Modeling Format Request

#1 I hear ya! The only thing I can think is that ...
a) the versions of max people are using is a copy - an "evaluation" copy
b) they are using an academic version
c) someone else bought it for them

I propose to make my models in Blender from now on, but I'll have a look at MS3D too. I'll also provide extensive docs on how to do it like I did with the Skeleton Pack so you don't have to know how to use the package to access the source files.

#2 @Andy

Could it be possible that they actually bought the copy themselves? I didn't see that on the list.


For me I would rather see a neutral format available than can be imported into any package. But from what I have seen, importing into another package means you will loose something and end up having to fix. And for someone creating a content pack usually means more work. Perhaps Collada will be a good format in the future as soon as all of the packages get good working import/export plugins working for them.

#3 Blender 3D is totally free and is better than milkshape in my opinion. Not to mention thanks to the guys here in the community we have a pretty decent exporter for it. Can't ask for much my than that imo ;)!

#4 He's probably referring to the artists making the packs. I have no doubt that many of them probably bought the software for themselves as many of them appear to be studios with revenue elsewhere (or probably even enough from selling packs here).

I think the generalization that he's making is rather towards indies here that buy and use the packs. It would be pretty reasonable to believe a starting indie developer wouldn't have the full version starting out - at least not starting from scratch, coming from the industry being one of many exceptions.

It did kind of perplex me why so much indie art is done with max nowadays. I can understand maya pre-merger because they had a cheaper version available, or gmax even before it got zapped. Even though people can probably afford 3dstudio at some point, for some reason or another most of us have made the decision to stick with more affordable tools (Torque, Milkshape/Blender, Gimp, etc). I know there have been arguments about needing to spend the money for the right tools if you're serious, but considering where we are, I think most of us have considered the right tools to not require a significant investment at this point (ex: why should we spend that much money on the art development tool and not the engine or the code development tools - Visual Studio Express and XCode work pretty good).

I wish there was some format that all of us could use, but as it has been pointed out, there's limits to each format and converting them. i will say, though, if it was MS3d or Blender, or some other inexpensive format, then at least it would be a cheap entry point to the rest of us to switch to that particular tool, as opposed to Maya or Max. COLLADA sounds good for this as Maya and 3DSMax work with it.

I'm not an artist, though, so I can't say with very much knowledge on which format would be better. However, I think I may represent part of the problem, as many indie developers/hobbyists may be one or small teams without a dedicated artist with dedicated high end artist tools :-) If I was, or did have dedicated artists, I just wouldn't buy your packs - since I'd have someone making their own in the first place.. makes sense?

#5 One more thing. I wish these forums would redirect you to the place you were when you decided to log in. Reading a blog and realizing you're not logged in means either copying the link and re-pasting it after you log in (backpage seems to log you back out) or finding the place you were at before. I can easily just click on the account link if I want to see my account, I'd rather have the login competion return me to the page I was at automatically. Sorry, that happened again on this blog..

#6 There's a lot of good, generic modeling formats out there. DTS just isn't one of them! =) I named Milkshape simply because the program has an excellent DTS exporter, and is a program heavily used for file conversion already. There's a lot more people who use Milkshape to convert than to actually model in the software.

Collada would work, as would Blender. There's a number of options. MAX just isn't a useful source format for most people.

#7 @Kevin K: the login page redirects you to the page you logged in from, when you click on the link at the bottom of the page. I had the exact same thought when I read your post, as it has happened frequently to me too. I usually use the link provided in the banner on top, and that redirects to your personal page.

@Kevin M: As much as I love Blender (I'll be going to the Blender Conference in Amsterdam in a few weeks), I have to admit that in this case, it isn't really the best solution. Instead of forcing people to use 3D Studio Max in their pipeline, you force them to use Blender in their pipeline. I can remember many posts on these forums that detailed what utter crap the Blender interface is according to some people.
Collada is a good alternative, as you have a format that is application-neutral and widely seen as the standard in the industry. OBJ might also be such a format. However, OBJ (and maybe Collada, I don't know for sure) does not support the more advanced things like skeletons and animation. So there is a choice to be made.

#8 3dsmax exporter is an official one, 3dsmax is widely used by professionals, it's been around for long enough to become a good and preferred application. I personally can't stand the trickster.

