Saving Custom Targets to Library
- David Organista
MAX Studio allows you to edit existing targets and save them as your own customized versions back to the library for future use. You can change a default target’s motion and behavior and load them into any stage.
Loading a Target
Before we can customize and save our targets back to the library, we will load a target with its default settings. From the side panel, open the library, open the “Flat Targets” folder, open the B-21 folder, and load the “B-21E BLUE” target into the viewport (you may use any target you wish).
Customizing Targets
Once your target is in the viewport and is selected by clicking on it, you can customize it by adding waypoints, behaviors, and sounds. I will add a ping pong loop motion to automate it moving forwards and back on repeat, and finally, add a “miss” sound whenever I shoot the white area of the target.
Click the move transform icon in the tool bar. The move transform control arrows will appear on the selected target which will allow back-forth, left-right, and up-down positioning relative to the viewer.
Alternatively, you can use the object transform for more accurate and repeatable positioning. Please note that starting positions from the directional arrows are not saved. For example, if I want my target to start lifted up from the ground, I will need to raise it after loading it.
Next, we will add a waypoint to our target (All targets start with one waypoint). Click on the motion button within the tool bar to make the waypoint symbols visible.
To make the paths in view, right click and hold anywhere on the viewport then drag down. Then, scroll down with the mouse wheel to achieve a “top view” of the environment. Middle-mouse-button click, hold and drag to further adjust the “top view.”
Now with the path fully visible, click on the white cross in front of the target to create a new waypoint. If the red directional arrow is blocking the white cross, click the move transform arrows icon from the tool bar again to make the directional arrows invisible.
Toggle their visibility while setting positions.
Adjust the distances of the waypoints relative to the camera object that appears within the viewport. Clicking the camera object will give you a small preview of what the viewer will see in the final simulation. Additionally, you can preview the motion in real time by clicking on the preview button in the tool bar and clicking on either “Selected Objects” or “All Objects.”
To make this motion repeat back and forth indefinitely, click on “Path Behavior” in the control panel and choose “Loop Ping Pong.”
To add any hit sound including the “miss” sound for hitting the white parts in this particular target, open the “Flat Target Editor” from the side panel, choose the black-colored zone (represents white areas for this target) by clicking on the black square within “Zone Selection”. Click on the “zone Audio” box and look for the “Miss” sound file in DART Data’s “Audio folder” within the ”Words” folder.
To test sound customization, you can press and hold the alt key while clicking where you would want to shoot. Make sure that the sounds are present when you hit the appropriate zone(s).
To add sounds to other types of targets, you can do so in “Object Behaviors” within the side panel.
Saving to Library
When you are done customizing your target and ready to save it for future use, you can save it to the library for easy recall.
Within the flat target editor, click on the “Save Target” and rename it something different to avoid deletion of that target’s default settings. The folder where you save your custom target is where you will load it from for future use.
To save the customization of other types of targets to the library, click on “Edit” within the menu bar at the top of the screen, and click on “Save To Library”.
Loading Custom Targets
Finally, to use the custom targets, we will load them from the library and into our environment. You may delete you current selected custom target or even start a new course to test this feature.
Look for your custom target in the folder where you saved it to. Here, I saved it in the same folder as its default counterpart.
You can Load multiple copies of your custom target by dragging and dropping them from the library to your viewport.
If you want to change their positions, do so while the tool bar is in “settings” mode to avoid changing individual waypoints.
Simulating Courses and Stages
Make sure you place your targets in the same position where you saved them so that you can replicate the exact movement you planned for. To test the desired framing, sounds, and movements in real time, click on the “Simulate” button in the tool bar and click on either “Simulate stage” or “Simulate Course.”
This is what will be seen on DART MAX. Simply click anywhere on the screen where you would want to shoot. Press the space key to exit simulation mode.
