3D studio max and flash....

[gingerhippy69]

Does anyone know what the best plugin 3ds max is?

[kirupa]

Hey gingerhippy,
I'm not all too familiar with 3D Studio Max, so I really do not know what the best plug-in would be.

Cheers,
Kirupa

[iCu MeHoo]

plugin for.... exporting? umm there aren't many.. you lose completel control of textures, and they become comical flat shades. its pretty lame. i woudl reccommend exporting everything as .png's with alpha channel on.. then using fireworks to chop file sizes. your animation will still be rather large but with this done you will have a kewl site. my site i am building is all 3d and textured.. its around 800k so far.. but there will be an option for 56k-er's.. to go to a lame site. i really don't know why people don't get cable or DSL IF ITS AVAILABLE in their area.. so i don't pity most of them. unless ur parents suk arse. =] i am on my own.. and i telemarket and manage to afford an apartment and cable modem so i don't care if they can't download it. on that note.. kirupa.. do you have ANY idea if u can let the user downlaod a zipped up version of the site and have it auto-extract hidden so basically they downlaod a smaller file.. OR have them download the file once and have that file have all teh graphics, and stuff liek that.. and when they open the site.. it opens THAT file off THEIR computer and just updates what's needed.. so tis pretty much a one time deal.. IMO that would rok.. but i doubt its that advanced now.

[ryendis898]

where can i get a copy of 3d smax? is it free?

[gingerhippy69]

ryendis898....

It's not free...it costs a fortune...I think they used it in parts of FF movie...so it's industry standard...

why can i afford it?....

i can't...i use it at my old college...they let me in sometimes

i heard there is a way to export your 3D animations straight to flash...via plugin....

Cheers...Ben...

[kirupa]

I was browsing Swift 3d's site, and there is a Swift 3D Plug-in for studio max that can publish in the SWF format. The URL is: www.erain.com/ (http://www.erain.com/) (because it is Flash and framed I was unable to get the exact URL. Nor did I get the IE Dev Accessories to open the frame page in a new window!!)

Mehoo, your idea is quite good. You could provide a ZIP file to download to your hard drive and then allow the user to extract the files. I'm sure it is possible to do this automatically as well, but there are various security issues that exist with having a site download, extract, and execute files.

I'm pretty sure that ActiveX could handle it, but the programming needed is not worth it for a Web site...

[iCu MeHoo]

i asked a pro i know.. he said the flash site in a zip idea WOUDL work except every time u updated it. he didn't know how to update the site.. and how would a forum work? i dunno.. i lettin him flash from now on.. honestly i think flash is WAY too hard for what u get out of it. i taught myself max in 2 years all by myself.. and its complex and 3d.. flash is usually low res, flat colors.. i don't get it =] ah well.. i am a derbauer guy myself =] and swift3d is kewl but it only exports as flat shaded objects. which still looks ok if you use alot of different objects with many colors. a mace was used in teh flash bible when they did the tutorial.. and he made the handle, and metal and pommel different colors and when animated it looked kool. but if you have one color for an object it looks fake and lame. ah well =] i am currently looking into plugins like cult3d.. they seem to be real nice.. and if integrated into a flash environment i think it woudl be cool. THE ONLY FLASH I WANT TO DO IS REALISTIC. i tried vrml straight through max.. which u could try too.. but its so hard and noone uses it. all in all.. flash.. the basics, was easy to learn.. but it seems too complicated to do anything special. 3dstudio max has maxscript but it sucks and is hard to use BUT YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE IT. =] i wish flash had buttons for everything. =] maybe i just suck. anyone want to do a 3d site liek derbauer? give me a holler.. i amek top notch stuff.. and i am very quick at modeling. cya guys. hope i helped with my two cents.. i am kinda bored so i talked alot. sorry.

[upuaut8]

Often you can pick up cheap legal copies from Ebay.

The best plugin is subjective. It depends upon what you're doing. I like Illustrate5, which turns the 3d renderings into cartoon like cells, using a variety of styles.

[iCu MeHoo]

bah.. cartoony looks sux fer me.. i love teh high quality animation.. i guess until flash werks good with a compression program i don't know what to do.

[upuaut8]

Flash is a VECTOR based program, it has nothing whatsoever to do with high quality streaming images. If you want that, use 3dsMax by itself.

[iCu MeHoo]

and get those images to the web how? VRML? it sux. teh only way nowadays is flash. unless u guys know another way to have animations play that are made in max when a flash button is pressed.. etc.. i haven't found any.

[Vts31]

I have seen great things with Vecta 3d, but ive never used it myself. I would look into it.

[upuaut8]

There are a couple options.. sorry if I sounded snooty in that last post. I'm shying off cigarettes these days and it does nothing for my personality.

All I meant was that I personaly don't bother with those high quality images over the web very much at all. I do fiddle with some 3d programs, but in the end I never found a great way of delivering large animations on the web using that quality. I've resigned myself to using flash to produce the best imagry that I can using the smallest file size, which can be done very easily using "cartoony" animation.

I just put them up in Zipped avi's or mpeg's.

Sorry I can't be more helpful than that, and sorry again for snapping at you. It was not intentional.

[iCu MeHoo]

apology accepted.. takes a big person to apologize especially in public.. u have alot of my respect bro.. plsu u know a hell of a lot more than i do about flash so.. heh =] naw fo real.. vecta 3d? hmm.. whats that? i THINK i heard of it.. dunno.. i tried out all those **** 3d plugins.. tehy all suk *** if u ask me.. but i am still workin on them.. tryin to get cerrtain things to work in certian situations.. i dunno.. i let ya guys know if i come up with anything.. so far .png images are werkin.. i use fireworks to chop the hell outta teh file size..

[dimovdesign]

heya guys!

such 3d-stuff looks extremely cool, but spending a few thousand bucks for 3dsmax (vecta3d is not that expensive, i think), which also means a huge amount of learning (and i'm lazy as hell by the way ;) ) for a few effect from time to time, is just not worth the effort imo.

[upuaut8]

:)

[iCu MeHoo]

well when ur poor like me.. you find ways to get what u need if yyou want it bad enough.. if the look is all you are interrested in.. i can hook you up for free. ... legally.. go to www.rhino3d.com and download that.. then on tehir site they have links for rendering programs.. use that.. get good and then move on to more. tahts where i started and nwo i am on maya and max.. and some lightwave.. and softimage.. they are all kewl.. max is user friendly.. and easy as hell. i taught all of it to myself in two years plus goin to high school every day and wasting those hours =[ start there.. and move on.. that the tool.

[fredechelard]

Hi
I'm looking desperately to get the swift plugin for 3dsmax.
do you know if someone still has the demo version ?

thanks.

fred

www.astrosurf.com/enlair

[upuaut8]

There are some posts at the top of the Swift3d forum, which detail our possition on this type of question, there is also a link to a german web site, which does not look like a warez site, but which may contain the swift3d, smax3d plugin.

[iforge]

hei iCu MeHoo (if the date of the mesage is weong :))) I want swift3d max 2 ... I have a demo version... I want a working one :)

[Michael Chen]

Why don't you try "Plasma" it's one of the products from Discreet (the company that also created 3DS Max). It's main use is to create vector images for flash.

I think you can also download try version for both 3DS Max and Plasma. At the discreet website. Hope that helps :)

p.s. Hope I didn't repeat anything that was said before.