I was on a wonderful Japanese 3D model site which had wonderful house props. After downloading and un-zipping them - they are in a format I which am not familiar. The file extension is .m3d. Can anyone in the forum tell me what program produces this file and if there is a conversion programs or utility to obj or 3ds? Thanks in advance

Attached Link: http://www.righthemisphere.com

Hmmm...and could you share the link? Diane

No... If this is furniture and Japanese, the extension belongs to a Japanese-only home-designing program called "Megasoft 3D Home Designer". The files that I downloaded had a link to this web site: http://www.megasoft.co.jp/3d/index.html So, unless this program is using Quake 3 model format for home designing (very doubtful), it's just another confusing use of extension. Deep Exploration does not have a conversion for this format.

I believe your right kuroyume the odd file extension would not open in Lithwrap which has Quake m3d conversion. So it must be long to Megasoft 3D. Its too bad they are great looking props - about 40 in all. Thanks as always

Oh sorry Diane if you still want the url here it is: http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA003745/parts/index.html

I had considered purchasing the software just to get other models and possibly export all of them. But, it is rather expensive and only in Japanese (AFAICT). That would require a Japanese version of Windows assuredly. I feel your pain, macmullin, as I too have all of these models sitting on a hard drive, currently unusable. If I find the time, will try to take a look inside and see what type of formatting the file has: binary/text, proprietary/common exchange. One never knows, it may be easier to extract the models than expected! ;)

That would be very cool. Because there is soom great stuff out there that would be nice to use.

Just for the record, Quake 3 models have an .md3 extension, not .m3d.

I could ask some of my fellow MilkShape users about the possibility of developing an .m3d import/export plugin, but I doubt it would arouse much interest.

a note about foreigners using japanese windows program: at least ONE GOOD THING in windows XP (needed to look for long) is the unicode feature ! a friend of mine use many japanese softwares( he spend some study time there, and is mostly in japanese culture and stuffs), and so far, since he moved to XP he was glad of no longer using things such as njwin and so.. from what he said, it works now well in xp

This may be a good thing, but I haven't tried it yet. Usually, you need a Japanese version of Windows to run Japanese-only software and not just the unicode/IME feature, as great as it is. In this case it'd be somewhat expensive to find out. Wish the yen would drop a lot more! :) As for the .m3d file itself, it appears to be binary and there is not much discernible information. Seems obvious to me that there is a header and lots of possibly floating point data, but without a format description, it'd be nearly impossible to extract the data knowingly.

Sorry for my .m3d models. Yes, they are "3D My Home Designer" data, with original format. I will recreate these models someday. You can find my another models(Poser, OBJ, 3DS) at http://homepage1.nifty.com/hakka/edo/ Hatsumi

Hatsumi, Which version of the software would be useful for exporting these out as something useful? I see that there is a regular version (~$100) and a Pro version (~$500), but my Japanese (esp. kanji reading) isn't that good yet. :) Thank you very much for stopping by and verifying. I am very interested in anything Japanese including 3D models. My current project involves several tachikake, katanakake, and a surprise nihontou - the surprise will have to wait until production is far enough along to warrant teasers! ;P If you have any information about the .m3d file format, pass it along. I know that this is a long shot. Kuroyume

Kuroyume, Unfortunately there is no way to export .m3d object to other format model, I think. That's why I don't use "My Home Designer" no longer. .m3d model uses own primitives(cube, sweep, lasso, etc.). It includes thumbnail bitmap image,too. Pro version can export .dxf format, but it is "2D" floor plan only! Maybe I can analyze .m3d format, but it seems easier remake from scratch about my models. I love your models. They are very detailed. I saw your "gyoshobako" at RMP, too. Nice modeling, beautiful texture!