DTS is not a modeling format, it's more than that; more than a simple object with texture information - it has it's own hierarchy and instructions (nodes) to be read by a specific application (engine)

If someone is looking to buy content packs for the source of the content primarily (rather than for the content offered) should look elsewhere: there are tons of websites with models sold primarily in mainstream modeling formats, including some of those low-budget or open source. People getting trough the trouble of setting up an object for a (torque) engine and usually selling it at a fraction of the price of something similar on fore-mentioned websites will find unfair to see that their content primary goal is bypassed. I understand the need to customize an object for your own project but that can be done via textures or adding more animations maybe.

Low-budget / open source sounds fun but is not productive. That's why they are low-budget and open source. The reason why some of these are popular are due to the price tag not usability, features or productivity at all. So my personal support for that segment is close to zero.

Sounds unfair a bit but when you think about it the real question is: can I use your time, your license / money to trick the process a bit and bypass some effort / expenses myself so I can make money easier.

On another note you don't really need high end software or dedicated hordes of artists to make games. Games are what the word says - games - not some paintings you ought to look at; Make games fun is possible without much money. Make money out of games requires you to actually put some money into it first: research, development, marketing and sales.

#9 @David
awesome on the login. Thanks for the info. I, by habit, would usually hit the Login link at the top of the page, near the banner because that's the one I use when I am logging in while reading the forums and news.

Thanks, I'll use the bottom one now when I'm replying to something.

:-)

Apparatus, yeah I understand what you're saying. I'm not a modeler so what I could do with it is pretty limited in the first place. Perhaps some people may need to make a tweak because their default pose is different (TMMOKIT perhaps) or they want to and know how to add a single animation, but aren't professionals.

I don't think any of this was an attack against the people that sell kits here in those formats because it's great to see stuff in the store. I think it's more of a 'you may sell more if you sell it this way'. Nobody's going to boycot or anything from what I'm reading, it's just some advice in the line of -it's really neat, I'd love to buy your stuff, but I think I'm going to buy this thing instead because I can mod it a bit'.

The market will work itself out. If not very many people are buying MAX models and this market is just an offshoot of the modelers real, intended market (this being an extra outlet) then I'm sure he or she will continue to put stuff up for sale here because it's no extra effort.

If someone is making and selling MAX models just to indies and sales aren't so good, that person can either pack up shop or try some other format. Someone else may come along and see there's a bigger market for non-professional models and take the market from them.

For example, I believe the people at Frogames (frogames.net) modeled their CS:Warriors and Commoners in MAX and provide the source in Milkshape's format as well. I dunno whether they've sold more that way or not, but I imagine once they have a full collection of men and women they would get at least some ttraffic from Torque owners as well as other indies because they went that extra mile. For most people here, nothing is probably going to change to allow everyone to either get ahold of 3DS MAX or the money to buy high-end professional models, so it's not really a choice of A or B. It's really only B, no matter the reason behind A (quality, selling models on the side of contracts, etc) and maybe there's a market for B by indie artists that use less than "professional" tools.

All of the packs sold on the MMOWORKSHOP site from Prairie Games are delivered in Milkshape format as well, though I dunno what WIT originally developed them with (I believe it was WIT that developed them for Minions of Mirth?). Btw, Minions of Mirth was low-budget and open-source(from the beginning I dunno) and it turned out pretty good during its heyday (GarageGames bragged about it as well I believe), even though he came from industry experience.

EDIT: Edited for some spelling and emphasis that I didn't catch.

#10 Not to introduce another commercial tool to the mix... :) but I REALLY like Silo3D, from NeverCenter as a modeler. Clean, smooth, capable, and affordable.

Having the geometry in a transport format works for me. As aweful as 3DS is - it usually works.

#11 $50 Solution:

Purchase Ultimate Unwrap 3D for under $50. It imports DTS and exports to Milkshape (among many many other file formats).

#12 I *definitely* was not calling for anything like a boycott! =) I think the artwork we've been seeing lately is great, and love seeing it.

My suggestion was simply that DTS packs gain significant added value by having an indie-usable source format. Most people don't want to use "the same art as everyone else" - and even slight mods to art will let you give it a new feel. Sometimes you can do this with textures. Sometimes, you need to access the model. Adding new animations is a GREAT example - you really need the source model for that, and many games will need new animations.

