Celestia Forums

Sorry for my english, iam french
I would like to say how to modify .dat and .3ds and .cms ?
Thanks.

Hi Aragorn, this is Boromir errr, Axel

Aragorn wrote:Sorry for my english, iam french

No prob, sorry for my french, I'm german

Aragorn wrote:I would like to say how to modify .dat and .3ds and .cms ?

'.dat'-files are text based data files in Celestia, follow a C-alike syntax and can be edited with any text editor. To get a first impression about the syntax just look around how objects are defined in it.

'3DS'-files are binary 3D model files which were initiated by AutoCad, I guess. You can use e.g. 3DExplorer to display them. Editing is a bit more of a prob since most applications tend to be quite expensive. Probably there's a simple solution under Linux, but not necessarily for win.

'.cms' I can't recall right now. But try to open them up in an editor as well and take a peek

Take care, Axel

Btw.: Back up early and back up often

You will need 3d Studio Max to edit 3ds files or GMAX...Rhino and Maya are others as well as Lightwave...All of them cost more than 4000 dollars...

Most will have a trial basis where you can use thier software for maybe 30 days...Plug in any of those names into a search engine and see...

http://www.discreet.com is 3d MAX...

Rassilon wrote:You will need 3d Studio Max to edit 3ds files or GMAX...Rhino and Maya are others as well as Lightwave...All of them cost more than 4000 dollars...

Most will have a trial basis where you can use thier software for maybe 30 days...Plug in any of those names into a search engine and see...

http://www.discreet.com is 3d MAX...

Wrong. Maya is only 2 grand now.

There is also a free version that is fully functional, though there is a logo that you can not remove. It lasts forever, so you can decide on if you want to buy it or not. Plus, you can get some good practice.

Lightwave3D also comes with a student version that only costs $395US if that is still to much there is also a free version that gives water stamps on rendered images but since you only want to edit models that should not matter .

http://www.lightwave3d.com should give you some answers. Windows and Mac versions exists.

There also exists a free version of Maya but 3ds support is not included ;([/i]

3d model creation is also possible using Caligari TrueSpace.

The current version is v6 at about $600. v5 is $400 and v4 is $200

v3 is quite inexpeisive right now ($50us) but it can't export to a 3ds binary file, only to a limited form of 3ds ascii (as well as a few others)
the spec sheet for v4 just says "3ds" and doesn't say if it supports the binary output format.

Blender is free and there's a plugin floating around that lets you import and export 3ds format.