Irrlicht Engine and 3DS MAX Studio

[lsden]

Hello all!
Well, to begin with, I would like to ask you to lend me a hand in a problem.
First of all, I'm a C++ programmer officially, so there is no programming related issue for me.
In fact, Irrlicht is my favorite 3D engine and I've really gotten used to it.
However, still I have got a graphic based problem due to the fact that
since I have worked in 3DS Max in my entirely life, so 3DS is the best one for me to handle.
It's a great modeling and animator program, despite the fact of it's format, I mean .3ds
on the other hand, .3ds file extension or rather format can't handle the animations.
I have the knowledge about that I have to import/export, export/import in order to convert it to a format like
.b3d, .x, .ms3d, .obj and so on which are could handle the animations, so that 3ds max users can solve this problem.
Now I have heard the best one is the .b3d, I know that also there is a plug-in / utility for 3DS Max Studio which is called
"B3d Pipeline v0.72", it allows you to be able to export your model into .b3d file extensions from 3DS,
okay this build or rather version v0.72 is compatible with 3DS Max 6, 7 and 8.
Currently, I'm working with 3DS Max 9, but never mind, I have installed Max 7 and integrated the Pipeline and I could make it,
I exported the .max project into .b3d model, but the model is totally messed up in-game.
Actually then I have heard there is a newer version of Pipeline which has came out for Max 9, so I have decided to try to give it a shoot.
However, all the links are broken for this newer version of Pipeline, hardly I have found a link which worked, I downloaded it immediately,
when I decompressed it, I have seen there is only one file instead of that much, because I remember the older version included a lot of files
which you had to copy into the root directory or rather folder of 3DS Max, but this time the newer version for Max 9 consist of only one file called "b3dexp.dle",
I tried, but when 3DS Max 9 initializing it throws an exception about that it couldn't load the Pipeline. So after a while a left the idea of using Pipeline
and went right for another ways, I've tried to import the .3ds model into another modeler programs, blender, milkshape and so on,
furthermore or rather in addition I downloaded some utilities and plug-ins for them also in the hope of success, but still nothing or the model is messed up
after the convertion and export. Now, I just really can't imagine that you can only create static models like buildings with 3DS which is one of the best and one of the most used modeler and animator program next to Maya, XSI and blender, there must be some way in order to solve or rather handle this problem. I searching for the solution almost for a year, I'm interested whether there is a good solution in order to export the model into .b3d format and won't mess up the model.
My sincerest apologizes if I was long, finally does someone may give me a hand in this one? I wonder if there is a good one method for converting .3ds to .b3d.
Would be really appreciated. Looking forward to your reply! Thank you very much forward and have a nice day!

p.s.: could I get an assist? Thank you!

edit: I'm sure, there is no problem with the model, I checked it, I double checked it and I triple checked it, every each joints of the current model and so on... sure thing!

[lsden]

oh well, no one have an idea?...

[CuteAlien]

Sorry, not many people here have 3DS MAX.

[RdR]

My sincerest apologizes if I was long, finally does someone may give me a hand in this one? I wonder if there is a good one method for converting .3ds to .b3d.
Would be really appreciated. Looking forward to your reply! Thank you very much forward and have a nice day!

Maya / 3DS Max to .b3d
Export your model from Maya or 3DSMax to FBX format (2010 or lower) and import this in FragMotion and export it to Blitz Basic 3D (.b3d)

http://irrlicht3d.org/wiki/index.php?n=Main.B3d

[ACE247]

Honestly, I'm not sure why the insistence on .b3d, but since you have 3DS Max 9, exporting .x binary format will be perfectly fine for irrlicht.
I have used it in the past myself until I fell in love with Blender.

[lsden]

Thank you so very very much for all of you!
I really appreciate your help, was a great assist for me, I'll try it out!
Thanks again and have a very nice day!

p.s.: if you need help in C++ programming then don't hesitate to drop me a message

[Mel]

Honestly, I'm not sure why the insistence on .b3d, but since you have 3DS Max 9, exporting .x binary format will be perfectly fine for irrlicht.
I have used it in the past myself until I fell in love with Blender.

B3D is the best skinned format you can export to Irrlicht. The x exporters seems that they simply don't want to work well when a model starts to reach some degree of quality, that is the main interest of having support for B3D. The bad thing is that the last B3D exporter was for MAX8, since then, either you are lucky, and your export doesn't get messed (something which uses to happen when the meshes are simple or have no animation) or you have to resort to other tools.

[booe]

TLDR;
maybe add MD5 support to Irrlicht and use it ?

[Klunk]

i use 3ds max, and when I needed to export to irrlicht I made the decision quite early on (after going through all the available options) to use my own file format and exporter. And I have to say, though its been a lot of work and many mistakes have been made, it was a good idea. My exporter writes out directly in meshbuffer formats, SColor, matrix4 transforms etc so all optimization is done at export time which saves on load time. Having your own custom exporter also means you can export user properties with object specific to the needs of the game engine for example, I tag some objects in a scene as background, or as never occlude. It also means you can also export helper object as scene/level tags/flags/data holders. The biggest draw back is the obtuse SDK but if you start with the IGame wrapper example you can have an exporter up and running in no time (with the added advantage of it being always upto date with the version of max you are using and any changes in Irrlicht). IMO the only way Max/Maya/Modo etc can work truely effectively as Game Level editors is with a dedicated exporter and pipeline. Great tools make great games.