For the last several days I have been trying to import 3ds files into poser 6, with about a 10% success rate. Most of them just cause Poser to hang with all the menu options greyed out, leaving me no choicce but to exit Poser without saving. The only way around this has been to convert the 3ds files to obj using Deep Exploration, then import those, but that usually inflates them to 2 or 3 times the file size as the 3ds.

That is weird. I don't have any problem importing 3ds files. I downloaded lots of free 3ds files and I started importing them into Poser(6) to save them as props. I have about 30 done so far and I never encountered a problem while I was doing this. I tried it just now to make sure and it loaded just fine and with textures too. France

Me too......I have not encountered a problem with importing a 3ds file?

Martian, you seem to be having so many problems with Poser 6, it's awful. I wonder why some people have more problems than others but I guess we'll never know. Have you tried reinstalling Poser 6? Just thought of this... Is it possible that those who don't have problems have upgraded from Poser 5? I know I did.

Oh come on now. You guys all promised it would be funny if we sent him the gag P6 disc.

My P6 was an upgrade from P5........so maybe.....Francemi has hit upon something?????

Nance: yeah but he downloaded the program and it seems he ended up with worse than what we had planned.

Genny: and maybe it is not only the fact that we have upgraded from P5 but also the fact that we didn't uninstall P5? Have you? I haven't.

Went from P4 to P6 here, and had not imported a 3ds mesh yet, so just tried and had no difficulties. (Still have P4 loaded) Can you export 3DS? Problems with the plugnins perhaps?

I can export 3ds but why would I want to do that? I just did it to see if I could. I loaded a prop, exported as 3ds, deleted the prop and import the 3ds prop. All went well.

When I bought P5 and got my disks, I tried to install Poser, but it wouldn't. I don't remember exactly why, only that there was (is) a problem with the disk. I was quite disappointed and, living in Europe, it looked like a difficult situation having to contact CL etc... So, following an intuition, I copied the entire disk to my HDD and tried to install from there. This worked flawlessly. There might be a similar kind of problem on your disk. Some detail that helps in translating 3ds files into Poser language? You can eventually download the free Wings3D modeller which can import 3DS and export OBJ files. This way you can at least go on with your digital projects.

Francemi: Just like 2D with tiff, jpg, targa, bmp, psd, gif,..., 3D has many formats (ways data are stored). When you save as a pz3, only Poser and perhaps some linked apps will recognise your file. Just like c4d is for Cinema 4D. More often people save as obj, which comes from a company called Wavefront, or vrlm if virtual reality is wanted, or... 3DS comes from the makers of 3DSMax, one of the biggies of 3D. Many files that are created in max can be freely downloaded from the net, and it is great that Poser supports the import of 3DS files so you can open them in Poser. For export, I guess it's the other way around. It's always a choice, trying to find a good way of sharing with others.

Thanks Aeneas. See, I have 3dsMAX so I could not see why I would want to export from Poser to 3ds since I can import obj in MAX. ;o)

Actually this is the only problem I've had, other than this, P6 has been problem-free. And I also have the same problem trying to import the same files into P4, so after trying that, I am left with the conclusion that it is certain 3ds formats (there are several different versions of the 3ds format) that Poser can't import.

I found that 3Ds Max props have a problem importing into Poser..are these 3Ds Max?

Francemi, I was asking if Martian could "export" 3DS just to see if Poser's 3DS plugin was present and working at all. -just a thought.

Makes sense Nance. It doesn't take much to confuse me when it's about Poser stuff. ;o)

Yep, 3ds export works fine too. Also, a terrain that I exported from Vue as a 3ds impoted with no problems. It's just some 3ds files that won't import. Unfortunately, the majority of the 3ds files seem to have problems importing. I can convert them to obj and import them, but I'd rather not have the additional step if possible. Also, I know it's definitely not a problem with the 3ds importer, because I ahve the same problem in Poser 4, and I doubt both of them would be defective, so the problem must be with the 3ds files themselves.

Message edited on: 04/30/2005 11:51

If memory serves, Max 2.5 -3.1 had a bug in their export to 3DS format... I myself had problems with those. But, any 3DS files from later versions of MAX were ok. SO, if you have MAX 4+, load the 3DS files that are causing you problems & re-Export them. Hope this helps! Draco

I cant check it right now, but friend (who is selling some models here at Renderosity so I suppose he knows what he tells) wrote me this sentence: Poser can not import 3DS objects with more than 11000 faces. Maybe somebody could test it.

Aint poser that is the problem it's Cinima 4D, He may have exported his 3ds file from cinima 4D and tried to load it into poser.

Attached Link: http://user.txcyber.com/~sgalls/

FlyerX

It may well have to do with the number of facets. As a rule of thumb, I usually have problems any time a 3ds file is much over a Mb in size. I've occasionally been able to import larger files, but it's rare enough and CTRL-ALT-DELeting Poser and restarting it is a long enough process that I just don't bother trying to see if it'll work anymore. It's very rare that a file under a Mb doesn't open and the problems have more to do with exploding parts (from newer 3ds versions) and massively funky reversed normals where every other triangle is reversed (oddly, C4D is often better at fixing this than Deep Exploration, but usually loses all UVMapping).