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SteelerWolf
11-18-2007, 04:13 AM
This has (maybe) been asked a few times but i have seen no official comment on it yet (except that ut3 wont ship with maya this time), but was just wondering if their has been any news anywhere yet regarding the release of exporters for free 3d modelling apps like maya PLE or the XSI mod tool or maybe even ( and it's a big maybe) for Blender? I love messing around trying to get my poor attempts at weapons working in Unreal and will be truly disapointed if my crappy efforts wont be able to make their way into UT3 as (like many others) i cant afford to go out and buy Max or Maya.

Anyway enough of my rambling ... heres hoping for the exporters and especially the Blender one ("Never" i hear you cry?).
moziz
11-19-2007, 10:31 AM
I read somewhere sometime ago that Unreal3 supports .ASE which is fairly simple file format (plain text). And as far as I know, Maya should have exporters for ASE.

I have no info on the actual procedure of getting the meshes out of maya to be covered in blood in game though.
DGUnreal
11-19-2007, 05:58 PM
UnrealEd supports .ase format.
So if you have Maya PLE with the plugin you can use that.
SteelerWolf
11-20-2007, 01:36 AM
Thanx for the feedback folks and good news their on the ASE support for PLE, But i was actually hoping they would release a new set of plugins to allow the export of animations. I once downloaded Maya 7 PLE which had an exporter available and when i installed the exporter Maya then actually showed a UT3 character on it's splashscreen but the exporter was no good for exporting animations to UT2k4 ( maybe because the exporter was set up for UT3? ) so i uninstalled it and went back to maya 5 PLE and Blender.

Don't get me wrong, Theirs not some huge uber mod at danger here, I just mess around with modelling and scripting ( copy and paste rules!), I just wanna get my Tommygun working in UT3 and learn a bit more in the process.
karmatized
11-20-2007, 01:44 AM
you need to download actorx and install the plugin, it will export as psk files if i remember correctly. Basicly static mesh's
SteelerWolf
11-20-2007, 02:54 AM
ActorX unfortunately doesnt work with Maya PLE :(
Denny
11-20-2007, 07:49 AM
When using ActorX the axmesh command exports .ase-files. (static meshes) When using the command axmain you can export .psk (mesh and skeletal ref pose) and .psa (animation sequences).
geodav
11-20-2007, 08:24 AM
you can use the actorx exporter from xsi modtool 4.2 with the xsi modtool 6, also from what i've heard if your app supports the collada exporter then UE3 supports collada import. more rumours is that the actorx for max 9 should work with max 2008
SteelerWolf
11-20-2007, 09:57 AM
Thanx for that geodav, Soon as i get home tonight i'll download XSI and give it a whirl. I have tried XSI before and never really got into it but it's worth a shot .. thanks again :)
SteelerWolf
11-20-2007, 11:34 AM
Well, Got XSI downloaded, Installed the plugin (addon) and bingo, Worked first time, Now to learn how to use this thing and try to export something.
Thanx again geodav ;)
SmokeRingHalo
11-23-2007, 06:07 PM
Well, Got XSI downloaded, Installed the plugin (addon) and bingo, Worked first time, Now to learn how to use this thing and try to export something.
Thanx again geodav ;)

I downloaded XSI Mod Tools but I can't find the plugin anywhere.
A link would be handy, thanks.
SteelerWolf
11-24-2007, 03:07 AM
Sorry for the delayed response, anyways here is the link for XSI ActorX :

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html

Their are installation instructions on that page too, good luck ;)
SmokeRingHalo
11-27-2007, 12:54 AM
Sorry for the delayed response, anyways here is the link for XSI ActorX :

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX.html

Their are installation instructions on that page too, good luck ;)

Thanks for posting the link.
Unfortunately I've run into another problem. XSI seems to export the .ASE mesh format with only one material. Since .ASE is simply a text format, I've tried editing it with my somewhat limited scripting knowledge to add more materials to no avail. Am I missing something here or is .ASE completely limited to one material? I've wasted an entire day pulling my hair out over this one.
geodav
11-27-2007, 01:43 PM
if ase-export isn't enough isn't enough then try the collada exporter it's good for 64k polys
SmokeRingHalo
11-27-2007, 06:05 PM
if ase-export isn't enough isn't enough then try the collada exporter it's good for 64k polys

I'm unfamiliar with collada. Is it a standalone app or a plugin?
I already have to convert more than I'd like to:

Milkshape > .xsi < XSI SoftImage > .ase < uED
Milkshape > 3ds/ms3d < Biturn > .ase < uED
IzaFly
11-27-2007, 09:10 PM
I read somewhere sometime ago that Unreal3 supports .ASE which is fairly simple file format (plain text). And as far as I know, Maya should have exporters for ASE.

I have no info on the actual procedure of getting the meshes out of maya to be covered in blood in game though.

WHERE is the option in UE3 to import an ASE file??
SmokeRingHalo
11-27-2007, 09:26 PM
WHERE is the option in UE3 to import an ASE file??

Static mesh importing is done through the generic browser, File > Import
IzaFly
11-27-2007, 10:13 PM
Thx, SmokeRingHalo! :)
MonkeyPeaches
12-22-2007, 09:32 PM
I've used XSI Mod Tools, and while I find the UI very easy to learn, but it has a lot of limitations because it is a distributed for free. The max poly count for exported models is fairly low. The UV map is only exported at one resolution. And it's too low for a newb like me to work with comfortably.

It has been a while, though. I think I was using version 4.0, and it's at version 6.1 or something now. Maybe they've upped the max poly count.