Animator vs. Gmax

[Notebook]

I had the same problem with gmax on Vista, and your Heidi solution works. You can get a 30 day evaluation copy of 3D Studio Max 9 from Autodesk, its 900MB download, so it might not fit everyone.
Haven't played with it extensively, but it does have a new type of viewport manipulation. Other than that it looks much the same as 5.1.

N.

 

[riska1]

Francisdrake you said to remedy problems with gmax in vista to use heidi driver. When I first installed gmax I told it to use the direct 3d driver. I have tried to uninstall the program, restart the computer, and reinstall however now i do not get the driver option screen during the setup. Other than that screen how can i change the driver it uses.

 

[francisdrake]

This tip is from the Turbosquid - Gmax forum. Use "From outside Gmax:"
(excuse the lengthy post, but I think it is important for all that got stuck with the 3D driver):

If upon starting your GMAX you get an error message like "Interactive 3D Renderer initialization failed. Please check your device settings by using the -H command line option", don't panic. It's not realy a problem. It is just a warning and it is giving you the solution at the same time.
What does it mean ? I means that the rendering driver you choose at the beginning isn't able to display correctly on your screen.
What's the solution ?

You can do it in 3 ways :
A) FROM INSIDE GMAX
===================================================
1) click in the top menu CUSTOMIZE
2) in that menu, click PREFERENCES
3) you will get a pop-up with a bunch of of options. Click the top one that says VIEWPORTS
4) in the bottom right corner, click the button CHOOSE DRIVER
5) another pop-up appears with choices of HEIDI, Direct3D and OpenGL. One should already be chosen. Choose another one.
6) click OK then the OK button of the other pop-up
7) if your viewport still doesn't work, try another driver.
8) if after trying all drivers it doesn't work, post a reply here indicating it.
B) FROM OUTSIDE GMAX
=============================================
1) find the shortcut you use click on to execute your GMAX(if you don't have one because you click on the GMAX program icon directly, then do create a shortcut)
2) do a right click on it and choose PROPERTIES in the menu that appeared
3) a pop-up will appear. Click the top tab SHORTCUT
4) in the TARGET field, you will have something like "YOUR DRIVE:\...\GMAX\gmax.exe"
5) before the ending double quote, add -H (dash H)
6) click OK
7) execute your GMAX via that shortcut you have just modified
8) the GMAX logo will appear. Wait a bit ...
9) another pop-up appears with choices of HEIDI, Direct3D and OpenGL. One should already be chosen. Choose another one.
10) click OK then the OK button of the other pop-up
11) if your viewport still doesn't work, try another driver.
12) if after trying all drivers it doesn't work, post a reply here indicating it.

C) NO CLUE ON HOW TO DO SOLUTION A OR B (risky solution so be ware)
=========================================================
1) start a text editor (Notepad will do nicely)
2) open the file ../gmax/gmax.ini or ../gmax/gamepacks/your_gamepack_folder/gmax.ini
3) do a FIND on "[WindowsState]"
4) the current rendering driver used will be coded as follow following that string of character you found
[WindowState]
GFXType=OpenGL
or
[WindowState]
GFXType=Direct3D
or
[WindowState]
GFXType=HEIDI
5) just replace your the value of GFXType by any of the three above that doesn't match what you already have.
6) save the file
7) start GMAX
8) if the screen is weird or blank or whatever, just close GMAX and choose another one.

 

[Swatch]

Thanks for all the responses.

I did a couple of addons in gmax (but they're pretty bad so I wont release them) and I had the following three problems:

1. I found it very difficult to do up-close detail work. When I zoomed in on an object it would disappear. I think the real problem here is my lack of experience, but I point this out as something a beginner like me might run in to.

Your view is set to Perspective.... change it to User (right click on the upper left hand side of the viewbox->View->User) and you'll not have any culling.

2. If I mirrored an object, it would also mirror the faces, meaning that if you have a cube with external-facing faces, when you mirror it, the faces are on the inside of the cube. The result in orbiter is an odd, "turned inside out" appearance.

This is very annoying... I haven't found a way to fix it, but I think its in the exporter, not gmax.

3. I did a lot of my work by creating primatives and then punching out other shapes. For example, I might create a cube and push it into another shape, then subtract the cube, leaving a hole for a window in the other shape. Sometimes when gmax would recompute all the verticies, it would end up looking like a crumpled soda can. I was told on another form that I should be creating and removing faces instead of subtracting primatives, but I had problems with that technique because of point 1 above.

Fix point 1 and what people tell you will work better. Using boolean operations (unite, subtract, intersect, etc) are excellent tools, but not always the most efficient way to do things. There are some times however that it can't really be done any other way. Circular shapes are worst for this because of their many verts. For these, I suggest doing an intersection, then delete the faces and excess vertices, then rebuild the faces individually.... it takes a bit longer, but the results are supurb once you get the hang of it.


Related to the discussion at hand:

As you can probably tell, I use GMax for my modelling. I found Anim8tor to have many quirks about it, especially in viewpoints and manual entry of values. The comparison to MSPaint is PERFECT for Anim8tor. You can do fine art with it, but you're painting with basic colors and paintbrushes. The other big disappointments are no UV texturing and the animator->3ds->msh conversion route. I like being able to export and import directly into and out of gmax to Orbiter. If you have no 3D experience though, Anim8tor is a great way to start.... GMax and Blender (especially) will just frustrate you.

Gmax does have some issues though, but I admit I've found ways around most of them and they don't bother me anymore, so I can't name any off the top of my head other than difficulty to learn where everything is and the terminology. Blender is by far the most powerful, but the interface is also hardest.

 

[ar81]

Let's add Blender to this discussion as well.

I've only used Anim8or, but have wondered often about Blender. Anyone have pros and cons to share about this one?

I gave a try to a basic tutorial.
User interfase is very professional, but it is like learning to pilot Apollo.
I forgot all the keys and stuff, because it is just too many info.
Probably some day I would dedicate myself more seriously to learn all the whereabouts of it.

As far as I can see...
PROS: Very Pro tools
CONS: Very complex user interfase

 

[unussapiens]

That's definitely true. Blender has many great tools (I still find new ones every time I look for a tutorial), but also has a lot of hotkeys to remember.

 

[Sherrif of Nottingham]

The only thing I could figure out how to make in GMax was a teapot... since its one of the primitives.

I could only animate in anim8or... I thought it was like poser, or maya motion builder...

Blender = King...

You know whats funny? I don't even remember all the hot keys, I forget the more complex ones, but Its really easy to figure out. My most used keys in blender are E, R, Y, A, S, F, G, Z, X... W sometimes.

Read the Wiki Noob to Pro Guide.

My friend thinks I'm always playing a FPS because I have my right hand on my mouse and my left on WASD.

 

[Hielor]

Wings3D.

 

[thegrogen]

Another vote for Wings3D. The only problems I've been having with it are UV coordinates... I think I'm doing SOMETHING wrong.

I've considered trueSpace, but it hasn't been able to export in the file formats I need, or at least the older version I've been using hasn't. Haven't tried the new version yet.

 

[Hielor]

Another vote for Wings3D. The only problems I've been having with it are UV coordinates... I think I'm doing SOMETHING wrong.

Yeah, Wings3D isn't the best at texturing. The most annoying part for me is that there's pretty much no way to edit the UV groups once you've made them...you basically have to start from scratch. On a complex model this can take ages.

 

[unussapiens]

You know whats funny? I don't even remember all the hot keys, I forget the more complex ones, but Its really easy to figure out. My most used keys in blender are E, R, Y, A, S, F, G, Z, X... W sometimes.

That's pretty much true, if you use those keys, along with ctrl, shift and alt you can achieve pretty much anything you'd want to do to the mesh. Although, I would add B to that list.