If you find that you are using this script a lot you can always add the script to one of the tool bars or quad menus. If you are unfamiliar how to do this the Autodesk site has a very detailed walk through that will explain how you go about doing this.
Before we can begin to use the tool we need to first ensure that the units of measurement 3Ds Max uses is setup to correctly match the units of measurement UE4 uses.This way we can ensure that the data the tool exports from 3Ds Max will work in the same manner inside UE4.Since UE4 uses Centimeters for its default unit of measurement we will need to ensure that 3Ds Max uses this as well and to change this we must do the following.
First open up 3Ds Max 2015 and once loaded from the Main Toolbar select Customize > Unit Setup.
Next click on System Unit Setup and change the System Unit Setup from Inches to Centimeters and then press the OK button.
Finally change the Display Unit Scale to Generic Units and then press the OK button.
It is extremely important that you DO NOT skip this step. Skipping this step could result in rendering errors when the content is imported into UE4 because UE4 and 3Ds Max's units are not the same.
Tool Choices
The Vertex Animation 3Ds Max script offers two different ways to store the vertex animation data. One method will store the vertices positions in a 2D Texture while the other method will store the vertex position data in the UV's of the mesh. Below you will find links that show you how to setup and use both methods.
Key framed Method - This method uses individual key frames that can be exported from other 3D packages and imported into 3Ds Max. That information is saved to the meshes UVs.
Animation Timeline Method - This method uses the 3Ds Max animation timeline and the results are encoded into a 2D Texture.
Tips Tricks
To get the most out this technique, there are a few tips and tricks that you can follow which are outlined below.
Speeding Up the Animation Play Rate
If you feel that the rate at which the animations are playing is to slow, you can use the TimeWithSpeedVariable Material Function to speed up the play rate.To do this just plugging the output of the TimeWithSpeedVariable into the 0-1 Animation input if you are using the MS_SequencePainter_SequenceFlibook Material Function.If you are using the MS_VertexAnimationTools_MorphTargets Material Function plug the output of the TimeWithSpeedVariable into the Morph Animations input.
Multiple Animated Meshes
You can select multiple animated meshes at a time and the script will bake all of that data down to one mesh and one set of Textures. This is very useful when working with characters that are made up of different parts. Just select the parts that you want to use and the run the script like normal. The script will then combine the pieces you selected and generate a new mesh from them along with the required 2D Textures.
Frame Skip
Using the Frame Skip option that is under the Vertex Animation Tools section of the script will allow you to skip certain frames. This is a very useful option as it allows you to reduce the final Texture size while still maintaining the look and feel of the original animation.
If we take a look at the example video below, we can see the Frame Skip feature in action. The first Teapot you see in front of the word, Original, shows how the Teapot will animate using the full frame range. The next Teapot, with the number 2 in front of it, shows how the teapot animates skipping every 2nd frame and so on. As you can see the last example, the effect will still maintain its look and feel even if you skip 10 frames.
Mesh Name /Number
Texture Size
Memory Savings
Original175 KBN/A259 KB116 KB530 KB145 KB1021 KB154 KBTechnical Information
The following section is for technical information about how the Vertex Animation script works. Please note that this is here purely for reference or for people who would like to know more about how the script works in case they want to modify it.
Limitations
Vertex positional morph target information is stored in a 16 bit signed floating point file format. A 32 bit image would be more precise but 16 should suffice for most FX work. With that said, the offset vertex positions will be less precise as they move further away from their resting positions.
Memory Usage
The memory usage for each frame per vert is as follows :
Vertex Offset Texture: 8 bytes per vertex per frame (each pixel)
Normal Texture: 4 bytes per vertex per frame (each pixel)
相关页面
Vertex Animation Tool - Key Framed Meshes
Vertex Animation Tool - Timeline Meshes