Octopus is a scene exporting tool designed to export scenes that were created in 3D Studio MAX to the formats that can be used with the Yake engine (http://www.yake.org). However this tool can be used as an exporting tool for any engine that uses OGRE and/or ODE scene definitions. Octopus tool is based on the original OGRE export tool plugin published by the OGRE team.

In short:

The package contains two folders, OCTOPUS and STARTUP. Both of them should be extracted into the SCRIPTS folder of 3D Studio MAX (example: C:\3dsmax6\scripts\). After starting MAX an “Export scene to Octopus” macros should appear in Customise→Customize user interface dialog, in the “Octopus Extentions” category. You can manually drag it to the toolbar from the Customize user interface dialog. Run the macros, and open settings file by clicking the “Open OctopusScript.ini” button in the “Export Plug-in Options” rollout of an “OctopusExportTool” dialog. Change the paths according to your own system, and then save the file.

In detail:

• Once you download the Octopus file from http://www.yake.org Unzip the file to C:\3DSMAX\scripts (I assume that you have your 3DSMAX installed on drive C.)
• Run 3DSMAX and go to MAXScript/Run Script…
• Browse C:\3dsmax\scripts\octopus\macros
• Choose “OctopusToolbar.mcr”, and there is nothing appears.
• Go to Customize/Customize User Interface, click on Toolbars tab and choose “Octopus Extensions” from the Category pull-down menu.
• You will see an icon named “Export scene to Octopus”. Put that icon on the new tab with the name, “Octopus Exporter”. (or any name you wish.)
• Click on the “Export scene to Octopus” icon, open OctopusScript.ini. There are a few things to be corrected.
• The following lines are supposed to point to your Octopus directory:

[Directories]
XMLConverterPath=C:\3dsmax\scripts\octopus\exe
OgreViewerExePath=C:\3dsmax\scripts\octopus\viewer
OgreViewerMediaPath=C:\3dsmax\scripts\octopus\viewer

• There are three files to check when encountering problems running Octopus:
  • resources.cfg = This file points to reflection map in 3DSMAX. If your viewer pops up the window saying anything about reflection map, you should come here to check the path.
  • media.cfg = This file says the name of the sample mesh for real-time Orge material viewer in 3DSMAX. IF you have any problem about sample mesh when you run the material viewer in 3DSMAX, you should come here to check the file name. However, if you don't tweak any files from the Octopus zipped file, you shouldn't have this problem.
  • ogre.cfg = This file configures your Viewer. You should check the rendering device specification before using it. Match the name with your display card, or you cannot open up the material viewer in 3DSMAX. The viewer will keep popping up saying something about D3D9 file system error.

Theoretically, the Octopus tool and original OGRE export tool can coexist together without any bad interference. However, it is not recommended to load both tools at the MAX startup.

This dialog provides user interface for the exporting tasks. Can be used to export the following scene components: - geometry-class objects as OGRE nodes and meshes, dummies as single nodes. Meshes are written to .mesh or .xml files, scene hierarchy - to .scene file (in “dotscene” format). Animation is also supported - scene materials and textures as OGRE materials (.material files) - geometry-class objects as ODE objects (.xode format) - special links between OGRE and ODE objects in .link format (to use with Yake/Yapp engine)

(can be selected from Modifier list in Modify tab) Allows fine-tuning of per-object settings for the export of the OGRE meshes. Also provides multiple animations for the object. Can be applied to any geometry-class MAX object.

Special material class that has almost all OGRE features (though most of them cannot be previewed directly in MAX). Although Octopus can export the original Standard and Multi- MAX materials as an OGRE materials, it is recommended to use this special one. It can include up to four texture units. To preview textures in MAX you must manually choose MAX blending variant for that texture unit from the listbox to the right of a texture unit button. It has nothing with the export, just for preview in MAX, because of the differences in MAX and OGRE approaches to texture blending. An OGRE Material Previewer utility is included. It can be launched with the preview button at the top of Octopus Material panel (if the path to the viewer folder is correctly set in the settings file).

Just a texture unit plugin that supports almost all OGRE texture unit features.

(can be selected from Modifier list in Modify tab) Defines the object as a ODE entity. Can be used to define ODE body objects with multiple geom and mass properties, as well as static ODE geoms. Usage:

• If this modifier is applied to an geometry-class object that has no parent in objects hierarchy, an object will be exported as a single ODE body with the corresponding geom. If an object is a geometric primitive object (e.g. sphere, box, cone, cylinder or plane), its geom can be exported as a parametric geom instead of TriMesh according to the Body shape dropdown list.
• If “Static” checkbox is selected and an object has no parent, then this object is considered as static ODE geom.
• If an object has a parent, and another ODE Body modifier is applied to that parent, and “This object has joint” checkbox is deselected, an object is considered as an additional geom for that parent ODE body.
• If an object has a parent, another ODE Body modifier is applied to that parent, and “This object has joint” checkbox is selected, then this object will be exported as an non-parented ODE body (though is has a parent in MAX), and a joint between them will be created with the parameters, defined in the modifier. So to create a joint between two ODE bodies, one must do these three steps:
• link two objects in MAX
• assign different ODE Body modifiers to these objects
• select “This object has joint” checkbox in the child's modifier.

(can be found in Helpers→Octopus(ODE)) There are four types of MassHelpers: Box, Cylinder, Sphere and MassMatrix. They can be linked to the object which has an ODE Body modifier to represent ODE masses of that body.

(can be found in Helpers→Octopus(ODE)) Link object is specially designed for Yake/Yapp architecture to represent the links between different parts of an complex object model. In this particular case the link can only be established between OGRE node (i.e. any geometry class object or Dummy) and an ODE body (an object that has ODE Body modifier).

Usage:

• On the 'Create' tab, select 'Helpers' and choose 'Octopus(ODE)' from the drop down list.
• Click on 'Yapp(Link)' to create a yapp::model link. Click into the scene to place the link. Its position doesn't matter.
• Select & modify the newly created link and set the source and destination objects. ⇒ The source should be an ODE body, the target should be a Mesh or a Dummy object.
• If objects have been selected correctly, the source's Type should display 'ODE Dynamic Body', the destination's should read 'OGRE Mesh'.

Check the 3dsmax6\scripts\octopus\viewer\resources.cfg file for directories not existing on your machine and adjust them accordingly.

3ds max, from the menu Customize → Preferences. locate MAXScript tab, on this tab in the memory section increase to a logical amount and restart max.

→ line 402 of 3dsMax?\Scripts\octopus\lib\OctopusOgreOverrides.ms

writeBipedAnim2 phy sk exportOptions.mod.afframes[anumber] mod.alframes[anumber] mod.artimes[anumber] exportOptions.scale exportOptions.flipYZ aname outFile ;

removed exportOptions. should read:

writeBipedAnim2 phy sk mod.afframes[anumber] mod.alframes[anumber] mod.artimes[anumber] exportOptions.scale exportOptions.flipYZ aname outFile ;

→ for i=1 to (physiqueOps.GetBoneCount $) do

Copy the IPhysique_3dsmax5.gup (for Max5) or IPhysique_3dsmax6.gup (for Max6 and Max7) in the 'plugins' folder to the 'plugins' folder in your 3DSMax folder. http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/ogre/Ogre3DSExporter-1.2.2.zip?download

→ yapp demo: samplesSync1

→ Accessing Underlying Libraries