OgreMax Scene Exporter for 3DS Max - Change History

Change History

### Version 2.3.6 - November 19, 2010

- Added normals setting, to both the object and scene settings. This allows normals to be excluded from export, which is useful in situations where lighting is precalculated.
- Added support for camera's orthographic window size, in both the real time viewports and the exported scene file.
- Added extra logic to remove the ':' character when generating mesh file names.
- Added extra logic to force the OgreMaxSceneExporterGlobalSettings.xml file to exist after the program (3DS Max, Maya, Softimage) is closed.
- Added support for diffuse map alpha blending on standard 3DS Max materials.
- Updated Ogre 1.7.x build to use Ogre 1.7.2.
- Modified the OgreMax pass behavior so that if transparent sorting is enabled, it is forced. Previously, it would only be enabled if the material is transparent and depth write/check are disabled.
- Modified the OgreMax texture unit conversion to use the individual scale, rotate, and translate components. The full transformation matrix is now only used for standard (non-OgreMax) materials.
- Modified the location of the 'skeleton name' text box, moving it from the 'Mesh' object settings page to the 'Mesh Animations' page.
- Modified the 'Always Export Skeleton' checkbox on the 'Mesh' page of the object settings dialog. It is now a combo box with more options.
- Modified the 'Always Export Poses' checkbox on the 'Mesh' page of the object settings dialog. It is now 'Export Poses', which makes it easier to skip the export of poses.
- Fixed a bug that caused a crash when copying animated bitmaps during export.
- Fixed a bug with non-absolute bitmap file names not being found when copying bitmaps during export.

### Version 2.3.5 - October 28, 2010

- Fixed a bug with animations based on morphers no longer being exported. This bug was introduced in a previous release.

### Version 2.3.4 - September 26, 2010

- Added support in the Ogre3D 1.8 build for an 'ogreVersion' element in the OgreMaxGlobalSettings.xml file. This setting is passed through to the exported scene file. This setting also determines the exported binary mesh format. Valid values are 1.8, 1.7, 1.4, and 1.0. In-between versions (such as 1.6) will be mapped to the nearest lower version. There is no user interface control for this setting.
- Added 'Remove' button for the textured shadow caster and receiver materials. This is necessary for the 3DS Max version since the 3DS Max material browser doesn't allow a 'null' material to be selected.
- Added 'Depth Texture' checkbox to the scene settings Environment page. This setting indicates whether depth textures should be used with the technique. Previously, this value was determined based on the selected technique. This setting is also exported.
- Added 'Selectable' checkbox to the object settings General page. This setting indicates whether the object is selectable within the OgreMax viewports.
- Added extra version information on the Ogre page of the About dialog, indicating which Ogre version is being targeted, regardless of the build version. This information is only displayed if the 'ogreVersion' element has been manually added in the OgreMaxGlobalSettings.xml file.
- Added 'Automatically Open OgreMax Material Viewer Window' setting to Global settings dialog.
- Added 'Texture Name Alias' to the OgreMax texture unit.
- Added separate options to the installer for 3DS Max Design.
- Modified the creation of poses to ignore vertices with no offsets. This works for meshes with and without animated normals.
- Modified the configuration of LiSPSM shadows to work more reliably when 'use simple optimal adjust' is enabled.
- Modified the export of bones so that bones are first sorted by name in the skeleton. This helps to ensure that the same skeletons attached to different meshes are exported exactly the same.
- Modified the 'Use in OgreMax Viewports' object setting, changing it to 'Usable' and grouping it with the other 'OgreMax Viewports' setting.
- Modified output of texture coordinate transform settings to use a customized matrix instead of scale, rotation, and translation settings.
- Modified global mip map settings in the Ogre3D rendering, removing the 5 level cap.

### Version 2.3.3 - July 21, 2010

- Added builds for Ogre 1.8.
- Added support for mesh animated normals for pose and morph animations. Only the Ogre 1.8 builds support this.
- Added 'Animated Normals' setting to the Meshes page of the scene settings dialog, and the Mesh page of the object settings dialog.
- Added 'Entity' page to object settings dialog, along with a 'Skeleton Animation Blending' setting.
- Added support for 'external source' settings in the OgreMax texture unit.
- Modified light diffuse color export to allow negative values. Previously, negative values were clamped to [0, 1].
- Modified the OgreMax texture unit to work with 3DS Max 2010/2011's asset manager.
- Removed builds for Ogre 1.6.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Check Mesh Instance' object setting not being copied when editing settings for multiple objects.
- Fixed a bug with bone scaling being computed relative to its parent.
- Fixed a bug with the default export file not being used when starting an external OgreMax viewer with 'Run With Last Exported File'.
- Fixed a bug with OgreMax material changes sometimes not being reflected in the real-time scene viewports in 3DS Max 2011.

### Version 2.3.2 - June 21, 2010

- Added 'Check Mesh Instance' object setting, which allows individual meshes to be excluded from consideration when checking for mesh instances.
- Added 'Use Aggressive Focus Region' setting for uniform focused texture shadows.
- Added 'Light Direction Threshold' and 'Optimal Adjust Factor' settings for LISPSM texture shadows.
- Added settings for PSSM shadows.
- Added logic to allow bones that aren't used by a mesh to be exported as empty nodes.
- Added support for UV scaling, UV translation, W rotation, and UV mirroring/tiling for 3DS Max bitmap texture maps (used with non-OgreMax materials).
- Fixed a bug with alpha and shininess being swapped when exporting standard materials.
- Fixed a bug with particle systems not being exported as attached objects for bones.

### Version 2.3.1 - May 25, 2010

- Added logic to prevent plane tiling from being exported as 0.
- Added logic to prevent light range from being exported as 0.
- Added logic to OgreMax scene viewports to skip hidden objects if the 'Ignore Hidden Objects' scene settings is enabled. This is similar to how the exporter works.
- Modified the default light range, increasing it from 100 to 10000.
- Modified installer to change the application version's 'Install' text to 'Uninstall' when performing an uninstall.
- Modified OgreMax material initialization to rename bitmaps only during export.
- Modified object removal handler so that it does not change the program's selection set, causing it to slow down.
- Modified the OgreMax scene window to create plane objects for planes rather than treating them as general meshes. This makes the rendering more consistent with how it will look when the scene is loaded after being exported.
- Modified the limits on all controls dealing with world units, increasing the limit by a factor of 100.
- Fixed a bug with mesh merging that caused incorrect skeleton bindings for some meshes. This resulted in seemingly random polygons being rendered.
- Fixed a bug with the separate cubic texture file names requiring an Ogre resource path to be set even though such files are specified with a full path.
- Fixed a bug with an exception/crash occurring when setting a shadow caster or receiver material in the scene settings and then opening an OgreMax scene window.
- Fixed a bug with the mesh animation time scaling setting not being saved.
- Fixed a bug with the program sometimes crashing when opening a file with a floating OgreMax scene window open.
- Fixed a bug that occured in material editor when selecting an OgreMax material in the browser, then deselecting it, then selecting it again. The bug destabilized 3DS Max.
- Fixed a bug with the texture unit alpha blend function being read from the user interface incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug with the animated bitmap file count not being used, resulting in a single frame of animation.
- Fixed a bug with the OgreMax material taking over the parent multi-subobject material when choosing 'Keep old material as submaterial'.

### Version 2.3 - April 30, 2010

- Added support for 3DS Max 2011.
- Added scene setting to force meshes to be exported immediately, rather than collected in memory. This reduces the memory consumption of the exporter.
- Added scene camera near/far clip settings to the global settings dialog.
- Added documentation explaining in detail which material types and settings are exported.
- Updated Ogre 1.7.x release to use Ogre 1.7.1.
- Updated DirectX runtimes to February 2010.
- Modified the material and file name fixer functions to work more reliably when using non-Latin characters.
- Modified user data types to support both the 'default' and 'defaultValue' attributes to deal with an inconsistency in the documentation, which used both.
- Modified tangent/binormal data so that it is at the end of a vertex definition (and vertex data) when using the tangent/binormal semantic. This should resolve some issues with older hardware failing to work with some types of mesh data.
- Fixed a bug with material LOD distances being squared with the Ogre 1.7.x release.
- Fixed a rare crash that occurred when 3DS Max fails to return an export interface for Physique-based mesh animations. The only time this has been observed is when the mesh is a boolean object.

