Greetings!

The problem: I need some sort of utility or some direction to convert a file format from something like .STEP into something Bryce likes.

The reason: As you all know my favorite modeling program is the 3D CAD package Solidworks. It saves in many CAD formats--AutoCAD, IronCAD, and others--but few are compatible with Bryce. Only two Bryce can import directly from a Solidworks export: the AutoCAD and the VRML format. But for some odd reason my Bryces all crash when importing an AutoCAD file, and when exporting a model in VRML, the model parts are all fused together.

The specific problem: I have a guitar model and wish to import into Bryce. The best success I have is to export as a .STEP file, then use something like Rhino3D to import that then export to either .OBJ or .3DS. Rhino usually can accept the Solidworks assembly and everything will be fine, but this is not always the case. It seems some Solidworks projects are too complex or something that Rhino just hangs. I'm not sure if it's doing anything or glitched out and is frozen. Maybe it's just taking a super long time, but the CPU is 100% and I really can't wait all night for something that actually might be hanging.

So... does anyone know of any utility program, hopefully a free one, that can convert something like .STEP or some other into .OBJ or .3DS? I have a lot of nice models, some very complex that takes Rhino forever to import and even longer to export. There must be a better way.

You might try the Rhino newsgroup accessed through the Rhino website. It could be an issue of how you are constructing/preparing your model.

Actually, I'm hoping for a non-Rhino solution. I don't use Rhino at all to build anything, only as a file converter. Hoping that someone here would know of some nice utility with some options for converting one format into another. 

And I get the shivers going into a non-Bryce forum... burrrr

Well, seems another format between Solidworks and Rhino is .IGS.. and that seems to have imported into Rhino well, a lot faster than .STEP. But saving to .3DS is taking forever.. but there is some feedback: "create a mesh with 4125 points and 4123 polygons." That's one of several "create a mesh" messages that's been scrolling on the screen. I wonder how many polygons this model will have...  Oh more scrolling!

Anyway, what's the maximum polygons Bryce can import from one object?

Bryce imported it huge and in two parts (strings part and body part). So I haven't quite alligned each part together properly, which you can see an error in the lower cornor. No time right now to texture anything, so I just rushed a copper texture. No time to position the object for a good screen capture with just 1 texture. Will have fun with this later. But now, what to do with it? I'm not that great with Poser, nor do I have a bunch of Poser models and their outfits to put someone jam'n on it. A guitar flying in the air/clouds? It would be better on stage.. but anyway. 

The guitar model itself, I'm thinking of selling it, but not sure. But on that I would make it a freebie to those in this forum.

Ouch! Bryce's save to jpg is not recommended. Here's a better quality.

Yeah, never save a jpg out of Bryce, lol, its always a painful output.

Yes, for some reason, some .3ds will import into Bryce "exploded". If possible go the route of obj, dxf, cob. Or, export out as 3ds, and then convert that 3ds with something else before importing into bryce.