December 13th, 2007 Posted in 3D, Demoniak3D, Technique, Tips'n'Tricks, UK | No Comments »
This is an answer to this forum topic.
Hyperion can load directly the following model file formats:
- .3DS: 3DStudio MAX binary model format.
- .OBJ: Alias|Wavefront ascii model format
- .XML: XML format created by the Wak Exporter for 3DStudio MAX 7/8.
If you work with 3DStudio MAX 7 you have the following choices:
- export your model directly in *.3DS.
- export your model using the Wak Exporter: http://www.ozone3d.net/wak/
If you work with 3DStudio MAX 8 you have the following choices:
- export your model directly in *.3DS.
- export your model directly in *.OBJ.
- export your model using the Wak Exporter: http://www.ozone3d.net/wak/
If you work with 3DStudio MAX 9 and up you have the following choices:
- export your model directly in *.3DS.
- export your model directly in *.OBJ.
If you work with Cinema4D 9/10 you have the following choices:
- export your model directly in *.OBJ with the Riptide plugin.
Now some advices. Currently, the best way to export/load your models is done with 3DStudioMAX 7/8 and the Wak Exporter. Wak Exporter produces a model format that matches exactly the data structures used by Hyperion (position, normals, texcoords, …).
The most important point is the normals. Normals are fundamental in many applications. The .3DS format does not include normals. Hyperion has to compute them and depending the algorithm, the result may be incorrect. Thus the best way to get nice normals is to let the modeling tool does this tricky job and export the normals in the file. 3DStudioMAX can export normals in the OBJ. Cinema4D can export them too using Riptide. When Hyperion loads a file that contains normals, it uses them directly.
If you export in .3DS, you have to pay attention to material, textures and meshes names:
- material name: 10 characters max!
- mesh name: 10 characters max!
- texture filename: old DOS convention: 8.3. This point is very important.
If you export in .OBJ or with Wak, these limitations disappear.
Multitexturing and UVmap: only the XML format exported by Wak supports the multitexturing and several UVmap per vertex. The .3DS and .OBJ are limited to one texture and one UVmap per vertex.
Last point about 3DStudioMAX: if you export in .3DS, you may have your models totally exploded when they are loaded in Hyperion. This is due to the manipulation of the pivots. Once way to solve this problem is to reset the transformation before exporting.
Read the detailed explanation here: http://www.ozone3d.net/smf/index.php/topic,713.0.html
Cinema4D is not designed to export model for real time apps. C4D can directly export in .3DS or .OBJ but normals and materials are not well managed. Only Riptide can do a good result but in some cases, there are still bugs in the export.
Conclusion: if you have the possibility, use 3DStudioMAX 7/8 and the Wak Exporter. But .3DS or .OBJ can be good alternative depending your needs.