
[Cheetah 3D](http://www.cheetah3d.com/) exports [Babylon.JS](https://babylonjs.com/) .babylon scene files. It currently supports the following:

- mesh export with functional transforms, naming, and parenting
- multi-camera export (perspective only; orthogonal is not currently supported)
- light export with all Babylon types handled:

  - Cheetah3D spot light is a babylon spot
  - Cheetah3D distant light is a babylon directional light
  - Cheetah3D ambient light is a babylon hemispheric light
  - every other type is a babylon point light
  - supports diffuse and specular color
  - rotations must be on the -Y axis

- materials export:
  - supports diffuse, emissive and specular color (plus specular power as "shininess")
  - supports only diffuse textures; the Cheetah3D API is very limited there

More info on [my blog](http://cubeslam.net/).

### Install

Put the JS script in this folder:

/Users/YOUR_USER/Library/Application Support/Cheetah3D/Scripts/Macro/

### Usage

Load your scene and go to Tools/Scripts/Macro/Babylon file export. Choose a destination, then load your scene in Babylon.js!



## Installer

### Installing the installer (so meta...)

We have recently introduced a new tool to simplify the installation of the plugin for both Max and Maya.

First, you can download the latest version of the installer from our [Github Releases](https://github.com/BabylonJS/Exporters/releases). Once on the releases page, you can find all our packages in the assets section of each release:

![releases](/img/exporters/installer/GithubPreRelease.webp)

From there, you can download the Installer.zip file. Chrome is currently warning about a potential threat because installer.exe has not yet been downloaded enough times to pass Chromium's checks. In this case, you might see a message like this:

![chrome warning](/img/exporters/installer/ChromeDLWarning.webp)

You can nevertheless continue to download by pressing the little arrow and choosing to "Keep" the file:

![chrome warning keep](/img/exporters/installer/ChromeDLWarningKeep.webp)

Once downloaded, you can extract the contents of the zip to your preferred location.

### Using the installer

Launch the executable file contained in the zip. On first launch, Windows, like Chrome earlier, will display a SmartScreen warning because the application has not yet been launched enough times to be trusted.

![smart screen warning](/img/exporters/installer/SmartScreen.webp)

As before, you can choose to continue by pressing more info and then Run anyway:

![smart screen warning keep](/img/exporters/installer/SmartScreenKeep.webp)

No worries, you are almost there. Windows raises a second warning because the installer needs to write files in Program Files and therefore must run in elevated mode. You can access the User Account Control and finally start using the application.

From this point, it gets simpler:

![smart screen warning keep](/img/exporters/installer/Installer.webp)

Once launched, the application should auto-detect all the installation folders for your Autodesk applications. If it fails to do so, you can still manually locate the target software.

You can now easily install or update any of your 3D authoring tools to the latest prerelease available on Github.

If you want to upgrade to the latest available pre-release of the exporter plugins, you can relaunch the installer and follow the same procedure to update the installed plugins to their latest versions.

Please note that the software you are installing the plugin for should be closed during installation.

## Manual Install

The plug-in is designed for Maya 2017 or later. This guide is about the Windows version (a macOS version is coming soon). To download it, go to the [Github project Releases](https://github.com/BabylonJS/Exporters/releases).

![releases](/img/exporters/installer/GithubPreRelease.webp)

In the assets section of the release, you can find one zip file per supported tool (like Maya_2019.zip) containing the plugin files.

Click the zip file to start downloading.

By default, Windows blocks all .dll files coming from the web, so we have to unblock them first. Select the zip file, right-click it, select _Properties_, select _Unblock_, and then _OK_.

![dll unblocking](/img/exporters/Maya/3_dll_unlocking.webp)

Then, extract the content of the zip file on your computer.

Finally:

- move all .dll files into a directory defined in the Maya plug-in path (for example `C:/Program Files/Autodesk/Maya2018/bin/plug-ins`). More information on how to install a plug-in in Maya [here](https://knowledge.autodesk.com/support/maya/learn-explore/caas/CloudHelp/cloudhelp/2016/ENU/Maya/files/GUID-FA51BD26-86F3-4F41-9486-2C3CF52B9E17-htm.html).
- and move all template files to their respective folders AETemplates and NETemplates. Those files are used for the UI. While not mandatory, they are always welcome!

You should find the _Maya2Babylon.nll.dll_ in the plug-in Manager (_Windows > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager_).

![dll unblocking](/img/exporters/Maya/4_maya_plug_in_manager.webp)

Check _Loaded_ and _Auto load_, and a new tab should appear:

![plug-in visible](/img/exporters/Maya/5_plugin_visible.webp)

Congratulations! You did it!

## Dependencies

## Visual Studio

Visual Studio is required to build the Maya2Babylon project from source.

## .NET Framework

The [.NET Framework Redistributable](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/install/guide-for-developers) needs to be installed in order to run the Maya2Babylon plugin properly.

