Hello everyone I think I don't need to give any introduction about myself, most of the pl'ers have known or read bits about me already.
I highlighted some words, so you don't skip over them.. pay attention to these.
Read the red note's first before asking questions.
!Note: it's 3ds max to 2D ilda, there are some 3D ilda abilities.
But the use of it is not worth the hassle, the 3D ilda format gives you wireframes only, which in most cases is not worth the hassle.
Also not convenient because no animation can be used and this is only known to be done in google sketchup...really don't even bother it.
I've noticed quite a few people have problems with the setting up of Illustrate within 3ds max.
Now I'm not going to explain how to install 3ds max or it's illustrate plugin.
I'm going to explain how to set it up properly to do full colour hidden line renders.
Requirements:
- Autodesk 3ds max *prefered version 2010/2011*
- Illustrate plugin that accords to the 3Ds Max version your using
(Note: illustrate for 3ds max 2010 also works on 2011 In fact all of the 2010 plugins work on 2011 without any modifications)
However the installation of illustrate for 3ds max 2011 needs some manual guidance, not hard but I highlight this anyway.
- My illustrate colour outline settings.
Download here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?n14ekfbm9425srh <= Outlines with creases (recommended)
http://www.mediafire.com/file/yzso3q...0Sillhoute.iam <= Outline only (recommended to use only for too complex objects for creases)
This one does coloured hidden outline with creases
- Drlava's ILDSOS
! Laserboy does work... but the results will be useless without optimization, too many points with everything, so forget it. !
Few limitations you need to be aware of
- Illustrate can be buggy... sometimes weird distortions may occur in the renditions.
This is rare, but please be aware.
- Illustrate does not do coloured outlines of image textures like lc-max does.
You have to use the diffuse colours for the colours to really work.
- Illustrates hidden line renditions do not contain shading.
- Illustrates colour pallete is limited... If some colours are a bit between those colours... for example a white ish skin colour, the line colour will become white.
I'm not certain how big this pallete is, but I believe it's 265 colours.
when objects fade in 3ds max with the illustrate renderer objects will flash white all of a sudden.
This is because of a limited colour pallete, there is no fix for this and it's no bug.
The .dxf colour pallete is limited.
- Illustrate can only be installed once.. 1 version of 3ds max only.
But you can manually set them up in other 3ds max versions as long as you have the one for 2010
You can also only install 32 or 64 bit not both.
Or you need to do this manually like I did.
Lets start
Step 1
when you have opened 3ds max. Please go to the render tab and select Render setup
(hotkey: F10)
You will see this:
Scroll and display the assign renderer tab
you see:
Production: Default Scanline Renderer
Material Editor: Default Scanline Renderer
Activeshade: Default Scanline Renderer
Click the dotted line from the Production one
A window will pop-up
Now select the illustrate one and click ok.
If succeeded, close the render settings.
Make sure you always check this.
Step 2
!Please make an map first where we you want to render to in advance!
The rendition made with illustrate will result in an sequence of .dxf files
If you do not render to a map, you will end up with a mess of .dxf files, when working with 3ds max sorting out things Is a problem you will surely face.
I have it and at times I need to sort out al my max files for example.
Ok now that we have that done, we are ready to configure it.
Ok.. Open the wizard, do this by clicking the illustrate tab and then Options
A window will pop up.
Ok Set every settings the same according to the following images.
Or read the instructions included with the images (if provided):


Now just continue and finish the wizard.
!Leave the resulting window open for the last step (step 3)!
Step 3
Oh yes the final step.
and this will be easy
Make sure you have downloaded my settings.
(the .iam file)
Keep the file handy, because we will need to load it in this step.
ok there we go:

THE FOLLOWING STEP NEEDS TO BE DONE AGAIN ON EVERY CREATION OF A NEW OBJECT!!!!
ELSE THE HIDDEN OUTLINE WILL NOT WORK ON THAT NEW OBJECT!
Doing this is not tedious.
Redoing just requires you to open the illustrate the options and then you can do this again.
Changing an objects form or shape doesn't require you to do this last thing again.
This only is needed for when you really create or add in a new object.
Now make/animate and render whatever you made

DONE WITH THE 3ds max part!
now for the final thing: (ILDSOS)
Open ILDSOS, click the .DXF button.
navigate to the map where you rendered to.
click the first .dxf file of the sequence and the rest should be obvious
Thank you for reading this tutorial.
I hope this will help out people that had problems with this.
Cheers,
Pieter