ASE (file format)

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Overview

ASE stands for Ascii Scene Export. This is an ascii text based format associated with 3DS Max. It is not limited to that application, but support in other applications is dependant on import/export scripts or plugins.

The Doom 3 engine uses the ASE format for static meshes.

Export

• iddevnet model export page

File Format Syntax

Format: The format is based on identifiers, as in:

*AN_IDENTIFIER

This is followed by zero or more values, or a subset of more identifiers surrounded by curly braces.

Most of the time when working with ASE's, you will find that you have to open them to manually link the materials to a specified material shader. For example, the format for the material list may look like this when exported from actorx:

 *MATERIAL_LIST {
   *MATERIAL_COUNT 2
   *MATERIAL 0 {
       *MATERIAL_NAME "myMaterial"
       *MATERIAL_CLASS "Standard"
       *MAP_DIFFUSE {
           *MAP_CLASS "Bitmap"
           *BITMAP "None"
      }
   }
}

Where it says:

*BITMAP "none"

You must replace this with a reference to a doom material shader, like so:

*BITMAP "//base/models/mapobjects/myModel/myShader"

Occasionally, for some unknown reason this reference doesn't work in which case you should try...

*BITMAP "//purgatory/purgatory/models/mapobjects/myModel/myShader"

...or...

*BITMAP "//doom3/base/models/mapobjects/myModel/myShader"

Exporters for other programs:

Maya can export ASE's using the ActorX plugin.