### Version 2.2.7 - February 25, 2010

- Made some internal changes that may have been causing instability with the 64-bit versions of OgreMax.
- Modified 'Ignore Hidden Objects' scene setting to be true by default.
- Removed the 'Remove Bone Translations' settings.

### Version 2.2.6 - February 16, 2010

- Unchanged.

### Version 2.2.5 - February 5, 2010

- Added the OgreMax version to the exported scene file.
- Added 'Create OgreMax Scene Window for Selected Objects' item to the OgreMax menu.
- Updated the Ogre 1.6.x releases to use Ogre 1.6.5. This resolves some instability problems that existed in previous releases.
- Modified the mesh merge feature to use less memory. This allows meshes with lots of detailed submeshes to be merged.
- Fixed a bug with the object progress counter counting too high when exporting the scene as a mesh.
- Fixed a bug with the log file messages sometimes being indented when they shouldn't be.

### Version 2.2.4 - February 1, 2010

- Modified the 'Check for Mesh Instances' scene setting to be false by default. This will resolve some performance problems people have had when exporting a large scene for the first time.

### Version 2.2.3 - January 25, 2010

- Added 'Submesh Naming' settings to the Meshes page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added 'Always Create New Submeshes When Merging' setting to the Meshes page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added more checks to prevent the 'Submesh' object type from being selectable on bones.
- Added more precision to the light attenuation spinner controls.
- Added logic to enable/disable the 'Customize Submeshes' controls in the Object Settings dialog as necessary.
- Fixed a bug with LOD techniques not having any effect in OgreMax materials.

### Version 2.2.2 - January 11, 2010

- Added support for VRay materials.
- Added more checks to ensure that degenerate meshes with no faces or vertices are skipped.
- Added more logic to determine whether a shader program should be listed, given the current render system capabilities.
- Added support in user data documents for configuring a 'visibility data item' that is used to hide/show other data items.
- Modified the export of bone initial transforms and keyframes to skip scales that are very close to identity. This makes the exported animations a little smaller.
- Modified OpenGL sampler parameter controls in the Pass rollout to prevent negative values. Also, the 'Manual Parameter' button is removed for such parameters.
- Fixed a bug with default values not being used when specifying a user data class in one of the user data dialogs.
- Fixed a bug with the bone attachment's exported bone name using the object/node prefix scene setting.
- Fixed a bug with the exporter accessing mapping channels that have become invalid.

### Version 2.2.1 - December 18, 2009

- Added 'Additional Materials' setting to the Materials page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added 'Exported Parent' setting to the General page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Added animated root start time override settings to the Mesh Animation Settings dialog.
- Removed embedded OgreMax viewport label due to the annoying flicker.
- Modified the external viewer launcher to include the scene up axis. This fixes a problem with z-up meshes being viewed incorrectly (when the scene is exported as a mesh).
- Modified the material exporter to use the material prefixing when determining file names for materials exported to separate files.
- Fixed a bug that caused some skeletons to deform meshes incorrectly in the OgreMax scene viewports.
- Fixed an issue with two static controls in the Mesh Animations dialog having a 'disabled' appearance in 3DS Max 2010.
- Fixed an issue with the material selection dialog only allowing OgreMax materials to be selected when other material types would be acceptable.
- Fixed a bug with the material prefix not being prepended to materials in some situations.

### Version 2.2 - November 30, 2009

- There are now two versions of the OgreMax Scene Exporter. One, a free and slightly restricted version intended for non-commercial use. The other, a paid full version intended for commercial use.
- Added feature to export the scene as a mesh. This feature is accessed in the usual way: either by the application export dialog or the OgreMax export dialog.
- Added 'External Viewer' submenu to the OgreMax menu.
- Added support for the 'Wire', '2-Sided' and 'Faceted' settings of a 3DS Max standard material.
- Added a setting to the Global Settings dialog to indicate whether the external viewer should be launched after exporting.
- Removed the 'None' External Viewer setting from the Global Settings dialog. It is now the WinViewer by default.
- Modified the tolerance used for determining mesh instances. It's a little larger now and it's also used when checking mesh instance bounding volumes.
- Modified some of the 'Customize Submeshes' controls to improve usability. The submesh name label dims as necessary and the submesh/material combo box stretches to fill up the entire row.
- Modified the Refresh button of the 'Customize Submeshes' controls so that it only refreshes the texture coordinate sets.
- Modified the installer to remove the WinViewer's newly introduced settings file during uninstallation.
- Fixed a bug with submesh settings being discarded. This bug was introduced when the 'Include Parent Material' bug was fixed in a previous release.
- Fixed a bug with OgreMax material user data files always being created when exporting to a separate material file, even if there is no user data.
- Fixed a bug with submesh names being assigned to the wrong submeshes.
- Fixed a bug with 'Export Selected Objects' crashing when bones are selected.
- Fixed a bug with mesh merging. Poses merged with morphs were being assigned the wrong submesh indexes.
- Fixed a bug with mesh merging. In some situations a crash would occur when merging a mesh into another mesh that had poses.
- Fixed a bug with 'Export Selected Objects' crashing.

### Version 2.1.4 - November 15, 2009

- Added support for cylinders and capsules as bounding volumes for objects of the 'External' type.
- Added 'application' value to exported scene files. It identifies the application that exported the scene (3DSMax, Maya, XSI).
- Added logic for displaying a message in the event that there's an error initializing the graphics system.
- Modified the Mesh page of the scene and object settings dialogs so that the 'Fast Export' setting is now called 'Remove Duplicate Vertices'.
- Modified the 'Supported Light Type' controls on OgreMax Pass page of the material editor so that they are only displayed/enabled when they need to be.
- Modified the pass shininess limit to 255.
- Fixed bug with the iteration and light type of an OgreMax Pass being exported incorrectly.
- Fixed bug with 'Convert to OgreMax Material' utility that caused Max 2010 to crash.

### Version 2.1.3 - October 26, 2009

- Added scene setting to disable mesh instance checking. This speeds up the export process for large scenes.
- Added functionality to the OgreMax scene viewports that allow the viewport camera's field of view to be modified with the mouse wheel.
- Added script access to the OgreMax scene exporter version.
- Removed the notification that is presented when merging a scene that contains OgreMax scene settings.
- Modified the OgreMax technique, pass, texture unit, and render texture map types so that only their name (and not their type) are displayed.
- Modified the installer to support 3DS Max Design.
- Modified the 'Generate Tangents' scene setting to be false by default. This should get rid of the problems many people have with Intel graphics chipsets.
- Modified the 'Always Export Skeleton' object setting to be true by default.
- Modified the 'Always Export Poses' object setting to be true by default.
- Fixed a bug with the billboard set type always being exported as 'point'.
- Fixed a bug with bounding radius becoming too large when merging meshes.
- Fixed a bug with the 'ignore all' and 'ignore some' radio buttons for the Mesh and Materials pages of the Scene Settings dialog causing the program to crash.
- Fixed a bug with the 'destination color' blending mode being exported correctly for material passes.
- Fixed a crashing bug that sometimes occurred when removing unnecessary bones for merged meshes with the 'Ignore Bones With No Influence' setting enabled.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Reset' button in the material editor causing OgreMax materials to crash 3DS Max.
- Fixed a bug with the scene query and visibility flags not being set incorrectly in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Include Parent Material in Name' scene setting not having any effect.

### Version 2.1.2 - September 24, 2009

- Added a mesh animation setting to the Object Settings dialog that allows all skeleton animations to be exported to a separate file.
- Added a mesh animation setting to the Object Settings dialog that allows all skeleton animations to be automatically linked to the mesh if they're being exported to a separate file.
- Modified the mesh animation settings that control whether the animation is exported to a separate file. They are now inherited from the corresponding object settings.
- Modified the layout of the Mesh Animations page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with separate skeleton animations all containing the first exported skeleton animation for an object.
- Fixed a bug with mesh and node animations not being copied when multiple objects are selected and edited in the Object Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug that caused the exporter to crash once in a while when exporting OgreMax materials with passes that referenced shader programs that are not compatible with the current render system.
- Fixed an issue with the progress dialog's status window not scrolling all the way to the bottom for newly logged messages.