- Maya2Babylon 2017-2018

  - Requires at least .NET Framework 4.6.1

- Maya2Babylon 2019
  - Requires at least .NET Framework 4.6.1
- Maya2Babylon 2020
  - Requires at least .NET Framework 4.6.1

## Other Dependencies

- For Maya 2020
  - Maya2Babylon 2020 requires Maya 2020.1 or newer.

## Features

## Exported features

- _Meshes_
      * Visibility
      * Position / rotation / scaling
      \* Geometry (position, normal, tangent, texture coordinates (2 channels))

  - Skin
    _ Instances
    _ Morph targets (blend shapes)
    _ Animations: Position, scaling, rotation, bones, morph weights
    _ Custom attributes

- _Materials_

  - Standard materials (Lambert, Phong, PhongE and Blinn)
      - Color
      - Transparency

  - Ambient color
    _ Bump mapping
    _ Specular color and power
    _ Reflected color
    _ PBR materials (Stingray PBS, AiStandardSurface)
    _ Base color & opacity
    _ Normal
    _ Metallic
    _ Roughness
    _ Emissive
        _ Multi-materials
    _ Double sided materials
    _ Unlit
    _ Backface culling
    _ Max Simultaneous Lights
    _ Opacity/Transparency mode
    _ Custom attributes

- _Textures_

  - UV offset / scaling / angle
  - Level
  - Coordinates mode (spherical, planar, explicit)
  - Wrapping (clamp, mirror, wrap)

- _Cameras_
      * Fov
      * MinZ
      * MaxZ
      * Position
      \* Target / Rotation

  - Animations: Position, Target / Rotation \* Custom attributes

- _Lights_
      \* Point / spot / directional / ambient
  - Inclusion / exclusion lists
        * Position / direction
        * Intensity
        * Diffuse
        * Specular
    _ Animations: Position, direction
    _ Custom attributes

## The exporter window

When your scene is ready to be exported, click on the **Babylon** tab on the top menu, and click on **Babylon File Exporter** to display the exporter window.

![export window](/img/exporters/Maya/6_export_window.webp)

This window is composed of 3 panels:

- A top panel with a file path and a button. With this panel, you choose where your Babylon file will be exported by clicking on the right button
- Several options and two buttons Export and Export & Run
- A log panel

The _Export_ button should be used to create the Babylon file representing your scene. The _Export & Run_ button will also create the Babylon file, but will also launch your default browser and run the newly made Babylon file. This button is very useful if you just want to test the render of your scene in Babylon.js.

As the babylon.js script is retrieved directly from the official website, you should have internet access to use Export & Run correctly.

The log panel indicates in real time which meshes and materials have been exported and whether there are any problems with these objects.

Option _Optimize vertices_: The Babylon exporter will try to optimize the number of vertices to export instead of exporting everything naively (if a vertex is part of two faces, this vertex won’t be exported twice with this option checked).

The _Scale factor_ can be used to rescale the whole world. If you set a scale factor equal to 100, the resulting scene will be 100 times smaller (1%). By default the scale factor is equal to 1, meaning no rescale.

The _Texture quality_ sets the conversion quality of bitmap to JPEG. At 100 (the maximum value), it gives the highest image quality but no file size reduction. On the contrary at 0 (the minimum value), it gives the lowest image quality but the greatest file size reduction. By default the _Texture quality_ is set to 100.

The _Use Draco compression_ option is only available for gltf and glb output format. More details [here](/features/featuresDeepDive/Exporters/Maya_to_glTF#draco-compression).

In the _MorphTarget options_ section, the _Export normal_ and _Export tangent_ checkboxes allow you to customize the morph target export.

## What you should know

## Camera

If you want to test your scene right away by using the button Export & Run, your scene should have a camera created. Otherwise, the log panel will display the warning “No camera defined”, and a default one will be created at runtime but won't be exported in the .babylon file.

If you have more than one camera, the first one will be set as activeCamera in Babylon.

## Light

If you don’t have any lights in your scene, the exporter will add an ambient light by default. The log panel will display the warning “No light defined – A default ambient light was added for your convenience”.

## Locator

If you want to have a point in space used only for its transform attributes you can use a Locator. For example, a target camera naturally comes with a locator to indicate the position to look at. They can also be used as parent node when updating the scene at runtime with the Babylon engine.

## Group node

A group node is exported as a dummy, a mesh without vertices, just like a locator. However, only group nodes used as parent for other nodes are exported. If you have an empty group node, you should probably switch to a locator instead or it will be ignored.

## Textures and intermediate nodes

Maya provides a large range of tools to manipulate connections between textures and materials (like the Reverse node). For the most part, only a fileTexture is expected as input to a material.

Currently the following intermediate nodes are supported by the exporter:

- Projection node which is only considered for the reflected color texture of a standard material. You can choose the projection type between _Spherical_ or _Planar_. If no projection node is provided, the default projection type is _Spherical_ for the reflected color texture.
- Bump2d node which is automatically created when assigning a file to a bump attribute.

## Textures image format

Babylon engine fully supports the following image formats: jpg, bmp, png, gif, tga. You are advised to use those formats for your textures when exporting to Babylon.

