Gmax!

If you want to create your own 3ds models then why not download Gmax? Its totally free and its basically exactly the same as 3ds max. I was very surprised. Also allot smaller as well in size.

http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax

Its very good program .Very much better than animator!

does it allow you to export the models into a .3ds format?

Hey Matt, could you help me with GMax instead of 3ds max?

Meh. I know theres a darn catch. You cant export to a 3ds file. I can hlep with 3ds on the msn messenger. Cya then.

Since im pretty challenged when it comes to making 3-D's is it easier to use than Anim8tor?

Yes! Just loads more tools to use though!

What formats does it export to? If it's one anim8tor can read, then gr8.

This might be good, because the anim8tor always quits while im trying to make something on my craptacular computer

BTW, if anim8tor can't import/export any Gmax formats, then you might as well look for a file importer/exporter thing.

This post from Richtofen on relicnews.com explains one way to turn a gmax file into a 3ds format. He's actually talking about getting it into 3ds max, but once it's a .3ds you can do what you want. I haven't tried it myself yet but it looks interesting:

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I'm pretty sure gmax can import 3ds files, but I'm not sure it can import .max files of any version. As for export, right now the only way to get a gmax file into 3dsmax is to export to a game model (quake .mdl if I recall correctly), and then convert that file to a .3ds file and import into 3dsmax.
yes. You need plugins though.

Grab the tempest plugin for gmax.
Open it up
Export your model from gmax as .md3 i think it is (quake 3)
Open it up with 3D Exploration (a free 3d browser google can find for you)
Convert to .3ds
import into 3dsmax!

Just finiched DLing it, and I'm not wasting all that time registrating it. Why do they want so much info?

well its free, so they probably want to see who uses it and stuff. Is it an online registration? Or just one for the program?

Dont have a clue where i can get the plugin and the 3d explorer is a 30 trial.

That post from relicnews.com was pretty out of date, I've found some workarounds.

And yeah, Right Hemisphere bought the company that made 3D Explorer, turned it from shareware to trialware and upped the price to more than 300 bucks. Bastages.

Anyway, here we go:

You can download the tempest installer here: http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax

Ignore it's rather long install instructions, you don't need most of it (including the Quake III Arena install it says it requires), just run the installer and it should put a bunch of stuff into gmax/gamepacks/Tempest.

Go into gmax/gamepacks/Tempest/plugins and copy md3exp.dle into the gmax/plugins directory, you can now export .MD3 files (the Quake III format).

Now you can search google for "md3 to 3ds" and find one of many tools that does it. I'm looking at using MilkShape 3D (http://www.swissquake.ch/chumbalum-soft/ms3d/index.html) which only has a $25 registration fee and appears to support a LOT of formats. I haven't really tested it fully though, so I can't recommend it wholeheartedly.

If anything else comes up, I'll let you know.