### Version 2.1.1 - September 11, 2009

- Added submesh naming to the Mesh page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Added support for WASD/arrow controls in the OgreMax Scene viewports.
- Added mesh animation setting to export skeleton animations to separate files.
- Fixed problem with before/after export commands not showing programs that have user interfaces.
- Fixed bug with 'None' cull mode setting not being exported.
- Fixed bug that caused scaled mesh instances to not be detected as instances.
- Fixed a problem with some characters being removed from mesh and material names.

### Version 2.1 - August 28, 2009

- The source code is now available for licensing in the OgreMax store.
- Added utility in OgreMax menu to show objects that have duplicate names.
- Modified pose export to ignore offsets that have no effect (all zeroes).
- Fixed the pose export so that the 'index' references the appropriate submesh.
- Fixed the download archive file. It had a '.rar' extension but was being encoded as a '.7z' file. The extension of all archives is now '.7z'
- Fixed a bug with material names containing spaces.

### Version 2.0.6 - August 11, 2009

- Added export setting to indicate whether light is on.
- Modified the exporter to use the mesh name in the Object Settings dialog as the skeleton name, if the mesh name has been defined.
- Fixed a bug with manual LODs causing a crash in the OgreMax scene viewports. LODs are (and should have been) disabled in the viewports.
- Fixed a bug with mesh names not being checked for invalid characters.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Morph Whole Object' setting in the Mesh Animation settings dialog not be properly retrieved from user interface.
- Fixed a bug with the instanced geometry helper object not being exported.

### Version 2.0.5 - August 2, 2009

- Fixed a bug with instance checking often causing a crash during export.

### Version 2.0.4 - July 30, 2009

- Added 'Remove Bones With No Influence' setting to the Mesh Animations page of the Object Settings dialog. When enabled, this setting results in bones that have no vertex influence being removed from the skeleton. Child bones of removed bones are parented to the removed bone's parent.
- Modified the scene 'Fast Export' setting, making it true by default.
- Modified the scene views to ignore bone objects. Previously they were being rendered as meshes.
- Fixed a bug with skeletons being offset incorrectly when the Skin modifier is used on a mesh that has had its pivot point moved.
- Fixed a bug that prevented spinner controls from being traversed with the tab key.
- Fixed a bug with the way mesh instances are detected.
- Fixed a bug with the mesh bounding radius being 2x too large.
- Fixed a bug with manual mesh radio button on the Mesh LOD page of the Object Settings dialog causing a crash.

### Version 2.0.3b - July 21, 2009

- Fixed a problem with the way 3DS Max 8 was being detected in the installer.

### Version 2.0.3a - July 21, 2009

- Fixed a bug that caused 3DS Max 2010 to crash when dealing with any object that had a Morpher modifier.

### Version 2.0.3 - July 21, 2009

- Added logic to detect whether to include skeletons for mergable submeshes. Previously, you had to manually select Always Export Skeletons for submeshes.
- Added the following OgreMax pass settings (corresponding to the Ogre settings): normalise_normals, transparent_sorting, iteration_depth_bias, alpha_to_coverage, light_scissor, light_clip_planes, illumination_stage, polygon_mode_overrideable.
- Modified 'Export Selected Objects' so that it exports all the valid selected hierarchies of objects, ignoring those that are disconnected from an ancestor that is also being exported. Previously, the top-most objects of selected objects (and all their children) were exported.
- Increased the number of texture units in an OgreMax pass to 16.
- Fixed a bug that occurred when merging two meshes with animations that shared the same skeleton. This bug had previously caused the exporter to crash.

### Version 2.0.2 - July 14, 2009

- Added bitmap prefix to the Materials page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added logic to prevent mesh animations for meshes that have modifiers applied in the incorrect order. The documentation for the Mesh Animations page has been updated, explaining the different invalid scenarios.
- Added the ogremax.RefreshOgreMaxMenu() command.
- Modified the exporter to also check the visibility of the object's layer when using the 'Ignore Hidden Objects' scene setting.
- Fixed a bug with all skies being removed from the OgreMax viewports when one is removed from the application.
- Fixed a bug with render texture names not including the material name prefix in material scripts but including them in the scene file. They are now always included.
- Fixed a bug with spline objects causing a crash.
- Fixed a bug with the 64-bit OgreMax viewers generating an exception when loading a scene. This bug was the result of two bugs in Ogre.
- Fixed a bug with vertex colors being exported as an additional texture coordinate channel.
- Fixed a bug that resulted in mesh instances not being detected for meshes with multiple materials.
- Fixed a bug with shader parameters not being set correctly for the Ogre 1.7.0 build.

### Version 2.0.1 - July 9, 2009

- Changed the mesh animation 'Track' property to 'TrackName'. This fixes a problem MaxScript was having accessing the original name.
- Modified the object selection dialog to use the generic one that the XSI and Maya exporters use. This is because the 3DS Max object selection doesn't show hidden objects.
- Fixed a bug with mesh skeletons that caused meshes to be stretched to infinity.
- Fixed a bug with the sample type not being set correctly into the user interface on the Node and Mesh Animations settings pages of the Object Settings dialog.

