Game Level Export with 3DS Max?

[Anonymous]

Apologies in advance for what is going to be a pretty dumb question …

I have a pretty detailed 3DS Max model of the Institute of Technology Blanchardstown campus. It is mostly exterior with the interior of one of the buildings also modelled. What I would like to do is this:

Convert it into a Quake (or similar) level that schoolkids visiting the college can run around in, shooting the hell out of each other.

Now the model was not built with this application in mind (it was built with VRML export in mind) so there are bukets of polygons and probably all sorts of other horrible stuff going on that might make things difficult. In an ideal world there would be a plugin for 3DS Max that I could get (for free!) which would simply do all the nasty stuff and generate for me something I can directly load into Quake and off we go …

I realise of course that it will not be this simple :-) However I do know there are plugins/applications I can get which are geared towards this ….

Any ideas?
Can this be done relatively easily or do we just have to start from scratch with some sort of 3D modeller geared towards buiding game levels?

Also it doesn’t have to be Quake. Any FPS that is multiplayer and functions in a similar manner would be fine. Ideally I won’t have to pay for it though …

Thanks,

Hugh

[Anonymous]

Have a look at Quest 3D and certainly check http://www.maxplugins.de in the import/export section for more exporters then you can shake a stick at

[Anonymous]

Quest3D will only let you fly around, no?

Generally the level editor is where you would build most of the level and used 3D packages to accesorise the levels details.

Moving on…

I’d go with UnrealED (say from UT2004) then import3DS Max models (so they are static meshes), add start positions and lights. It wont be *that* easy though – I think you’ll have to create world space for it to enclosed in.

I dont use UnrealED much but you might get what your after this way

Did a quick search for exporting objects for Max to UnrealED…

http://www.planetunreal.com/fordy/gradientssmeshtutorials/6.html

[Anonymous]

Cool. Thank you both …

I had a look at Quest3D. It looks like a really nice application and I could import my max models and the create an exe but I’m not sure exactly what functionality that exe would give. Might just be flythoughs as was suggested by kyoto

UnrealEd looks like it would be worth pursuing …. will check that oout later. Thanks.

Keep ’em coming please!

[Anonymous]

Yeah hes right, that’ll just give you a fly/walkthrough in Quest. Heres the link for the exporter to get your models out of Max and into Unreal

http://udn.epicgames.com/Two/ActorX/ActorX_220_Max7.zip

[Anonymous]

only other thing to bear in mind, Hugh – is that both Quake and Unreal editors/compilers (and most other editors) will have a poly ceiling, So if your model has a really high poly coount and it won’t import into the engine that may be the first thing to look at

[Anonymous]

You might be able to export from max as an obj then import it into somthing like GTK radient

[Anonymous]

personally i think that the best thing to do would be to just get hold of UnrealED 3 and start from scratch…you could uild your level in a couple of hours and then it’s all done and dusted…apart from that i’d say http://www.maxplugins.de

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