Object Settings Dialog - Billboard Set
The Billboard Set page of the Objects Setting dialog:
General Settings
- Billboard Type - The type of billboards to be managed by the set.
- Billboard Origin - The origin of the billboards managed by the set.
- Billboard Rotation - The rotation type of the billboards managed by the set.
- Common Direction - Common direction of the billboards managed by the set. Setting all values to 0 indicates the default direction should be used.
- Common Up Vector - Common up vector of the billboards managed by the set. Setting all values to 0 indicates the default direction should be used.
- Pool Size - The default number of billboards to allocate.
- Auto Extend Pool - Indicates whether the pool size can be extended if necessary.
- Cull Individually - Indicates whether billboards are culled individually. Normally they are culled as a group.
- Sort Billboards - Indicates whether billboards are sorted.
- Use Accurate Facing Model - Indicates whether a more accurate model should be used when calculating which direction the billboards face.
Creating a Billboard Set and Billboards
- Create a Plane object to serve as the billboard set - This is just a standard 3DS Max plane. The material applied to this object will be used as the exported billboard set's material even though the billboard set Plane will not be rendered.
- Change the Plane object's type to 'Billboard Set' - Use the General page of the OgreMax Object Settings dialog to change its type.
- Create any number of Plane objects to serve as billboards - You may also apply to these planes the same material applied to the main billboard set plane.
- Select all the Planes and use the 'Rotate Selected Planes For Billboard Use' command - This command is located in the OgreMax menu and will rotate the planes into an orientation that the OgreMax exporter expects.
- Attach all the billboard planes to the billboard set - All the billboard planes will be children of the billboard set.
- Change all the billboard plane objects' type to 'Billboard' - Use the General page of the OgreMax Object Settings dialog to change their type. You can select them all at once before launching the dialog to speed up the process.
- Rotate billboards as necessary - Billboards can be rotated around their front-facing axis.