Hot answers tagged 3dsmax
7
Judging by the fact that you can arbitrarily choose between two $3500 tools to work with, I guess the price doesn't really matter. I don't really think it matters which of the two you use -- I'm sure some UIs/workflows will just click better with some than others.
It seems like you're asking for advice between using a mechanical pencil or a wooden pencil ...
5
Forget all that expensive software. Either it's expensive, and you take a hit, or you get used to high-end software, and can't use anything else.
Like I said in my comments, just start learning Blender 3D. It's actually not that bad, the interface just takes a little while to get used to.
If you already know concepts like materials, textures, spot ...
5
I don't use 3DS max, so I can't give you specific direction, but I can tell you generally what's happening. I assume you were following some kind of tutorial, so you may not remember doing this. However, it looks like you have the model set up to be mirrored down the center. So, selecting one vertex will mirror to the other side. Typically this is very ...
5
It will not be identical to the Box primitive, as the result will be a Rectangle with an Extrude modifier.
It may have the same apparent geometry like a box, assuming that you toggle the flag to cap the beginning and end of the extrude.
The origin of the resulting object will be at the base, which may differ from where the origin of a box normally is.
4
The Pragmatic Programmer devoted a section to this:
We think it is better to know one editor very well, and to use it for all editing tasks.... Without a single editor, you face a potential modern day Babel of confusion... Choose an editor, know it thoroughly, and use it for all editing tasks. If you use a single editor (or set of keybindings) across all ...
4
There are basically two paths you can go down.
1) Prepare models beforehand and try to sell them. A pretty popular website with a lot of art on it is TurboSquid. http://support.turbosquid.com/entries/174743-publishing-products This lets you work on what you know and at your own pace.
2) Join an art collective that does outsourcing and do work for hire. ...
4
There isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution for this. You can make 1 unit in XNA equal to 1 metre, or 1 kilometre if you'd like. What I'd recommend is you find a transform and stick with it. Start with exporting a 1m sphere into XNA, adjust the scale and/or camera until it looks right, then base everything off that scale.
4
It's best you read nVidia's pages containing some GPU Gems articles. There's the key formula which I will briefly explain to you in the following pseud-answer:
This is where you'll find the complete article, and it's a classic resource by now. I will only assume you want an explanation of that process, done in a simplistic manner (as much as I can).
The ...
4
You could try creating an actual vertex of the corner type while you are first creating the spline.
I don't know of a way to change a vertex from bezier to corner after it has been created, however you can use the refine tool to create a new "corner" type vertex right next to it, and delete the old bezier vertex.
3
Max (and most other modellers) also have rendering support, so they can render your scenes out to images -- you don't need to capture the screen to get your models into an image.
The process of creating sprites from a model is essentially invoking the modeller's renderer with the desired settings (for lighting, anti-aliasing, and what have you) repeatedly ...
3
3DS Max is a 3D modelling tool. There are several video tutorials available all over the internet (of varying quality). However, you can't make a game just using Max -- all it does is modelling and rendering. You'll need to use something else entirely, or at least something else in conjunction with Max, in order to make a game.
Blender is a similar kind of ...
3
No one can give you an answer to this other than yourself. You need to ask yourself - What do you wanna be? What do you wanna do? What do you like?
Typically these are the areas you might want to consider specializing in when it comes to 3D:
Modelling
Animation
Texturing
Lighting
Rendering (which is where vray and mental ray come to play)
alternatively, ...
3
According to the MSDN:
The XNA Framework uses a
right-handed coordinate system,
with the positive z-axis pointing
toward the observer when the positive
x-axis is pointing to the right, and
the positive y-axis is pointing up.
Here is a video on how to export animated 3d meshes from 3DS Max to XNA, using kW X-port, which is a quick and easy way ...
3
The only program that can reliably open .max files is 3DS Max itself. From Max you can export to something more open and portable like fbx.
There's a free trial version of Max available from http://usa.autodesk.com/3ds-max/trial/?nd=1 which should do the job, although it won't run on Linux...
3
Cinema 4d seems to support FBX format. Even the cheapest C4D. You might be using a very old Cinema, thugh. Check if you can import FBX.
