It's possible to make objects in gmax and export them to MD3 which is the Quake 3 format and then to ASE or almost any other format.

I'm on vacation now and don't have my usual "tools" and feel very bored. I installed Gmax off my fathers Flight Sim 2004 disc and have been trying to figure out a way to export to ASE.

This is a website for a 3D object converter that will convert MD3 and most other formats to each other. However, it will not convert to ASE without registering first but it's not expensive:
http://web.axelero.hu/karpo/

The export plugin to export to MD3 is called MD3_MAX.zip and can be found all over the place if you search for it, I don't remember where I found it. MD3 is the file format used by Quake 3 I think. I have no idea if MD3 supports vertex coloring/shading.

I have not been able to successfully export a loft to MD3. When I open the MD3 file with the loft in the converter I get a cube of garbled geometry. Simpler primitive-based models come out fine though.


Gmax really is a superb modeler! If only there was a native exporter to DOF, but that costs a lot of money to license or something like that.

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

I tried again with a loft which was closed and it worked. I lofter a square shape along a curvy path and itexports correctly. However, when I try to export a road-loft again it does not work. I get an unidentifiable garbled thingy.


EDIT:
Hmmm... I tried again with a flat loft (like a road section) and now it works. Wonder what I did right this time. Well, it's late and I'm off to bed. lol

EDIT2:
I tried one final thing. I resized the same (working) flat loft a lot and exported it. This time it didn't work. Maybe it means that I have to make the object in 1:100 scale and then resize it in modeler... I'll try one more time with the more advanced road loft I made.

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

EUREKA!

IT works! The problem was that the track was too big! Maybe it's a units problem then... This time it didn't show 100% correct because the track seemed to go off one side and come back on the other side of the screen, this is probably what was happening when I got the garbled cube, the track was going back and forth withing the limits of the world that the exporter supports.

Now I just have to register the converter and convert to ASE. lol

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

Yea, this has been possible for pretty much the whole time GMAX had been available. and since gmax is a stiped down version of 3D Studio Max 4 it's great! Just alot of people don't have the patience to go through all the export import stuff. but i don't see why not. the time you save using somthing like Gmax over ZMod far outweighs the time it takes to export and import. not to mention the models will most certainly come out more precise and better looking. oh well..

oh and you can use a program called 3DExploration to convert just about any format to another. it's free and should be easy to find. 3D Exploration has been discontinued though and the newest incarnation of it is DeepExploration which has many newer and better features and supports more formats. but it's not free.

I believe the precision of the MD3 file exporter for gmax was less then that used in Racer, and you could find that vertices would translate as the were effectively rounded off.

i.e. .1234512345 becomes .1234 etc.

not huge, but when you units are in metres, its noticeable.

I could be wrong however

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raromachine- beer, skittles and racer.
http://www.miniracing.co.nz/

MD3 indeed uses Doom units, which is something like 64 units per meter, something extremely game-oriented like that. But for tracks, this might be quite ok (for cars I thought it's a bit too coarse).

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Racer, free car simulation at http://www.racer.nl/

Ruud, considering that Racer is a free game, do you think you could contact Discreet and maybe ask them if it would be possible to make a DOF exporter for GMAX (without having to pay licensing fees)?

Hey - I'm not Ruud! - but I'll answer anyhow

But do you think Discreet would think it to be wise allowing their exporter to write quite highly detailed files which are openable/convertable by a number of other programs? Or as it's a more or less open format someone skilled in Programming could possibly easily write a convertor to VRML or something even more common.

If I was Discreet I'd say "no way, jose!"

Still, no hurt in asking!!

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raromachine- beer, skittles and racer.
http://www.miniracing.co.nz/

I say it's worth a shot!

With gmax you have all the functions of MAX that are useful to racer-modelers, even vertex coloring. It's way superior to Zmodeler.

Gmax website with a vote for game support form.
http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

Free Md3 Plugin for Gmax

http://mojo.gmaxsupport.com/Sections/Plugins.html

Ah... yes 3d Exploration , it also lets you do MD3-3DS meaning you can export
to almost Anything
who needs 3d Studio eh.... (except rendering )
I was working on a Unreal mod with Gmax for a while, for that i did MD3-3DS-3D
conversion

that plugin didn't work for me. It just converted the track to lots of equal, parallell squares for some reason.

The original Tempest one (I think it was the Tempest exporter) exports correctly, but it only supports objects that are a maximum of 512 system units from 0. I tried setting system units to Km but that didn't work. This is why I got the garbled cube. When I went past 512 it just continued out of the other side of the scene, at point -512.

The 3DS format makes it awkward again because it introduces yet another conversion step, plus it doesn't support vertex shading/coloring.

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

does any1 know where i can get some decent gmax plugins so i can make cars for racer?

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I guarantee that a Lack of Plugins will not be stopping you from making cars.

