About

        The SKL Exporter is a maxscript designed to export the .skl files used 
    by MAX2SKL to create models using skeletal animation.  It also exports the 
    morph target data used by Elite Force 2 for facial animation.  The difference 
    between the script and the standard plugin is the support of the Skin modifier.
    This script supports the Skin modifier but not Physique.  The plugin provided 
    by Ritual supports Physique, not Skin.

Credits

Chris Cookson (http://mojo.gmaxsupport.com/index.html) for writing all those scripts to learn Maxscript from.
Ritual Entertainment, goes withoug saying, but they put out one awesome game.

Revision History

Version	1.0: First public release.
	1.1: Fixed animations not being exported correctly
	     Fixed Remove* buttons of user interface.
	     Added tentative ProgressBar
	     Fixed Animation spinners so that the most frames of animation exported was 100
	     Note: The maximum number of frames allowed to be exported by sklout.dle is 2048
	     To even get near this number, the script must increase the heapsize used by maxscript to nearly 30 megs!
	1.2: Added some (only bones and frames at the moment) limit checking
	     Added check to ensure that the morpher.dlm that shipped with the ubertools can not be used		
	     Maxscript heapsize no longer needs to be increased to export large amounts of frames

By: Neil Davis

email: senkusha@yahoo.com; 

Exporter

View of the SKL Exporter interface

Installation

1.  Copy "SKL_Exporter.ms" and "skl_data.ms" to you 3dsmax5\scripts directory
2.  In the "MaxScript" menu, choose "Run Script" and choose "SKL_Exporter.ms"

Options:
    Objects: 
	
        The standard SKL exporter provided by Ritual exports all objects that are 
    not hidden by view. This is fine, but if your animating a model and want to 
    export it, you'd have to hide all your rig controls and IK Goals and what not.  
    I'd rather not do that so you have to explicitly select which objects you want 
    exported.  Generally these objects are anything you want seen in the game or 
    the model tags ([Note about tags: This script assumes that all tag names start 
    off "tag" or has the name of "origin" for the origin tag.)

        So as not to have to select a single object, add it to the list and then 
    select the next object to add, the best thing to do is to create a "Selection 
    Set" in 3dsmax containing all objects you want exported.  Then, select the set, 
    and hit "Add Selected" in the Objects group. To remove an object from the list, 
    select it and hit "Remove Selected" (note: selecting all the objects and hitting 
    remove does not remove all the objects.  Something that needs to be fixed.)


    Selection Set example showing the objects to be exported in the merc-female example file provided by Ritual.
        
    Leg Bones:
        Elite Force 2 allows seperate animations to be played on the torso and the legs
    of the model.  To allow this, the engine has to know which bones are leg bones.
    Checking "Use Leg Bones..." enables you to specify which bones are legs bones. Again, 
    it's best to create a selection set containing all the leg bones and then add that to 
    the list.

 
    Morph Targets:
        The "morpher.dlu" plugin provided by Ritual exports the morph target data 
    used for facial animation in EF2.  Much like the skelout.dle plugin, it is 
    limited to using only the Physique modifier.  To use this script to export 
    the morph target data do this:
    
         1.  Using the standard Morpher modifier that shipped with max, setup your morph 
             targets as you normally would 
        
         2.  Enable the exporting of the morph targets by checking "Export Morph Targets"
         3.  Press "Select Morph Object..." and then pick the object in the scene with the
             morpher modifier on it.  The "Select Morph Object..." will change to the name of 
             the object when you select it. 
         4.  Once the rest of the settings for the exporter are set, the press "Export SKL..."

    Export:
    1.  Selecting "Reference Pose" will export a single frame of animation at Frame 0.
    2.  Selecting "Animation Sequence" allows you to specify which frames to export.
    3.  Pressing "Export SKL..." exports the model and also exports the morph 
        target data if the option is selected.