Sample Assets repository, and these render successfully in most glTF renderers. All of these were created in 3ds Max, and exported with various exporters (Autodesk's own, Max2Babylon, HS glTF Exporter).

[Tvortsa]

@echadwick-artist 

Nice images, but:
Then I have this question for you: is GLTF a format for WebGL or WebGPU?

WebGL and WebGPU are very different web 3D engines and WebGPU has computable shaders, that is, the engine developer himself comes up with shaders (for example, glow, refraction, screen reflections that are not present in WebGL at all) he implements them himself using computable shaders and GLTF cannot know about all the shaders including those that have not yet been created

gltf is aware of a certain universal set of shader channels PBR, for example: albedo, reflectivity, normal map, but how exactly a specific engine will interpret the data stored in gltf is known only to this engine itself, gltf is powerless to dictate anything to the engine and cannot guarantee anything.

Therefore, the materials in each game engine need to be configured and adjusted to what you need.

To do this, you need to write some kind of adapter in the engine and execute it at the moment of loading gltf assets into the scene.

[echadwick-artist]

glTF uses a fixed-function shader system, so it definitely doesn't fill all needs. It aims for universality. 

However if that works for you, you certainly can use it in WebGL and WebGPU applications, for example see https://toji.dev/webgpu-gltf-case-study/#:~:text=A%20brief%20primer%20on%20glTF%20meshes,-glTF%20is%....