I'm using Poser 5 and Maya 5 on a Mac G5 running OS X 10.3.4 and I'm working on a Poser animation but need to export some models into Maya. For some reason I can't get the 3dsImport.lib plug-in to work in Maya so I've been trying to export models from Poser in OBJ format. It's hit or miss, Maya will read many of the OBJ files that Poser can read with no problem but on many 3ds models that I bring into Poser, and then export from Poser as OBJ Maya reports an error reading the file or just shows nothing after importing. Anyone else been down this road? Can anyone share any tips?

See my answer to a similar post in the Maya forum. Why are you using the 3dsimport.lib in Maya? Do you also have 3DS Max? What you could also do, if your 3ds models won't import correctly into Maya, is run them through the (expensive) Okino Graphics converter plugin for Maya. Or better, find OBJ models instead of 3ds. Or even better, just use Maya's outstanding modeling tools! -scara

I'm creating an Amsterdam street scene and have found that Poser gets confused if I put too many models in a scene so I'm switching to Maya. I'm using a model of a street tram that's in 3ds format. It imports fine into Poser. I installed the 3dsimport.lib into the Maya plug-ins folder as I figured that's how I could get Maya to import it, but Maya ignores the 3dsimport.lib. So I exported the tram from Poser as an OBJ but Maya ignored the file or gave an unkown error on import. I did find a solution though, I downloaded Wingz3d for the Mac which opened the 3ds file and exported the tram as an OBJ, which Maya opened. Thanks for your response, it led me to some good threads on the Maya forum.

Update...I just downloaded the file Maya 5 Bonus Tools from AliasWavefront and installed it and the included version of 3dsimport.lib is working. Don't know why the standalone 3dsimport.lib did not work, as AW indicated it's good for Maya 4.5+