MAX , Maya and all that high level package have been designed for movies or generally speaking for virual reality
You can export an entire world ( light , shadows etc ) not to mention high polys models
Consequently relevant file are very complex

In case of game you should focus only on the low poly models themselves ( vertice position, bones, U.V. mapping ) the rest being the responsability of the engine

A simple file format is more than enough thus reducing the chance of bugs

Not only , some game oriented file format support feature which are unique for game programming, for example they make easier to attach objects to objects in real time

I never said that MilkShape or Fragmotion are as powerfull as Maya or MAX even for modelling and animation
I said that this does not depend on the file format

The comunity of the Indie developer lack a dedicated low poly modeler \ animator but the designer of MilkShape \ Fragmotion \ PaceMkaker will never afford to improve their package if even the hobbyest developer and the Indie game engine prefer to support high level and redundant packages rather than dedicated ones

In conclusion

you encourage the piracy
you kill the small software house
You suffer for the bugs

May i renew my question? Can you name me ONE information?

Talking about low poly? Are you aware that a normal map is sometimes made from a high poly mesh? And a cutscene also counts as game content. It is simply not true that you need to focus on low poly when you make games.

Max, Maya and all that high level package have been made for 3D graphics. Not for a single genre in general. Games is the biggest target market by the way ...



But i do. When you have just a basic software with basic functionality then its file format is surely also just basic. And what about the cases where i need features that this file format cannot carry?



Uh? Odd statement ...



Err, what?

We talked about the file formats before. What has this to do with piracy, killing software companies and bugs? Me wants some of those pills you have eaten too please

What i have understood is that you dislike FBX. Fine. But it makes simply no sense in my opinion. When it doesn't work in your pipeline then simply don't use it. It works in my pipeline. So i use it

As usual you express some reasonable opinion in a disagreable manner
So , first of all, please, calm down, ok ?

If modern game engine such as C4, DXSTUDIO ,UNITY etc do not support simple file format
If the converters to FBX are buggy
Do you seriously think that MilkShape , fragmotion etc can have a future ?

People will be forced to move to MAX , MAYA etc, since most of them can not afford them, you have got the answer

I have been using Blitz3d and 3dgs as game engines and Milkshape \ Fragmotion as packages
No problem to upload animated files
When I tried to switch to DXSTUDIO \ Unity I came across a lot of problem, using the same file
As simple as that

Having said that you can ask following question


# 1

Why are the FBX \ COLLADA converter so buggy ?

I guess it is due to te fact that these file format are very complex
If you match milkshape and Collada specifications you know what I mean

# 2

Why are they so complex ?

Because they contain a lot of information ( I repeat once again) such as shadow , light etc which are not strictly necessary for games being the responsability of the engine
An FBX file can export a complete scene
A milkShape file is supposed to export a low poly animated file only, nothing else


# 3
Do Collada \ FBX file have real advantage over cheap file format for an indie game developer
Just in case you did not notice it I have alwayes being talking about " Indie " and " games"

Not in my opinion , at least it is not so evident
99.90 % of the Indie games could make use of a Milkshape file as far as animation are concerned

In any case I would never trade off minor benefits, if any, with reliability

I'm honestly totally relaxed and find it a bit funny how you explode here. That's why i ask for the pills you have thrown in


As usual, you don't listen to the arguments

And the third time:



Which ones? I still wait for the answer



And again, what has this to do with FBX and that it's oh so buggy as you state here all the time?

Evolution goes on. That's it. When Milkshape decides to stay in the late nineteen nineties then evolution will put it aside. That easy.

Shall really all evolution stop just that your hot loved but outdated Milkshape survives? May i ask you for the name of the pil ... err, sorry ^^


There is more than Max and Maya. There are currently two complete packages out there that doesn't cost a single dime. Blender and trueSpace. Count XSI Modtool for the case you don't want to earn money and you have even three.



Why is the pope a woman?



Wrong. The pope is no woman. The fileformats are not soo buggy, the not existant masses bugs are not because FBX is more complex ... . Your whole causality chain is wrong



Definitely. They do for me. I'm an Indie, and i make games



There is just a little problem in your calculation. I don't have Milkshape, i don't want Milkshape. I wouldn't even want to use it when you would give me money for that. Milkshape is ways too limited for me. In every area. And especially its file format. It is not bad, but it is outdated.

