Hello,

My name is Pete Daniel; I work for 2XL Games in Phoenix, AZ.  We have being using 3DS Max 2011 and recently upgraded to 2012.  We have a plugin that exports the model into the format required by our game engine.  We have run into a problem where the exporter is behaving differently on 2012 than it did on 2011.  When we export a model, we call the Max SDK API call “EvalWorldState” on each node to update the matrices of that node.  However, it appears that the orientation matrix is not being updated properly—it remains the identity matrix instead of being relative to its parent, but this problem only occurs when we have an IK goal. We call EvalWorldState(1) once and then loop through every frame of the animation and call GetNodeTM(t) to get the orientation at each frame.

For example, we have a hand that is attached to an IK goal; a wrist, forearm, elbow, arm and shoulder are attached in hierarchy to the hand.  When we call the “EvalWorldState” API on each node the proper translation is present in the resulting matrix, but rotation is not.  When we use the same plugin code and export using Max 2011, the rotation is present in the resulting matrix.

Is there an extra step that needs to occur with Max 2012 to query the node’s orientation?

Pete Daniel
2XL Games
Phoenix, AZ

The plug-in needs to be re-written for 2012...one of the reasons I shy away from plug-in, of any kind. I do understand your need. I would save the 2012 file as a 2011 and use the plug-in you have until you can get it re-written.

3ds Max 9 thru 2013
Windows 7 Enterprise 64-bit OS SP1
Dual Intel® Xeon® 6 core X5650 @ 2.67GHz CPU 36GB RAM
NVIDIA Quadro 4000
450GB HDD (x3) and 2TB HDD

3ds Max 2012 Certified Professional Models to Motion