Hello guys.
I dont know where to put this post, probably in a totally different forum, but here goes.

My supervisor has asked me to make a 3D enviroment to use in a web browser. This is supposed to be placed on my company’s intranet, and will contain heavy 3D (or simplyfied if its the only way). The idea is to have an enviroment where you can navigate yourself freely on an oilrig , look around and click on different equipment to get some info on that specific equipment. Maybe even play a little animation within the viewer.
We are using .max files for animations so it would be nice to be able to import max models.
Does anyone know what program to use for this? This is not my field :)

Any suggestions appreciated.

XP x64
Max 2008 x64
Intel Xeon E5430 @ 2.66 GHz
16g RAM
NVIDIA Quadro FX 4600

We use a Flash based panorama component for this kind of thing.

There is no animation in our scenes, however you can overlay images, videos, and swf’s so it could be done this way.

The reason we use this approach is so that we can have the highest quality renders used without having to worry about actually loading up large 3D models, or having to optimise assets that have already been built.

You basically render out 6 camera positions front, back, left, righ, up, and down and the component loads them up for you. you can then open flash and place any highlights/anims on the scene.

hope this helps…

You could also use a real 3D engine to publish your scene such as this:
http://hometime.net/Oil_Rig.zip
It (the link above) is a 9.3 mb zip file (in case you’d like to scan the executable before launching) containing the viewer.
There is some white text in the upper left hand corner or the viewer with a little instruction for movement and shutting down.
The program I made it in is called Quest 3D and the product web page is located at: http://www.quest3d.com/
There is a free demo if you think you’d like to try the program.

Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

I updated the link above with a version that has a small animation running.
Once you’ve entered the viewer turn left and on a post on one of the structures there is a small animation running. These animations can be triggered with a keystroke, mouse click or joystick and run for any determined length of time, speed or size.
It’s been a while so I am going to have to refresh my memory with how to do the mouse click to start/stop the animation. The movie in this version is just a video file, I’m going to take a fresh look at putting in object animation.

Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

Don,
I looked briefly at Quest 3D before. some nice examples on their site.  Whats the poly/texture limit?

Hi,
You know, I’m not really sure about he limits.
I’m pretty much a struggling artist just trying to get some of the basics down
and really haven’t pushed the limits other than the the limits of my patience and
some of the other users on the forum.
The information may be available somewhere but I’m not sure where.
:)

Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

We have been using a program called ClickVR by Codeblend.
http://www.codeblend.com/index.html

We tried Quest and found it daunting.
Click VR has a Max interface.

David

Want to change the current Max release schedule? Write/Email/Call your reseller

I only see stills in their (Click VR) gallery, any interactive demos available?
True, Quest is pretty much daunting in some respects but it is getting better, I think.
The user base is drawing the programmers out to continue to simplify for the artist type,
which is one of their advertised selling points.
It helps examining the examples and you can also use the code channels from the examples in your own projects.
I don’t think I (personally) could imagine trying to use this as a business tool for now since my learning is so time consuming and difficult, but I can see where if one did get a good grasp of the program under his belt it could very well be a good business tool.
Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

had a look at the demo examples. they do look nice but i’m not sure they’re as good as Quest. And its still low poly so it would involve building the high detail version of the model for final animations and then building a low-poly version from that. Looks good, but too time consuming to be a viable business tool as you say Don.

Uh, well, actually, I was talking about Quest as being not viable for a business tool for me personally since I am only learning it now and know it will be some time for me since I have already spent several years on and off (mostly off) at getting my head around it.
My grasp of programming is very weak and I am slow to learn especially in this area.
But, as I said I do think it is getting better, though you will notice my oil rig demo isn’t anything in quality or volume as the really advanced ones on the Quest site.
Don

Max 2012
Windows 7 64 SP1

What I really like about Click-VR is the ability to script things from inside max.

The light maps are good too, and there is a web version.

When I tested Quest I really struggled.
Click VR was a lot easier.....

David

Want to change the current Max release schedule? Write/Email/Call your reseller