Arduino to 3D Studio Max

Forum 2005-2010 (read only) General Exhibition
1

Howdy.
After trying to find a simple to use 3D application to see how I can use the WiiChuck to control servos for a robotic arm, I settled on 3D Studio Max (3DS) because it's the one I know best.
But how could I transfer the datas from the arduino to 3DS ?
Well, 3D Studio Max as a nice SDK and a lot of stuff, but it's too hard for me to code a plugin using the serial port.
So I stuck with Processing.
3DS can use different kind of inputs to allow motion capture. I wanted to use some kind of translation in processing to have a HID device, but it seems to be impossible... So I used MIDI.
Here's my setup under windows :

  • Arduino using a WiiChuck adapter from todbot (thanks kurt ^^) and the WiiChuck library from Tim Hirzel (http://www.growdown.com)
  • Data sent to Processing via serial connection and translated to MIDI CC messages using the proMIDI library by Christian Riekoff (http://www.texone.org/promidi/)
  • MIDI output from processing sent to midiYoke
  • midiYoke sends this data to Ableton Live
  • Ableton re-sends the CC messages to midiYoke
  • Using Float Motion Capture controllers on 3D Studio Max to rotate the objects according to the pitch and roll of the wiichuck...

I know it's a little bit tedious, but I haven't yet figured why, 3DS doesn't want to read directly from midiYoke without the Ableton Live gate...

The drawback here is that CC messages are 8bits only (128 values), so I still have to figure out some way to have finer resolution and handling negative values.

Anyway, I think it's really interesting because you can use the Arduino with anykind of sensor to output your data directly into 3D Studio Max to make motion capture, for exemple, by putting tiny accelerometers on each tip of your finger, or whatever.

I'll post videos as soon as I find my camera.... sorry for that ^^

2

Here's the video on Vimeo

3

sweet :slight_smile: wouldnt mind a simpler version tho without all the midi stuff :smiley:

4

Yay! Posted on MAKE:blog
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2008/07/wiimote_control_of_3d_stu.html#comments

me happy ;D

Yeah, I know it's quite difficult all this MIDI stuff, but I have to find a way to read the serial port from 3D studio max... Quite difficult ^^

5

Some more details on my blog (including dirty code)
http://play-collective.net/blog/archives/61

6

Hi there
Just to let you know : I've been working a bit on this, and there's no longer need of all this messy stuff. I used maxscript and dotnet to be able to open a serial port directly in 3DS max, and now, I can talk with the Arduino ^^
I have some stuff to figure out, but it's starting to be nice.

Cheers

7

yay :smiley: im looking forward to seeing this :smiley: