Survey of Modeling Tools

[Guest]

Hey everyone, I was just wondering what programs everyone uses to create .3ds models for use in Celestia. I am using AC3D, but whenever I export the file to .3ds, only a couple hundred polygons show up (as opposed to a couple thousand). What tool should I switch to, or better yet, does anyone know of a fix for AC3D?

[Guest]

Hello...I and others use Anim8tor..it's very good and it's cheap (free!).

I also use Amapi3D, although I don't know why.

Regards...bh.

[selden]

A common problem with 3D models I've found on the Web is that the surface normal vectors of individual patches often point inward instead of outward. Celestia only draws those patches which have their surface normals pointing in the direction of the observer. In other words, the surface normal vectors of exterior surfaces should all point outward, away from the center of the model. Might this be your problem?

FWIW, Anim8or has a menu item "fix normals" which seems to make the normals point in the right direction.

[JackHiggins]

It's gotta be anim8or. Why?

Easy to use
Good documentation
While slow, it's hard to do something by accident & not be able to reverse it
A simple set of tools that can do lots of different things
Nice quick export into 3ds, so I can see how everything looks in Celestia
It doesn't overcomplicate things- what you see is *usually* exactly what you've modelled.
As selden said, the fix/flip normals commands come in quite handy when editing converted VRML etc models.
And, of course, it's freeware!

Obviously if I had something like 3ds max i'd use that, but I have yet to see a modeller I like more than anim8or.

[bh]

Sorry...thought I was logged in...yes, Jack's right...I would love to have a go with 3D sudio...but I'ts way too expensive for me at the moment! I would need to buy a new computer to run it too!

Try Anim8tor...It does what it says on the tin...and more.

Regards...bh.

[Star Lion]

DELEATED

[bh]

Oops!

[chris]

A common problem with 3D models I've found on the Web is that the surface normal vectors of individual patches often point inward instead of outward. Celestia only draws those patches which have their surface normals pointing in the direction of the observer. In other words, the surface normal vectors of exterior surfaces should all point outward, away from the center of the model. Might this be your problem?

It's easy to fix inverted normals--many programs offer an option to reverse the normals. A bigger problem is inconsistent normals, which are generally produced by programs that assume all triangles are two-sided and don't require a back face to be chosen. In real-time rendering, triangles are generally visible from one side only; culling the back facing triangles can speed rendering by a factor of two.

--Chris

[JackHiggins]

Star Lion...

You might want to think about what you wrote in your post above...

[Star Lion]

Revised it (I dont know what I was thinking )