M2 Meshes for building interiors

[Diamondback]

Does anyone have knowledge on how to make these? I couldn't find anything relevant on the MDT backup site.

I use 3dsMax 2011 to make meshes. So far I've been successful in converting some meshes I downloaded/bought on www.turbosquid.com into SM format and placing them in my map.

However, I'm confused over how the M2 meshes for building interiors are supposed to be made in 3dsmax.

Has anyone ever dealt with those M2 meshes? If so, could you point me in the right direction?

[Swaffy]

What do you mean by "M2" mesh? The visual mesh, collision meshes, hitbox, simple mesh... ? I don't know what an M2 mesh is.

[Diamondback]

If you look at any vanilla/XPack building (with an interior that is), they have an added "M2" mesh which represents the building's interior. So all vanilla buildings basically have not one SM mesh, but two, one M1 mesh for the exterior of the building, and one "M2" mesh for the exterior.

So if you take for example the "eu_church_m1" mesh, it also has a "eu_church_m2" mesh, which represents the interior of the church (Jesus statue, stairs, red carpet, tower interior w/ bell, etc). I'm wondering if this has an impact in game or not, because I downloaded some free meshes from Turbosquid and obviously they don't come with M2 meshes, which means I have to generate them myself and I have no idea how.

[Django]

afaik the m2 meshes tell the engine that they are interior.
This is important for generating the lightmaps in BC.
You will also need the _m1 and _m2.samples files in order to get the lightmaps right.
When you render the lightmaps in 3Dmax you dont need to split your mesh into exterior and interior, because you can place your lights where you want.