Basic tutorial on how to get your Mesh from Max to IMVU

WickedAngelNB · Joined: 31 May 2009 Posts: 6977 Location: Australia

This is just a basic plain language tutorial that someone asked for on how to get their mesh from 3DS Max to IMVU because they didn't know how to make the xmf. I know there are plenty out there but often they are to confusing for the beginner and since I am one for doing the same thing the same way, this shoudl be easy for anyone to understand. I'm also using Max 2010.

Getting Your Mesh from Max to IMVU's CM.

Firstly open up Max

this is the window you should get when you first open up Max.

Next you need to make your mesh out of whatever shapes you are going to use to obtain what you are wishing to make. You can do this via the shape menu on the right hand side of the window.

Once you have finished making your mesh, you need to add your textures to bring your mesh alive. To do this, press 'm' and a pop window for the textures will open up. Select your textures from somewhere on your computer and click the button to make sure they take to your mesh.

Once you have done that, then it is time to attach all your mesh shapes into one mesh.

To do this, select one part of your mesh, go to the right hand side menu and click on the Modify menu icon (it's a small rainbow like icon), let the menu drop down and click on 'Edit Poly'. This will bring up the Edit Poly area. Scroll down till you find 'Attach' and click on Attach. This will cause another window to pop open and there will be a list of parts to your mesh.

Click the 'Add' button and your mesh will now be one entity. Got to the Max symbol at the top left hand corner and click so that the menu drops down. Go to 'Save As' and click.

This will bring up a list of meshes that you have already done and saved. Just name your mesh and hit the 'Save' button.

Now just because I'm me, I leave this window of Max open for reference while I have another Max window open for the purpose of attaching nodes and so forth.

So now open up another Max window and then click on the Open button and find where you have saved IMVU's Max files for you to work off. Find the IMVU file you want to use, in this case I used the chair file.

Now click on the actual chair in one of the windows, leaving the person and the nodes all alone, and press your keyboard's 'Delete' button. This will get rid of the chair but leave the person for size reference and the nodes that IMVU need to tell avatars where to sit.

Now you need to Import your mesh and merge it to the window that you have already open with the person and nodes in place. To do this, again click on the Max icon in the top left corner, go to Import but don't click. Let the side menu pop open and then click on Merge.

This will insert your mesh into the window, though it might be really small.

You now need to resize your mesh to the size it will be in IMVU. You need to use the person that is in your Max window as a reference for this. Click on the resizing tool and resize till it's large enough for the person to sit on.

Now you need to add your textures to the Mesh before we can 'Skin' the mesh to the nodes. To do this, again press 'm' and the Texture window will open.

Now when you open this window, you will notice that there is a multi sphere open with three textures already in place. You need to change this number if you have more than three textures. When you do this, you will also have to add some square brackets and numbers to the extra texture slots.

To do this, click on the texture slot once and it will open up a menu window that will already have a texture name and number there but you still need to add [number] there so that IMVU read the correct number of textures you have on your mesh. Once you have added the textures to each slot you need to click the checkered icon (show material in view port). Then just double click the sphere with an arrow icon ( go to parent) unless you need to add an opacity, then just click once, and then add your opacity. Once you have finished adding all your textures, you need to Drag and Drop the full sphere with little areas of the textures on it, onto your mesh.

At times some of the textures will go to the wrong place on your mesh and you need to change them around. To do this, you just change the numbers to the right of each texture slot until the right texture is in the right spot.

Now that you have your textures in the right place, it's time to add the node/s to the mesh so that IMVU's program will read what to do with your mesh correctly.

To do this, select your mesh and then go to the Modify icon and let the menu drop down. Scroll all the way down till you get to 'Skin'.

Once you have the 'Skin' modifier on, you need to add the right node, which in this case is the actual Root Node.

You need to go down a little way to where it says 'Bones' and click Add. This will bring up a window with the root node and all other nodes that are in the window. Select the Root node and then hit the select button. Now go to the 'Envelopes' Button above and click.

Once the Envelopes button is clicked, you need to tick the Vertices box so that the little red boxes at every vertice will show. Select all the vertices and then scroll down to Weighting Properties. Untick Normalize and tick Rigid.

Once you have selected all the vertices and ticked Rigid, go back to the 'Envelopes' button and disengage it.

Now you are ready to export your mesh to IMVU (as long as you have installed the exporter from IMVU which you can find in the Education Centre).

Now you need to select the Root node to export it to a file on your computer that you can find when you want to bring it into IMVU's CM.

Now again go to the Max icon and select 'Export'. This will open up a window that will allow you to select where you wish to store your files from Max. It's a good idea to have a dedicated folder for all your xrfs, xmfs and so forth.

Now that you have this window open, you need to drop down the menu at the bottom and select Cal3D Skeleton.

Name your mesh and hit save. You will now get a couple of different windows pop open so that you can save your mesh as an XSF.

Click 'Finish' and now your XSF or your skeleton is saved.

Now go back to the 'Envelopes' button and click it active again. Do a wide select of all the vertices again.

Scroll down again to the Weighting Properties area and make sure the weight is set at 1.0.

Once you have done this, go back up and click on the Envelopes button to disengage it again but leave your mesh selected.

You are now ready to export your mesh or the XMF. To do this, again go to the Max icon in the top left and select Export again. This time though you will select XMF from the bottom drop down menu.

Name your mesh and hit select. Now you will have a new pop up window open. Just hit the next button.

The next window will open and just hit the next button again.

Again another window will pop open and you just hit the Next button again.

One last window will pop up and you just need to hit the Finish button.

Once you have done this a couple of times, you will just hit the enter button without thinking. At this time a green bar will appear at the bottom of your Max screen. Depending on how big or small your item is, the green bar will show the progress of the exporting either quickly or a bit longer.

You now have successfully exported both the Skeleton and the Mesh of your product properly for IMVU.

Now all you need to do is open up CM in the client and swap out the mesh at the +Add mesh button. IMVU's software should read how many textures you have used, if you have followed all these steps correctly.

If there are any mistakes or you need to know something else that I may have forgotten, please just ask as I'm writing this while in the midst of having a migrain but I did promise a couple of new meshers and creators this tutorial in simple language. Well I hope it's simple.[/code]
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Kilian1987 · Joined: 01 Apr 2012 Posts: 13 Location: Malaysia

I wouldn't say much but this is a great piece of master knowledge Wink

twistednanny · Joined: 29 Sep 2007 Posts: 2680

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WickedAngelNB · Joined: 31 May 2009 Posts: 6977 Location: Australia

WickedAngelNB · Joined: 31 May 2009 Posts: 6977 Location: Australia

Bumped for a user to find.
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twistednanny · Joined: 29 Sep 2007 Posts: 2680

I would add a bit of info on the Material Naming Convention to that part where you made new Multi-Sub Material to assign to the mesh.
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WickedAngelNB · Joined: 31 May 2009 Posts: 6977 Location: Australia