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Convert model format M3D and/or GR2?

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us-california
Hi,

The M3D format seems to be a universal format to store model in to make exchange easier. That might be a useful to support in MCX. But if you found M3D files in CFS3 I think that might be another format, since the Model 3D format does not seem to be that old.

As for the GR2 format you list, that seems to be for Civilization Beyond Earth, why would it be useful to support that for FS?
 
.M3D as used in CFS3 is not open-source, nor is it documented. We wished it would be, but it never happened.
 
Re: GR2, there are a lot of games that use that format which have a variety of vehicles and scenes/buildings that are sometimes pretty good poly count - it's not specific to CivBE, but someone there made some tools to manipulate it.. unfortunately, they are a bit old and don't work with some newer versions of that model standard.
I've used Silent Hunter as a source of ships, but SH5 stores in this GR2 format, which was why I asked this question.
 
Hi,

OK, so we can conclude that reading the M3D format is not going to work.

For the GR2 format I will add it to the wishlist. But I could not yet find a good documentation of the format. That might make implementing it hard. All I found is this:

 
So once it's exported you could never get it back into Gmax or any other tool to modify? You'd have to have the original Gmax file?
 
So once it's exported you could never get it back into Gmax or any other tool to modify? You'd have to have the original Gmax file?
Yes, as is often the case with proprietary formats used in games. For the FS MDL format we have worked out the format as community so we are not in that situation, but I think the CFS3 community is too small now to expect this format still to be worked out.
 
Yes, as is often the case with proprietary formats used in games. For the FS MDL format we have worked out the format as community so we are not in that situation, but I think the CFS3 community is too small now to expect this format still to be worked out.
Although Arno’s sterling MCX allows us to access the mesh of a compiled model, it doesn’t give us the hierarchy of objects as originally built in Gmax, 3dsMax, Blender etc. There’s a lot of work to reorganise the recovered mesh as a useable aircraft model for recompiling (except CFS3 mesh). Scenery objects are less demanding.
 
The mdl format simply does not store the gmax hierarchy and objects. They are optimized on export and therefore can't be recovered.
It's always best to keep your sources :D
 
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