I've been using 3D Studio for years, and recently blindly went to using Gmax for designing aircraft without really considering the consequences and realizing I could have been using 3DS all along. Anyway to make a long story short, I'd rather have my model in 3DS for a variety of reasons including rendering and Ultimate Unwrap support.I tried the route of exporting MD3, then using 3D Exploration to import the MD3, but the geometry is getting trashed in subtle but significat ways (welding verticies, losing smoothing groups, material assignments, etc, etc)...Is there any other way to get out of Gmax short of basically rebuilding weeks worth of geometry? I've heard there's a payware version of Gmax with "more features" (real export functionality?), but Discreet is being pretty discreet about making any information available about a more robust version, if in fact there is one.Thanks,--Jon

What are the consequences of trying to export from 3dS to FS9? Are you still going to be able to take advantage of the new animations, such as VC Rain, etc.?There is a way to export from GMax to YafRay (a freware rendering program), but I'll be the first to admit it is a PITA for complex models... :)

>>What are the consequences of trying to export from 3dS to FS9?None that I can think of, since getting back to Gmax from 3ds is not a problem should the need arise.So Bill, do you use Ultimate Unwrap, and if so, how do you export your models. I see no direct Gmax support from UU.--Jon

>>>What are the consequences of trying to export from 3dS to>FS9?>>None that I can think of, since getting back to Gmax from 3ds>is not a problem should the need arise.>>So Bill, do you use Ultimate Unwrap, and if so, how do you>export your models. I see no direct Gmax support from UU.No, I use LithUnwrap. The only thing that I use it for though, is to generate a nicely formatted and 100% accurate texture template of the UVW mapped parts. I've found that the UVW Editor is more than adequate for the task, but I needed a way to obtain accurate templates.I export the selected parts to LithUnwrap in .md3 format. I'd love to take a crack at modeling in 3dS, but there's no way I could afford that software; not even with a "student's discount!" :(

hey bill,i haven't tried it yet..i'm not sure if you're talking about this way..but i found a export script to Yafray..can be found here:http://kupio.lunarpages.com/~tru7h02/halo/gmax_render/

>hey bill,>i haven't tried it yet..>i'm not sure if you're talking about this way..>but i found a export script to Yafray..>>can be found here:>>http://kupio.lunarpages.com/~tru7h02/halo/gmax_render/Yep. That's the only way I'm aware of. It actually works just fine for small scenes, but for large, complex models such as an aircraft, it takes hours simply export the data to XML, and several hours more to generate the rendering.That's simply not a viable option for me. Even if I "simplify" the model be omitting all the parts and polys that can't be seen, it takes far too long to be useful.Especially so, since it typically takes at least four attempts to get the camera angle, lighting, and parameters adjusted to get an acceptable rendering!