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Old 10-26-2005, 12:06 PM
tobin tobin is offline
WorldViz Team Member
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Posts: 251
3ds max export

For quite some time now Vizard has supported .3DS importing. However, unless you're using content already created in that format WorldViz generally does’t recommend it as a 3D file format. Its biggest drawback is that texture filenames cannot exceed 8 characters in length (not counting suffix). If DOS style naming is acceptable to you then .3DS should be fine. Still, we generally don't see any differences between .3DS and .WRL, and since that latter allows normal file naming it's our recommendation.

That said, WorldViz is recently began recommending a Vizard native file format which can now be generated for use with Vizard 2.5 and higher. We provide an exporter to a file format called OpenSceneGraph and the advantages of this over .WRL and .3DS are numerous. To see a description of all the scene features that are handled by this format, please browse here:

http://osgexp.vr-c.dk/documentation/HOWTO.htm

To download a Vizard 2.53 compatible 3DS Max export plug-in, please click here:

http://www.worldviz.com/download/fil...ort_plugin.zip

Besides the scene export features that are available in this plug-in, it does a much better job handling textures (e.g., multi-textures, baked shells, etc.) and has an optional binary format that produces .IVE export files that load into Vizard lightning fast (e.g., 500K polygons in less than 1 sec).

The plug-in can optionally create a subfolder during the export process that contains all the file’s textures. This makes for a clean workflow allowing you to link to disparate files across folders yet collect them all centrally during the export process so Vizard can properly find them. What's more, you can now use MAX's procedural textures and the plug-in will even generate appropriate bitmaps and Vizard materials for you automatically.

The binary format (.IVE) not only loads incredibly fast but it can optionally have all the files textures embedded within the single file. It makes for a large .IVE file but then both geometry and textures will load extremely quickly.

Please view the "readme.txt" file contained in the above zip file for installation and usage instructions.
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