### Version 2.0 - July 4, 2009

- Added OgreMax scene windows.
- Added OgreMax progress window, used during export.
- Added window to monitor the OgreMax log.
- Added uninstallation functionality to the installer.
- Added a details window to the installer.
- Added support for animated skies.
- Added more internal criteria used during the exporting meshes, submeshes, instances, and names.
- Added logic to prevent the OpenGL render system from being used when 3DS Max has OpenGL in use.
- Added 'Export as Morph' option to mesh animation settings dialog, which allows skeleton and morpher-based animations to be exported as morph animations, even if the designated type is something that doesn't specify morph animations, such as 'Skeleton + pose'.
- Added another mesh animation type called 'Combined Morph Only' which means animations on the Object track will not disable any defined skeleton or morpher modifiers when the scene is exported.
- Added 'Global Settings' dialog, which allows some settings that are common to all scenes to be set.
- Added 'Enabled' setting to the Node Animation dialog.
- Added 'Export' setting to the Environment page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added 'Ambient Light' color setting to the Environment page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added 'Background' color setting to the Environment page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added 'Fog Start', 'Fog End' and 'Fog Color' settings to the Environment page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added settings in the OgreMax Material Viewer settings dialog to synchronize background and ambient light colors to scene settings.
- Added shader program support for the following parameters: LIGHT_DIFFUSE_COLOUR_POWER_SCALED, LIGHT_SPECULAR_COLOUR_POWER_SCALED, LIGHT_DIFFUSE_COLOUR_POWER_SCALED_ARRAY, LIGHT_SPECULAR_COLOUR_POWER_SCALED_ARRAY, LIGHT_NUMBER, LIGHT_CASTS_SHADOWS, TEXTURE_VIEWPROJ_MATRIX_ARRAY, TEXTURE_WORLDVIEWPROJ_MATRIX, TEXTURE_WORLDVIEWPROJ_MATRIX_ARRAY, SPOTLIGHT_VIEWPROJ_MATRIX, SPOTLIGHT_WORLDVIEWPROJ_MATRIX, SHADOW_COLOUR, TEXTURE_MATRIX.
- Added 'Native' setting for vertex color format on Meshes page of the Scene Settings dialog. This setting uses the render system default.
- Added resizing functionality to most dialogs.
- Added a 'Animated Skeleton Root' setting to Mesh Animations page of the Object Settings dialog. This is used for subtracting translations from skeletal animations.
- Added a 'Optimize Skeleton Animations' setting to the Meses page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added 'Split Mirrored', 'Split Rotated', and 'Store Parity in W' settings to the Scene and Object Settings dialogs.
- Added settings to the Mesh page of the Object Settings dialog that allow you to set up the mapping between 3DS Max's texture coordinate sets and the exported texture coordinate sets.
- Added support for a 'material' usage with the user data types feature.
- Added user data support to the OgreMaxMaterial type. This data is exported when the scene is exported.
- Added logic to sort shader parameters by name so that they're always listed in alphabetical order within the OgreMax Pass page of the Material Editor.
- Added logic to automatically generate edge lists for meshes when stencil shadows are used in the exported scene, even if the 'Generate Edge Lists' setting is not checked.
- Added tutorial to documentation describing how to configure shadows.
- Added tutorial to documentation describing how to merge meshes.
- Removed default node animation 'name', 'enable', and 'loop' settings and controls from the Node Animations page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Removed texture coordinate type setting from the mesh page of the object settings dialog.
- Removed the "Ignore Objects in Hidden Layers" setting in the Scene Setting dialog. Now the "Ignore Hidden Objects" is the only setting used.
- Removed the "standard" unit type from the Scene Settings dialog. "Active" is now the default.
- Removed the dialog that presented a warning when two objects have the same name. Renaming is now automatic.
- Removed the exported terrain rotation values. These values are now determined by the OgreMaxScene loader.
- Removed the 'Texture Coordinate Type' setting from the Mesh Page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Removed the shader parameter source dialog from the OgreMax Pass page. The source is automatically cycled when the button is pressed.
- Updated the 1.4.x release to use Ogre 1.6.2.
- Updated to the March 2009 of the DirectX runtimes.
- Changed the "Triangle List" setting on the Mesh settings of the Object Settings dialog to "Default".
- Modified the tabbing so that it works more consistently in scene and object settings dialogs.
- Modified export of poses, using the 3DS Max morpher, so that the export still works even if target objects are deleted (3DS Max allows this behavior).
- Modified the support for the FRAME_TIME shader program parameter. It now provides a floating point extra parameter.
- Modified mesh exporter to use Ogre to generate tangents.
- Modified the way sky orientations are calculated. Their orientations are now handled the same way as most other objects.
- Modified OgreMaxMaterial to have 'receive shadows' set to true by default.
- Modified the General page of the Object Settings dialog so that types are sorted by name.
- Modified the texture unit U/V scrolling range to be smaller, from -1 to 1.
- Modified the texture unit U/V scaling range to allow negative values.
- Modified the duplicate object renaming so that it's automatic. A message is no longer presented when such a situation occurs.
- Modified the mesh export process to skip vertex assignments for meshes where the number of skinned vertices does not match the number of vertices in the object. This only occurs when exporting non-triangulated objects such as NURBs surfaces.
- Modified the mesh animation export so that 'Morph Only' now means that the different animation tracks are exported as morphs, separately. Previously all tracks were combined with the Morph Only option.
- Modified the way the background color and fog settings are exported. Previously, the 3DS Max Rendering settings were used by default. Now, the default is to use the OgreMax Scene settings.
- Modified the mesh converter to use Ogre3D's tangent generation capability.
- Modified the behavior of the 'Convert to OgreMax Materials' feature to use all the scene objects if none are selected.
- Modified the Scene Settings dialog so that it selects the last selected page before it was previously closed.
- Modified the Object Settings dialog so that it selects the last selected page before it was previously closed.
- Modified the Object Settings dialog so that it only displays the Node Animations page for objects that need it.
- Modified the Remove Bone Translations dialog to only display bones that are a part of the selected mesh.
- Modified the Include/Exclude Bone dialog to only display bones that are a part of the selected mesh.
- Modified the default 'sample type' value for the mesh and node animation settings to be 'Use Object Settings' (default value of 2). This only matters if you're creating settings using MaxScript.
- Modified the 'Standard' scene manager dropdown list on the General page of the OgreMax Scene Settings dialog, adding 'Terrain' as a standard type.
- Enhanced the Node and Animation Settings pages of the Object Settings dialog to more accurately display the sample interval / rate based on current settings.
- Changed the name of the 'Directories' page in the Scene Settings dialog to 'File/Directories'.
- Moved the default scene file settings from the General page to the File/Directories page of the Scene Settings dialog.
- Changed the OgreMax scene, object, mesh animation, and node animation settings class names to 'OgreMax Scene Settings' and "OgreMax Object Settings', 'OgreMax Mesh Animation Settings' and 'OgreMax Node Animation Settings', respectively.
- Changed log file name from OgreMax-Ogre.log to OgreMaxSceneExporter.log.
- Renamed the "Mip Map Bias" texture unit parameter to "MipMapBias".
- Fixed a bug with render system not being changed when starting a new scene, which may have a new render system than the current one.
- Fixed a bug with bitmaps not being copied for standard materials when using the scene "Copy Bitmaps to Export Directory" setting.
- Fixed a bug with the pass shader panels carrying over some values from a previously set shader program.
- Fixed a bug with the texture unit U transform animation not allowing negative values.
- Fixed a bug in the material viewer window with point sprite sizes being incorrectly set when attenuation is enabled.
- Fixed a bug with the sphere object in the material viewer window not using the 'tex0/tex1' scene setting.
- Fixed a bug with the time duration not being udpated in the material viewer window for animated textures specified with individual files.
- Fixed a bug with the shader parameters not changing when switching between OgreMax materials that happen to be on the Pass page.
- Fixed the static geometry export. No meshes were being exported from 3DS Max.
- Fixed a bug with fog always being exported from 3DS Max.
- Fixed a bug with the scene scale being incorrectly calculated when the OgreMax Scene Settings scale was set to 'Active' and the 3DS Max active scale was in feet or some other imperial unit.
- Fixed a bug with the help documentation index in the .CHM file not containing an entry for the object settings dialog 'Mesh' page.
- Fixed a bug that caused 3DS Max to crash when using the 'Convert to OgreMax Materials' feature on an object that used a Multi-material.
- Fixed a bug that prevented typing in values for the 'extra' value for 'auto' shader parameters in the OgreMax Pass page of the Material Editor.
- Fixed a bug with the Render Cube Map dialog's radio buttons not toggling.
- Fixed a bug with the Pass point sprite sizing and attenuation.

### Version 1.6.23 - October 12, 2008

- Fixed a bug with incorrect handling of commas in custom user data text fields.
- Fixed a bug with the shadow far distance setting not being properly scaled according to the selected scene units.
- Fixed a bug in the export of mesh externals. The faces were incorrectly being placed under a 'boundingVolume' element in the scene file.
- Fixed a bug with exported node animation names always including the scene's node name prefix.
- Modified the exported 'modelName' attribute to be 'modelFile', which more accurately describes what it represents. Also modified scene loading code to deal with this change.
- Modified the export of the light quadric attenuation, adding more precision to the exported value.

### Version 1.6.22 - September 3, 2008

- Fixed a bug in the calculation of animation lengths.

### Version 1.6.21 - September 3, 2008

- Added a dialog that allows to user to handle merging of OgreMax scene settings when both the current and merged scene contain OgreMax settings.
- Fixed a bug in the export of materials that caused shadow receiver vertex and fragment program parameters being reversed.
- Fixed a bug in the generation of animation key frame times.

### Version 1.6.20 - September 2, 2008

- Added logic to handle the cloning of OgreMax object settings when their corresponding objects are cloned.
- Added logic to handle the merging of other scenes and their OgreMax object settings.
- Fixed a bug in the export of shapes that have multiple segments.

### Version 1.6.19 - August 30, 2008

- Fixed a bug with the object render queue setting not being exported properly when using an additional value (such as 'main + 1').
- Fixed a bug with OgreMax materials not exporting to separate files.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Convert to OgreMax Materials' feature.

### Version 1.6.18 - July 1, 2008

- Modified the default light specular color settings to be white.
- Modified the mesh generation for the material viewer to include random vertex colors.
- Modified the buttons on the texture unit page to allow the 3DS Max right click menu.
- Modified the user data class parser, making it remove invalid name characters.
- Fixed a bug with the skeleton name not being saved in the Object Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with floating point shader program parameters having incorrect spinner ranges.

### Version 1.6.17 - June 15, 2008

- Added scene mesh setting to force all vertex colors to be white. This works even if the mesh has no vertex colors assigned.
- Added ogremax.CreateNodeAnimation() and ogremax.CreateMeshAnimation() MaxScript functions.
- Modified the mesh pose export to always use the target mesh's name, rather than appending a numeric suffix.
- Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented Ogre resources from being refreshed when a scene is loaded.
- Fixed a bug with the 'texture_size' 'texture_inverse_size', and 'packed_texture_size' parameters not presenting an index.

