[Help] Importing a Model from Maya to Milkshape

[Styer_Crisis]

OK so today i spent sevral hours hacking away at a bunch of vertices in an atempt to make somthing of my boredom, which to my suprise did not turn out half bad, but when i went to export the model so i could load it into milkshape, i found that neither had a format that was compatable, and i tried the Maya importer on milk, and it said the model needed triangulated, which i then did, but it still failed:x. So i am here before you asking if any one has the solution to this problem? an updated maya importer, a maya MS3d exporter, a random format that both can understand, or a few extra steps to help me get it fromone to the other,


Thx

 

[K_merse]

Try to export the model to 3DS format. Milkshape can imoprt that relative easily.
A little side note: Merge the whole model into one group first because in some cases the 3DS import can cause funny things

 

[Amateur]

K_merse's suggestion is a good one, and one that I would agree with unless they have .obj available. In my experience (exporting from max to ms3d) that one has less chance of anything weird happening. I have noticed, however, that the smoothing seems to get messed up if I use those.

Probably a long shot, but see if you can find a .nif exporter (yeah, the same as what Bridge Commander uses) for Maya, you've probably already got the importer on Milkshape. I've never had a problem with .nif conversions, they've all been quick and painless.

But as I said, long shot. .3ds or .obj seem likely to be shared.

 

[Styer_Crisis]

But as I said, long shot. .3ds or .obj seem likely to be shared

You see but this is what supprised me, Maya 2011 does NOT have a defualt
3ds or obj exporter for it, which id really wweird, and i'm having a heck of a time trying to find one, mainly cuz i'm jjust really tiredd.

 

[kjc733]

went around this a lot for the Serephim (greatings fellow Maya builder ) .obj format is the way to go. I use an older version, you need to manually activate the pluggin on mine (can't tell you how at the moment as I'm not on my machine).

 

[Majestic]

I bought a new program recently that while bought for a different purpose allows me to convert many different formats through it.

Give me a list of what you can convert to and I will tell you if this program can support it. However it does support obj, lwo and skp formats to name a few.

 

[kjc733]

Ok, so in Maya 5 (yes, I'm old school) on the dropdowns you need to go:

Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager

Select the tickboxes for plug-in called objExport.mil

Go to:

File > Export All

you should now have the option to export as an obj file, and this file format can be imported into Milkshape. Note that whilst we maya users operate in squares, milkshape operates in triangles so your polycount will automatically double. That one bit me on Serephim , but we learn by doing.

EDIT - If you become absolutely desperate, save it as an .ma file and I'll try to remember how to get a 2011 file into v5 (nope, they're not compatible and you need to change the headers in the ascii file ) and switch it for you.

 

[Styer_Crisis]

Ok, so in Maya 5 (yes, I'm old school) on the dropdowns you need to go:

Window > Settings/Preferences > Plug-in Manager

Select the tickboxes for plug-in called objExport.mil

Go to:

File > Export All

you should now have the option to export as an obj file, and this file format can be imported into Milkshape. Note that whilst we maya users operate in squares, milkshape operates in triangles so your polycount will automatically double. That one bit me on Serephim , but we learn by doing.

EDIT - If you become absolutely desperate, save it as an .ma file and I'll try to remember how to get a 2011 file into v5 (nope, they're not compatible and you need to change the headers in the ascii file ) and switch it for you.

KJC, you are amazing, turns out you still have to initliaze the plugin. i bow in respect, without you my modeling career probly woulda died right there. thanks a million man

 

[kjc733]

No problem - Maj and I in exactly the same position a few months ago. It's a barking way to do it, have the pluggins there but have to initialise them. They aren't even easy to find!! Maya is great but it don't half have its idiocyncrocys (like the incompatability with previous versions)!!

If you have any other maya questions then just ask and I'll try to help. I'm told I'm now quite good on the mesh building side, may as well learn from my mistakes Texturing however I know nowt. So if you have any good examples or tutorials then please fire them across.