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Version 1.4 was released today with various new features. Among them are enhanced $bodygroup tools and expanded utilties rollout that has buttons to let you convert all selected scene objects into their own WWMT objects, as well as exporting/compiling all selected WWMT objects, as well as export all textures.

Here's the new video demonstrating the $bodygroups usage:

This version fixes a bug when exporting textures using 3ds Max 2012. You only need this update if you are using 2012...

I had planned on holding off until I've added some more $bodygroups features... but when I saw that Cannonfodder had officially released his SMD Exporter for 2012, I decided to load the 2012 fix.

This update only fixes a bug that wouldn't let the compilers work upon export inside 3ds Max 2012. If you are using an older version of Max, you don't need this update.

I'll release an update next week that does add functionality.

OK... I've been directed to a solution to the file lock bug. I've implemented it locally and am testing it. It seems to be good. Despite this error, I am happy  about 2012 overall. I was at first leery about the performance of the new UVW Editor... it looks really nice but I'm still deciding if it runs quick enough or not.

I got a chance to play around with Convexity in 2012... and my excitement is growing.

Anyway... I'll hopefully have an update this week with a couple new features and the fix for 2012 (of course, until Wunderboy and Cannonfodder officially release the updates... you'll still have to wait).

Version 1.3 adds support for $bodygroup . I'll add a video next week... here are the basic docs.

So I've gotten to use 3ds Max 2012 for over a week now and I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this release. I shared some on the Area forums... but I didn't feel like going into a lot of detail there for a couple of reasons: namely, I didn't want to fall into the crowd of people that seem hysterical.

I am going to start with the disappointing things about this release.

1) CAT is still broken
2) MAXScript is broken in a way that also makes WWMT nearly unusable (at the initial release of 2012)
3) Viewport performance is not as awesome as advertised
4) Unwrap UVW is unusably laggy

Just reviewing the Area forums will expose other problems. These are the issues that are near-and-dear to me personally, though.

I know that software development is not always pretty. Bugs happen. I'm personally familiar with releasing new versions of WWMT only to find that I broke something... so I understand how it happens.

But there is one glaring difference between small fries like me releasing a program with bugs and a company like Autodesk... I have extremely limited resources (in time, equipment, personnel and money) and Autodesk has, relatively speaking, no limit. The other extremely obvious difference is that I am not getting paid to build WWMT... but Autodesk is selling their software at a hefty price!

So it is more than a little unsettling to have a major version release that has so many broken features.

Enough of the new features are good enough that I expect 3ds Max 2012 to be one of the best versions ever. But the problem is that it was released in a state where it is essentially unusable (kind of like the initial release of WWMT :) )... and again, I need to point out that no one pays for WWMT!

Because of the flaws in 2012's release, many people clamor for a longer development cycle. I disagree... I think it should be faster, more dynamic. The problems may be that there are not enough people in the current development team... Having too few people trying to do too much in the timeframe is likely a cause... so add more people.

I think that Autodesk should release more regular updates... even weekly ones. They may simply be minor updates (like "This week we made the Blobmesh tool window for Selecting Particle Flow events work again.") When each new fix has been made, we should be able to access it and use it right away... instead of waiting for weeks/months for batches of updates.

An argument against that is that weekly releases of little updates doesn't give anyone time to test the updates. But my immediate reaction is that the long, drawn-out release cycles obviously doesn't provide enough in-house testing either, as it is (or else we wouldn't have the problems that are in this release). Since the release of 2012 makes all the users feel like Beta testers anyway, why not release regular, weekly updates that we can choose to run the minute they fix a problem we want to fix?

If the goal is to have the Max users be the quality control testers after launch, you might as well integrate us more in real-time.

So that's my sour side of this launch.

There are a lot of bright spots, though. The conform additions to the Graphite Modeling tool are nice; the Unwrap UVW interface (despite being laggy) is long overdue; the viewport performance is generally better in Nitrous than pre-Nitrous (with exceptions). And, from what I've read on the Area forums by Ken Pimentel, many issues are being addressed at the moment (including, finally, some attention to CAT).

So despite my initial frustration with 3ds 2012, I do have hopes that 3ds Max 2012 will be the best Max yet when it is released (see, if you change your perspective... you can just say that the initial release was a pre-release and the the first patch is the actual release...) In a perfect world you might not have to do that... but this is the world we live in.

Fix 2012, and most Max users will be happy. But please be more careful in the future, Autodesk! For those of us who love Max, this episode gives us nightmares.

I've updated WWMT to version 1.22 today that adds support for Max 2012. I have tested Cannonfodder's upcoming version that has 2012 support and know it works.

However... don't get too excited. There is a major bug in MAXScript. When Cannonfodder and Wunderboy release their exporters for 2012, you'll be able to use WWMT but it won't be as convenient as in older versions until Autodesk releases a hotfix for this known bug. Until that hotfix is released, here are instructions on using WWMT inside Max 2012.

There is a bug with MAXScript in 3ds Max 2012 at initial release of Max 2012. Older versions of Max do not have this bug. MAXScript locks files it creates and does not release them until 3ds closes.

The fix to this problem is to install the latest Service Pack.

How insensitive of you! You know he was burying his favorite goldfish that night?!

So I'm starting to get more inquiries about 3ds 2012 compatibility. I understand the desire (I've already been making similar inquiries with the plugins I use that aren't yet ported like Power Nurbs, PFTools and Glu3D...).

At the moment, there is a MAXScript error when using WWMT in 2012. I will release an update when the new SMD exporters for 2012 are released...

Please be patient. There are a few things to remember:

• WWMT uses 3rd party SMD Exporters that need recompiled to work in 2012
• I (like Wunderboy and Cannonfodder) do this for free... and although I try to offer support, please understand that free software does not always come with expedient support...
• There are still several critical bugs in 2012 anyway (CAT is still broken and there are many other new bugs)... so using 2011 is kind of necessary until a Hotfix or Service Pack comes out.

Once you've set up a model with WWMT, it creates a text helper in the scene that starts with WWMT: and is the name of your model... you can click that to "retrieve" a model that you've already set up.

So in the case of your scene, I opened the file, opened WWMT, then clicked the Pick button in WWMT and selected that text helper. You can alternatively select the root object that you first assigned to the tool to prefill it... but if you have multiple objects it may be easy to forget which one was the first root mesh.

Retrieving the details from the WWMT helper is the prefered method.

I opened your file and was able to get the animation to export. I moved the Skin modifier to the top of the modifier stack. Doing that will also eliminate any modifier stack warnings that pop up do to WWMT iterating over the stack to find bones associated to the model.

Hopefully that will fix all the problems. Let me know.

The sequence fields don't set start/end times until after you add a name into the sequence list... so click on the name of the sequence and see if the correct values appear in the form. (In other words, if you enter the start/end times and then click Add Sequence, it won't have the right frames... only change them after the name is added to list).

Also, make sure that you don't have $staticprop set in the Model & Basic QC rollout.

The problem is that you did not set the correct directories for the tool. Make sure to read the docs on the settings floater. The paths in the setup must point to SDK sub-folders... not the game sub-folders.

There is also a video explaining it all at the bottom of the installation instructions that might be helpful.