Rescale World Units, An Overlooked Max Utility

Every time I use 3DS Max I am always amazed by how many great features that this application has to offer a user, not just the apparent ones like Unwrap UVW or Skin but hidden gems such as Rescale World Units.

Rescale World Units is probably one of the coolest but least talked about and under utilized utilities in Max. This handy little tool lets you basicly scale down everything in your scene without causing nasty problems that you get when you scale bones, nodes or other "helper" objects or issues with a modifier such as Skin.

Let me give you a case example, on one of the files that I am working on for a game contract I had the scene incorrected sized up. This was due to carelessness on my part from importing data from another scene that had its base system units set to metres while the scene I was working in was set to use inches. This in turn caused the data that I brought in to get repositioned based on the units change and being human I never bothered to check this and assumed that everything was AOK. Fast forward to a day later when I have everything setup and ready to go into the game engine, one of the programmers that I am working with reports that the engine is spitting out an issue and that the size of the object might be an issue, a quick check in my max scene confirms this. Now normally this is where people would get really pissed off and upset because having incorrect scale data with helper nodes and a skin modifier normally means having to start from scratch again by scaling your geometry properly, repositioning all the helpers, resetting the skin modifier and then getting back to where you were. This is where Rescale World Units came in handy, all I needed to know was how much I needed to scale my scene down in a percentage value (which was easy enough to figure out) and voila it was done. There were no problems or issues and after a quick check to ensure that it was all OK the file exported and ran fine in the game engine. A simple 30 second fix versus a multi-hour annoyance.

So if you ever find yourself in a similar situation now you know what to do, turn to Rescale World Units and everything will be as you need it to be.

People Want Honest Opinions of Their Games Except...

I always have to chuckle when people say that they want honest feedback on their game design (or art) from their peers and then proceed to blow a gasket that you just called their baby 'ugly'. I know that I am not always politically correct when I review stuff, this is mostly because I hate 'sugar coating' a response which in turn gives someone the wrong opinion and sets them down the wrong path, but my God people, how exactly are do you expect to make something better if you cannot take feedback and figure out a way to make it better?

If someone tells you that your product lacks "oomph" and an addictive nature to make it more than a novelty product that you will try out for 5 minutes that's a clue that your game design is lacking, not a sign that things will be better with new art. New art won't make a below average product play any better when there is a fundementally flawed foundation trying to hold it up. Going back to square one is not a bad thing if it means making your product better. If someone compares your product or idea to something that exists on the market that you don't like being compared to, that's a pretty good sign that you need to change your approach and/or your idea until its what you were intending, because if you cannot describe something properly to match your vision then there is no way in hell you will ever be able to physically manifest that vision. Sorry but that's the honest truth of the matter, games are a form of communication and can be fundementally flawed by the developers lack or inability to communicate an idea into reality.

This comes to an important point, bodgering is bad. If you don't know what the word bodgering means, its essentially a term for forcing the square peg to fit in the round hole. Its a term I like to use a lot when describing indie and mod development because somewhere along the way everyone does it as a quick solution. The problem is that this almost always costs you more in the end. Sure you might have a product, but do you really think that anyone will appreciate seeing an ungodly sight due to the result of bodgering? No we don't. In fact when we were younger bodgering something usually resulted in some "special time" for the individual, so I am completely floored when we do this in our productions and think that it's all going to be OK. Everyone will notice it from a mile away, it will feel funny and odd and just ruin the overall product that you are presenting as people will begin to question that ever important "suspension of disbelief".

My buddy Joe Maruschak talks a lot about trusting your gut instinct when developing a game and I have to whole heartedly agree. If you want to develop a game or make a mod you really need to learn how to take a few steps back and trust your gut instincts if something is working right or not. IMHO there is no way that you will make it in the long run if you don't aquire and listen to this skill. You need to be adaptive and see problems before they happen, anticipate and react, this is what you need to survive and what people talk about when being "mobile and agile".

Listen to your peers people, they have walked the path before you and have sagely advice that you should take the heart and not only try to understand but also apply to your own unique situation if you want to survive in this difficult world of indie game development.