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3ds max questions

Started by mgrinshpon, May 09, 2010, 10:58:29 AM

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mgrinshpon

As I'm sure many of you are aware, there are 2 seperate versions of 3ds max: the standard 3ds Max and 3ds Max Design. Which one would you recommend for someone who's looking to get into BATting? Is Design not compatible with the BAT4MAX plugin?

Also, which of these is closest to CAD, Inventor, or Solidworks- 3 programs I'm intimately familiar with. Very intimately. Don't ask questions. :D Seriously though- do any of these have constraints or ability to make workplanes on surfaces or any of these things I'm use to?

Could I make models in Inventor and pop them out to 3ds Max so they can lower the polygon count and export to an sc4model file?

Thanks in advance everyone.

SimFox

3dsMax and 3dsMax Design are virtually same very program. The distinction is just a marketing ploy on Autodesks behave to extract more money from clients. The only practical difference is presence of Illumination evaluation tool in Design (plain 3ds Max doesn't have it) and SDK in plain 3ds Max (Design doesn't have it) that's it. in all other respects (tool set rendering engines included etc) these two are identical.

As far As Bat4Max goes it works with either variant just the same.

3ds Max has Nurbs tool set, but it really rarely used. Max is predominately polygon modeling tool. It can open most common 3d formats with OBJ and FBX being stressed as the most appropriate ones. In respect of polygon count for BATs you are really only limited by your computer memory size and your skill an inventiveness (like using proxies and some such). So you scenes may well go into tens or even hundreds of million of polygons and even into billions. For the game it is all the same s it doesn't really use those models you have in Max. Instead the scene renders are used as textures on top of LOD shells. And it is very good habit to keep those simple. Simple but at the same time enough well fitted to the scen so as not to live too much blank space around. Such space will make selecting things in game difficult, cause game recognizes the LODs as 3d objects and not the textures. So, LOD extending way beyond the actual content of the scene will obstruct selecting of anything beyond it, even when those models will be visible.

mgrinshpon

Thanks for the answer. Guess that means I have to learn a whole new way of making 3d things.  &mmm

SimFox

not necessarily! As I've said Max can definitely import stuff from Inventor. And your ability to work with nurbs like surfaces could bring the whole new fresh look to BATing.