FreeOrion

To .dxf can be exported in 3dstudiomax without need for plugins. An most of the 3d-programs can export to it directly as well, and if not, with plugin. As our engine is capable only playing .3ds files, if you make model in other programs than 3dsmax, you'll have to somehow later export them to .3ds format directly or transfer geometry trough .dxf file and retexture them in 3dstudiomax. There are lots of plugins for exporting and importing, but as I'm only familiar with 3dstudio max, I cant really say anything about their availabilites and price.

.Miu

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Difference between a man and a gentleman is that a man does what he wants, a gentleman does what he should. - Albert Camus

Aye I'll be sure to look for 'em. But the engine should support .mb and .ma files too, just for us Maya users.

Ok here it is at about 95%. The face count is about 6000, and I am trying to get it lower without making it look gayer than it already does lol. Btw the pic is fucked up for some reason, but you can kinda see it.

Does Maya have a optimize function? 3D Max has something that will severly reduce the polys while keeping the mesh very very close to the same. I have one that is aobut 3000 reduced to 400. I dunno if it the same for every mesh but..............I think it would really help you.

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"The one perfect impossibility is perfection."

Yeah I can do that, and that's what I have been doing actually. But maybe I just tried to put too much detial into this? I don't think so though. Look at Desert Combat (the mod for BF1942) they have AMAZING models with just like 2000 or so polys.

You don't really need all that much detail I guess, because if there are even battles with max 100, you still won't notice. I forget who, but someone said that my models have a good balance of looks and simplicity.

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"The one perfect impossibility is perfection."

Yeah that is what I figured. It is gonna be scaled down a lot (probably) and with a skin it iwll look nice. Btw that isn't what it looks like, the screenshots are just screwed up some how.

You also might wanna try pov-ray and moray as those are ray tracers. They don't use polies at all to make thier 3d graphics. They are completely free (I think moray is shareware, but well, whatever)... and have quite a lot of extensive online documentation. Give it a shot. You might actually decide you like it better then 3d studio max and maya

Although we need polygons for drawing them realtime in the game. Povray could be good for still images and pre-rendered animations.

If we do decide to go with pre-rendered stuff (I hope we don't, but then again I wouldn't have to make my ships look like crap ) I hope I would be able to open my stuff in that lol, then save it as an mimage or whatever. But anyway, Maya's working just fine for me. Love the interface. IMO Max has a crap interfact compared to Maya.

I know that, they hide everything everywhere. I pray we don't do pre rendered, they look like crap to me normally.

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"The one perfect impossibility is perfection."

Aye pre-rendered stuff sucks.

Anyways, back on topic, I will host pics for you, you will even have your own page. If you need anything else, just ask.

PS How do I offically join the graphics team? I have been trying for a week.

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"The one perfect impossibility is perfection."

I don't yhink you/me/whatever can right now, cause there is no graphics lead, which means no one to talk to.

For now to 'join' the graphics team just read the graphics forums, contribute and discuss the artwork. We'll get the graphics team sorted out soon, so hang in there for now