Gaming Infrastructure InfraWorks 360 & Stingray

Transcription

1 1 of 26 Gaming Infrastructure InfraWorks 360 & Stingray The purpose of this handout is to show and explain about the steps required to create a game-like experience out of any Infrastructure or Building project exported from IW360. Make sure you have the following Autodesk software running properly on your computer: 1. InfraWorks 360 ( or latest). Referred to as IW360 in this handout 2. 3ds Max (2017) 3. Stingray ( ) or latest release available (Highly Recommended) Disclaimer: This handout explains the basic steps required to apply the workflow for small to medium size IW360 projects. Hence, it does not tackle the advanced steps which are sometimes necessary to optimize the model data inside of 3ds Max for huge models exported from IW360. So, for you to follow and apply the steps below you don t have to be an expert with 3ds Max or Stingray nor do any image/texture processing in other 3 rd party tools. Steps: 1. Fire up IW360 on your computer and open any of your existing IW360 models. Or: you may either copy the IW360 project folder that came with the handout and then access it from within IW360 by clicking on the Open button searching for the corresponding.sqlite of the model then double clicking on it. 2. Once the model is opened in IW360, it is advisable to do the following changes: a. Sketch or import any new features you want to show or carry over to the game (or import any buildings, bridges, etc. into the scene), or else can add them in 3ds Max at a later stage. b. Make sure you have any type of a physical barrier around the periphery of the model area which you want to export to Stingray (as per the screenshot below)

2 2 of 26 c. You may also create different alternatives of the same project as different proposals in of IW360 for export later. 3. Now Export one project proposal into an FBX file from within IW360 as shown in the screenshot below. You may use either a Box or Polygon to select the area of interest. It is recommended to use the Polygon option for defining the model export extent because: 1) it provides better flexibility to select any area and 2) minimizes the details which are not required for the export hence reducing the size of the exported FBX file. Otherwise, you may simply tick the Use Entire Model box if you plan to export the whole IW360! Note: you may opt for exporting the IW360 model into Multiple files instead of one Single file (for Buildings, Roads and others) if you are planning to correct or optimize certain things in each data category. This becomes very handy for those of you who have large IW360 models and want to reduce the number of Polys and complexity of these models in 3ds Max before sending the model to Stingray; hence, optimizing performance. 4. Now we are done from IW360 and we have to fire up 3ds Max. In 3ds Max, click the top left icon. From the drop down icon s list pick Import and then Import import non-native file formats into 3ds Max as per the below screen shots. Look for the folder where the FBX file was exported to.

3 3 of Select the FBX file then hit Open and then 3ds Max will show a new window (make sure the current preset at the top is selected as: "Autodesk Media & Entertainment") then press Ok. The file will open inside of the 3ds Max environment (notice that the Day & Sky settings from IW360 will not be imported with the file). You can easily see by zooming out that the imported model is far away from the main origin 0,0,0. However, for the FBX file to work perfectly with Stingray we have to change the position of the file to 0,0,0 by following the steps below: 6. Select everything in the imported FBX file, the easiest way would be by clicking somewhere on canvas then clicking the Ctrl and A keyboard buttons simultaneously.

4 4 of After selecting all file objects, go to the "Group" from the ribbon tab and from that click on the drop down "Group" option. Now either keep the Group name as Group001 or rename it to your preference then hit the Ok button. The model will now behave as a single mesh. 8. After grouping and having all objects selected, right click the Select and Move button from the ribbon tab (shown below in small red box), the Move Transform Type-In window pops up. 9. Input zeros 0 for the Absolute:World X, Y and Z values in the text boxes. The model will shift position to the origin (sometimes we may need to adjust the Z value to +10, 20 or 30m depending on the original elevation of the IW360 model from which the FBX file was exported.

5 5 of 26 You will notice that as you input zeros for the x,y and z values the model will translate position and will be centered with the X,Y,Z of pivot of the 3ds Max model space. 10. Now we need to ungroup the model meshes. Click on the model to select it, then go to the Group from the ribbon tab, but now click on the Ungroup option from the drop down options. This ungrouping will allow us to edit and correct the assigned materials to the meshes because for some IW360 objects textures will not be exported correctly. 11. We need to fix one major thing in order to guarantee that Stingray will be able to handle the model from 3ds Max. IW360 exports the 3D model with textures filenames with many dots which creates problems in Stingray. Hence, we need to use a script inside of 3ds Max to fix the textures bitmap names before doing anything with their visualization (special thanks go to my colleague Rodrigo Assaf from Brazil who helped me with the script). The process is as follows: A. First select all the model meshes by clicking the keyboard buttons Ctrl and A concurrently. B. Now click on the Scripting tab in the ribbon then click on the Run Script from the drop down menu. C. Locate and select the Maxscript file which contains the script (with the filename of Convert Bitmap Names.ms ). Hit the Open button. A pop window will pop up. Please make sure to apply the script only once! D. Now click the Get Bitmaps in Scene button (located at the bottom left corner of the window). This will ask 3ds Max to search for all related Bitmaps to fix their names.

