Design 1, Design 3 (Computer and Video Games)
Unit 13 - 25th December 2001

Using Solosnake's ASE to Unreal Converter

As we saw earlier, using .dxf Files for importing models into Unreal has certain disadvantages. One of those is the fact that models added as brushes cannot be displayed with smooth edges. Another one is that textures carefully attached to your model in a 3D programme won't transfer to UNREAL. Dáire "Solosnake" Stockdale wrote a piece of code, which does the transformation from Studio Max to .t3d format, which is a brush import format for UNREAL and contains the information about texture coordinates. Download Solosnakes's ASE2T3D Converter here.

Let's suppose we have modeled and textured a creature in 3D Studio Max. (Actually the model was exported from Lightwave and given the silly blue and white carneval skin in Studio Max.)

In the File menu you will find the Export submenu and may select "Max ASCII (.ase)" as the format of your choice.

The resulting .ase file is an ASCII file, starting with the lines underneath and followed by a long list of mesh vertex and mesh face descriptions.

*3DSMAX_ASCIIEXPORT 200
*COMMENT "AsciiExport Version 2,00 - Tue Dec 25 11:40:13 2001"
*SCENE {
*SCENE_FILENAME "fox.max"
*SCENE_FIRSTFRAME 0
*SCENE_LASTFRAME 30
*SCENE_FRAMESPEED 30
*SCENE_TICKSPERFRAME 160
*SCENE_BACKGROUND_STATIC 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
*SCENE_AMBIENT_STATIC 0.0431 0.0431 0.0431
}
*MATERIAL_LIST {
*MATERIAL_COUNT 1
*MATERIAL 0 {
*MATERIAL_NAME "Material #1"
*MATERIAL_CLASS "Standard"
*MATERIAL_AMBIENT 0.1791 0.0654 0.0654
*MATERIAL_DIFFUSE 0.5373 0.1961 0.1961
*MATERIAL_SPECULAR 0.9000 0.9000 0.9000
*MATERIAL_SHINE 0.2500
*MATERIAL_SHINESTRENGTH 0.0500
*MATERIAL_TRANSPARENCY 0.0000
*MATERIAL_WIRESIZE 1.0000
*MATERIAL_SHADING Blinn
*MATERIAL_XP_FALLOFF 0.0000
*MATERIAL_SELFILLUM 0.0000
*MATERIAL_FALLOFF In
*MATERIAL_XP_TYPE Filter
*MAP_DIFFUSE {
*MAP_NAME "Map #1"
*MAP_CLASS "Bitmap"
*MAP_SUBNO 1
*MAP_AMOUNT 1.0000
*BITMAP "E:\fox_skin.bmp"
*MAP_TYPE Screen
*UVW_U_OFFSET 0.0000
*UVW_V_OFFSET 0.0000
*UVW_U_TILING 1.0000
*UVW_V_TILING 1.0000
*UVW_ANGLE 0.0000
*UVW_BLUR 1.0000
*UVW_BLUR_OFFSET 0.0000
*UVW_NOUSE_AMT 1.0000
*UVW_NOISE_SIZE 1.0000
*UVW_NOISE_LEVEL 1
*UVW_NOISE_PHASE 0.0000
*BITMAP_FILTER Pyramidal
}
}
}

Screenshot from the StudioMax Export Dialogue field.
*GEOMOBJECT {
*NODE_NAME "object"
*NODE_TM {
*NODE_NAME "object"
*INHERIT_POS 0 0 0
*INHERIT_ROT 0 0 0
*INHERIT_SCL 0 0 0
*TM_ROW0 1.0000 0.0000 0.0000
*TM_ROW1 0.0000 1.0000 0.0000
*TM_ROW2 0.0000 0.0000 1.0000
*TM_ROW3 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
*TM_POS 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
*TM_ROTAXIS 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
*TM_ROTANGLE 0.0000
*TM_SCALE 1.0000 1.0000 1.0000
*TM_SCALEAXIS 0.0000 0.0000 0.0000
*TM_SCALEAXISANG 0.0000
}
*MESH {
*TIMEVALUE 0
*MESH_NUMVERTEX 403
*MESH_NUMFACES 790
*MESH_VERTEX_LIST {
*MESH_VERTEX 0 33.0000 202.0000 114.0000

Next thing to do is to open solosnake's ASE-T3D converter, and to set the input filename and output filename. (I did not find out how to type the T3D filename into the filename requester box, so I use to select another .t3d file and change the name afterwards.)

What we get as a .t3d file is something like that:

Begin Brush Name=fox
Begin PolyList
Begin Polygon Flags=32768 Link=0
Origin -00121.058776,-00734.151619,-00116.515360
Normal -00000.402858,+00000.459510,+00000.791553
TextureU -00000.888810,-00000.196601,+00000.338227
TextureV +00000.062787,+00000.272383,+00000.126168
Vertex +00034.000000,-00146.000000,+00146.000000
Vertex +00033.000000,-00202.000000,+00114.000000
Vertex +00042.000000,-00201.000000,+00110.000000
End Polygon
Begin Polygon Flags=32768 Link=1
Origin -00120.853811,-00733.555556,-00282.137550
Normal +00000.487542,+00000.426599,+00000.761785
TextureU -00000.809866,+00000.220789,-00000.394673
TextureV -00000.071880,+00000.282705,+00000.112312
Vertex +00034.000000,-00146.000000,+00146.000000
Vertex +00025.000000,-00200.000000,+00110.000000
Vertex +00033.000000,-00202.000000,+00114.000000
End Polygon
Begin Polygon Flags=32768 Link=2
Origin -00120.327056,-00733.551183,+00085.617817
Normal -00000.713907,+00000.121001,-00000.689707
TextureU -00000.522184,-00000.092430,-00000.524290
TextureV +00000.028591,+00000.340971,-00000.030225
Vertex +00036.000000,-00030.000000,+00124.000000
Vertex +00038.000000,-00041.000000,+00128.000000
Vertex +00033.000000,-00042.000000,+00123.000000
End Polygon .........

And so forth untill we reach polygon number 789.

The only way I found to have the texture name included with the .t3d file is to insert it manually.

I change

Begin Polygon Flags=32768 Link=0

to

Begin Polygon Item=OUTSIDE Texture=fox_skin Flags=32768 Link=0

for each of the lines in the .t3d file. Solosnake told me however that this bug has been corrected in the most recent update of his software.