Is this asking someone to put out more effort to help our games? Perhaps. But then again, they're also selling a Product. We are potential Buyers of the Product. And right now, there are a few packs that I might purchase if they had usable source formats, but that I will not be buying because they have MAX as the only source.

Again, although that is a professional standard, that is not a legally usable source format for 99% of indies. ;)

How many other people are in the same boat as me? Potential buyers who hold off because there is no usable source format? My guess is, many. Those are dollars which go instead to other artists, who make other packs which have more source format variety. I have no way of knowing if the extra work involved in another format would equate to enough extra sales to make it worthwhile; I suspect that it would, however.

#13 I can vouch for the Ultimate Unwrap 3D suggestion, and I've used it successfully to bring in the Ava pack from DTS, and then export to a variety of output formats. This includes animations as well.

#14 I don't defend my stuff here (my EULA is very open) but some content pack creators may not allow reverse engineering their (DTS format offered) work. Check the respective agreements before doing so. The reason why some authors may not allow backwards pipeline (fetching up the source from a DTS model) is outlined in my previous post.

#15 @Kevin

1) Like or or hate it, 3DS Max is probably the most popular modeling application used here in this community, and especially by the talented commercial artists who are capable of providing quality content that is being sold as content packs. As such you are just going to have to live with the fact that most of the native content pack source comes from it. MS3D is like #7 on the list of what commercial artists use here (even lower in what we call the 'real world') in this community, so you'll just have to live with the fact that its not going to have native model data in content packs usually.

2) Since you have never put the effort in to make or support a content pack I will give you a pass at how absolutely nieve you are to think that exporting model data to be used in other applications is easy. It is not. 3D model data is rarely read in and parsed the same way that it came from the original source data, because of this it takes a lot of time by good content pack developers that provide multiple model source data to ensure that the data exported works and will generate a valid DTS file (something RRGTS should look at considering before they release another content pack). Either way this costs time which translates out into money, so for some people its just not financially feasible for the price that these content packs sell.

#16 @Logan Foster:

1. Obviously, Max is very popular among the artists that have been producing model content packs. I agree with that small part of your point. However, I think the real point of the OP is that exporting to ANY standard format (such as the Autodesk-recommended FBX interchange format) really does take very little time, and gives end users a lot more options than just coughing up several thousand dollars for a Max license. Here's a link to the Max page referencing their (free) FBX plugin: usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=8108755#connectivity. The content pack creators don't have to spend hours and hours on this.

2. It's not nice throwing words like "nieve" (sic.) around in a forum such as this. It's fine to disagree with someone, but calling names rarely helps anything. Stick to assessing the facts of the matter, rather than publicly posting your opinions of someone else's personal merits.

3. And, for the record, Kevin McLaughlin is a smart guy who has been around this community for quite a long time. He's earned my respect many times over. I feel his original point was quite valid, and I agree.


@Apparatus:

If the content pack creator didn't want end users to be able to modify their models then why would they have provided MAX files at all? This isn't an argument about whether or not end users should be modifying purchased models, it's merely an argument about the output format(s) provided when such modifications are allowed. I agree with the OP in saying that if a content pack provider is going to provide any sources at all, then it would greatly increase their product's value if they would also provide an export or two to "standard interchange formats", again, such as FBX, COLLADA, .X, etc.

#17 @Arcanor

While formats like Filmbox (FBX), Collada (DAE), OBJ and 3DS are pretty common interchange formats they still all have a lot of problems with properly translating and preserving data either do to limitations of the format itself, bugs and/or the fact that the format is just so new it doesn't have the kinks out of it. Nevermind the fact that you actually have to rely your own application reading and translates this data back into your modelling application correctly (which is a whole other bag of issues on its own).

As someone who is an experianced industry vetern trust me when I say it is not an easy job. Every time you export the data out you have to check it to ensure its valid, reglardless if its a DTS, FBX, MB, DAE, OBJ, 3DS, LWO, MS3D or whatever other format you are dumping it out to. You need to check the validity of your data and this takes time. Which was the main point of my post.

Lastly I am sorry that you took offense to me stating that it was nieve of someone to expect that exporting valid model data is easy. I have gone through these paces more than probably most people here in the community have, so what I am stating isn't me just spouting off some opinion, its shere fact. Exporting data is difficult and time consuming if you want to do it properly and it's nieve to think otherwise.

