loading max files to irrlicht

pera · Post by **pera** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:30 am

Ok, i went to turbosquid and downloaded loads of free models to be placeholder for my game. Most of them are .max files.
Im no modeler and I don't have 3d studio max or whatever its called now, and I sure don't have money to buy it, so is there any free way to convert free max model to anything irrlicht can load?

JP · Post by JP » Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:58 am

Nope, don't think so. You can ask if anyone who has a copy of max would be kind enough to convert them for you, that's probably the only option... or just go back on turbosquid and get different models in a format that will be supported, and check the poly count isn't stupidly high, like in 10s of thousands (most are on turbosquid as they're not really made for games) as that's not going to be kind to your game's performance!

pera · Post by **pera** » Fri Jul 18, 2008 2:39 pm

the gap between modelers and game makers is ridiculously wide.
low poly and format converting is like mystery to them.

night_hawk · Post by **night_hawk** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:06 am

That's where a bit of communication comes in handy.
True, it did take me 3-4 days to manage to make it clear with my project's modellers, but hey! it was worth every minute. (check blog if you're curious)

torleif · Post by **torleif** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 8:21 am

3Ds max has a 30 day trial if you have the bandwidth to download it. Because of the mentioned poly count, so you will need to convert it

Lurk around 3ds chat rooms for a while and you're more than likely to find someone who is willing to help you out

zthom · Post by **zthom** » Sat Jul 19, 2008 11:59 am

You can click on file->export and export them as *.3ds
Irrlicht suport .3ds, but it has some problems with textures

christianclavet · Post by **christianclavet** » Mon Jul 21, 2008 2:50 am

I think textures problems are mostly fixed. But the smoothing groups are not supported (So if you used this feature in 3DS it will not be displayed in IRRlicht). You must also note that to my knowledge, 3DS format are ONLY for static meshes. If you have animated something in MAX and want it animated in IRRlicht, it's not a good format to use. It's good only if you're designing levels (from static meshes) and want to check it quickly directly from MAX. (I've converted myself to MAX in march and this work very well on static mesh that don't need to be animated.)

About the smoothing groups; could someone explain, what is the difficulty on implementing support for this feature? (Since surface smoothing seem to be supported for other format). Because of the lack of documentation?