If you mean exporting cars to Racer from Gmax, then you're out of luck, as discussed above - please READ the thread.

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raromachine- beer, skittles and racer.
http://www.miniracing.co.nz/

I forgot to mention:
The source code for the MD3 exporter (the working one) is probably out there somewhere. All it needs is someone to change so that it's not limited to 512 system units.

I don't have the know-how or software for compiling the source file in any case.


A DOF-exporter for GMAX is the holy grail for Racer track and car development.

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

It should be possible to create an ASE file with GMAX MAXscript. ASE files are just ASCII.

I'm too lazy to look further into this now though.


Let Discreet know we want a DOF exporter for GMAX at the GMAx website.


BTW, can modeler import Quake3 MD3 files?

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

I wouldn't expect much from a company that offers $1000+ 'student' versions of its programs so 'any' high schooler can afford to learn!

Yep i think so

PeriSoft...

So you dont' think it's worth it to even try? It'll take two miuntes to fill out the form. Discreet are the ones who made the Quake3 exporter, not ID.

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

Well, sure, you can try! I just take a dim view of Discreet and a lot of other high-end "content-creation" tool companies that are used to selling stuff for five to fifty thousand dollars, and think they're doing great charity work by offering it for under two grand. They're out of touch with reality and, imo, making hubris-dipped business decisions.

I doubt they'll want to make a gmax exporter that spits to a well-known and flexible file format. It defeats the purpose of gmax's being crippled in the first place. You could certainly try asking, though. It'd certainly be great if they were willing to support independent developers (even if it meant working with Ruud to create another encrypted data format for Racer so it couldn't be used for general export), but their attitude toward other issues suggests that their money people are of the 'profits for the next quarter and the future be damned' ilk, and won't see the forest for the trees.

I don't think they're that out of touch with their particular realities - the Gaming, and Entertainment industries turn over squillions of dollars ( aka $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ ) a year, and a couple of thousand for a 3d package is a pittance to most companies in these industries.

I also doubt that the 'student' version is aimed at students, and is more likely aimed at education institutions - where most of their computers have already had the equiv of 10,000$ spent on them both in terms of hardware and software licenses. Even so, having paid at least 7000$nz over the course of 4 years for materials in my tertiary study, a few thousand for a package that I can use on my home PC is nothing - precisely why I bought Photoshop ( funded mainly from my student loan! ).

If Discreet were outo f touch with reality, they would have folded a long time ago.

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raromachine- beer, skittles and racer.
http://www.miniracing.co.nz/

They may not be out of touch as regards their main market, but they are as regards educational editions of their software.

When I was 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, I barely had the money to keep my machine a year behind the curve. There was certainly no way in hell I'd ever have been able to afford $1000 for a student edition of 3DS or Lightwave, and my high school was still using Apple ][s (I kid you not). So guess what, you're left with two choices: Don't learn, or 'steal' from discreet.

I don't think it's fair to force kids into that choice. It makes sense for EVERYBODY to give kids a shot to learn this stuff - why can't software companies figure out a way to make it happen?

Perisoft where did u get your price quotes from? I've seen 3DSMax for about $200 for the educational copy. and that's for v5! v6 is for around $600 and that's a very nice discount. And these are not available for any highschool that i've heard of. you can only purchase an educational copy of 3DSMAX at a approved school who offers a 3D graphics course that requires said software. you need to show proof of school and classes to purchase it. so it doesn't really matter if u have the money or not, if you're going to one of these schools chances are $600 isn't too much for such a powerful tool.

When gmax first launched I had a look at discreet's site, and at least at that point they were charging a grand for an edu copy that they were promoting for high schoolers.

$600 isn't much help if you're a lower middle class high school kid - and really it's even worse now, because you can get pretty capable hardware almost for free. So you can't even argue that kids who can afford the hardware can afford the software. If you scrimped you could put together a computer to learn 3D for $300 or less, I bet.

There ought to be a better way, and it annoys me when companies claim to be so thoughtful and charitable when they're not. Be honest, at least.

BTW, I meant that we vote that discreet make a DOF-exporter for GMAX, not an ASE-exporter.

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I got wheels... with clickety-clackers.

i did that a loong time ago tahustvedt, but i don't think we will get enough votes for them to even notice racer. i think our only chance is if Ruud contacts them directly.

Perisoft - if all u want to do is learn then you don't really need to be able to export. thats the point of GMAX and Maya PLE. the software is there for you to experiment with for free! if u need to export somthing then u need to pay, it's pretty simple. GMAX is a very slim version of MAX 4.2, but it makes a good base to learn MAX's UI and basic modeling tools. Maya PLE is a full version of maya with all tools and functionality, even rendering (with a watermark) but like GMAX it uses a special file format. So the tools are there to learn with for no charge at all. that's a big gift from the companies, i don't think it's right to get mad at them for looking out for their own interests when it comes to business.