Is this possible?

#1

Hello everyone I just need a simple answer, Is it possible to use only Lightwave 3D to build content, models, etc and then export them out in like 3 different formats that Maya, 3dsmax and XSI can open error free, with textures and stuff.

#2

Well, basically the answer is really simple: “yes”
But of course it would help if you define “… etc.” and “…Stuff” a bit more… If you specify these a bit more the answer can quickly get rather complex…
In general: you can use several formats that LightWave is able to export “error free”

if it is only about meshes and textures, good old Wavefront *.obj is always your friend. - You will have of course some limititations, as there is for instance, no catmullclark subdiv support plus a few more of the more recent gimmicks that found their way into modern 3d applications. Then there is *.fbx for other stuff…

It really depends what you intent to do…

But surely there is no way that comes without trying and find the right path/way/parameters for any given application. We use LightWave all day to get stuff out to Max and Maya and both apps need different parameters regarding scale and orientation to show identical results in their respective viewports…
Where you surely will have a hard time, is when you try to get shading beyond the use of texture channels and other very application specific things accross. But this goes for any 3D application, of course…

#3

Hmm I see what you are saying, reading your post you seem to say some things are possible in this case but not all. So are there softwares out that can export or convert almost everything from software to software? and what I mean by etc and stuff is shaders, glows, normal maps, rigs, scenes and alpha maps.

#4

Just by a click of a button? (or two or three for that matter…) I am afraid, no…

Shaders and all sorts of Post/pixel-effects, hardly…
Normalmaps, Alphas, scenes, surely… been there, done that, so too speak… (a nifty little PlugIn like PointOven, for instance, would make things a good bit easier, though…)
Rigs, to a certain degree, using the *.fbx-format, but do not expect all bells and whistles to arrive on the other platform…Its been used a lot to get stuff accross to, for instance, Unity… For most games stuff it seems to work quite well…

#5

wow point oven sounds good, but what if I just wanted to export my model out with texture, alpha, spec and normal maps, all opening up in other software’s error and reload free.

What I mean by reload free is the user wont have to reload the textures.

#6

well, I´d say, the more comfortable you wish the process to be the more expensive it gets… :-
For something like that you need a setup with ideally all applications involved istalled on one machine and a set of tools that provides you with an interface into all of these… And still you would have to open up the destination application and very likely have to adjust things there…
You should check out DeepExploration, PolyTrans and some other tools (PointOven, I already mentioned) that are around - but most of these converter tools are rather pricey… And when you want to end up with application native formats you will definitely have to get these apps as well or at least a convenient way of accessing these…

#7

Nothing can export and import shaders- they’re 3d application specific cpu executable plugins.
You have to BAKE them to textures prior exporting. And then you can’t adjust settings anymore, they’re regular images…

#8

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