Our artist has problems to export animated models. He tried several plugins(including pandasoft) without success.
He thinks that the b3d pipeline is the best solution.
He uses 3DS Max 5, biped, skin.
When he exports an animated model, the weights are wrong.
sadly, I only confirmed the b3d pipelines for 3d studio max 7 and 8.
Maybe you can find a way to pay for one license, buy Unwrap3d, find someone on the forum to translate or something the like. I would bet that the 6 pipeline works as well.
export as u3d -free max plugin at the site- , open the u3d at unwrap 3d, edit if needed, export as b3d. Imo, best b3d workflow for characters. For scenery, maybe the other way(Pipeline).
Thank you for your replies. The main problem is that we have the model animated in .max format and want to export it to any format supported by Irrlicht.
But with every method the bone weights get corrupted(like in the image).
Which format would you choose for biped animations and how can we export the model(link in the first post) with the correct animations ?
We will try Unwrap 3D, but it would be cool if there is a freeware plugin/tool which can export our models correctly.
Maybe something is wrong with the model. If somebody could check that it woul be very nice.
I'd heavilly suggest upgrading your max version (for such old version, prices are low, if not free upgrade) to a 6+ one. If possible 7. I know some of the old Max versions had a lot of bugs (new versions must have them elsewhere) so it might fix your problem just by doing so. using the b3d pipeline is your safest bet, side that, use unwrap3d. the .x pipeline is currently bugged, so no point using it.
When i mentioned unwrap3d, I mean exporting as *.u3d with the free plugin.
The x pipeline is very complex, tho I managed always to export well: i think has a lot to do with how much of special features you didnt "bake" of your scene.
Simply, there are max features that can't be ported by any weights and bones format, specially an old format, like x is.
You need not to export morph targets, all anim must be based in bones and weights, all verts should have weight, none with zero weight, the mesh must be welded ok, an standard material has many more possibilities to give no problems, there's lot of things like you couldnt export biped with panda , you needed to first convert to bones and weights doing an export/import to fbx format, and finally export to x...and ...many many things. With b3d is much simpler. I know quite well...export as *.u3d, open in Ultimate Unwrap, fix if needed, or change something, export there as b3d. I have some pro devers having probs with charcaters and Pipeline, and in its time I so certain issues in that exporter specially for characters, but you could be more lucky. Scenery I was told by a friend, was exported with may features with Pipeline.
So, as you prefer.
A third way that i know I could put to work (but everytime I say something like this, I say that's my experience, only) is export as md5 from Max, import with Blender importer into blender, export from there as b3d.But I'd go for a less complex way.
Not only me, several pro developers(I strongly doubt they'd like to be pinged about this, but they could tell a pair or more things on certain advanced animation features that wont work.. ) saw certain important lowdowns in using the other pipeline. Anyway, whatever. Not that I really mind...