#18 Logan is pretty much spot on, on export issues. Formats like FBX are on the right track, but they still aren't entirely reliable for moving from one app to another (heck, just the same app can have weird results on occasion). If I were to release a content pack, I probably would consider including fbx versions, but there would have to be a big disclaimer about it not being guaranteed to work, as there's just too many variables possible there. Which of course, would just add to the support load required for the pack.

As far as porting things from one app's native format to another's, its extremely time consuming to get everything over exactly, particularly if you're trying to ensure an export from one app results in the same dts/dsq files as an export from another. I suspect the time investment would be better off just making another pack in most times, even if it means a potential hit in sales.

#19 I'm not saying the artist needs to spend their valuable time ensuring a bullet-proof art pipeline for all possible inexperienced end users who want to bring their models into milkshape, blender, fragmotion, etc. I'm just saying they could easily make a small effort that is very likely to help lots of people, and then just leave it to the user to work out the kinks on their end. At the indie prices that these content packs are going for, you're absolutely right that it doesn't merit a lot of effort to ensure absolute compatibility with every possible indie modeling application. But does that mean that zero effort is appropriate?

The content pack producer has four levels of choices:

1. DTS only - no modifications allowed. Obviously the artist does have this option, but it has a trade-off in terms of usefulness to the end user. This approach will probably result in decreased sales as some end users may be reluctant to purchase assets that are immutable.

2. DTS + original source format - This means you have to own the same modeling program, or you're effectively just as restricted as in #1. This is friendlier than #1, but not by much, and it implicitly requires many end users to change their art pipeline. In this particular case, that means a change to a pretty expensive one that doesn't match with the rest of what's going on in this community, including the price of content packs, add-ons and the engine itself, all of which are relatively inexpensive.

3. DTS + original source format + a couple of "standard interchange" formats - This is a really friendly way to go, and allows your end users significant flexibility in their own art pipelines. Don't spend a lot of time or effort to debug it all, because that wouldn't be a worthwhile investment of time that could instead be spent developing a new different content pack. Depend on the end user to resolve any issues that come up with their particular pipeline. Adopting this approach will very likely have a positive effect on pack sales.

4. provide support for flawless exports and corresponding imports into MS3D, .blend, etc. - While this may be the indie end user's dream, we can't really expect this to happen, since it really WOULD take a lot of effort to provide this sort of level of service. But who knows? Maybe some artist out there would be willing to produce content packs with support for such a mainstream indie format. This would be a very high level of service, and would almost certainly significantly increase sales, and even command a higher pricetag in this market.

Bottom line is that as new content packs are made available, every content developer has to make a choice as to which one of these approaches they will take in support of format interchange. But meanwhile, potential buyers will be judging the work both on its artistic merits and also on its compatibility with their particular art pipeline. Providing better support for format interchange is a great way to provide additional value to your customers.

This whole thread is just a reminder to content pack producers of what the typical indie end user really wants to see in a content pack that they're considering buying. If I were creating art content packs, I'd appreciate this sort of feedback, as it would help me to find ways to provide better value to the consumer.

#20 The actual spelling of the word is "naive".

I'm only an amateur. My art production is something that I "dabble" in, if only to round out my skills. I've used a friend's copy of Studio Max and exported many, many static models into other formats. All relatively painlessly and simple as could be. The only issues I ran into were from models that contained animation data. Also, in turn, I've exported models from other programs into other formats without any major issues, other than animations.

But I'm only an amateur, and I'm probably missing something that a "pro" would notice, but the argument presented above, to me, has little merit for most objects.

And after spending time messing around with these various formats and "tweaking" previously made objects I actually found that creating your own unique models from scratch is a more rewarding experience than modifying someone else's who had a visual concept/design that differs from your own. My interest in being able to use source art (ie. being able to open it up in something other than Studio Max) was for learning purposes. After learning how various objects, and even some animated ones, were set up, they were no longer needed.

Just because an application is an industry "standard" does not make it superior to any other. It's all in your own unique talents and with what you're comfortable with using. Even Max has it's quirks and disadvantages, as does Maya, or Lightwave. Personally I'm quite happy with Blender, regardless of price.