Using IMVU Studio Toolkit for 3ds Max

Staring Toolkit

Studio Toolkit for 3ds Max is accessed through the main menu bar. When installed an ‘IMVU’ menu item is added to the main menu bar. To start Studio Toolkit just click on the ‘IMVU‘ menu and select ‘IMVU Studio Toolkit‘.

The Visuals Tool

This tool is useful when you are creating products that rely on the avatar such as Attachment, Clothing, and Avatar Animation products.

Creating a Room

 

1. Adjust the initial size of the room with the X Y Z Sliders.
   • This can be adjusted at any point!
2. Click ‘Create Room‘.
3. Select which type of furniture seat you would like to add.
4. Click ‘+ Furniture‘.
   • If you want to quickly make a grid of furniture nodes, use the direction arrows below ‘+ Furniture‘.
   • Set the distance with the number in the middle.
5. Add any seat of your choosing.
   • The Custom seat is used to trigger animations of the same name.
   • If you would like to add or remove either Catcher/Pitcher nodes or Handle nodes, Use the Add Link Catcher or Break Link Catcher and Add Link Handle or Break Link Handle buttons to do so.
6. If you would like to have a see through mesh, click ‘Create See Through Node‘.
   • Move the cone such that the point aims in the direction the mesh will be seen from. Whenever the camera moves behind the cone, the linked meshes will disappear.
   • To link an object, select the SeeThroughArmature Cone, along with any meshes you would like to link to it.
   • Click ‘Link To SeeThrough‘.
   • To unlink a SeeThrough node, select the mesh or meshes, and click Unlink SeeThrough.
7. Export.

Creating Furniture

1. Click ‘Create Furniture‘.
   • This will give you all of the nodes you need and a reference block for a sitting position.
2. Add any seat of your choosing.
   • The Custom seat is used to trigger animations of the same name.
   • If you would like to add or remove either Catcher/Pitcher nodes or Handle nodes, Use the Add Link Catcher or Break Link Catcher and Add Link Handle or Break Link Handle buttons to do so.
3. If you would like to have a see through mesh, click ‘Create See Through Node‘.
   • Move the cone such that the point aims in the direction the mesh will be seen from. Whenever the camera moves behind the cone, the linked meshes will disappear.
   • To link an object, select the SeeThroughArmature Cone, along with any meshes you would like to link to it.
   • Click ‘Link To SeeThrough‘.
   • To unlink a SeeThrough node, select the mesh or meshes, and click Unlink SeeThrough.
4. [NEW] Add Camera Zone Nodes to your furniture product to set the focus area for IMVU product image generator in Studio. More info on this feature can be found in Camera Zone Nodes.
5. If you animate your furniture you may give the animation a unique name that will be the name of the animation when imported into IMVU Studio.
6. Export.

Creating an Avatar Attachment

1. Click ‘Create Attachment‘.
   • This sets up your scene with a base avatar for you to work from.
   • Make sure you only append from a fresh 3ds Max scene.
2. Use the Visuals Tool to change the reference avatar mesh.
3. Select the bone you want to parent it to by clicking the ‘Pick Bone’ button then selecting the bone from the viewport
4. Create or import your accessory object
5. Position it where you would like it to go
6. Select your mesh
7. Click ‘Setup Attachment’
8. This will move your mesh into the export folder and hook it up to the AttachmentNode bone for you
9.  Export.

Creating Avatar Clothing (or Body Part) and Animation

Avatar Clothing

1. Click ‘Create Avatar Asset‘.
   • This sets up your scene with a base avatar for you to work from.
   • Make sure you only append from a fresh 3ds Max scene.
2. Select the Clothing Tool Mode.
3. Use the Visuals Tool to change the reference avatar mesh.
4. Create or import your clothing object.
5. Position it where you would like it to go.
6. Click ‘Bind to Armature‘.
   • This will automatically weight the piece of clothing to nearby bones.
7. Enter weight paint mode by clicking ‘Paint Weights‘.
8. Enter pose mode by clicking ‘Pose‘.
   • In pose mode you can test the weighting by rotating the bones you wish to affect your mesh.
9. Use the ‘Limit Bones‘ button to limit the number of bones weighted to every vertex to 6.
   • We recommend you do this periodically as you work and test your weighting.
   • This is essential to do before exporting, as IMVU studio does not accept more than 6 bones weighted per vertex.
10. Export.

Avatar Animation

1. Click ‘Create Avatar Asset‘.
   • This sets up your scene with a base avatar for you to work from.
2. Select the Animation Tool Mode.
3. Enable ‘Make Pose’ To export one frame to be used as a static pose.
   • Using either the IK or FK controls pose your avatar and you are ready to export. Studio Toolkit handles all of the keyframing necessary to get your pose into IMVU Studio.
4. Enable ‘Export All Bones’ To export every bone, regardless of whether or not it has keyframes applied to it.
   • You might uncheck this if you want your animation to play only on bones which are animated. In this case the avatar idle animation will play at the same time as your animation. An example of this is when you trigger the action “wave”. The “wave” animation does not interrupt the avatar idle.
5. [NEW] Optionally enable keyframe ‘Key Reduction‘ and adjust the Threshold and Step. Key Reduction is performed by the built-in 3ds Max ‘reduceKeys’ feature.
   • Threshold: The closeness that the key-reduced animation will match the original keys. Lower values will result in more keys being kept (less reduction). Higher values will result in more keys being removed (more reduction).
   • Steps: The time step at which the animation will be sampled. For example a value of 1.0 will results in the animation being sampled every frame.
6. ‘Animation Length‘ sets the length of the exported animation regardless of how many keyframes have been set in your scene.
7. ‘Avatar Animation Name‘ sets a unique name for the animation (or pose) that will be the name of the animation when imported into IMVU Studio.
8. The avatar animation tool uses the built in 3ds Max animation controls ‘Set Key’ and ‘Auto Key’. When making avatar animations with Studio Tool kit you will animate and key the rig IK and FK controls.
   • Click ‘Delete Avatar Key’ to remove the keyframes on all IK and FK rig controls at the current time slider position.
   • Click ‘Reset Pose’ Resets the pose of the entire avatar if no bones are selected, otherwise just resets the selected bones. This does not remove keys, just returns the bones to their default t-pose rotation.

Animating

1. Select the rig handles and move them to set a starting pose for the avatar.
   • For consistency of process it is recommended to have frame ‘0’ remain the ‘t-pose’ and to have your first frame of animation and the starting position of the avatar be on frame ‘1’.
2. Set keyframes by clicking the 3ds Max ‘Add Key‘ button.
   • Alternatively, activate the 3ds Max ‘Auto Key‘ button and a keyframe will be added every time you adjust any IK or FK control.
3. Move the time slider, set your next pose and add a key.
4. When you are done setting all of your keyframes and your animation is done, set the Animation Length in the tool panel.
5. Export.

Exporting

The ‘Export’ and ‘Open Export Directory’ buttons will become enabled after you create a product using one of the Studio Toolkit tools and you saved your scene.

Open Export Directory

Click the Open Export Directory button to automatically open the file explorer to the location of your .max file

Help

Click the Help button to return to this page at any time!

Updating

If an update is available, click UPDATE AVAILABLE! under the Export Tool Tab and download the latest version.