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Exporting Wavefront Material (MTL) Files 639
Exporting Wavefront Mater ial
(MT L ) Files
File menu > Expor t > Wavefront M aterial (*.MTL)
The ASCII-based MTL form at makes it possible
to exchange graphical data between many
applications. The MTL format uses floating-point
numbers to define each material’s ambient, diffuse,
and specular colors, as well as alpha and shininess
values. Opt ionally, the MTL files can also specify
texture-map filenames.
Inter face
Sour ce—Choose whether to export only materials
used in the current scene, or the entire material
library.
Ex por t maps—When on, any map files used in
exported materials are referred to in the exported
MTL file. File paths are not included, so map files
must be available upon subsequent importing.
File group
# of Digits—Specifies the number of decimal places
forexportingcolorvaluessuchasambientand
diffuse in floating-point format.
Compress number s—When on, trailing zeroes are
eliminated from decimal fractions. This makes
theexportedfilesmallerwithoutsacrificingany
precision, but can cause compatibility issues when
importing with certain programs. If you’re unable
toimportaMTLfile,makesurethisoptionisoff
and export again.
V RML Files
Impor ting V RML Files
File menu > Import > Select File To Import dialog > Files
Of Type > VRML (*.WRL, *.WRZ)
You can impor t VRML 1.0, VRBL, and VRML
2.0/VRML 97 files into 3ds Max. 3ds Max imports
geometry, materials (including diffuse texture
maps), lights, perspective cameras and viewpoints,
transformations, and grouping nodes created by
other VRML tools. Once they are in the scene file,
you can edit, modify, and animate these objects.
3ds Max a lso imports basic transform animations,
such as position, rotation, and scale. Also included
are animated color and light. These correspond to
the basic animation that is exported by the VRML
1.0/VRBL and VRML97 exporters. Helper objects
are not created upon import. Lighting effects are
somewhat simplified from the full VRML lighting
model.
• VRML97 files don’t indicate the duration of
an animation. If you import anim ation from
aVRML97file,youmightwanttosetthe
animation length in 3ds Max manually.
• More elaborate forms of animation
and simulation, including Script nodes,
MovieTexture nodes, and sensor n odes, are not
supported.