Importing, editing and exporting 3DS files

[pauldb]

Hi,

I want to use AC3D (version 4) to edit some .3ds files.
I open them, make the changes and then try exporting them as .3ds again.

All seems to work ok except when I open the .3ds files in other packages, the 'material' seems to be missing and the objects are pure white.
(The material is there when I open the original files in those other packages).

The edited files seem fine, complete with material, when I reopen them in AC3D. Just not in other packages.

I do not understand what is happening to the material.
What version of .3ds is AC3D using for import? for export?

Any help would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
-Paul

[Andy]

Are you sure it's missing? 3DS displays a different color on objects when you are editing them but will use the correct material when it's rendered from 3DS (it does this with the old version I have anyway). Try making a number of different objects (e.g. spheres) and each one will be a different color - this does not reflect the actual material.

Check the materials in 3DS material editor - they probably have loaded.

If it's a texture that's missing, ensure that the texture has a short name and is located in the same folder as the 3ds file.

Andy

[pauldb]

To be honest - it's difficult for me to know/tell.

You see I don't have Max.

All I'm doing is loading models into Java3D using the Startfire loader (you may be familiar with Startfire, they also do a AC3D loader).

If I load the original .3ds file into Java 3D, it works fine. It's a coloured object.

If I import the same .3ds file into AC3D then export it as a 3ds file - even without doing any editing - then subsequently loading it into Java3D, the object appears white. Hence my supposition that the material has been lost during the AC3D import-export process.

(you may wonder why I'm importing a .3ds file only to export it again as another.3ds file. My intention ultimately is to edit it. The above import-export procedure is merely to narrow down what is going wrong.)

There are no texture files. By material, I merely mean colours applied to the surface.

The only other graphics package that I have is RealSoft3D. When I try to load the AC3D exported object into that, it complains that it is an earlier version than version 3 of the .3ds format.

Cheers,
-Paul

[FRAME]

The problem is not the color of the material definition.

I have imported 3DS models made by 3D-Canvas and got the same problem.

All surfaces seemed to be white. But the problem in my case was, that the 'Shininess' ( specular power ) was set to zero and the specular color was set to 1.0. With this settings the specular light is so dominant that you do not see the real color of the surface.

( 'Shininess' and 'specular color' are both editable in the 'Edit Material' dialog box. )


Frank

[pauldb]

Hi Frank,
thanks for your message.

I've tried changing the settings as you suggest but I'm afraid that it had no effect - in my Java 3D, I am still left with a plain white object. :cry:

I appreciate your interest though,
Best wishes,
-Paul

[RobAins]

I believe I'm having a similar problem with Save to PNG -- the image is actually there, just everything I believe is white. What is very strange is that the same .AC file loaded on another PC does not have this problem.

Rob.

[pauldb]

I still have this problem.

I really want to be able to use AC3D to edit 3DS files (I cannot afford 3D Studio Max). I can import and export the files - all looks great when in AC3D.

BUT when I export a 3DS file from AC3D, something happens which means my Java program does not get the material attribues and the object appears white.

The original 3DS file looks fine in the same Java program.

What is happening to the material during the import and/or export processes from AC3D.

Any help would be gratefully received.
Thanks,
-Paul

[lertulo]

This problem still apepars in AC3D 4.

The problem appears to be that, when AC3D imports a 3DS model that has texture information, and IF it cannot find the corresponding image file, it throws away the texture data.

If I provide texture files, AC3D can safely import and export 3DS without losing texture information.