I have put together these plugins so that the Max Blitz3D users can benefit from the powerful features that both 3DS Max and Blitz3D offers. It's very much work in progress so it is important to report any bugs that you might find to me at my email address. I am open to suggestions too!

I am not responsible for the output of these plugins, or any loss/change of data that may occur. You use these plugins entirely at your own risk.

You need 3DS Max 4.2 or 5.x
Max 3.x is not supported. Max 4.0 is not supported, although Max 4.2 *is* supported (the 4.2 upgrade is free from discreet site so there is no excuse for 4.0 owners).

First delete any existing Blitz3D (b3d-export.mse etc) plugin scripts you may have in your plugin folders (these will be 0.5 versions).
Then copy "b3dmaterial.mse" and "b3dexport.mse" into your max "scripts\startup\" folder. For example this could be in

"c:\3dsmax5\scripts\startup\"

-or-

"E:\3dsmax4\scripts\startup\"

You get the general idea. They should go into the "scripts\startup\" folder because they will then start when max starts. This is absolutely vital for the material plugin to automatically activate when you reload a previously saved max scene, plus it makes your life easier.

1. Go to the utilities panel, click the maxscript button.
2. You should see "Blitz3D Exporter" in the drop down list. If not you
   can also navigate to it via the "Run Script" feature.
3. Scroll down if neccesary and click the "Export B3D!" button.

Note: there is no need to select any geometry in the scene: the plugin will
automatically choose only valid geometry and export it. At the moment this is subject to the issues below in section 6.0 "Known Issues".

There will be no material applied at all unless you use the custom material plugin supplied. There may be a lot of viewport/hard drive activity as the geometry is exported and this is normal. Again there are issues, see 6.0 "Known Issues".

1. Open Material Editor by pressing "m" in max or through the menu.

2. choose an empty material slot. It has not been tested with materials
of the same name so it is reccomended you give all materials unique names.

3. Click "standard" button just below the material previews to bring up the
material/map browser and choose "Blitz3D Material" from the list.

4. The rest is self-explanitory. You want to click the "show map in viewport"
button to get visible feedback.

You should be familiar with most of these settings.

a) The plugin will save the scene with a highly unusual name before executing so don't run the plugin if you're planning on using undo shortly after! Make sure you save your work before using this plugin. You may reload your original scene. This behaviour will probably change in the future and is a small price to pay.

b) The plugin may export non-geometry. It may export bones. If it does, or you are getting any adverse affects, please contact me on the email address at the top of this document. This goes for any bug reports.

c) A common problem is meshes that do not export as expected. to fix this you can try a "reset X form" in the utilities panel, followed by applying "normals" modifier. This should in theory highlight most of your meshes problems. 3DS Max can cause untold "invisible" damage to a mesh when you use mirror for example, so be sure to frequently reset your x form and clean up the mesh during modelling.

v0.63 fixes a few misc issues and introduces hierarchies.

v0.62 fixes Max 4.2 export issues. 4.0 users must upgrade now.

v0.61 fixes the rotated/skewed texture bug and enables the high-color texture flag.

v0.6 fixes for export error messages. Geometry and material export, no smoothing groups or vertex colors exported yet. No animation either. No heirarchy information supported yet.

v0.5 first public release. Very buggy, didn't run properly on half test bed machines. Introduction of material type and simple geometry export.