How do I import an object from 3D Studio Max?

Unity Engine
1

Hi,

I seem to have very little luck with Unity. From reading the support documentation, I would have thought that 3d max objects were supported natively in Unity 3, but I can’t get it to work. Objects appear to be imported okay into my Project View, but cannot be dragged into the Scene View or Hierarchy View. The console shows errors saying 3ds Max could not be found.

Is this page just wrong? http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/HOWTO-ImportObjectMax.html

A screenshot of my Unity screen is attached. Any help would be welcomed!

Nello

Edit: I do not currently have a copy of 3D Studio Max, the objects I am attempting to import were sourced from The3DStudio.com

497965--17574--$Screen shot 2011-02-13 at 13 February, 15.08.28.jpg
497965--17574--$Screen shot 2011-02-13 at 13 February, 15.08.28.jpg1320×820 240 KB

2

Because you do not have Max installed Unity cannot find it,
If you export from Max using (FBX for example) it will launch Max in the background to import the (3ds) file.
See if you can get a FBX version to import into Unity.

Edit: stupid typing errors, no spell-checker at work.

3

I guess that was the conclusion I reached, too. It does mean that pretty much everything on that documentation page is nonsense if you don’t have 3D Studio, though doesn’t it.

4

If the objects are free for public use and not an extreme number of them you could PM me and I could export them to FBX for you.

5

the documentation works fine, you are trying to import the native Max file in to Unity when you dont have it installed, This is not goign to work unless you have the software.
Unity supports FBX and 3DS however so if you can download the 3DS file rather than the MAX you’ll be laughing. alternatively make something in the free blender application and save it as FBX

6

actually the unity3d open 3ds max program then do the export process. if its not have administrator privilege or the application not installed you cannot import the object. also i recommend you to use .max file instead of fbx.

7

I don’t put .max files in my Unity project folder, too many issues and too much time loading.

8

Don, that’s a really kind offer! I have friend at work with 3D Studio so I should be able to get them converted, but thanks for offering to help - I really appreciate it.

And for the wilfully blind, “… you can save your .max files directly into your Project or export them into Unity using the Autodesk .FBX format. Saving them in the original .max format is recommended” and “Unity currently imports from 3ds Max” is very, very misleading.

It’s clear now that Unity talks very well to 3D Studio Max (if it’s installed on the same machine and permissions are correct), but only supports .fbx files natively. If the documentation said that, I would never have opened this thread.

9

you could offcourse always use othe (cheap) tools for converting 3ds to fbx.

10

Don,
you can divide the parts into several files, i don’t talk about save the whole level in single max file then go to unity ! its need more time to loaded as you said, but when you break it into several files and work with Xref or similar you will find the work easily and smooth

11

Hey Osama,
When I started with Unity I was using strictly .max files as my imported objects,
but after some update in the past (don’t remember which one) I found Unity was hanging on the .max files.
I was not saving the whole level but many separate objects, it just was choking on the .max files (even small ones),
so I determined not use them anymore and have found the FBX format to work very well for me.