I'm thinking of purchasing this product (from the renderosity marketplace here): http://market.renderosity.com/mod/bcs/index.php?ViewProduct=27688 It was made in 3dsMaX, but it is in .3DS format. Would I be able to load it in Carrara 5 Pro? And will it load correctly with all the textures, transparencies, refelctions and everything? Thanks.

If it's in .3ds format it should be ok. Usually there needs to be some minor adjustment to .3ds files I've used. Sometimes transparency or bump values are inverted. It's all fixable but it does take some hands-on work. There is also one other thing to keep in mind: sometimes when MAX authors export to other formats, they don't "re-set" value X from their transformation options. While that doesn't make a difference to many programs, when imported into Carrara, Vue and some others, the object will "explode" with parts spread out and inverted. This is very fixable, just contact the author and tell them your requirements. No computer programs are fail safe when exporting to other formats. In fact some of the big name programs can't re-import objects without errors that they've created themselves, but saved as something else. Ain't technology grand!! :)

I'll add this...if your export of .3ds is using Max procedurals for textures, they won't come thru in good shape if at all. Native program procedurals do not transfer well, if at all between ANY 3d apps. There is no standard in procedural mathematics....yet.

Message edited on: 03/04/2006 18:25

"Native program procedurals do not transfer well, if at all between ANY 3d apps." So dlk30341, if i want to export a carrara object with procedural shader so someone else with only poser can use it, would the plugin baker fix the problem? love esther

You have to get it to be an image. Baker can give more control over the channels as image maps.I am pretty sure it won't cover all the channels tho. I think getting it all to look the same could be difficult. I have only done this with a few things, but they may not render the same also due to the way a program renders or handles lighting etc.I recommended to Julien that Baker should be accessible from the shader room rather than just in the assembly room.He might add that later which would be nice.If I get a chance estherau I can play and see what Baker produces I have only used it a bit.It does the main channels for texture, light map and normal map. The newer channels are not there for texture, as you can see. They may come later.

I would see what happens in an export and convert the textures then import into the app and see how it looks.The textures get out just may not look the same.This is true of any texturing.

I only got color and highlight map. Carrara doesn't appear to export all the maps. Baker may be the only option there.