At what is your 99.9% value based? It is based at your 100% aversion against FBX. Which is irrational, and the value simply wrong.

I can decide for myself what is useful and what not

Frankly speaking Tile's answer is so stupid and his manner so disagreable that he does not deserve even an answer even though I agree with him up to a certain extent

For the others who maybe intersted in this topic , I just quote from Unity manual

quote

Modeling Optimized Characters

Your character should use only a single Skinned Mesh

You also want to keep the number of Materials on that Mesh as low as possible

we strongly recommend you use around 30 bones per character.

Anything between 500-6000 triangles is reasonable

Seperate out IK and FK

unquote

As you can see ,despite the progress of hardware , the specifications for real time charactes are still quite low
Different story for movies whereas animators can afford the luxury to use models made of thousands tris and hundreds bones not to mention the possibility to export the whole scene

Max,Maya, Cinema4d etc mainly target this market segment
They can be used also for games, of course, but they are redundant for this application

If you you vist tthe sites of other engine you can see yourself how many people are complaining about Input \ ouput from these advanced packages

There is a reason, I suppose

The explanation is, in my opinion, that these file format are extremely complex but as I already said, redundant for our use
If someone has a better explanation. please let me know

Getting back to Game Core I just wanted to inform the other members that this is the only modern engine which support also an old fashion but reliable format such as MilkShape even though the main choice is FBX also for Game Core

This was a wise decision, in may opinion
Even though FBX is the future , it still gives many problems nowadays

In conclusion Game Core ( and 3DGS ) offer an advantage, big or small it might be, over the competitor

the fbx format supports a lot of stuff which isn't very useful for most game engines at the moment (nurbs, materials which don't map well to vertex/pixel shaders, modifiers, constraints, IK, ngons,...). there also are different ways to handle things like edge smoothing, custom data,... so using fbx to go between applications really can be an unpleasant experience. it seems to be even worse with collada.

i still prefer to work with exporters to the native engine formats if possible.

I would even prefer to have a standard file format for " game " engines supporting just the strictly needed features
Obviously it should be kept updated with the progress of the hardware

About the packages I agree that Max or Maya etc supply some features which can be of use also for a game developer
For example in Fragmotion I badly miss the Ik curves
The point is the bedroom developers must quit since many people prefer to use warez products even though they can not exploit their power rather than a simple but game orientated software

In my opinion, if you must limit your model to 30 bones it is hard to expect a realistic human like movement, our body being fitted with thousand bones, regardless of the software you are using

Garbage in, garbage out

You are so mean to not tell me the name of the pills. Must be great stuff

You should not start to flame and insult just because you run out of arguments my friend



Fourth time asking. What informations are you referring to? But forget it. I know why you cannot answer. You don't know the answer, you just guess. And you guess wrong



This is no bad advice in general, but forgets totally about the different genres and needs. And so it is nothing else than hot air



As told before, cutscenes are also gameneeds. Normalmaps may need the high poly version. And what was high poly before a few years is low poly nowadays. Especially Max and Maya are the standard 3D packages when it comes to games. When a game company searches for graphics artists they usually don't search artists that are familiar with Milkshape. They search for Maxer or Mayans. It is simply not true that they mainly target the movie market. And they are of course not redundant.



You don't speak for me here nor do you speak for the masses. This is simply wrong



The reason is much simpler. Development costs time. And time is money. Means im and exporters are sometimes not exactly made by specifications. But just up to the point where they somehow works. And the point where the trouble arrives is where the exporter from the one package doesn't fit the importer from the other package. One or both haven't cared about the whole specification. This can by the way also happen with the Milkshape format.

Sometimes one company even have to break the specification so that the export arrives intact in the other software. This is a chicken and egg thingie. Because now a third company may need to break it too to stay compatible.

This problem is very dramatic with X. There are a ton of different versions and derivates around. This is also an issue with FBX and Collada. FBX and Collada has much fewer versions and derivates than X though.

To blame is not the format. There are specifications for good reason. When a FBX file doesn't arrive intact then i would contact the company where it fails. And send them the file and ask if they can have a look at.

read ventilator's post...please
He is an expert , you are not...it is evident

Well, better one feature too much than one feature too less. As long as it still works of course



I don't really care except it needs to work. FBX works for me, and so it is part of my pipeline. That simple