### Version 1.6.16 - May 27, 2008

- Added a object setting to specify that an object should be placed in its parent node, rather than generate its own node. This is the 'Attach Object to Parent Node' setting in the Object Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Convert to OgreMax Materials' feature skipping standard materials.
- Fixed a bug with unused meshes being exported when 'Export Selected' is used.
- Fixed a bug with the object type sometimes being reset.
- Fixed a bug with the mesh animation type sometimes being reset.
- Fixed a bug with the COSTIME_0_X, SINTIME_0_X, TANTIME_0_X, TIME_0_X_PACKED auto parameters not inputting or exporting the extra parameter.

### Version 1.6.15 - May 18, 2008

- Added support for 3DS Max 2009.
- Modified the OgreMax Material exporter to write only the necessary parameters for 'colour_op_ex' and 'alpha_op_ex'.
- Updated the Ogre 1.4.x build to use Ogre 1.4.8.
- Updated the Ogre 1.5.x build to use Ogre 1.7.x.
- Fixed a bug with the default node animation interpolation types not being used if there were no node animations defined.
- Fixed a bug with the LOD radio buttons on the Mesh tab of the Object Settings dialog.

### Version 1.6.14 - May 7, 2008

- Added a scene setting to prefix material names with their parent material name.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Copy Bitmaps to Export Directory' setting not working when using relative directories.
- Fixed a bug with node animations for cameras and lights being incorrectly oriented.
- Fixed a bug with sampled animations ending at times slightly different from when they are supposed to end.
- Fixed a bug with the 64-bit installer installing the 32-bit version.

### Version 1.6.13 - May 2, 2008

- Fixed a bug with some objects not being exported into .model files as they should have been.

### Version 1.6.12 - April 30, 2008

- Added the following settings to the billboard set page: pool size, auto extend pool size, cull individually, sort, use accurate facing model.
- Added support for exporting user data on 'empty' objects.
- Fixed a bug with the OgreMax Pass panels occasionally being sized incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug with the translations in node animations being scaled one too many times.

### Version 1.6.11 - April 22, 2008

- Added Maxscript support for accessing OgreMax scene and object settings.
- Added base directory settings for the default scene file (in the Scene Settings dialog).
- Added double click editing functionality to the manual LOD list in the Object Settings dialog.
- Modified the mesh and node animation dialogs to set the input focus to the animation name text box.
- Modified all the modal dialogs so that they can be OK'ed with Alt+O.
- Fixed a bug, introduced in the previous release, that prevented material files from being written.

### Version 1.6.10 - April 20, 2008

- Added support for exporting Maxscript materials derived from OgreMax Material.
- Added a 'default scene file' setting to the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added a 'Copy' button in the Mesh Animations and Node Animations tab pages, for duplicating animations.
- Modified the Mesh Animation dialog to select a sensible default 'track' when adding a new animation.
- Fixed a bug when using the 'Convert to OgreMax Materials' feature that caused the active texture maps in the materials to be inactive.
- Fixed a problem with some of the multi-line text boxes not having a vertical scrollbar.
- Fixed a problem with material names containing spaces. All material names now have their whitespace removed on export.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Add Include/Exclude Bone' dialog not displaying the name of the selected bone.

### Version 1.6.9 - April 10, 2008

- Added support for 3D texture coordinates, which are enabled on the Mesh Settings page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Added 'Always Export Skeleton' setting to the Mesh Animation settings page. This forces a skeleton to be exported regardless of the selected mesh animation type.
- Added 'Always Export Poses' setting to the Mesh Animation settings page. This forces poses to be exported regardless of the selected mesh animation type.
- Added an extra check during export to ensure a camera's near clip distance isn't too close to zero.
- Added support for hierarchical model instances.
- Added settings for specifying the node animation traslation and rotation interpolation modes.
- Updated Ogre 1.4.x build to Ogre 1.4.7.
- Updated Ogre 1.5.x to use the latest Ogre head release.
- Modified the texture unit to allow negative mip bias values.
- Modified the exporter to export all object note tracks, even if no names are specified in the Object Settings. For note tracks that don't have names, default names are assigned.
- Modified the export of pose animations (created with the Morpher modifier) to allow negative influences.
- Modified the mesh exporter to export poses even if there are no animations.
- Modified the behavior of model instances. Child nodes are no longer ignored by default. The 'Ignore Children' setting in the Object Settings dialog is used to determine whether child nodes are ignored.
- Modified the format of model instances in the scene file. Their functionality is now shared with the 'node' element. Old files that use the previous method are still loaded correctly.
- Modified the documentation for lights to indicate which 3DS Max settings are exported.
- Fixed a bug with the Ogre base resource location type not being displayed correctly.
- Fixed a bug with the mesh XML 'texture_coord_dimensions_' attribute being written as 'texture_coords_dimensions_'.
- Fixed a bug with 'Reference' cloned objects not being exported.
- Fixed problems with the installer not working correctly under Vista.
- Fixed bug with OgreMax Material window causing 3DS Max to crash under Vista.
- Fixed bug with the exporter sometimes crashing when creating a new directory in the export dialog under Vista.
- Fixed a bug with some of the dialogs using the default locale when parsing floating point numbers entered into text boxes.

### Version 1.6.8 - March 22, 2008

- Added the scene scale to exported file.
- Added the name of the unit (along with any divider) used to export the scene.
- Modified the exporter to always export a light's 'cast shadows' setting. Previously it was only exported when shadow casting was disabled.
- Modified the installer to install NVidia cgD3D9.dll. This fixes a bug with the 'View Hardware Maps in Viewports' feature in 3DS Max not working.
- Fixed a bug with the scale when using the 'Active' scene scale in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with the mesh export that caused occasional problems with skinned meshes, in particular when using the 'Fast Export' setting.

### Version 1.6.7 - March 17, 2008

- Added 'Create Movable Plane' setting to the Plane page in the Object Settings dialog.
- Added double click editing functionality to the custom parameters list, node animations list, and mesh animations list in the Object Settings dialog.
- Added support for exporting line objects.
- Added support for using the 3DS Max project directory to define resource locations.

### Version 1.6.6 - March 10, 2008

- Modified the billboard settings so that white is the default color.
- Modified the mesh exporter to limit the maximum number of bone weighted vertices to Ogre's maximum, removing bones and rescaling weights as necessary.
- Modified the exported camera field-of-view setting to be vertical (rather than horizontal), using the 4:3 aspect ratio.
- Fixed the tab ordering on the dialogs.
- Fixed a bug with the Mesh Animation Settings dialog not selecting the proper animation track when editing an existing animation.
- Fixed a bug with the 'surface_emissive_colour' auto constant type being spelled as 'surface_specular_colour'.
- Fixed a bug with instanced skinned meshes exporting as separate meshes.

### Version 1.6.5 - February 27, 2008

- Fixed a bug with the texture unit waveform animation being exported incorrectly.

### Version 1.6.4 - February 26, 2008

- Modified installation tool to be more flexible with searching for the 3DS Max installation location.
- Fixed a bug with the Mesh Scale modifier not working with TriObjects.

### Version 1.6.3 - February 25, 2008

- Modified the 'Normalize Mesh Scale' feature to apply the 'Mesh Scale' modifier only to meshes.

### Version 1.6.2 - February 24, 2008

- Added 'Mesh Scale' modifier. This modifier scales meshes locally.
- Added 'Select Negatively Scaled Objects' item to OgreMax menu.
- Added 'Normalize Mesh Scale' item to OgreMax menu.
- Modified the export of meshes so that only the animated meshes (and not the initial un-animated mesh) affect the final bounding box and sphere radius.
- Fixed a bug that prevented objects attached to biped bones from being exported.

### Version 1.6.1 - February 21, 2008

- Unchanged.

