Blender to 3DsMax?

I use Blender for my archviz works, and Yafaray to render them. However, Yafaray is sometimes very cumbersome to use, and I find it irritating that I have to create the materials everytime I start a new project. Its also rather slow, and the settings are quite difficult to master.

I’m a bit familiar with Vray for 3DsMax though. I have an old copy of 3DsMax edu version lying around.

My question is, is it possible to export from Blender as a file that 3DsMax will understand? I mean, properly? I tried several export formats both from 2.49b and 2.5, however, each of them have its own issues.

I tried COLLADA (Max crashes when trying to import), .3ds (Same thing) and .obj. Of the 3, so far only .obj has worked to an extent. It does import the geometry succesfully (that’s all I need for now) but every single object gets merged into one. So it is impossible to apply separate materials for supposedly different objects. Like, if I have a table and a ground plane in a scene as 2 separate objects in Blender, it gets merged into one mesh when I export into 3dsMax.

A helping hand anyone? I’m just looking for ways to speed up my Arch Viz process.

Thanks!

Have you tried selecting exporting blender objects as obj objects


This dialogue does not appear in Blender 2.50 though.

Blender 2.5.


If 2.5 is giving you problems, try exporting from blender 2.49 since it is a much more stable and mature version.

don’t forget to check import options in max as well!

I know for a fact that maya ignores the object tag in an obj file :frowning:

ps, for export fbx provides a very robust route into maya… (I’m not a max user since version 3.5!, but it should work well there too!)

.fbx does also work very well for Max.

Did you know there is a V-Ray exporter for Blender? It works very well in 2.49 and I think there is a testing version for 2.5

@organic
Yes, I’m aware of the existence of Vray for Blender. However, I don’t have Vray for Maya. I just have quite an old version of Max and a compatible Vray.

@Richard
Thanks for the response Richard. However, there are some serious artifacts happening in Max when I import. Several faces are missing, and orbiting around the scene shows up some glitches, like faces suddenly missing. I tried exporting as Objects and Groups; objects still brings them as one single mesh, while Grouping them works. There’s some triangulation when you try to group them though.

@Michael
I will look into .fbx when I return back to my place.

Thanks for the response, all. I’m atleast able to render in Max though.

Yeah, FBX may be your best bet. That said, I’ve had a good experience doing this with the ancient VRML97 (*.wrl) file format. Though I tend to just use obj, which is fine for character models.

That’s what I do. I open the 2.5 file in 2.49. Then I’ve had the best luck with dxf and stl files for the transfer to Max.

Yes, FBX works awesome! It even translates Blender’s camera and lights too. Awesomeness! Now for some pure Vray fun :smiley: