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--------------------------------- Contents ---------------------------------
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This pack contains:

- W3D Exporter for 3DS Max 2023 - New tools for Max 2023 to export W3D files from
- W3X Exporter for 3DS Max 2023 - New tools for Max 2023 to export W3X files from
- W3D Viewer -  A model viewer for W3D files
- W3D Dump - A tool to open W3D files and see the contents
- The source code to to the W3D Exporter, W3X Exporter, wdump.exe and memorymanager.dll


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--------------------- Information about the W3D plugin ---------------------
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The new w3d tools require 3DS Max 2023 to work.

The new w3d tools are 100% compatible with files made in Max 8 with the old w3d tools. When you load an old file, WWSkin data is converted to Max skin data automatically. All the material settings and export flags will be read in and converted as well.
If you are using the DirectX Material feature to produce models for BFME2, you will need to make sure that your DirectX Materials point at the correct path where the .fx files are located.
You also need to go to Customize-Preferences, click on the Viewports tab, select "Choose Driver" and then choose "Legacy Direct3D". This is necessary to allow Max to be able to load the .fx shader files properly.

Features from the old plugins not currently supported:

Animation compression
NPatches (hardware that actually supports this feature has long since vanished and current versions of Renegade no longer support it)
Export with Std Mtls
Create Settings Floater
Full documentation for the max tools can be found here: https://w3dhub.com/forum/documentation/tools/3dsmax/ (ignore anything about "supported version", these tools can produce output that will work with any version of Renegade as well as Generals, BFME and BFME2)
And for the W3D Viewer go here: https://w3dhub.com/forum/documentation/tools/w3d-viewer/ (ignore anything about "supported version", this should work for any w3d file other than the BFME2 FX shader files)

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--------------------- Information about the W3X plugin ---------------------
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The new w3x tools require 3DS Max 2023 to work.

The new w3x tools are 100% compatible with files made in Max 8/9 with the old w3x tools. When you load an old file, WWSkin data is converted to Max skin data automatically. All the material settings and export flags will be read in and converted as well.
To make the DirectX Materials work, you will need to make sure that your DirectX Materials point at the correct path where the .fx files are located.
You also need to go to Customize-Preferences, click on the Viewports tab, select "Choose Driver" and then choose "Legacy Direct3D". This is necessary to allow Max to be able to load the .fx shader files properly.

Features from the old w3x plugin not currently supported:

Export with Std Mtls
Create Settings Floater

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------------------------------ How to Install ------------------------------
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- Install 3DS Max 2023.3 from Autodesk via the Autodesk Desktop App or Autodesk Access (the version listed in "about 3DS Max" should be "25.0 - 25.3.0.3640")
- Download the files!
- Copy the the files in the "W3D Exporter - Max 2023" folder or "W3X Exporter - Max 2023" (depending on which plugin you want to run) to your 3DS Max 2023 directory. Default: "C\Program Files\Autodesk\3ds Max 2023\Plugins". Do not install both plugins at once, it will break Max.
- Run 3DS Max and the tools will load with it!
- For W3D viewer and W3D Dump, they can be run directly from the folder that they are already in, so they can be copied anywhere.

Note: If you have any issues with any missing files, you should install these Visual C++ Redistributable from Microsoft: https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x86.exe and https://aka.ms/vs/16/release/vc_redist.x64.exe

There is a separate readme included for the source code.

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---------------------------------- Credits ---------------------------------
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jonwil
Sir_Kane
cfehunter
The Assembly Armada
Dghelneshi
CMDBob
Yah-Nosh
General Camo
Romanov
