Gmax to Blender; question

[lionheart]

Hey all,

A friend wishes to convert a Gmax file to Blender.

I ran a search on here and found quite a few, including this one;
http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8298&highlight=blender


My question is this. What is the 'latest and greatest' tried and sure method of doing exports from Gmax to Blender.

One file is FS9 format, one is FSX format (Gmax SDK's). My thoughts are that the FSX version might need to be changed to FS2004 format (basic materials) as the materials might freak out Blender.

He is converting my files to Blender for use in X-Plane.


Many thanks for any input and advice on this.



Bill

 

[arno]

Hi Bill,

Is this for an aircraft or for scenery?

Scenery is easier since there are usually no animations. So then I would just export it to a format the Blender can read, like 3DS or Wavefront OBJ. This can be done with my modelconverterx tool from the compiled mdl file.

For aircraft such an approach will loose you the animations. What I would try then is the script for blender that can read the fsx mdl format. I think that supports the animations. Not sure if it works in the latest blender version.

 

[lionheart]

Hi Bill,

Is this for an aircraft or for scenery?

Scenery is easier since there are usually no animations. So then I would just export it to a format the Blender can read, like 3DS or Wavefront OBJ. This can be done with my modelconverterx tool from the compiled mdl file.

For aircraft such an approach will loose you the animations. What I would try then is the script for blender that can read the fsx mdl format. I think that supports the animations. Not sure if it works in the latest blender version.

Hey Arno,

Goodness, I totally forgot about MDX. Whats wrong with me.

Yes, an aircraft file.

Will yours work with FS9 aircraft models as well?


Many thanks.


Bill

 

[arno]

Hi Bill,

Yes, ModelConverterX should load the aircraft MDL as well. But when you export it to a format like 3DS or OBJ the animations are lost. So that would not be really helpful in this case I suspect.

 

[lionheart]

Thats more then sufficient.

A thousand thanks Arno. I should have remembered this.

Both files are converted in swift order, took like 3 min's for both, all done and shipped.


Amazing and smooth running program. Incredible how it can do so much.



Bill

 

[puentes]

Gmax to Blender

You have also another solution with the MD3 filter (Quake filter).

With a friend of mine, I works on a Catalina PB-Y5 developped on Blender by Chouchou2570 for X-Plane and my works is to translate theses Blender files to Gmax.
To make a joke and a gift to Chouchou, I have modelised the Calypso of Cdt Cousteau on Gmax and then I have transformed this Gmax file with MD3 filter in order to import in Blender and create a blender file. This works very fine

PS: You can see this works here: http://img684.imageshack.us/img684/8099/projetx.jpg

 

[lionheart]

Hey Puentes,

Very good to know. I didnt know that Blender could do the Quake files.

I wonder if animations transfer with it? If so, then going to Blender might be the way.

I wonder if Blender can save a file to Max format?



Bill

 

[puentes]

Gmax to Blender

First, Blender 2.49b can import directly MD3 files (Files - Importer - Quake *.md3), so it's very simple.
For the animations, the answer is no ... they are lost !

Blender can save in *.3ds but it's not very useful. The solution that I found it's to save in *.vrl (VRML 97) and then to import the *.vrl in Gmax.
This solution can import th UVW mapping but the animations are also lost !

 

[lionheart]

Thanks Puentes for the heads up! Much appreciated.

Perhaps in the future, 40 years from now, they will have systems that can export into FS through all their systems, commonly. But then, it will probably all be 'space simulators'.... :S