Free 3ds files

[Melssj5]

Somebody knows where can I download some free .3DS files, I am tired if doing own models, they are ugly.

[EgonOlsen]

Have you tried these: http://www.3dcafe.com/asp/meshes.asp ?

[Melssj5]

Hey guys/girls  here is page with some good free models. You have to register to download them.

http://www.3dxtras.com/

[paulscode]

One thing you can do is download Google Sketchup models from the Google 3D warehouse (http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse).  They have a sizeable archive of free models, and you are able to search them by keyword or category.  Sketchup models can be converted to .3DS with freely available software (see related post http://www.jpct.net/forum2/index.php/topic,1086.0.html)

The free FBX converter mentioned in the above post is kind of hit-or-miss which Collada "Digital Asset Exchange" files it finds compatible, but there are probably better converters out there for the .dae format anyway; just do some googling for converters or pluggins for whatever modeling program you are using.  If you prefer to spend money (hehe - yeh, right) you can import the .dae's directly into Autodesk 3DS Max ($3,495), or you could purchase Google Sketchup Professional ($500) which lets you export directly to .3DS.  Max sometimes has problems with the materials, but in my opinion, materials are the easy part of modeling

Another useful tip for acquiring models.  If you find a great model somewhere, but it has too many polys for you to use, try VIZup (Ive tried several poly reducers, and none of the others even come close).  The free one is version 1.8 (No longer supported by the author, but you can google it or download it from http://www.paulscode.com/downloads/VIZup/VIZup.exe)  Version 1.8 only loads and saves .WRL files, so you'll need either a converter or pluggin for your modeling program if you don't want to buy the full version ($149).  I have used it to reduce some DAZ Studio characters and animals from 125K - 200K triangles down to under 1K triangles.  Even in extreme case like these, it just takes a little fine tuning like vertice welding and UV mapping, and the resulting models are quite good.  For my purposes, I use Max to import and export the .WRL format, but other modeling programs may support the format as well.

And if you have a model you can't figure out how to convert, let me know, and I may be able to help you out with it.  Like I mentioned, I own Autodesk 3DS Max, and I also have a number of other conversion tools, so I'll be happy to convert files for you (within reason, of course ).

[Melssj5]

which md2 exporter do you use? I am also using 3d studio max!

[paulscode]

I haven't used the MD2 format yet, but I will look into it for you and see if I can find a good one for 3D Studio Max.  What version of Max are you running?

[Melssj5]

I am using 3d studio max 6 and 8 and using qtip as exporter but is not a good exporter and it only allow me to export 20 frames. When I export with 3ds max 8 the file is created but is not visible with jpct.

[paulscode]

I'm not having any luck finding MD2 exporters other than QTip, but I'll keep looking.  BTW, is that 20-frame limitation in the registered version of QTip?  That seems odd they would limit you to 20 frames when the MD2 format supports up to 512 frames.

[Melssj5]

no, the free version 

QTIP export a mirrored model and the texturing is a pain in the ass, thats why I dont want to pay for it.

[paulscode]

I am really stumped on this one.  There seem to be a lot of maxscripts and pluggins for importing and exporting MD3 and MD5 , but nothing for exporting MD2.

[paulscode]

I have found some MD2 scripts for Blender.  This would be a round-about way, but it wouldn't cost anything to try.  You should be able to export your model and animation from 3DS Max into the MD5 format, import it into Blender, then use a Blender script to export to MD2.  With multi-step conversions like this, something might break down along the way, but it could be worth a shot.

The stuff you'll need are:

Blender:
http://www.blender.org/

Python (If you don't already have it - for running Blender Python scripts):
http://www.python.org/

MD5 Exporter for 3DS Max:
http://www.quake3bits.com/files/md5/MD5Exporter.zip

MD5 Importer for Blender:
http://www.quake3bits.com/files/md5/blender-md5importer0.5.zip

MD2 Exporter script for Blender:
https://svn.blender.org/svnroot/bf-blender/trunk/blender/release/scripts/md2_export.py

Just from googling around, it seems to me the MD5 format looks to be pretty well suported for most modeling programs.  If either of the MD5 scripts above don't work, you should be able to find some alternate ones.  MD2 exporters, on the other hand are really hard to find.  If the MD2 exporter above doesn't work, I found some other MD2 Blender Python scripts listed at:
http://ufoai.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/ufoai/ufoai/trunk/src/tools/blender/

I don't currently have a good project to test this process on, but when I get some more free time I'll put together a test project and see if I can get this to work.

--EDIT--
Some more ideas I had:

1) If you can't find a good MD5 exporter and/or importer, you could also try the above conversion method using the MD3 format instead.  MD3 also seems to be well supported for most modeling programs, and I've seen a lot of scripts and pluggins for it.

2) I have seen MD3 importers for gmax, and I kind of remember reading online that the Tempest Game Pack for gmax can export to MD2.  You would need a good MD3 exporter for 3DS Max to try this.

3) Quick3D Professional ( http://www.quick3d.org/ ) loads and saves in many formats, including MD2 and MD3.  You could use the 30-day trial version of quick3D Professional to see if it is able to convert animated MD3 models to MD2.  Then you'd just need a good MD3 exporter for Max (and you wouldn't need to mess with Blender or gmax at all).  Of course, using this method for longer than the 30 day trial period would cost money ($199).

[paulscode]

Sorry, I forgot to follow-up on my tests of the above methods for exporting MD2's.  Nothing much to tell, unfortunately -- I upgraded to 3DS Max 2009, and none of the old pluggins work for it  .  However, I did purchase the registration for QTip to see how it compares to the unregistered version.  Same quirk with the image being flipped.  It is still somewhat problematic to texture an MD2.  I think that is limitation of the MD2 format; i.e. the image will be tiled when more than one poly have the same texture coordinate (you would have the same issure regardless of what exporter you used).  I have found that the registered version of QTip is somewhat easier to texture with though, since it allows you to use a much larger texture image than the trial version does.

Anyway, that's about all the research I can do on this subject for now.  Hopefully you found some information useful.