Topic: Are the 3DS Max Student Editions any good for making levels?

[Shroudeye]

*Puffs the 10 day dust away on the thread* Been a little away from the community... Hello again, fellows!

CrazyEnzo03, the student version of 3DsMAX is FULL 3DsMax WITHOUT any cuts, only with 3-year license. It is fully enough to make almost everything for Descent 3-Rooms, Objects... anything. Also, the backwards compatibility issues are no problem, the latest D3Edit works well with 2012 3DS format. In fact, I'm building my latest level in Max 2012, Student version.

In fact, the only limit you have to mind is the "poly" count-3000 Triangles per import. You can import mesh or polymodels, but they will be converted into mesh when imported (All faces will be triangulated). You can combine the faces afterwards, though.

Hope this helps!

[(LL)Atan]

Also, the backwards compatibility issues are no problem, the latest D3Edit works well with 2012 3DS format.

Good to know, thx for that info!

[Shroudeye]

Thank you too, Atan, for providing the tools!

By the way, if you are thinking about improving the converter, I got some feedback for you. As I said, my model's faces become triangular when importing them into D3Edit. It's not a vital issue, but working around it can improve things more:

1-Counting polygons instead of faces gives you more polygons to construct your model, which in turn reflects into detail and/or size.
2-Also, you can save time, effort (And pain in the eyes and fingers..) for re-joining the polygons together.

Thanks!

[(LL)Atan]

Reason for using trifaces was, that I found values for
  TRIVERT = 0x4110,
  TRIFACE = 0x4120, inside the 3ds struct only and I found no way to import other polygons than this ones in the moment.
On the other hand these faces (polygons) must be planar and Trifaces are planar always, I believe that was the idea behind.

The only workaround I see for now, is to implement a function inside D3Edit to 'auto-combine' faces so you don't need such much 'hand-work'.
Long ago I started to insert such a function but it wasn't working good enough because it sometimes killed small parts out of your orf/oof. But these parts are sometimes needed to produce details by texturing.
Here we would need a way to exclude some faces from beeing combined then.

If time (less inthe moment) I will have a look to make your work a little easier, but it's just an -workaround- idea for now.

One question, your polygons become not 'tri-faces' while exporting into 3ds format?
Reason for this questions is, that the importer will process trifaces only, it will not make your polygons to tri-faces itself.

[Shroudeye]

One question, your polygons become not 'tri-faces' while exporting into 3ds format? Reason for this questions is, that the importer will process trifaces only, it will not make your polygons to tri-faces itself.

Humm. I've tested it now... well, it looks like exporting a max object into 3DS *IS* actually converting the object into a mesh. And meshes are, ummm... made of tri-faces.

[(LL)Atan]

@Shroudeye

could you mail or offer me one or two of your -build for Descent3- 3ds files?
I would need a low- and a highpoly one for my tests.
Up to now Auto-Comb looks not so bad but I would need some reference besides my few 3ds files.
Auto-Comb needs some time, but anyways.., it will possible save your fingers and mouse