Note that the exporter also supports textures with tif and dds formats. But, those textures will be automatically converted to png by the exporter to ensure compatibility with the Babylon engine.

## Physical materials

The handling of physical materials mimics the glTF format. [Detailed explanations here](/features/featuresDeepDive/Exporters/Maya_to_glTF#pbr-materials)

Along with the default supported glTF parameters, the Babylon format also supports the coating parameters of Arnold Standard Surface. You can see below the supported parameters:

![texture](/img/exporters/Maya/Coating.webp)

Please note that if a map is used for the weight or the roughness parameter, they will be combined in the same way the ORM texture is created in the Detailed explanations. In Maya, metalness and roughness maps are black and white images (R=G=B). The 2 maps must have the same size to be merged successfully.

In Babylon format, weight is stored in the red channel and roughness in the green channel.

## UV sets

Babylon engine supports only 2 UV sets. In Maya the first UV set, created by default (map1), is used as UV1 in Babylon. The second UV set (map2) is used as UV2. Other UV sets are ignored and UV2 is used instead.

![export window](/img/exporters/Maya/7_uv_set_editor.webp)

Moreover, Babylon engine supports only 1 UV set per texture. If a single texture is linked to UV1 and any other UV set, the log panel will display the warning “Texture is linked to UV1 and UV2. Only one UV set per texture is supported.” and the texture will be linked to UV1 or UV2 but not both.

Now that you know all about the exporter features, it’s time to use it!

## Double sided material

To create a double sided material there are different methods, but the only one exported is using two materials and a condition.

![double sided hypershade](/img/exporters/Maya/8_hyperShade_double_sided.webp)

When exporting, the geometry of all meshes using a double sided material is duplicated:

- the number of vertices and faces is doubled
- faces, normals and tangents are inverted for the duplicated geometry

This means that the exporter is automatically creating a back side. If you already have a back side, you should directly apply a material to it.

## Babylon material attributes

Native materials are enhanced to have extra attributes in a dedicated node. A Babylon attribute node is created after the first export using the material.

Here is an example for 3 different materials:

![Maya babylon material attributes nodes](/img/exporters/Maya/BabylonMaterialAttributes_LargeView.webp)

![Maya babylon material attributes details](/img/exporters/Maya/BabylonMaterialAttributes_AllNodes.webp)

Most Babylon attributes are common to all materials:

- **Unlit**: A material can be exported as Unlit, meaning independent of lighting. This implies that light-relative attributes or textures are not exported: ambient, specular, emissive, bump mapping and reflection texture.
- **Backface Culling**: When true, the back faces are not rendered. When false, back faces are rendered using the same material as front faces.
- **Max Simultaneous Lights**: Number of Simultaneous lights allowed on the material.
- **Opacity/Transparency Mode**: You can select how transparency is handled for this material among 3 choices:
  - _Opaque_: The alpha color and texture are ignored during export process.
  - _Cutoff_: The alpha cutoff value is 0.5. Alpha values under this threshold are fully transparent. Alpha values above this threshold are fully opaque.
  - _Blend_: This is how Maya handles transparency when rendering. This is the default mode for any material with an alpha color or texture.

## Custom attributes

You can add custom attributes to Meshes, Materials, Lights, and Cameras with the attributes window (_Modify > Add Attribute..._), which adds them to the extra attributes of those objects.

![native attributes window](/img/exporters/Maya/9_attribute_window.webp)

In Babylon, the custom attributes are added as metadata.

![custom attributes as metadata](/img/exporters/Maya/CustomAttributes_Metadata.webp)

The following types have specific behaviors you should know about:

- _bool_ : is equal to 0 or 1.
- _enum_ : corresponds to the index of your Maya enum.

## Exporter through MEL script

You can use the exporter through a MEL script. To do so, you need to generate the exporter parameters with the command 'GenerateExportersParameter' and specify a path and the export type.

![generate export parameter](/img/exporters/Maya/11_generate_export_parameter.webp)

Then you need to specify the other parameters and export with the command 'ScriptToBabylon'.

![export MEL](/img/exporters/Maya/12_script_to_babylon.webp)

You can find an example script in the [Maya\MELScripts](https://github.com/BabylonJS/Exporters/tree/master/Maya/MELScripts) folder of the exporter.

## Using the exporter

Export your own scene from Maya to babylon format and load it into the [Babylon Sandbox](http://sandbox.babylonjs.com/). Or load it via scripts using the [babylon loader](/features/featuresDeepDive/importers/assetManager).



This is a common error you may have when working with bones:

_"Too many bone influences per vertex: 5. Babylon.js only supports 4 bone influences per vertex."_

This is because Babylon.js supports a maximum of 4 bone influences per vertex.

Here is how to solve this in 3ds Max (by default, 3ds Max has a limit of 20):

In 3ds Max (English version)

![bones influences parameter En](/img/exporters/3DSMax/bonesEN.webp)

In 3ds Max (French version)

![bones influences parameter Fr](https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/sdz-upload/prod/upload/structure_limit.jpg)

Simply add '4' to the red part of the image and you're done!


Export from Cheetah to Babylon.js

Install

Usage