6 6 of 26 E. Once done and the list is fully populated then click the Convert Names button to the bottom right corner. 3ds Max will fix them all and this process usually takes few seconds. Please give 3ds Max about 5 sec to complete that. Then to confirm the problem is solved, click the Get Bitmaps in Scene button again (you will notice that the names were corrected and their lengths were reduced tremendously). Now we are ready to do visual fixes to some of the meshes textures.

7 7 of Now hit the "M" keyboard button and the Slate Material Editor window pops up. Make sure to work with the Standard Mode of the material editor. So, once the Material Editor window pops up, go to the Modes tab and pick Compact Material Editor. Remarks: A. As mentioned earlier, some exported objects from IW360 won t be exported correctly and would show up differently inside of 3ds Max. This usually affects the assigned textures and colors of certain objects. In this manual I will not deep dive into how to fix each type of object exported by IW360 but will stick to fixing the ones that show up in this model. Noting that I have personally experimented with all types of IW360 objects including: building facades, road styles, trees and vegetation, land and coverage areas, vehicles, people etc. If you would like to know how to correct each & every object in your model please refer to the BONUS SECTION at the end of this handout. B. All sketched buildings with all façades came in nicely to 3ds Max - the slight difference in some of the colors is due to Sun & Sky settings in IW360. However, some Revit and most of SketchUp building models miss their textures once exported from IW360! If that takes place it is highly recommended to remove these models from IW360 before exporting the model into FBX. Import the FBX into 3ds Max and then import the Revit/SketchUp models back into 3ds Max and place them in their locations before linking everything to Stingray. This way you will save a lot of time correcting problems with textures and assigning them manually. So, now we can select any mesh from the model and change its material/visual settings. In this specific model of mine I have issues with some Palm trees and Road surfaces. Let us fix them. 13. To fix the color of the Palm trees click on dropper icon which is the Pick Material from Object button in the Material Editor window then click on any of the palm trees in the model (all similar trees will be selected automatically).

8 8 of Now please check the Self-illumination section in the material editor. You will find that the check box for Color is ticked! We have to untick it for order to the trees to show their original colors. 15. IW360 road styles are ok but it might happen that the road surface will appear to be very light gray color due to certain Material Group settings assigned to that Road Style. There are many ways to fix this by either assigning new asphalt material from the standard 3ds Max materials or else use the same procedure as above by selecting those roads using the Pick Material from Object then change the Opacity from 100 to 0 (apparently lose some details like having sidewalks which do not show inside of 3ds Max!) So, the step above is only required if you encounter such road style problem. You may have also vehicles which show as unicolor in 3ds Max (those coming from the IW360 exported as City Furniture objects). I recommend that you delete them and add ones from the 3ds Max Library or download other 3D models from the internet. Please refer to the video where I show what needs to be fixed in 3ds Max and what else is to be fixed in Stingray as well as the Bonus Section at the end of this handout. Note: If you are familiar with Civil View in 3ds Max you may also create a series of animated cars in the model by following a certain path which you specify. There is a huge library of vehicles including cars and trucks of different brands and sizes in 3ds Max which you use in the animation. Also you can specify a different speed for each and every vehicle in the animation to make it look more real. Also in 3ds Max you can populate the model with many animated people. We will not cover this process here but it worth mentioning that any animation created in 3ds Max can be exported to Stingray very easily (comes with the model when linking it). 16. Fire up Autodesk Stingray, it begins with tabs for: "my projects" and "templates" (screenshot below). We need to create a new template which has a vehicle in it (similar to the one with the yellow taxi), so double click the "vehicle" template thumbnail.

9 9 of Keep the Engine Build Configuration as Dev 64bit then hit the "Create" button at the bottom right corner of Stingray. 18. A new window opens up and is titled as "Open Project", name the project as you like (Ex: Infra_Game) and add any description if required. Stingray will take a couple of seconds to compile the model. If you get any alerts about the Windows Firewall blocking any Stingray features please make sure to allow access. This is how Stingray should look like: 19. We have the Asset Browser to the bottom left corner from which we can dig down to explore the folders within the Infra_Game main folder. Please expand the folders to reach the levels folder then you will notice the vehicle level file is in that folder. Click once on it, the level will open in the Asset Preview window to the bottom right of the screen.

