Hey Gang, what program do you all suggest for fiddling with OBJ files? I settled down to create my first one, only to learn 3DS max 5 doesn't appear to support them. thanks

Hey mem, Um, I don't know exactly what you mean by "fiddle." Wavefront object (.obj) files are widely used by CG programs. I am surprized that 3DS max 5 does not support them. Are you certain about that? You might want to start with the Specification for an ,obj file. You can find it HERE. Look on page 2. Object (.obj) files are text files that you can look at and modify using a plain old text editor. There are many free modeling programs that will give you the ability to "play" with an object. Check out Anim8tor. Good luck with your "journey." cheers, dr geep ;=]

Solid! thanks Doc i'll go check it out. And yes, i was surprised that 3ds max didn't support it either... however that program is so complex i probably overlooked something. thanks again mem5000

Search the "Help" index and look for "object." Just a thought. ;=]

It is a very common format. If it doesn't open and save them from the File > Open and File > Save As menus, it probably has an Import and Export function that does support them. I don't have 3DS, but see if you can find an Import and Export command, perhaps in the File menu.

Oh, and it might call it "Wavefront" format instead of ".obj".

Wings3D is remarkably popular and free.

3DS max supports OBJ files. You need to get a plugin for it though. Go here: http://www.cadalyst.net/extras/plugins/Import.html You'll probably want the "Max to OBJ" and the "OBJ to Max" plugins. Also, there is some wierdness with textures and grouping from Poser to Max...be sure to checkout the 3DS forums for solutions to those...I believe you'll need the "Grouper" utility...may still be here in freestuff.

Hey, thanks EvoShandor! i was really bummed out about 3ds max not being able to do OBJs... i've spent the last month reading books on it trying to figure it out... just so i could make armor and stuff for poser... i'll go download it right away thanks

Bingo!

The (Rendero) Sity rocks !!!

;=]

It's not true that max doesn't support Obj. It just isn't max's native impex format. Max uses 3ds for impex, as obj is a bit large and klunky. But you can get the Habware plug-ins for max which will do everything you need (link above). Make SURE you get the right plug-in for your version of max or you'll crash it!! If you want to 'fiddle' with obj, you would do it in a text editor like notepad. But to be quite honest, there's not much to fiddle with. An obj file is just a huge long list of coordinates in uv space. You can (if you have the patience) write your own 3d cube in notepad, but anything more complicated than a cube would probably drive you insane. Anim8or (free) is an excellent app for modifying obj files in. I use max myself, but make all my morphs in anim8or. Also uv mapper (free) is good for mapping and correcting small defects in obj files. http://www.anim8or.com http://uvmapper.com mac

Attached Link: http://www.habware.at/duck3.htm

pS: Side note........ in geeps image above you "squish" morph target objs for distribution by deleteing everything but the "v" lines with a har carridge return at the bottom.

and watch out for relative vertex references like in "Sara", habware plugins for 3ds max can produce relative references (I think), avoid using them .. they crash most known poser programs.

just checked and yes it does .... # Max2Obj Version 4.0 Mar 10th, 2001 # # object Box01 to come ... # v -12.531694412231 0.000000000000 2.798677444458 v 15.866201400757 0.000000000000 2.798677444458 v -12.531694412231 0.000000000000 -30.539850234985 v 15.866201400757 0.000000000000 -30.539850234985 v -12.531694412231 19.301168441772 2.798677444458 v 15.866201400757 19.301168441772 2.798677444458 v -12.531694412231 19.301168441772 -30.539850234985 v 15.866201400757 19.301168441772 -30.539850234985 # 8 vertices g Box01 s 2 f -5 -7 -8 -6 s 4 f -1 -2 -4 -3 s 8 f -3 -4 -8 -7 s 16 f -1 -3 -7 -5 s 32 f -2 -1 -5 -6 s 64 f -4 -2 -6 -8 # 6 faces g most programs dont like the -ve face indexes.

Yeah well, I wasn't going to mention it, but I gave up on exporting obj from max. I had so many horrible problems with it, it wasn't funny. So I went back to exporting as 3ds, and importing them to poser. Much cleaner (once you figure out how to get the scaling right). mac

maybe the best option for original geometry mac, but if you are creating morphs ? ... I've also had a nasty experience with the plugins with respect to scaling (plugin deciding not to for some reason) .. and UV's getting messed up on export.

Scaling??? Did someone say somthing about scaling? ... ... Oh, nevermind. It's not important anyway ....... is it? ;=[

lol ? what was that all about ? dr geep are you getting paranoid about your measurer thingy ? by the way ... Dr Geep makes Exceedingly good Slides. :)

Lol @ Dr Geep.

Paranoid? ...... Me? No, last time I checked, I only had one noid. Maybe someday I'll get another. In other words ... "What, me worry?" Ok, pop quiz time ... whose said the above? (besides me) ;=] ;=]

Alfred E. Newman, of course.

Hitler ? or some other psycotic ?

'maybe the best option for original geometry mac, but if you are creating morphs?' Like I said in my original post, I make all my morphs in anim8or. I always do the morphs once the figure is built, so I just use the poser obj in anim8or. It has the great advantage of changing nothing in the obj file, other than what you change yourself. And it's free. mac

PS Occasionally I do morph in max, export the morph as 3ds, then use poser to convert it to obj so I can use it as a morph. mac

More trivia would be who was the real Alfred Newman that the Mad Magazine character was named after?

personally I can't see that any app is going to come close to the facilities that MAX provides for.. once you get over the scaling (get over the scaling!) and the lack of a "use existing symmetry" modifier, MAX with habware works fine. I'm sure anim8or is a fine program though.. Barrie.

Don't forget to increase the import size by 1000 when you import into Max, otherwise your Poser object will just be an invisable dot. You can find out more about importing into Max at their forum. They have a faq which tells you all about importing Poser models. 8) Catlin

_Dodger told me a neat trick for working with morphs in Max: Instances! So now I import my head (or whatever I want to morph) and make a copy/instance of it, then scale the INSTANCE to 10.000. Gives you a nice big model to work on, and since it's an instance, whatever you do on the BIIG model happens on the tiny little poser-sized dot too. Then when you're done morphing, you export the LITTLE version back as obj and bring that into Poser. Perfect scale, no figuring out "If I scale it up by importing at 1000% how many 0.00000% do I have to export it in?" (OK so math has always left me TOTALLY confuzzled).

If you want to do some post-processing of .obj files, you might take a look at my "STOMP" utility (PC only)... it has an OpenGL 3D display and should read both PC and Mac formated files, reads 'fo' lines, reads relative vertex offsets, has features for scaling/mirroring/(re)generating normals and gives several options for output, including squishing and re-sorting of facets (by group or material, for example). So far, no one has bothered to give me any feedback on it, so I have to ASSUME it works well ;). The one issue that I know it has is related to .obj files where SOME faces are textures and SOME are not... the program currently expects all facets to be in the same format and will ignore/discard ones that are not (I am working on a fix for that). BTW, 'S.T.O.M.P.' sounds menacing, but it stands for "Spanki's Three-D Object Manipulation Program" (or something like that).

looks like a nice utility .. it may take over from MASA's "shaper" as my default .obj association. Some handy things little bits as well.. thanks for sharing Barrie.