Hi All, I am writing an exporter for 3ds max, and was wondering which was more heavily used for creating characters, regular bones or character studio's biped? They seem to work a little differently when it comes to export scripts. Also, I am writing a home-brew engine (hence the exporter), and may need some 3d models. What is the most popular modelling package amongst home-brew modellers? Is 3ds used a lot? Seems a lot of the game development books use 3ds. Thanks

I've used Max for over 8 years although in the last 5 years I have used Maya more frequently. Deciding wether you want your exporter to work with standard bones or biped depends on the type of characters you intend to have in your game. If plan on making games with only biped characters then Character Studio is probably the way to go. However, if you plan on having quadrapeds, spiders, or other complex creatures that require significant customization then standard Max bones would be more ideal. I've used both, and as a matter of preference I like using bones because I can customize my rigs and retain more control over how a creature is structured. I have managed to animate a mammoth before using Biped for Character Studio, but it was no easy task.

I hope this advice isn't too general.
-Matt

Me again.

I also thought that I should add that your decision to choose between bones and Character Studio should largely be determined by the animators you are going to work with and their personal preferences.

As far as modeling applications go I say that Max and Maya are the most popular for game development, however they are also very expensive so many home-brew modelers/animators may not have access to them. I have access to both at work where I'm fortunate enough to use them for my personal projects off company time. But even if someone doesn't have access to Max, Maya, XSI, or the more popular modeling/animation applications there are still plenty of cheap or free modeling programs out there. However, many of these may not provide a file format that is easily transferable to other applications.

If you can find artists who have access to either Max or Maya I would strongly suggest choosing one of these to work with.

Hope this helps,
Matt

Thanks for the info Matt. Have you worked much with Maya's scripting language? It seems the Max scripting language documentation is pretty bad (hard to even find class definitions!), is Maya any better?

I've worked with both Max script and MEL (Maya Embedded Language), and although I found Max script more intuitive for me I belive that MEL has better documentation available and is more powerful. Thus far, I've mostly used MEL to control particle systems, dynamic simulations, and rigs. I haven't really created anything original with it yet.

Sorry I can't offer more detailed advice.
-Matt