Required preparation for exporting animations to .3ds from max?

MainManiac

Due to lack of documentation we cannot support .fbx, so .3ds was the next best option.

I created a test animation but when I export it to .3ds from max and re imported it to check it the biped is scaled up as huge cubes and the movement is minor (but it is the right movements)

My hierarchy on export is

[] Skin
[] Physique
[] Editable Poly

and the simple arm movement animation plays fine, and then I export. Exporting as fbx and reimporting it runs perfectly, but .3ds sadly is not.



I know nothing about animation (aside from rigging to the biped and basic keyframing), and im only trying to do this to help my programmer.


So im asking if anyone can help me with actually getting the exported animation to work, or please suggest any simpler animation formats we could use .

monster

3DS is never the best option. It doesn't support multiple uv verts per mesh vert. It doesn't support Skin or Physique.

What is your pipline? It sounds like you are exporting from 3D Max to 3D Max?
Also why are you using Skin and Physique? They both do the same thing.

----
I see you are only importing into Max to check your work. Yeah, 3DS doesn't support biped either.

You may look into the DAE format. It uses the FBX exporter, but it supports much less features so it's a little easier to work with.

MainManiac

As I've said, I know nothing about animation other than making very basic movements :S. I though skin was needed to export animation data. Our pipeline is going from 3ds max -> proprietary engine, but I had re-imported the exported file to see if it worked or not, which it didnt.

Would you suggest any other formats?

monster

We cross posted while I edited, so I'll just paste it again.

You may look into the (Collada) DAE format. It uses the FBX exporter, but it supports much less features so it's a little easier to work with.

r_fletch_r

why are you using both Skin and physique?

MainManiac

I though skin was required for export or something =\, I removed physique and put on skin before exporting


looking into collada now, finding resources on animation formats seems to be very tricky