### Version 1.6 - February 18, 2008

- Added support for attaching objects to skeleton bones.
- Added support for exporting multiple objects into a single node. This is achieved by having child nodes in 3DS Max positioned at the same location as the parent.
- Added visibility flag settings to both the Object and Scene Settings dialogs.
- Added more logic to Standard-to-OgreMax material conversion, fixing up potentially invalid bitmap paths.
- Added a menu item to the OgreMax menu that allows the current scene materials to be exported.
- Added a help file, viewable from the OgreMax menu.
- Added a menu item to the OgreMax menu that allows the current material library to be exported.
- Added an OgreMax icon to every dialog to more clearly indicate that they are part of OgreMax.
- Added texture coordinate rectangle settings to the Billboard page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Added note track export for externals.
- Modified the 'Save Screenshot' dialogs so that they display the image formats supported by Ogre.
- Modified the behavior of the shader program 'Refresh' button on the OgreMax Pass page (in the material editor). It used to reload the entire list of shader programs. Now it just reloads the currently selected program. Also, the button was relabeled to 'Reload' to more accurately describe what it does.
- Modified the exporter to export note tracks into node objects, not the nodes themselves.
- Modified the export of user data to separate files, changing the 'node' element name to 'object'. This is important because user data is now more closely associated with objects rather than the nodes.
- Removed the 'static' setting from the Mesh and Plane tab pages.
- Fixed a bug with the shadow texture receiver material being saved incorrectly.
- Fixed a bug with the material exporter writing 'unsupported material' to the material file when exporting a disabled OgreMax material.
- Fixed a bug with the render system not being changed correctly when the Scene Settings dialog settings change.
- Fixed a bug with the number of plane segments not be exported.
- Changed the name of the 'Shadows' tab page (in the Scene Settings dialog) to 'Environment'.
- Moved the Environment Range and Fog scene settings from the General tab page to the Environment tab page.
- Moved the Bitmaps tab page contents to the Materials tab page in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Rewrote and reformatted all the documentation.

### Version 1.5.29 - January 24, 2008

- Modified exporter to sort skies before export, using the 'order' setting on the General tab page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Modified node animations to be relative to their parent (if any).
- Fixed a bug with the 'mesh' directory on the Directories tab of the Scene Settings dialog not being saved correctly. Note: If you were setting any of the export directories in your scenes, you should check them again to make sure they are still correct.

### Version 1.5.28 - January 23, 2008

- Added support for the shader program auto constant 'time' extra parameter.
- Added 'rendering distance' setting to General tab of the Object Settings dialog.
- Added rendering distance export for particle systems, billboard sets, planes, and entities.
- Added render queue export for terrain.
- Removed the 'rendering distance' setting from the 'Instanced Geometry' and 'Static Geometry' OgreMax helper objects.
- Removed the scale setting from the Sky Plane tab page in the Object Settings dialog. The scale is now calculated from the size of the 3DS Max plane object.
- Modified the object type detection (in the Object Settings dialog) in the following way: Sky Box is only shown if the object is a 3DS Max Box object. Sky Dome is only shown if the object is a 3DS Max Sphere object. Sky Plane, Billboard, and Plane are only shown if the object is a 3DS Max Plane object.
- Renamed the Particle System's 'File' setting to 'Name', since it really refers to the name of a particle system in a .particle file.
- Fixed a bug with the hardware buffer usage (for vertex and index buffers) not being exported.
- Fixed a bug with the custom parameters not being exported.
- Fixed a bug with the way world planes were calculated.
- Fixed a bug with mesh bones being exported as scene nodes.

### Version 1.5.27 - January 11, 2008

- Added 64-bit builds for 3DS Max 9 and 2008. These are untested.
- Modified the installation tool to support 64-bit installations.
- Modified the mesh bounds generation (box and radius) to sample skinned meshes so that the bounds cover the mesh for all of its animations.
- Modified the 3DS Max morpher mesh export to automatically ignore any morph target meshes. Previously, such meshes needed to be set to the Ignore type in the Object Settings dialog to prevent them from being exported as scene objects.
- Modified the OgreMax Material Viewer window to use the scene's up axis setting.
- Modified the OgreMax Material Viewer window to use the scene's tangent/binormal settings (semantics as well as enabled/disabled states).
- Fixed a bug with the Node Animation dialog crashing 3DS Max when adding an animation in the Object Settings dialog.

### Version 1.5.26 - January 7, 2008

- Added manual LOD settings to Mesh tab of Object Settings dialog.
- Added query flag settings to both the Scene and Object Settings dialogs.
- Added a rotation value to the terrain export so that the terrain will have the correct orientation when exported with the Z up axis.
- Added instructions to the documentation detailing how to uninstall OgreMax.
- Modified the Entity and Entity Animation tabs, renaming them to Mesh and Mesh Animation.
- Fixed a bug with the incorrect object type sometimes being used when exporting.

### Version 1.5.25 - January 5, 2008

- Modified the mesh animation settings dialog to allow the track location to be modified on existing mesh animations.
- Fixed a bug with the scene scale setting not being saved correctly.

### Version 1.5.24 - January 4, 2008

- Added box, sphere, and mesh volume export for 'external' items.
- Added the light intensity setting to exported lights.
- Added attenuation settings to the 'light' tab page in the Object Settings dialog.
- Added the 'texture coordinate set count' setting to the Plane page in the Object Settings dialog.
- Added the 'export resource locations' setting to the Ogre page in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added an option to capture screenshots from the OgreMax material viewer window.
- Added a menu item to the OgreMax menu that allows the selected material editor material to be exported.
- Added 'Add' button to the 'ignore meshes' area on the Meshes tab of the Scene Settings dialog
- Added 'Add' button to the 'ignore materials' area on the Materials tab of the Scene Settings dialog
- Updated to NVidia CG 2.0 DLL.
- Updated to Ogre 1.4.6.
- Modified the scene and object settings so that they are no longer stored in the 3DS Max user data text.
- Modified the OgreMax material viewer window to maintain the object's aspect ratio when the window is resized.
- Modified installation tool to install or update the existing NVidia CG DLL.
- Modified the 'attached mesh' object setting, giving it the new name of 'submesh', which more accurately describes what the setting does.
- Modified the node and mesh animation settings so that they are no longer stored in the text data of note tracks.
- Modified the OgreMax material viewer window so that it automatically recreates the back buffer when the window size changes.
- Modified the 'Refresh Ogre Resources' functionality so that it no longer shuts down and restarts Ogre. That behavior was needed in previous Ogre versions.
- Modified the exporter to export meshes with no faces as empty nodes. Previously, such nodes were skipped.
- Modified the scene settings so that the 'export text files' setting is now 'false' by default.
- Modified the OgreMaxRenderTexture 'exclusive' and 'hidden' object lists so that they don't retain null entries when the corresponding objects are deleted.
- Modified the OgreMax helper objects to use the node color.
- Removed the 'Recreate Back Buffer with Current Window Size' menu item from the OgreMax material viewer window.
- Fixed a bug with the vertex color format in the Scene Settings dialog not being saved.
- Fixed a bug with the 'enable lighting' OgreMax Pass setting not affecting the material viewer rendering.

### Version 1.5.23 - December 14, 2007

- Added support for Ogre InstancedGeometry.
- Added support for Ogre StaticGeometry.
- Added scene setting for exporting all user data to a separate XML file.
- Added the following to the custom user data classes feature: display names, groups, and natural ordering (instead of sorting all the items by name).
- Removed the bone tab page from the Object Settings dialog.
- Updated to use the latest Ogre head release.
- Updated to use FreeType 2.3.5.
- Modified the custom user data classes feature to use the declaration order rather than alphabetical order.
- Fixed a bug with the 'remove bone translation' settings not being saved in the Mesh Animation Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with the root bone in a skeleton inheriting the transformations of its non-bone parent (if it has such a parent).
- Fixed a bug with mesh tangents sometimes being calculated incorrectly.

### Version 1.5.22 - December 7, 2007

- Fixed a problem with skeleton animations.

### Version 1.5.21 - December 7, 2007

- Added the 'Attached Mesh' object type for attaching meshes to one another during the export process.
- Added 'Bone' page to the Object Settings dialog.
- Added node name prefix setting to the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added node animation name prefix setting to the Scene Settings dialog.
- Modified the text in the node animation settings dialog's 'Sampling" combo box from 'Use Object Setting' to 'None'.
- Fixed the tab ordering in many dialogs.
- Fixed a problem with skeleton animations being exported slightly incorrectly.
- Fixed a problem with determining the subentities for the scene file. Previously, subentities without materials were not considered.

