United3dArtists Archive

Although I've had GMAX for years on my system without actually using it much for anything; I recently rediscovered it's possible usefulness for producing game models and props for Activision's Battlezone II Combat Commander. Making models for BZII has always been quite a challenge as the game itself uses an old obselete Softimage XSI version 1 model format. To my knowledge, only one current modeling software (3DS Studio Max) actually still supports this old SI format in the form of a 3rd party exporter plugin.

Everyone else has had to find alternative workarounds to get XSI models by using other modeling software like Truespace, Anim8or, Blender, and GMAX using other popular model formats like 3DS, X, COB and SCN to create, export and convert the models to XSI using 3rd party model conversion software like Right Hemesphere's old version 1x 3D Exploration.

Recently, I found that I could use GMAX with the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 gamepack installed to export a usable X model file for conversion using 3DEX to convert the models to XSI. The gamepack is actually an MDL exporter by design, but has a dual export option for exporting an X model. There's also an option to not export an MDL model at all. The exporter won't export any textures, but will export model animation with the X model itself.

3DEX, can be configured to search for the texture path and display it in 3DEX iteself. When an X model is converted to XSI 3DEX will automatically create a copy of the model textures in the same folder where the model was exported to. The folder size itself remains fairly small because the original texture was not exported and because an MDL model was not exported either. What you end up with in the output folder is the X model, an XSI model and the texture that 3DEX created when it was converted.