Anyway to get Models made in Max or Maya into game?

Anyone know how? I talked to someone in game who apparently said this was possible. I own both programs and do a lot of work. Was wondering how I can do it? I heard something about exporting from max to some other program (which I don't know) and then getting it into 2nd life. All I know about it. I have seen a few threads on various forums about it too, but no real useful info on how to get them in.

If anyone can please provide any help (post or IM me), please let me know and I apologize if there was a thread someplace I missed in my search. It takes so long to search forums sometimes.

Yes and no. Yes, you can get them in, but no, they are not useful. Basically, don't try as of now. The model importers currently made every triangle a prim, and that's going to eat up your prim allocation really, really fast. So thus, currently, it won't work in a useful form.

The answer is yes and no. The yes part is that Jeffrey Gomez, one of our resident geniuses, has created a model importer. It will take any OBJ file and replace each polygonal face with a cube in SL. Needless to say, the results are not always desirable, and the models become EXTREMELY prim-heavy, but it is still one incredibly cool piece of scripting.

The no part is that SL does not directly support importing of externally generated models, and likely will not for a long, long, long time. The prim system works in real time for the simple reason that every client machine already knows how to make all the prims, so the only data that needs to stream over the internet is where to put them, how to rotate them, what size to make them, etc., which is a very small amount of information. Were mesh models to be imported, then every single piece of information about how to make each one would need to be streamed to every single client machine every time someone encounters one. Multiply that by 30,000+ users, and 1000+ sims, all with hundreds of objects on them, and the amount of data becomes absolutely huge. SL would run at a snail's pace if at all.

LL has said that they do want to allow imorting of mesh models eventually, but it's unlikely to happen until the internet gets several hundred times faster than it is right now.

hmm I send these files over to friends a lot but okay. I was just curious. I will look for that importer just to test stuff. I can possibly find a way to get things in properly and not too heavy. I am looking to do it with some pieces which just suck to make in 2nd life with those tools. Not entire models just segments.

Thanks for the reply guys.

One great use for the "transporter" type script idea is to prototype out your model in whatever program you're comfortable in, modo, 3ds, (raydream ) and then reconstruct it ingame.

Positioning with real-world guides is always infintely more helpful than using 2d projects ( which you probably used to make your mock-up anyhow )

-Skeal

http://secondlife.com/vote/index.php?get_id=454

Thanks for the kind words. This is my #1 pet peeve right now, because I'm a Blenderhead and feel out of my element when switching from meshes to prims, then right back to meshes.

Hopefully eventually.