10 10 of The vehicle level is where our game will be stored. We have to open the level by double clicking on it. The level will now show up in the Level Viewport window and its related components will show up in the Explorer Window (please check the screenshot below). Now we have this main level here which is like a template (rotate and navigate it in the viewer window above of Stingray). This is like a preset ready template where everything has been done to test the vehicle movement. Also the Vehicle Level is where we will create our game. 21. So, double click the Vehicle level file to open it. Then go to the Explorer Menu to the top right of Stingray, here is where we select to add or delete any elements to the template. In fact we don t need anything in the vehicle template except for the: Light Reflection probe (which is needed to create proper reflections and give a great realistic feel to our model game). 22. To delete the unwanted elements in the Default (current layer) of the menu, shift select all of them except for the light, reflection probe.. Make sure NOT to delete the midday_shading_environment and Skydome element under the Background item of the menu.

11 11 of 26 This is how the Explorer should look like after deleting the unnecessary elements: And this is also how the Level Viewport of the Vehicle file will look after those deletions: 23. So, from Stingray let us go back to 3DS MAX and look for the Stingray tab which will connect the 2 software by hitting the Connect then Send All. ****************************************** Note: If you don t have that tab (or connection) inside of your 3ds Max please follow the following steps: a. when you install Stingray go to the Program Files in Drive C, then Autodesk folder, then Stingray folder, then look for the latest version folder (bigger number). b. now open extras folder and double click on the StingrayDCCLink2016.msi to install it c. After being installed, 3DS MAX should have the Stingray tab or menu available (but you may be requested to restart 3ds Max for it to take action). Please let it restart if required. ******************************************

12 12 of Now from the Stingray tab in 3ds Max (drop down items) click on the Connect option make sure there is a tick mark next to Connect. Then send everything from my scene in 3ds Max to Stingray by clicking on the Send All option. 25. Now you just need to specify the location where you want the data to reside. 3ds Max will open the Save to Stingray window. Here please double click the content folder and look for the subfolder called levels. 26. Double click the levels subfolder, give the file a name like Game and then hit Save. Now the two software are connected because 3ds Max directly knew which Stingray project I am working on and copied the FBX model into the folder of that project. 27. Ideally, if we now go to Stingray we will see that Stingray has opened a new window called FBX Import by default because it is already connected to 3ds Max (if that did not take place, then we can do it ourselves manually from Stingray, please follow the steps below: d. In Stingray go to File then click on Import e. go to the folder where we saved the FBX file f. Double click on the FBX to import it into Stingray g. The FBX Import window will pop up h. Follow the steps below for selecting which features to select) So, Stingray now has understood that there is a new FBX coming to it.

13 13 of In this FBX Import window (the sequence of features might vary from release to another). Anyway, we have to make sure that in Unit Mesh section of the import window is ticked, we want to import Materials, we want to Update materials, Textures and Update textures, and Create texture Folder meaning all of the above should be ticked (screenshot to the right). You may also keep Shared Materials, Shared textures, and Create Materials Folder as ticked - my personal preference. 29. Hit the Import button and Stingray will start importing the meshes (a blue bar will show the progress of the data compiling process at the bottom right corner). The bottom information bar will indicate when the import has completed with the message of Import Completed. 30. So please go back to the levels folder by double clicking its name in the Asset Browser. Then look for the Game FBX file (which we have just imported from 3ds Max). Click on it and the Asset Preview window will show you the FBX model which we exported from 3ds Max earlier (feel free to rotate and zoom in or out of the model in the Asset Preview window). 31. To apply this model to my Stingray just drag and drop the imported FBX file Game into the Level Viewport in Stingray and the model will show up in full scale there as shown in the screenshot below:

14 14 of 26 We need to do some minor modifications to the location of the model in the Level Viewport. The vehicle template inside of Stingray always makes the car start from the position of 0,0,0 in the model. Therefore we have to shift/translate the model in a way to make the starting point on a certain road and at the 0,0,0 point. We can do so by using the gizmos and we have to make the road really close to it (manual editing) or make use of the Transform X, Y & Z values by setting them to 0,0, So, select the model from the Level Viewport then click on the Move Tool for the gizmos to show up.