FBX is a format that does support perfectly bones, weights, animation. So, all you need to do is get someone that opens in Max that *.max file you have, and export as FBX. Then you could import into your Cinema4D, and have ...
3
Your options:
Get the student version: http://students.autodesk.com/?nd=download_center
Download an illegal version (don't do this)
Pay full price
Use something else
Use the trial
You said the trial doesn't work for you but that's the only viable option for what you're asking. If you want to build something commercially with 3ds you better have $4000.
3
At least one case that this can happen is when you have multiple smoothing groups on an object. So a vertex can have as many normals as it has faces with different smoothing groups sharing it.
http://wiki.polycount.com/SmoothingGroups
3
Luckily, Blender's BMesh support is finally here, as of 2.63. You're looking for the "Knife" tool. See http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Dev:Ref/Release_Notes/2.63/BMesh
hit K in edit-mode to switch to the knife, and click to set up points to "cut". Spacebar exits knife mode.
3
The first thing you need to learn is UVW mapping get a complete grasp of how this works and you will start to understand how your texture maps should be structured.
This is a good tutorial that should explain all this - http://waylon-art.com/uvw_tutorial/uvwtut_01.html
Then you should try texturing, using your Photoshop skills to apply textures and paint ...
2
Looking through this page, it seems that there are a few things that might be happening. The XNA FBX importer isn't reading the units correctly and is thinking meters is centimeters. Or, the model has a scaled parent bone that is throwing things off. I don't have Max in front of me at the moment to test this.
Personally, I'd start with creating a 1m^2 ...
2
You need to apply the bone transforms to the model before drawing it. Check the "Draw the model" section in the following page for a example of what you need to do:
http://www.toymaker.info/Games/XNA/html/xna_models.html
2
As the other two people have said, you cannot make a game in Max. If you are a designer/artist and you wanna get into game development there are a couple of tools available online that you might like to consider picking up:
1) Construct: http://www.scirra.com/construct/
This is an open source (free) game development tool targeted specifically for 2D games. ...
2
How large is the village? How many polygons? How many textures? There are a lot of details left out.
Personally, in such a situation, I'd start with simple terrain rendering. Get the land working first. Second, make a single building. Get it loaded into the world and placed. Repeat step 2 until you have a village. If you're looking at being able to ...
2
No, Max is not used to design all game content. Some studios may use it to design some content, but there are many options for building content.
Some studios use Max, some use Maya, some use proprietary tools. Max and Maya are both 3D modelling programs, so some studios that do primarily 2D artwork probably use something like Photoshop (or again, something ...
2
There's quite a huge list of softwares that can be used. The ones I'm listing here are the most popular ones, but you could do all your assets using paint and notepad
3D Models
3DS Max is often used for low poly models.
ZBrush is often used for high poly, and sculpting
Photoshop/Any other image manipulation tool is used for texturing
2D Assets
...
2
Voronoi shatter is one approach that creates fairly realistic shatter for eg. toughened glass which has the remarkable ability to shatter into small, typically convex fragments due to structural changes to the glass during manufacturing. Also, given you have a pane of glass, you will only need 2D Voronoi implementation, not 3D.
2
Automatically generating shattered pieces from an initially-whole mesh is pretty tricky, I would think. If you're just interested in simulating the dynamics of the shards as they fly through the air, collide etc. then I'd start with a pre-shattered mesh, using breakable constraints or something to hold the pieces together until they're pulled apart with ...
2
Get Sprite Forge (http://www.d-grafix.com/?page=spriteforge). It can automatically render out a full sprite sheet of your model (including animations) with incremental camera angles. A bit old, but I haven't regretted spending the money on it.
2
Here's a FAQ I wrote last year on importing FBX. At that time, FBX was the standard format for imports of 3D models, and I guess it still is. You can model with Blender (free), and use its FBX exporter, then pull those into Unity. Using the FAQ, you can ensure your FBXes come into Unity correctly. At least from Blender, you could export textured models with ...
2
Ok, so yes the problem is in your model. You haven't set:
UVW mapping for your geometry
A diffuse map for your material.
In 3ds max, when you use the Standard material on your model and change the Diffuse Color the material doesn't actually have a texture, and so it doesn't use one even if you give it one later.
Basically, here are the steps to make it ...
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