As mentioned in my previous post, I'm considering using 3ds Max as a world editor for this new game type thingy I'm working on. One of the nastiest things to do manually is to place "gems" throughout the levels. So I opened up the MaxScript editor and began plugging away.
The first version of the gem tool allows you to select a scene node and randomly generate a given number of gems at a variable height above its surface. Gems can be modified after creation. They can be extruded along face normals or along the vertical axis. When you're happy with a set of gems you can export them to xml. Then it's just a matter of pasting the results into the scene element of the level xml file. I tried it out using the test scene from my game demo. It worked perfectly and the engine loaded them no prob.
And in conclusion...
This is just the beginning. [smile] I'll post the source code to my site tomorrow so you max users can try it out. I'll want to add optional grouping controls to my next version and if possible import gems from xml to max.