15 15 of Now use the gizmos to place the whole model slightly below the grid of the Level Viewport in Stingray taking into account that later on the car in the game will start its journey at 0,0,0 which is the center of the Stingray Grid. Please check the screenshot below: 34. Now before testing the scene, right click in the scene (mesh selected) and pick Open or Open Unit Editor (depending on which Stingray version you have installed on your machine). This is where we will tell Stingray that this is a mesh with collision.

16 16 of Once the Unit Editor opens, we select the whole model in the preview window (Ctrl + A) then we go to Create tab and click on the Physics Actor (Note: the naming of certain objects or features is different from one Stingray release to another especially if you have an older release then mine here). 36. We need to save this, from the file tab of the Unit Editor click on File then just click on Save All. 37. Close the Unit Editor window for now. 38. To test the game, in Stingray just click on the green arrow (to top left of the scene viewer window) which is called the Test Level button (or else use the shortcut of F8 ). The Test Level will take a couple of seconds to load up depending on the size and complexity of the model. The taxi car will show at the point of 0,0,0 coordinates which we made sure is correctly placed on top of a road. (If Test Level shows the roads as black or very light in color, the trees do not show properly, or the car does not clash with existing model objects then this is a clear indication that there is a problem somewhere in the model which needs to be fixed either in 3ds Max or Stingray Please refer to the BONUS SECTION at the end of his handout).

17 17 of We need to save all levels, from the File tab click on the Save All or use the keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Shift+S. Then, just click the Save Selected button from the new window which opens the Save Changes window. 40. In order to export the game to a new platform we have to add the Deployer tab by clicking the + symbol next to the Property Editor tab then clicking on Deployer. Now from this new tab we can we can export and save the game to many platforms like: Windows, Android, IOS, PlayStation 4 and Xbox. 41. So in the Delpoyer tab let us select Windows for now as we want to test the game on our computers. 42. Now select a folder on the desktop. Pick what type of release (pick Release if you like). Also, pick the title of the game that you like in the text box for title. 43. Hit the Package Project for Windows button. The data ompiling process will start and will take about a few minutes (check the progress bar at the bottom right corner of Stingray).

18 18 of Once the package is created, go to that destination folder you specified to compile the game in and go to the Win64 folder then to Release folder then double click the Infra Game.exe 45. The game will initiate, click on the Start button to start the game. The game will open and the car will be dropped inside it for you to start driving around. 46. The controls are very simple as follows: Accelerate: W Brake and Reverse: S Turn right: D Turn Left: A Enjoy the ride & drive safely Remark: we can manually add animated cars following a path (spline) in 3ds Max using Civil View but that takes some time if the model is large in scale and the terrain is not flat so I avoided this topic in this handout. If anyone is interested please contact me to send you a video of how this can be done. The TAXI vehicle model in Stingray can be changed and many other features can be added to the gaming experince but that requires some LUA scripting inside of Stingray which is beyond the scope of this handout. If interested in scripting please check Stingray s YouTube

19 19 of 26 BONUS SECTION No.1 How to fix the IW360 exported FBX textures imperfetions inside of 3ds Max & Stingray? The FBX export from IW360 apprently does leave some 3d Objects without their proper assigned textures. I have tried the export for almost every type of Road, Building, City Furniture (Cars, sign boards, barriers etc), Vegetaion (trees & shrubs), land & coverage areas, as well as bridges and tunells and noticed many discrepencies for certain objects which I listed below. As s rule of thumb if any texture of an object was dropped in the export from IW360 to 3ds Max this means this texture will definitely not show up in Stingray. So, the need arises to make sure that all objects are ok inside of 3ds Max before linking the model with Stingray. As we all know, there are many 3D objects inside of IW360 libraries. Therefore, below is a comparison of how certain group types will look in IW360 vs 3ds Max and how to fix them if required. 1. Roads & highways: From all of my trials I had no problems with roads being exported into 3ds Max. Only one instance were I created a new road style using the InrfaWorks 360 style editor and assigend non standard materials that I had surface issues with 3ds Max. So, using the preconfigured road styles in InfraWorks should not cause you any problems at all. 2. People:

20 20 of 26 I have noticed no problems whatsoever when exporting 3d models of people from IW360 to 3ds Max and the same applies when linking the model to Stingray (but this only applies when exporting IW360 models in FBX files not OBJ). 3. Transportation Vehicels: There are actually some problems with these as you can see from the screenshot below. The vehicels which I found to work perfectly are (as named in the IW360 library): Green compact car School bus traditional Caravan Silver compact car Taxi City Bus European Police car Coast guard cutter Boeing Jet Silver Hybrid Red stationwagon Helicopter Police helicopter Blue mountain bike Apparently all other vehicles have issues with their textures being exported and hence if we really need them in our model then we have to use the 3ds Max Material Editor to assign materials to every surface manually which is tedious process that will not result a very good result. Hence, if you want additional vehicles than the list above I do recommend to download free vehicle models from the internet and import them into the scene in 3ds Max or else use the available ones from Civil View. 4. Construction Equipment & Materials: All related construction objects and material are exported correctly except for the following construction vehicles: i. Cement Mixer ii. Construction Excavator iii. Construction Roller iv. Construction Mover Unfortunately the Crane loses its textures sometimes in 3ds Max and some other times when linked from 3ds Max to Stingray but that can be solved anyway.

21 21 of 26 Therefore better download similar models from the internet to use them in the 3ds Max scene or apply materials manually using the 3ds Max Material Editor. 5. City Furnture Buildings: No problems with these types of buildings. The buildings of stations, churches, and other general purpose buildings came in neatly to 3ds Max. 6. Buildings: All sketched buildings with all façades came in nicely to 3ds Max - the slight difference in some of the colors is due to Sun & Sky settings in IW360. However, some Revit and most of SketchUp building models miss their textures once exported from IW360! If that takes place it is highly recommedned to remove these models from IW360 before exporting the model into FBX. Import the FBX into 3ds Max and then import the Revit/SketchUp models back into 3ds Max and place them in their locations before linking everything to Stingray. This way you will save a lot of time correcting problems with textures and assigning them manually.

22 22 of Land areas & coverages: The same applies to Land Areas and Coverages textures. All went well when exporting them to 3ds Max (except if you use a land area which uses water as a texture material! ). 8. Water bodies: The texture of water looks way different in 3ds Max (kind of dull or imporperly illuminated) when compared to that in IW360). Apparently there is no proper conversion on the water shader yet and Infraworks uses a shader which is still not compatible with 3ds Max and Stingray. If you are interested to create a simple water ocean effect for the water in Stingray then please use the Shader Effects advanced options as explained thoroughly in the following YouTube video:

23 23 of Signs, barriers and traffic signals: All are exported nicely except for he following objects: i. Traffic Barrel ii. Road Cone (better use the cone available in Stingray s vehicle template) iii. Stop Sign iv. Red Railing & Chain Fence Top (will lose their colors!) 10. Trees: The biggest problem lies in trees and vegtation being exported from IW360 to 3ds Max. The easiest problem to solve is that of the South Carolina Palmtree which can be easily corrected in 3ds Max as I explained previously in Step No. 13 of this handout. Below is a screenshot showing the differences between IW360, 3ds Max and Stingray when it comes to trees visualization:

24 24 of 26 Proposed Solution: After exporting or linking the 3ds Max to Stingray go to the Asset Browser in Stingray window and double click the folder which contains the FBX model and the textures. Select each of the leaves textures (one by one or all together) then from the Property Editor section to the right of the screen make sure to have the following: 1. These items ticked: Use Color Map and Use Color Map Alpha 2. 1 as the value of: Opacity and Metalic Tip: it is actually much better to set the Roughness of the model terrain texture to 1 as well. Therefore, look for the terrain texture in the Asset Browser and change its Roughness value to 1 in the Property Editor. So, before applying the fix the trees were like: Also you may need to select a leaf texture by clicking on its file in the Asset Browser (once selected the a sample of the leaf will show up in the Asset Preview section). Then from the Property Editor click on Make Unique then Open Shader Graph. Once the shader graph open, click at the top of the last node and change the settings to Trasnparent with fade and culling face to Double sided. Please refer to my video in order to follow the steps or else check the screenshots below.

25 25 of 26 Now after clicking on the Make Unique button, the button name will change to Open Shader Graph. Please click on the same button again. When the Shader Graph window opens we have to do the following: Blend Mode = Transparent Fade Face Culling = None (double sided)

26 26 of 26 The end result after applying the fixes to all leaf textures looks like: Note: There might be other ways to fix the textures of these leaves inside of Stingray but I personally found that my way of fixing them is easy to apply and works all of the time Tip: to remove the annoying Fog effect from the Asset Preview & Level Viewport windows please click on the Default Shadig Environment (LevelEntity) from the Explorer tab at the top right corner of the screen. Then from the Property Editor, click on the FOG item and disable the Fog feature by unticking its relevant box as shown in the screenshot above.