### Version 1.5.20 - December 3, 2007

- Added tangent/binormal semantic setting to the Entity page of the Object Settings dialog.
- Added export of material information for entities. This allows entities to share the same mesh but use different materials.
- Added a separate page for node animations in the Object Settings dialog.
- Added 'Cube Map' helper type.
- Modified the installer utility so it doesn't depend on the Visual Studio runtimes.

### Version 1.5.19 - December 1, 2007

- Added the explicit normals feature that was removed from the previous version. It really works this time.
- Added biped mixer importer/synchronizer to Entity Animation tab of Object Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with the Entity Animation page in the Object Settings dialog not saving mesh animations.

### Version 1.5.18 - November 30, 2007

- Added native plugins for Max 2008.
- Added additional exception handling during the mesh animation export process to prevent duplicate animation names from crashing the exporter.
- Added additional page on the Object Settings dialog for entity animations.
- Added a simple installation tool to aid in installing the plugin.
- Renamed all the plugin directories. The 'static' part of the names has been removed.
- Removed the explicit mesh normals feature.
- Modified the node and mesh export to use the pivot point.

### Version 1.5.17 - November 28, 2007

- Modified the mesh normal generation to use explicit mesh normals if any are available.

### Version 1.5.16 - November 27, 2007

- Modified the exporter's 'duplicate node name' handling to allow for the automatic renaming of nodes with duplicate names.
- Fixed texture coordinate bug that occurred when exporting vertex colors.

### Version 1.5.15 - November 27, 2007

- Added support for exporting multiple node animations.
- Added additional mesh bounding box calculations for pose and morph mesh export.
- Added support for exporting nodes created by mirroring.
- Added a 'fast export' setting to the Scene Settings dialog, on the Meshes page.
- Modified the 'isSimple' object user property name to be 'fastExport'. The old name is still supported.
- Fixed a bug with vertex colors being incorrectly exported, causing a crash in 3DS Max.
- Fixed a bug with the scene scale not correctly scaling skeletons.

### Version 1.5.14 - November 23, 2007

- Fixed a bug with mesh skeleton names containing the full path to the skeleton file, not just the skeleton file name.
- Fixed a bug with the OgreMax Texture Unit export, with the 'clamp' and 'mirror' texture addressing modes being reversed.

### Version 1.5.13 - November 22, 2007

- Added user data types feature, which allows for custom user data to be specified with GUI controls rather than plain text.
- Added additional checks during startup to make sure that Ogre was successfully initialized. If there is an error, an message box is displayed.
- Added binormal option for mesh export, in both the Scene Settings and Object Settings dialogs.
- Added the CustomUserDataTypes.max sample scene, which demonstrates the custom user data types feature.
- Added mesh/skeleton name prefix setting in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added material name prefix setting in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Removed 'CDATA' option from the user data. User data is now always exported as CDATA in the scene file.
- Removed 'sort bone assignments' scene setting. Bone assignments are no longer sorted, speeding up the mesh export process.
- Modified the entity 'Simple Mesh' setting to read 'Fast Export', which more accurately describes what that setting does.
- Modified the 'Create Master/Slave Materials' functionality to use the original material's name as the base for the slave material names.
- Modified the 'Convert to OgreMax Materials' functionality to use the original material's name as the base for the new OgreMax material names.
- Modified the resource locations functionality in the Scene Settings Ogre tab so that resource locations can be typed directly rather than having to use the 'Add' buttons.
- Modified mesh export to generate binary mesh files directly rather than use Ogre's XML converter.
- Fixed a bug with parameter-less shader programs not appearing in the OgreMax Pass shaders dropdown lists.
- Fixed a bug with the scene vertex colors setting not being saved in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with the entity type not being properly assigned in the Object Settings dialog.
- Fixed a bug with an internal render window failing to be created when using a non-default DPI setting for the desktop.
- Fixed a bug with the scene scale 'divide by' parameter not being stored by the Scene Settings dialog when the default units are used.

### Version 1.5.12 - November 14, 2007

- Modified the 'simple mesh' setting documentation.
- Fixed a bug with time scaling and the 'copy first key to last' setting not being used properly for morph meshes.
- Fixed a bug that caused the Object Settings dialog to sometimes crash when adding or editing mesh animations.

### Version 1.5.11 - November 10, 2007

- Updated to use TinyXML 2.5.3
- Fixed a bug with scenes sometimes not being exported when launching the scene exporter from the OgreMax menu. This occurred because the scene had duplicate object names, but since error dialogs were disabled when running the exporter from the OgreMax menu, the export would instead fail silently.
- Fixed a bug with the incorrect object type being stored in the Object Settings dialog.

### Version 1.5.10 - November 9, 2007

- Modified the exporter so that empty user data isn't exported.

### Version 1.5.9 - November 9, 2007

- Added custom 'Dummy' type.
- Added exporter for mesh icons that can be used with the OgreMax 'Custom Helper' type.
- Modified the 'export vertex colors' scene setting so that vertex colors are exported by default.
- Fixed a bug with the 'generate edge lists' scene setting not being saved when the scene settings dialog is closed.
- Fixed a bug with node animations not being exported for nodes that have a look-at controller.
- Fixed a bug with the 'Recreate Back Buffer' item in the OgreMax Material Viewer causing a crash.
- Fixed a bug with the export directories being nested incorrectly.
- Removed the use of the 3DS Max IGame API. This change reduces the exporter's memory usage by half when exporting meshes.
- Removed the logic that toggled optimize modifiers on and off during the export process. This is no longer needed since the exporter no longer uses IGame.

### Version 1.5.8 - November 4, 2007

- Added scene setting to ignore hidden objects.
- Fixed a texture unit frames animation bug that caused a crash with Max 8.
- Fixed a bug with incorrect scene scaling of mesh pose animations.

### Version 1.5.7 - October 27, 2007

- Added utility to render height maps.
- Added utility to render terrain maps.
- Added cubic map support to the OgreMax Render Texture.
- Added functionality to the Object Settings/Entity dialog page for adding and removing mesh animations, as well as modifying the time interval. Previously these things could only be done by hand in the 3DS Max dope sheet view.
- Added additional logic to support multiple mesh animation note tracks.
- Added more information to the OgreMax About dialog.
- Added scene setting to allow hidden 3DS Max layers to be skipped during the export process.
- Fixed a bug in the handling of manual shader parameters that caused 3DS Max to export invalid manual shader values and sometimes crash.
- Fixed a bug that caused a crash when switching from the OpenGL render system to the Direct3D render system.

### Version 1.5.6 - October 16, 2007

- Added utility to render cube maps. This is convenient for creating sky box textures as well as textures to be used as a cubic reflection map.
- Added utility to generate frames from a video. The frames can be used in a texture unit that uses an animated texture.
- Added a cube shape to the OgreMax material viewer.
- Increased the default brightness for the diffuse light in the OgreMax material viewer.
- Fixed a bug with the bitmap format conversion not working correctly.

### Version 1.5.5 - October 12, 2007

- Added binaries for Ogre 1.5.0.

### Version 1.5.4 - October 11, 2007

- Unchanged.

### Version 1.5.3 - October 8, 2007

- Unchanged.

### Version 1.5.2 - October 8, 2007

- Added support for exporting the configured Ogre resource locations.
- Reduced the default brightness for the ambient light in the OgreMax material viewer.

### Version 1.5.1 - October 6, 2007

- Added an events tab to the Scene Settings dialog, allowing custom command lines to be executed at various points in the export process.
- Added a tutorial on using the new events feature to automatically launch the OgreMax Scene Viewer after exporting a scene.

