Hello, as you all may know a deferred render system is a very popular technique in many triple A games, including the HD Era of Grand Theft Auto games + Red Dead Redemption 2.

My question is how do 3d artists within game studios like Rockstar Games (that DO NOT use UNITY or UNREAL ENGINE) preview what their assets/3d models would look like in the deferred rendering game engine WITHOUT having to bug a programmer to upload their models each and every time they want to preview their work. Surely there is a way to integrate your DirectX deferred rendering pipeline system WITHIN the 3ds max viewport to be able to view your work in real time.

i must be asking trick questions around here

Usually the rendering preview and lighting is done in the game in-house Tools/Level Editor;

Tools dev team is there just for that ?

Max is usually only used to create assets, animate some FPS weapons or characters or whatnot…;

Yes, max supports directx and deferred rendering but u cannot easily take advantage of this in your engine, because you'd have to feed max your data into max's rendering pipeline postproc (which would have to be written to read your data in the first place -lol-), then max could use your scene and to-be-deferred data and use it in its deferred renderer and display the results unto nitrous viewport then max would have to offer your back the results of the deferred rendered data… -lol-

many years ago, i wrote a 3dsmax scene exporter plug-in, it was such joy to have your scene exported and loaded into your in-game level editor but this deferred stuff would necessitate some nasty plug-in, a real tear jerker, u gonna fry yr eyes off first -lol-

i'm happy to stand corrected, but i don't see this a viable workflow;

when dx was added in max, it was really done so to give u an idea of what yr asset might look like when rendered in your engine, it is unlikely to give a 1:1 finish without extensive work as you'd get if u light-previz this scene in your tool (which uses your engine);

Anyway, have fun and all the best ?

@ddlox so may you propose a feasible solution, are you saying should create a DirectX application that can mimic a game engine, and have it read my model formats and render everything from lights to 3d models? this seems much more lightweight than having to launch the game.exe each time to preview changes

eEngineStatus said:
create a DirectX application that can mimic a game engine, and have it read my model formats and render everything from lights to 3d models?

• if you're using an existing engine XXX then you need to see if this XXX supports the feature that u want, if it does then use their editor to light your asset in there; if XXX doesn't come with an editor then yes you're ganna need to create an app with shaders that closely mimics the feature that you want and then use these shaders into XXX (or load it in with the game)
• if you're not using an existing engine and are writing your own custom engine then again yes create yourself a nice nifty little Tool YYY that loads your custom engine and light your asset in this Tool YYY then when u save the lit/deferred/textured asset, you can load it in your game app (which also uses your custom engine)

Enjoy ?

@ddlox thank you for taking the time out to answer, your answer is perfect. have a great day