Exporting finished scene to FBX

[MitchRossGE]

Hey!

I've been learning 3ds Max with pretty good experience in other modeling programs and some AutoDesk programs like AutoCad. I'm using 3ds to make a scene for a client that they wish to display to an audience and be able to rotate/zoom/switch through cameras.

I decided to use FBX review for this purpose and so I've been attempting to get my scene to export to FBX review exactly as I have it in 3ds max. I'm running into a lot of issues with my lights. 

There are about 80 photometric lights in my scene - I'm aware that FBX does not support this light but I've been able to make about 4 of them appear and work within the exported FBX, but the others will not work despite having the exact same settings and positioning. I've even tried cloning the working light to both a new copy and an instance of the same light but to no avail. 

I've tried everything I could find by searching but now I need to just ask and see if anyone has any ideas. 

thanks!

3dsmax 2017

[MitchRossGE]

Allow me to simplify...

I've made a scene how I want it in 3ds Max. I saved it to an FBX to view with "FBX Review."

When I open the same FBX in 3ds Max in a clean scene, my lights are there and working as intended. 

Then I open the same FBX in FBX Review the lights are not there. 

Is there any reason FBX Review would not show my lights. 

Thanks!

[Alfred.DeFlaminis · Accepted solution]

Hello @MitchRossGE and welcome to the community!

I hadn't used FBX Review much before today, so I did some tests to test the limits.  I also was able to use the photometric lights in the FBX, but I'm convinced they are converted to standard omni's once exported via FBX.  For me, the light limit seems to be 8 whether they are standard omni's or photometric lights.  I'm attaching some screenshots here as evidence of my testings.  Breakdown is as follows:

1) Testing light types, exported as photometrics.  Test totally successful.

2) Tested duplicating those lights (Copies, not instances) to see if there was a limit to the number of lights.  That limit seems to be 8 for me, but I made about 70 lights.

3) Then I tested to see if that limit was simply for photometrics so I made 65 or so standard lights and exported, again clipped to 8.  They aren't very bright, but they are there.  

I am not sure why yours is stopping at 4, but for me it was 8.  At this point I think it's a limitation in FBX Review since it wants to work on mobile devices.  I don't know how big your scene is or if you laid out non-overlapping uvs but a workaround might be to bake out the lighting and textures with Render to Texture (Complete Map) and use that as a self illuminated texture on the model.  Then it would look lit by GI and fancy materials/lights and get into FBX ok.  The downside here is that this can be a lot of work.  

EDIT: Spelling. 

Best Regards,

[Alfred.DeFlaminis]

Hello @MitchRossGE,

I wonder, for the 4 lights that did import for you, were they all unique?  Say Light 1 had 15 instances, did only 1 of those instances come in?  Same for light 2, etc?  Just curious. 

Best Regards,