When exporting using the Static option, you can either select what you want to export or just let the script find any valid geometry. The script will attempt to locate and select any validly named collision volumes associated with each static mesh or Level of Detail set. It will report the output results to a log file for your analysis.

• Single Mesh – Creates duplicates of the current selection, attaches them into a single mesh, exports the single mesh to a single FBX file based on the Max file name then deletes the new mesh leaving your original scene intact.

• Centre At Origin – This will reposition static meshes to the origin and either align their pivots to the center of the mesh or leave the pivots as is. This is dependent on the sub-options for either Orient World or Centre Pivot. Especially useful if you have scenes setup so that objects are offset from the origin – for ease of viewing. Also affects the Single Mesh option. Note: This option also moves any associated collision volumes by first linking them to their static meshes. There’s no need to manually link them prior to exporting.

• Output to a single FBX file – If checked, all static meshes and collisions found will be saved into a single FBX file. The output name will be the Max file name with the added prefix StaticMeshes_. For example: Building_A.max = StaticMeshes_Building_A.FBX.

• Selection Set – Uses collections of static meshes created with selection sets accessible via a drop-down list. A chosen selection set will be used to select the static meshes to export as though selecting them manually. This allows meshes to be isolated from other scene geometry, frozen or hidden without requiring manual selection. This option overrides the default behavior of using either manual selection or exporting all the scene geometry as static meshes.
  - The r button will refresh the list in case the scene data has changed.
  - The x button will delete all scene selection sets and clear the list.

• Display Log File – Displays a text file after exporting static meshes. It is stored in C:\Temp\LBTools_ExportLog.txt and contains information on what static meshes were exported and their associated collision volumes. There’s an Open Log File button which will open this text file for quick editing. This excludes Single Mesh exports.

• Full Rig or Partial Rig – When exporting skeletal meshes, the output will usually be a single FBX with the skin mesh name as the saved filename. The scene must have a valid skin mesh (using the Skin modifier) containing assigned bones. Depending on user scene selection, it will determine the appropriate skin mesh and skeletal hierarchy to export. If nothing is selected, it will search the scene for valid skin meshes and operate on those.

The script also handles exporting multiple skinned meshes at once and will output these as separate files using the skin mesh name for each as the filenames. The mode chosen (Full Rig or Partial Rig) will determine whether to include the entire hierarchy of bones or use only the skin bones found in the skin mesh.

Note: Partial Rig exporting will always include the parent bones up to the root, even if exported manually without this script.

• Gestalt – Allows exporting of separately skinned meshes that share a hierarchy as a single skeletal mesh. You can have multiple hierarchies in the scene in this case.

Three methods for export using the gestalt option include:

1. Selection Sets; Finds all user defined selection sets tagged using the prefix FBX_ followed by the output name for collections of skinned meshes that share the same hierarchy. Nothing should be selected initially for this option to work.

2. Nothing selected; Finds all hierarchies and exports a single FBX file containing a single skeletal mesh for each hierarchy which in turn are made up of separately skinned meshes. Uses the name of the Max file as output.

3. Selected objects; Finds any skinned meshes in the selection and if they share the same hierarchy, exports them as one mesh. Uses the name of the Max file as output.

• Animation – Exports bone animations using the name of the Max file as the output for the FBX animation file. There’s an edit field provided to allow the animator to specify a valid Skin mesh name to export from should there be more than one skin mesh in the scene. This saves the animator from needing to select a skin mesh in case there are multiple skinned meshes skinned to different rigs. For example; choosing either a weapon rig or a character body rig. If no skin mesh name is provided and nothing is selected when exporting a multi-hierarchy scene, a dialog will appear prompting you to select a skin mesh name to use along with a continue process button.
  
  You can also specify an Output name to override the Max file name default behavior. This can be useful in cases where you have multiple animations in one scene (like cinematic work) and you don’t want to use the Max file name as the sequence. The x buttons clear the edit fields and focus on them for quick editing.
  

• Animation: using scene Time Tags – Correctly formatted time tags are supported for animation exporting of composite sequences. For example, you may have a single Max file which contains animation for a start, loop and end sequence on different time frames. You can have any number of sequences and their times can even overlap. This process can make animation editing easier as you only need to edit one Max file.
  
  The Animation mode will automatically look for any time tags and export each sequence using the tag name and the range specified within the tag. The Ignore time tags option can be used with both Animation mode and Batch Animation – it simply exports a single FBX file using the Max file name, irrespective of any existing time tags, in case tags were used for time navigation instead.
  
  The time tags must conform to a specific format to be recognized for this purpose.
  
  The format should be in the form… tagName[space]startTime[dash]endTime
  (e.g. Jump_Start 0-50)
  
  When setting up time tags:
  - No spaces should be in the name, use underscores instead.
  - Only one space should exist between the name and the start time.
  - Use a dash to separate the start and end times.
  - Time ranges can overlap and don’t need to relate to one another.
  
  Another feature using time tags is the ability to only export a specific sequence by selecting a tag name in a dropdown list (below the skin mesh name field). There’s a checkbox next to the list to activate this feature. If unchecked, all time tag sequences will be exported. The r button will refresh the list in case the scene data has changed. The UI will also populate the list when first opened, if any tags are found. The x button deletes any existing scene time tags.
  
  Note: The time tag settings don’t get stored in the interface INI file when changed. However, you can invoke these to export a single sequence using the Shift + Left Click method to execute an export, but if you restart the interface the settings will be reset.

A LoD is a special group of objects created using the Level of Detail utility plugin in 3ds Max.

The user first defines a group of LOD objects of varying mesh densities, then creates a set using the LoD utility with defined distances.

Unreal supports the auto-importing of LOD’s into both static meshes and skeletal meshes if exported as part of a single FBX. This script will support both of these cases.

In order to properly export static mesh LoD groups along with their collisions using the script, please be aware of the following…

• Collision volumes should be named according to the LOD names within the group, not the group name. Otherwise, normal naming conventions apply as per non-LoD static meshes. Unreal will not recognize collision meshes if they are not named correctly.
  
  See the official Unreal documentation here for collision naming.

• If there is more than one LoD object in the scene that has collision meshes, those collision meshes must be linked to their associated LoD. This is so that the script can identify which collision meshes belong to which LoD mesh, in case their LOD’s share the same names as other LoD set meshes.

• A single LoD with collisions in the scene does not need to have its collisions linked.

• Note that having anything linked to the LoD that is not part of the set will cause Max to crash. However, as stated above for multiple LoD’s in the scene the script will handle this, but only for valid collisions.

For more information on setting up LOD's using the LoD utility plugin in 3ds Max for Unreal go here.