How to run 3DS animation or export it to other format?

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 1:02 pm

I have a model in the .3DS format. When I run it with 3ds Max 9 and I press the "play" button I see all the model's animations.
When I load it with irrEdit or in my application I cant see the animation. I read that irrlicht doesn't support 3ds animation so how can I convert it to the format that irrlicht support? (like MD2..)

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 1:41 pm

you need an exporter !!!

try this for the .x format: http://kwxport.sourceforge.net/

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 2:17 pm

It didn't help. I installed it, exported the model to .x then loaded with irrEdit and it didn't had any animation and it lost part of the model or something like that.
Any other solution?

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:39 pm

hmmm, there are also some other exporters like PandaDX or Xporter (don't know the links to them) and for other formats, too...
that's all I can tell you, sorry...

I use another editor (Milkshape3D) it can im-/export many formats and I never had problems with animations...

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:53 pm

The thing is that I have an importer for NWN .mdl format for 3ds Max. Now in 3ds Max I can play all the model's animation and when I export it to .3ds and load it in irrEdit I see a static model which looks fine but it doesn't have any animation like the those I saw when I loaded the model in 3ds Max. So My question is how can I see those animation in my game because I understand the setFrameLoop() method doesn't work on 3ds files. Another thing that I don't understand is why when I load the .3ds file in MilkShape or Blender any other 3D modeling program I see only static model with no animation except when I load it back in 3ds Max (after I saved it as .3ds file) it "remembers" all the animation frames. When I tried export it to .X with the exporter you gave me (http://kwxport.sourceforge.net/) it didn't export the animations and only part of the model was exported (the head and legs were gone - its kind of a human-like model)

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 3:58 pm

the problem is the other apps don't support 3ds animations (they get completly lost)...
Don't ask me why, ask the developers of this apps...

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 4:22 pm

Do you maybe know which formats has support in irrlicht in the animation aspect? Or do you have any other solution for this annoying thing?

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 6:18 pm

for a list of all supported formats (animated and not animated) look here:
http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/feature ... tedformats

I know for sure that .ms3d, .x and .md2 are supporting animations...

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:44 pm

Thank you but, do you know how can I convert the 3ds model WITH the animation to one of those formats?

Acki · Post by **Acki** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 9:30 pm

well, as mentioned before the only way is to use an exporter...
I often saw threads about the Panda exporter wich seems to be very common...
http://www.andytather.co.uk/Panda/directxmax.aspx
for the use of it search the forums...

oh, and one importand thing is to use bone animations, I think !!!

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 10:03 pm

Ok thanks. I'll try it tomorrow and report

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:00 pm

The other .x exporter you gave me created about 800k file and this one 4mb file although I still cant see animation. Now there was something I thought about, is it possible that the new animation system would fix most of those problems, you think?

PS: I think I'll just make my own models with my own animation in blender, this way I'll know I wont have any format problems..

Now all I have to do is learn Blender

arras · Post by **arras** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:10 pm

Well I dont want to disappoint you but there are problems with exporting from Blender. Look through forums before you skip to Blender, there are more than few posts about this kind of problems ...may help you if you realy start with Blender. Good luck.

GnarlyHotep · Post by **GnarlyHotep** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 6:59 pm

MasterGod wrote:The thing is that I have an importer for NWN .mdl format for 3ds Max.

Is this NWN model the typical type where the model is a bunch of separate meshes? The NWN model uses transforms on the nodes to create animation. Those aren't bone animations, as I understand, which means I don't think you can use those animations in Irrlicht as things currently stand.

I'd like to use NWN models as well, since I've written code to import and animate them in the engine I was developing, and it's an easy format for me to test with.

MasterGod · Post by **MasterGod** » Thu Aug 30, 2007 9:00 pm

GnarlyHotep wrote:Those aren't bone animations

This is probably the reason.

GnarlyHotep wrote:I've written code to import and animate them in the engine I was developing

Anything I could maybe use?