### Version 1.5 - October 4, 2007

- Added custom material system. Allows you to define Ogre materials, techniques, passes, texture units, and render targets.
- Added real time Ogre material viewer to display OgreMax materials.
- Added support for the 3DS Max 'render to texture' feature. It operates with the new OgreMax material.
- Added a feature to copy scene bitmaps (textures) to a directory and perform format conversion during the export process.
- Added OgreMax menu item to allow viewing of the Ogre log file.
- Added per-mesh settings for vertex colors, edge list generation, tangent generation.
- Added setting for exporting mesh as points and lines (as visible edges).
- Added more settings for texture shadows.
- Added Ogre tab in the Scene Settings dialog.
- Added Light tab in the Object Settings dialog to enable the setting of a light's specular color
- Added custom properties to the Object Settings General tab. For use with entities, billboard sets, and planes.
- Added automatic detection of 3DS Max Plane objects. Previously, the default export type of such objects was a mesh.
- Added additional logic to detect unused biped bones that still need to be exported.
- Added a few messages that appear in the 3DS Max prompt area during the export process.
- Modified the Object Settings dialog to allow multiple selection. The way it works is that it displays the settings of the first selected object, and copies the modified settings into all selected objects.
- Modified the way mesh instances are detected. Previously you had to give all instanced meshes the same name in order for them to use the same mesh in the exported scene. Mesh instances (created by creating an instance or reference in 3DS Max) are now automatically detected. To give the meshes a custom name, all you have to do is give one of the instances a custom name.
- Modified sky dome, sky plane, and plane to have their own tiling settings, rather than using the material tiling.
- Modified the 'About' dialog so that it lists the Ogre version and plugins in use by OgreMax.
- Modified the skeleton animation export to use a default sampling rate if non is specified and no keyframes could be found.
- Removed "exportlogs" directory that was previously created when exporting the scene.
- Fixed a bug in the Object Settings Entity tab where sample rate was not saved.
- Fixed a bug when exporting vertex colors.
- Fixed a couple of mesh animation export bugs related to unusual rigging situations.
- Fixed a bug with the normal generation that occasionally caused 3DS Max to crash.
- Recompiled with Ogre 1.4.5.

### Version 1.4 - August 12, 2007

- Added dialogs for configuring scene, object, and mesh animation properties. Anything that previously had to be configured with key=value user properties can now be configured through a dialog window.
- Added a feature to enable/disable the generation of text mesh and skeleton files.
- Added a feature to ignore specific bones when exporting skeleton animations.
- Modified how LOD generation is enabled per object. When the generateLod setting is not specified, the setting is inherited from the scene. If it is specified explicitly, it overrides the scene setting. All other settings are inherited, as before.
- Modified the lodDistance property to be specified in 3DS Max generic units.
- Modified the billboard set commonDirection and commonUpVector properties to be specified in 3DS Max world units.
- Removed the exportSettingsFile property.
- Fixed the exporter so that it respects the "suppress prompts" flag that Max supplies.
- Fixed a bug with vertex normals.

### Version 1.3.8 - July 31, 2007

- Added a feature for removing bone translations on a per-animation basis for skeleton animations. The previous feature for disabling bone translations for all mesh animations has not been modified.
- Added a feature for setting the mesh animation sample rate on a per-animation basis.
- Modified the way vertex normals are retrieved. This corrects an issue that occurred when using animated meshes.
- Fixed occasional crash when exporting the selected objects.
- Fixed occasional crash when exporting animated meshes.

### Version 1.3.7 - July 30, 2007

- Added table of contents to documentation.
- Added feature for sorting exported child nodes.
- Added feature for rescaling mesh animation lengths.
- Added feature for writing the first mesh animation key frame as the last one.

### Version 1.3.6 - July 24, 2007

- Added render queue setting for entities, planes, particle systems, and billboard sets.
- Added "About" item to OgreMax menu to make it easier to find out which version plugin is installed.
- Modified the duplicate object error message to make it more understandable, and changed the overall duplicate object handling so that you can force the scene to export.
- Fixed a problem with IGame sometimes returning null for an object's controller.

### Version 1.3.5 - July 20, 2007

- Changed the plugin file name from OgreMaxSceneExporter.dle to OgreMaxSceneExporter.gup.
- Added an OgreMax menu that appears within the 3DS Max main menu.
- Added a feature for renaming exported bitmap/texture file names.
- Added support for compiling with Ogre 1.2.x.
- Fixed the documentation for the particle system object type. It was previously the same as the documentation for the sky plane.

### Version 1.3.4 - July 18, 2007

- Modified (again) the method for exporting scene node animations. It really works this time.

### Version 1.3.3 - July 18, 2007

- Added a 'visibility' export property to specify whether nodes (and possibly their children) are initially visible or hidden.
- Modified the method for exporting scene node animations. This fixes the sometimes strange behavior of IGame's keyframe retrieval methods.

### Version 1.3.1 - July 16, 2007

- Recompiled with Ogre 1.4.3.
- Fixed the documentation for the 'Skeleton + morph animation' mesh animation type that stated the 'vertexAnimationType=morph' object user property was optional. It is required.
- Fixed some typos and added some clarifications to the documentation.

### Version 1.3 - July 10, 2007

- Added mesh pose animation export.
- Added mesh morph animation export.
- Added mesh skeleton animation export. Works with the skin and physique modifiers. Can be combined with pose/morph animations.
- Added support for exporting the selected objects.
- Added logic to ensure all node names are unique. The scene export will end with an error message if there are nodes that have the same name.
- Added a workaround for a bug within IGame that causes a crash when an 'optimize' modifier is applied to an object.
- Added a "common problems" section to this document.
- Added a scene setting for enabling the sorting of output mesh bone assignments.
- Added a "simple mesh" flag for big complex meshes (such as terrains) that have simple smoothing and normals. This allows the export to complete much faster.
- Changed exported scene file name to have a lowercase extension. Max makes it uppercase by default.
- Changed the method for calculating the exported light attenuation. Previously the difference between far and near was used. Now just the far value is used. This is more intuitive when specifying a light to be exported.
- Removed redundant parsing of node user properties.

### Version 1.2.2 - June 26, 2007

- Fixed the library and include paths for the 3DS Max 8 static build project. This should allow the plugin the load propertly in Max 8.

### Version 1.2.1 - June 13, 2007

- Fixed the exportVertexColors scene export property. The code was previously checking for a exportVertexColours property.
- Fixed a bug with mesh normal extraction that caused a problem with the Max 8 build.

### Version 1.2 - June 8, 2007

- Added 3DS Max 8 build configuration (special thanks to Chris and Dirsow).
- Added a "static" build configuration that generates an exporter DLL that does not depend on the Ogre DLLs.
- Added descriptive scene scaling: meters, kilometers, feet, miles.
- Added additional scene scaling, so that something like meters/1000 can be specified.
- Added partial support for exporting mirrored meshes, but it isn't entirely correct. If you really need to mirror a mesh, perform an Edit Mesh within 3DS Max, select all the vertices of the mesh, then perform a non-linear scale of -100 along whatever axis you'd like to mirror along. This can be achieved most easily using the Scale Transform Type-In. The key point is to mirror the mesh itself, not the node that contains it.
- Added animation export for moving, rotating and scaling scene nodes.
- Added note track export.
- Added logic to ensure the mesh names are valid. Invalid characters are replaced with valid ones. Valid characters are A-Z, a-z, 0-9, (space), (period), -, and _. Anything else will be replaced with a _.
- Added logic to export the targets of targeted lights and cameras as track targets.
- Added two more sample scenes: Animation and Model.
- Removed Debug build configuration.
- Removed the documentation indicating it was possible to set the author with a author=authorName scene user property. That was incorrect.
- Changed documentation that referred to the exporter file name as 'OgreMaxDotSceneExporter.dle'.

### Version 1.1d - June 7, 2007

- Fixed problem with some locales placing commas in saved floating point values.
- Fixed problem with non-bitmap maps causing the exporter to crash. Such maps are skipped now.
- Fixed the mesh normal export. It was previously exporting world space normals.

### Version 1.1c - June 5, 2007

- Fixed the binaries. I forgot to recompile them.

### Version 1.1b - May 28, 2007

- Fixed an issue with a 3DS Max include in stdafx.h. The exporter should now build without any errors.
- Fixed problem exporting meshes with no texture coordinates and tangent generation enabled.

### Version 1.0 - April 3, 2007

- Released to the world.